Blogus Maximus

Day 5 of 2009 was pretty uneventful. I had a decent flight in from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls and drove the rest of the way in (roughly an hour.) The roads were clear and it wasn't overly windy, so that was nice. (Man that wind is a real PITA though, when it gets going.)

Shifted gears at work, wrapped up my involvement on the workflow stuff last week and started on some plugin work that looks really interesting. I'm actually pretty psyched about it. The timeline (as usual) is a little aggressive, but I think we can handle it.

Checked in to my hotel after work and there were sodas and popcorn in my room. I checked with the front desk to make sure they were mine and not the previous occupant (cuz that would be kinda weird) and apparently it's customer appreciation week, or something. Score!

Spent most of the evening looking over some F# stuff (prepping for my MSDN DevCon talk) and then crashed really early (around 9pm.) I guess I was pretty beat.

Day 6 of 2009 is going well so far. I woke up to a bunch of Happy Birthday wishes on Twitter and in my Gmail account, and even one at my work address. So far, so good. I'm 39 today (for the first time, but probably not the last... yikes!)

Time to get to work... I'm leaving work a little early to head to Sioux Falls to meet up with my buddy Rod Paddock and grab some dinner and a movie... (I'll post a movie review later.) Thank you everyone for the Happy Birthday wishes.

My first weekend of 2009 went well.

I got home from South Dakota late Friday evening and dug through the various packages and mail I had received over the week. Still no sign of this month's CoDe Magazine yet, but I remain optimistic. :)

Saturday, I puttered around the house for a bit and then I was off to play in Rocky's Helicon V game. We played for about 9 hours and I managed to NOT die, which was good since I did get the crap blown out of me a couple times. Helicon V uses a homebrewed system that Rocky has been working on off and on for a VERY long time. Lots of fun, and I've picked up a few ideas to borrow for my own game.

Sunday, I did as little as possible other than some reading and hanging out. I did a lot of work in the basement, moving some of the arcade machines around, relocating the foosball table and getting things ready for next weekends Twilight Imperium game. (This is a truly AWESOME boardgame that takes about 6-8 hours to play, depending on how many players we have.)

So far, 2009 is still going quite well.

As I mentioned in my earlier blog posts, my 2009 got off to a great start, having been notified of my MVP award and my selection to the INETA Speakers Bureau. Some of my really good friends also received their MVP awards (some for the first time) or appointment to the INETA Speakers Bureau, or in a few cases, both.

So yesterday, Jan 2 2009, had a lot to live up to. I'm happy to say it didn't disappoint.

A couple things happened yesterday, but the biggest is that my good friend Amanda Laucher (@Pandamonial on Twitter) got married. Now you're probably thinking "big deal, people get married all the time" but Amanda's not the type to just do what everyone else does...so not only did she get married, she did so in Vegas, whilst skydiving and twittering.  Needless to say, the twitterverse was abuzz, not only by the way she got married, but also by the surprise factor, since she announced she was doing it literally just a couple hours before it happened.  (So... a big CONGRATS to those two crazy kids!)

So what was the other thing? Well, it's not quite as exciting or cool, but I got bumped to first class on my flight home. I know, you're thinking "so what?" but it's the little things man... you have to look for victories, however small, wherever you can find them.

So, like I said, so far 2009 has been a pretty good year. Let's see how today goes.

2009 just keeps getting better.

I just got the email from Microsoft that I have received the Microsoft MVP award. This is my 4th time receiving it and it's still just as exciting as the first 3 times.  Looking forward to getting the package in the mail and going to the summit again this year!!
Woohoo!!

I'm happy to announce (ok, wait... that's a gross understatement...)

I'm THRILLED to announce that I've been selected to be a part of the INETA Speakers Bureau. As a user group leader, I've taken advantage of this benefit from INETA for years and pretty much as long as I've known about it, I've wanted to be a part of it. A little after midnight, (that would be this morning) I got an email confirming that I had been selected.

I can't wait to get started!!

Here's to a New Year... Happy New Year to all my geeky (and non-geeky, you know who you are) friends!

A long time ago, I posted this. (click the link, go on... you know you want to.)

Today, it came back to bite me in the proverbial ass.  Ok not, really... I actually don't care much one way or the other, but I digress... any excuse for a blog post, right?

