Pictures from the event

On September 5th and 6th, I joined about 20 other people at the Brighton Recreation Area in Brighton, MI for the Agile Summer Camp.  This camp was the brainchild of Josh Holmes and Chris Woodruff.  I was lucky enough to be brought into the planning a couple months ago, so instead of heading to Chicago for Codeapalooza like a lot of my colleagues, I spent 2 days talking, drinking, talking, walking, talking, drinking and talking.

Friday night was supposed to be the opening circle, but we decided to postpone that until Saturday morning.  That didn’t affect the quality of the conversations Friday night though!  It was really cool to sit with some super smart people and talk about software development.  I didn’t got to bed until after 4am because I was so caught up in a conversation about TFS with Steve Andrews and a couple others.   Good times!

Saturday brought the opening circle and a bunch of great sessions including an overview of agile methodologies, agile for the independent consultant and software complexity.  Martin Shoemaker did a great job keeping notes, so check them out.

It was great to hang out with so many smart people.  It was really nice to be focused on the conversations and not on laptops, slides or code.  Everyone was concerned about phone batteries, so for the most part, people didn’t even twitter during the event.

In the end, any pain of being without electricity or running water was overshadowed by the learning and the strengthening of friendships.  Good times.

My pictures | alan’s pictures | dave’s pictures | sarah’s pictures

This post is a long-time coming, but…

It’s been a few weeks since I got home from DevLink and honestly, I’m still digesting the things I learned and the conversations I took part in.  A few weeks before the event, I was ready to cancel my trip, but after experiencing both the DevLink bus and the event itself, I am happy with my decision to go.

I had a great time and I’ll definitely be going back next year.  The open spaces event run by Alan was AWESOME.  The after-hours hangout sessions with everyone ROCKED.  This community is AMAZING!  It’s just too hard to put into words…so instead of a play-by-play recap of the bus and DevLink, I think it can best be summed up by Dave Giard’s great slideshow.

a view of the Marsh, Sights & Sounds of John Burns III.  – John is someone I met at the Ann Arbor Give Camp in July.  Since then, I have gotten to know John a bit better through twitter and through our involvement in the Microsoft Developers of Southwest Michigan user group.  He already has several great posts and I’m looking to many more.

Lets talk computer language! – Sirena is a really passionate student from Nashville that I met at DevLink.  Not only has she recently started blogging and twittering, she’s in the process of starting a user group!  I’m looking forward to watching her blog grow.

Pinyination – After meeting Alyssa briefly at DevLink, so when I heard she started a blog, I had to check it out.  If her initial posts are any indication of where this blog is going, it’ll stay on my subscribed list.  

It’s amazing how quickly 7 years have gone by.  I still remember that day…hell, that entire week, so vividly.  I remember holding onto my 4-month old daughter as the towers fell and wondering to myself, “what kind of world have we brought her into.”  I remember the long days and nights of watching the non-stop news coverage, trying to figure out what happened.  I remember feeling so helpless as the details began to unfold.

*sigh*

Michelle has a great write-up (as always).

Never forget.

Update: 9/11/2008 @ 9:31pm (EST) – my wife caught a mistake.  Our daughter was 4 MONTHS, not 4 years.   Not sure how that got through.