I'm going to be passing through Greenville, SC this weekend (and next weekend) and I figured I'd extend an olive branch to the Command Post and see what happened. Instead of just strolling in unannounced and watching the fur fly, I emailed Kevin (the owner of the Command Post) and politely inquired as to whether he would be cool with me swinging by, buying a few things and seeing a few friends on my way to Charleston, SC.

I'm completely NOT surprised to say, he responded EXACTLY as I expected he would. In fact, he even did me the courtesy of providing the above link in his response so I wouldn't have to go find it. (Thanks Kevin, you're the best!!)

The funny part here is that little dude can REALLY hold a grudge. Honestly, I've done far worse to far better (and lesser) people and they all got over it. (Ok, there may be a couple people who haven't... but this isn't their story, now is it?) It's only been a couple months past a year and a half, so I can see why the wounds may still be a little tender.

The truly funny part is that he knows perfectly well I'll post this in response. So am I playing into his brilliant plan, giving him more reason to foam at the mouth over the injustices of the world? Or... did he play into my brilliant plan by responding the way I knew he would to my gesture of goodwill, thus giving me an opportunity to have a little more fun at his expense?

We just may never know...

Talk about a guy who needs no introduction… if you’re in the technology industry, or *gasp* a software developer in the Microsoft space, but haven’t heard of Scott Hanselman before now, then crawl out from under your rock and go check out his blog and podcast, but first read these NINE Questions:

1. Where are you from?
I am in South Africa right now. I am from Oregon.

2. Who do you work for? Give me the 10 second pitch on them. Why would I want to buy their product?
I work for Microsoft...use their product or be destroyed. No, actually use their products because we're embracing Open Source more every day.

3. What brought you to Microsoft?
It was a lifestyle decision...I can work from home and be near my boys. Plus, I was doing the job for free anyway, now I'm paid to build community.

4. You created BabySmash. Did you ever imagine it would take off the way it did? (Can a ZBoard keyset be far behind?)
Nope...it was just a game for my 2 year old. As he gets older the game will get more sophisticated...I have big plans in the spring.

5. I follow a lot of folks on Twitter. I think you actually introduced me to it. What's your take on Twitter and social networking in general? When is it too much?
Twitter is hubris...that anyone really cares what we're doing...it's IRC with permalinks. I am not sure how connected I really need to be, but I like that I can scribble on the bathroom wall that is Twitter, and sometimes get a decent response.

6. Do you think we're hitting any kind of critical mass with all the Conferences, Day of This, Codefoo, User Groups, Camps etc...?
I think we are plateau'ed a bit...the economy isn't helping. I have some ideas I am working on to take community to the next level.

7. I'm diabetic too, and I think it's really cool that you blog so openly about yours. What challenges has diabetes presented for you in your career (if any)?
None, really. Everyone has something. Travel can be tricky (see my Africa blog) and it's expensive. Otherwise, just paying attention. As I said, everyone has something.

8. Any non-technical hobbies? What are they and why?
Hm...not really. Working out. Playing with the boys. Yardwork. Learning languages. Lots of world travel. Speaking at colleges and high schools.

9. Last of all, any tattoos?
Lord no. I believe in the benefits of being an OEM.

While at PDC08, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Microsoft Developer Evangelist Extraordinaire, Jennifer Marsman. I'd love to lie to you and tell you we're old friends, because she's such a cool geeky chick, but we actually just met at PDC08. Still, she is hella awesome and has plenty to say about all the cool stuff that's going on in the tech community. So check out these NINE Questions with Jennifer Marsman:

 

Starting in January, MSDN Magazine will provide code downloads for all online articles in both VB and C#!

Stay tuned for an Editor’s Note about this in next month’s issue.  (Speaking of which, A BIG BIG thank you to Editor in Chief Howard Dierking, for making this happen!)

The ultimate plan is… drum roll, please :-) … to have both VB and C# code snippets inline in all article bodies as well!  (This is still in process)

Big Awesome Yay!!!  :)

For those of you wondering what the BFD is, trust me... it's a big deal, and it's about time.

It's true, I'm a Gmail junkie. I've been using Gmail pretty much since the first week it was available. I don't know what I'd do without it.

In addition to email, I use it as a massive filing cabinet for all kinds of stuff I just never know if I might need or not... it's always accessible and whatever I stuck in it, I can find with just a quick search term or two.

Lately, they added a couple of new features worth mentioning.

1) SMS chat in gTalk is pretty cool, though I don't text nearly as much as some of my friends do, and when I do text, its from my phone.

2) TASKS!!  I love task lists. Outlook does a pretty good job with this, unless you're in web Outlook... which is where I spend most of my time since I'm almost never in the office and I run a lot of VM & VPC images. (It's true, Outlook is a major resource hog.)

My phone even does an ok job on tasks, but I mostly use that list as my wishlist. When I'm in the bookstore (or wherever), if I see something I want, I add it as a task... that way when I'm sitting at the pc later, I can hit Amazon and find all the things I want at a much better price than at Borders or Barnes & Noble, etc...

but I digress...  now I have tasks right inside Gmail. that's AWESOME. I can convert emails to tasks, I can add tasks as I think of stuff, move them around to re-prioritize them, give them due dates, etc...

If you want access to these (or any of the other, numerous new add-ins for Gmail) all you have to do is click the Settings link and then visit the Labs tab. You'll have lots of different options to choose from... including Mail Goggles (if you're prone to sending drunken emails at 3 in the morning, you'll really appreciate this one.)

Thank you Google!!!

I'm throwing this post out here for you folks to think about and provide me some input/feedback.

I'm considering putting together another event: A Geek Cruise... Somewhere between Code Camp and Conference, on a big ship, with large fruity drinks and foreign port visits.

Here's what I have so far: 

Duration: 3 days
Location: Caribbean
Depart From: Miami, FL (probably)
Date:  TBD (probably fall... these things take time to plan)
Speakers: TBD (but I have a few volunteers so far)
Cost:  TBD (hopefully < $500)
Speaker Benefit: TBD (maybe free cruise, maybe subsidized)

Typically, a 3 day cruise will have at least two port visits (not counting departure and return port.)   When we're in port, everyone can go off and do whatever they want (some planned and unplanned excursions will also be available)  When we're out to sea, at least part (most) of the time, we'll have sessions running on a variety of topics.

Most cruise ships also have plenty of things for family members to do while your off learning about (insert topic here) so bringing them along is certainly worth considering and just might earn you enough brownie points to compensate for that trip to vegas with your friends.

It's still VERY early in the planning stages, but I think there is a lot of potential here... if we can find the right balance between cost and value.

I'm really interested in what people think about the idea and I'm totally open to suggestions, so please leave your comments (publicly, so others may respond to them)  If you're interested in speaking, sponsoring or attending I want to hear from you.

Sorry for the delay in getting these videos out. I have been busier than ever over the last few months, including a travel gig to South Dakota and lots of events. Not that I'm making excuses of course. Anyway, you're not here to listen to me whine, you want interviews and plenty of them... so you're in luck. I've got Jason Mauer for your 9Q fix. Jason is a great guy and quite the Chatty Cathy if you catch him at the right time. So with no further delay, I give you NINE Questions with Jason Mauer:

 

After lunch, I managed to sit in on John Alexander's Surface talk. John didn't have a surface machine handy, but he did have an emulator, the sdk and some video clips. Looking forward to this talk, I managed to grab a seat front row center while John set up his laptop.

I have to say, John did a fantastic job in his talk, especially not having an actual Surface machine there. The video snippets he showed were relevant, and the stuff he showed us via emulation was very cool. Some great questions, which John handled easily. John is a very entertaining (and knowledgeable) presenter.

Seeing his talk made me really want to get hold of the Surface SDK (currently limited availability) and start making some XNA apps/games for it. The $12,000 price tag is a little too hefty for me, right now, but like all things... the price will come down and hopefully I'll be ready when it does.

Good job John!

My XNA talk went really well today. I had a full room, no equipment malfunctions and quite possibly the most questions in a session yet. I almost ran out of time with all the questions, and continued answering them into lunch (which was right after my session.)

I also met a couple folks interested in starting another XNA user group, right in Kansas City. Very cool. Everyone I've met and interacted with has been super nice. It's a really good event (around 100 people... just right) and a nice venue too.

This weekend I'm heading to Kansas City for the first time.

Why? I'm speaking at KCDODN (aka Kansas City Day of .Net)

(Un)fortunately the event registration is full, but I hear there is a waiting list available.

To see the schedule, and get on the wait list(?), you can visit http://kcdodn.eventbrite.com/

I'm pretty stoked about it. This is my first Day of .NET talk. I've spoken at User Groups, Code Camps, the MVP Summit, CodeStock, Codeapalooza and even a couple of HDCs, but no "Day Of" yet.  It's also my first trip to KS (as I mentioned above) and apparently (according to Google Maps) I'll be passing briefly through Missouri (another first.)

Should be a fun weekend.

Dear Zune,

I want you to know I've tried, I mean really really tried, but I give up. It's over, we're done.

I put up with your crappy software as long as I possibly could. I overlooked the clunky interface and pathetic battery life. I was initially enamored with your wifi, but since I could never find anyone else who had a zune... much less someone willing to share music, your "social"  was pretty lonely.

So this is it. I can't take it any more. Today was the final straw. Not only does your software make me want to scream obscenities at old women and small children, but your subscription service has consistently failed me. The music I want isn't available and when it is, I get errors at download time. I just can't win with you... ever.

And you know, what pisses me off the most, is I defended you... yes that's right. People would ask me, why I was putting up with you... and I would always smile and take up for you and you still let me down time after time. I've come to realize it's not me, it's you.

So that's it then. I suppose I should tell you, not that I really owe you anything, but before you hear it from someone else... I'm buying an ipod tonight. I used the iTunes software before we met and it was a wonderful experience. I tried to put that behind me, but I can't. So, I'm going back to what makes sense for me at this point in my life.

Good luck, but please don't call me anymore. It will only be too hard for both of us.

I may have been a little harsh in my initial criticism of Chinese Democracy.

(I stand by my statement that this is not (nor should it be confused with) Guns N' Roses... more like Axl's solo project.)

On my most recent drive to South Dakota (6 hours) I forced myself to listen to Chinese Democracy the entire way. Nice and Loud. Around the 4 1/2 hour mark, something happened. I started to catch myself singing along (even with the really bad songs, which I maintain there are a couple.)

Maybe it's not so bad. Axl definitely showboats a bit too much, and there's at least one song that probably belongs in an off broadway production of something... god help me if I know what. But overall... I'm warming up to it. most of it.

There's definitely some clever humor present in the lyrics, I found myself chuckling more than once as I listened to it for the 6th or 7th time.  (In fairness, it takes that long to understand the lyrics on some of the songs. liner notes are for wimps.)

So, I'm not writing the CD off as total garbage, and I suppose it's worth buying, though if you can preview it for free you definitely should... I have a feeling not everyone will feel they got their money's worth.

Still... if you're looking for what most people think of as Guns N' Roses, this ain't it.

oh look it's snowing in South Dakota. yay.

Makes driving to work fun. Nice and slippy slidey.

Some of it has melted into slosh by now, which means driving around tonight when it refreezes should be fun.

Today marks the first real snow of the season, here in Minneapolis. We've had a few days of flurries here and there, but nothing that would stick. It's already stopped falling as I write this, but its definitely about a half inch or so on the ground.

edit: an amendment to this review is posted here.

Before launching into this review, there are maybe a few minor points I should address.

1. I REALLY liked GNR a lot, from the time I was 17 until around 25.

2. That was 13 years ago. My musical tastes have changed a bit since then.

3. This is Guns N Roses back in the day:

4. This is Guns N Roses today:

 

Ok, I think we're ready to begin the review.

I'll start with the short version:  Save your money. Even at $9.99 you're going to feel a little ripped off.

Now the longer version: 

Like a lot of folks, I was pretty excited at the prospect of a new GNR release and after hearing Metallica's new Death Magnetic I thought ok, just maybe you can resurrect the good old days after all. (If you haven't heard the new Metallica CD yet, and you liked them BEFORE Load and Re-Load, stop reading this and spend your money on that. You'll thank me. If you liked Load, I can't help you.)

Unfortunately, it would appear Metallica (and Aerosmith) are going to be a bit lonely at the "we came back from the brink of extinction" party. GNR (I just can't bring myself to call them Guns N Roses anymore) just didn't pull it off. This could be because none of the original members of GNR, save Axl Rose, are still in the band.

What we have now is an Axl Rose Tribute Band. Almost.

You know the type, right?  Guy loves a band so much, and sounds kinda like the lead singer, so he forms a tribute band and spends every night belting out his favorite tunes from the 80's while dressed more or less like his rock idol. The guy even sounds pretty close to the original, and well he's trying. The problem is, none of the rest of the band really plays that kind of music. Oh sure, they're all talented musicians, but their playing styles don't really match the band they are celebrating. So they decide to play originals, and the lead singer decides to keep emulating his rock idol. Only now, he isn't singing the classic stuff or anything that really sounds like it, but he still needs to show off his chops. (In at least one song, he actually sings Lead AND Backing vocals.) So instead of a GNR tribute band, you have a pale imitation of a Lead Singer tribute band that does their own material.

It's every bit as bad as it sounds.

For those of you who have heard the new material, before you object, yes there are a couple of good songs on Chinese Democracy. Out of 14 songs, 2 are good and 3 are listenable. The other 9 are filler crap.

Musically speaking, all of them are talented. Buckethead, while weird as hell, is a talented guitarist although he does favor the esoteric in his solos. He's just not cranking out the sound you expect on a GNR cd. Not that it matters anymore, since he left the band. He's on all but two of the (14) tracks.

For you Metallica devotees, think of this as GNR's Load and Reload, or if you must... consider it their St. Anger.
For you gamer geeks, this is the BattleCruiser 3000AD of rock. Seriously.
For you sports fans, this is Mike Tyson's "easy win" comeback fight against Danny Williams.
For you comic nerds, this is Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin, complete with latex batsuit nipples.

So much potential, wasted.

My first thought when I heard Chinese Democracy was taking a page from the AC/DC playbook (WalMart exclusive) and was going to be a Best Buy exclusive, was huh? WTF? Why would they limit themselves so much? All the folks in cities and towns without a Best Buy are just out of luck? Now I realize they did those people a favor.

Take it as a sign. And if you're in a Best Buy, just back away from the register slowly, listen to them online, and download the one or two tracks you like.

If you absolutely must hear something that sounds like new Guns N Roses (the band, not the singer) then go check out Velvet Revolver's excellent Contraband & Libertad CDs. (Sadly this group has broken up as well, so who knows when you'll hear any real GNR again?)

 

edit: an amendment to this review is posted here.

While at PDC08, I had a chance to have a brief chat with NINE Questions alum Beth Massi between the sessions. Beth gave me her thoughts on what she's excited to hear about at PDC08. Fortunately, I also had my trusty videocam with me. Enjoy.

 

I got hit with an interesting and troubling problem at work today. I won't go into specifics, other than to say it was an ASP.NET problem I hadn't encountered before and I was stuck.

So I thought about it and pinged one of my twitter friends who happened to be an ASP.NET guru (and insider) and she thought about it for all of about 4 seconds and said, oh yeah... I hate that, here's a link.

And wouldn't you know it, the link was to a blog right here on GeeksWithBlogs.NET. The blog entry totally solved the problem, and made the client happy. Life is good again.

So thanks Jeff and John, not only for being the uber cool geeks that you are, but for creating GWB.  You guys rock!  (and thank you miscellaneous asp.net blogger guy who works for Microsoft. you saved my butt. you know who you are.)


update: I just tried searching on GWB with the same terms I used on Google (where I found nothing) and wouldn't you know, it was the FIRST result. Good job guys.

In addition to learning WWF (that's Windows Workflow Foundation, Paul) I'm also reading a book given to me at the client, titled: eXtreme Project Management.

I haven't read any PM books before, and I've only just started this one. The intent is for me to read, discuss and learn, so I figure why not open it up to a broader audience and see what you think too...

1) Have any of you read this book?  It's by Doug DeCarlo, published in 2004.

2) If you have, what did you think?

3) Whether you have or not, if you know a thing or two about eXtreme Project Management vs Traditional Project Management... feel free to speak up as well.

Thanks!

edit: AaronE has a relevant blogpost here that is worthwhile reading.

If you're in the Kansas City area and you haven't heard about Kansas City Day of .NET (or KCDODN) then you're missing out.

KCDODN is Saturday, December 6th at the Centriq Training center.  (Go here to register...)

Looks like 4 tracks of .NET Developer goodness, including a session by yours truly.  GWB'ers Jeff and John will be there as well...  so come say hi if you're there.

Kansas City Day of Dot Net
	Development	Architecture	SharePoint	Special Interest
8:00am - 9:00am	Registration & Breakfast
9:00am - 10:15am	Russell Ball Increasing developer productivity with ReSharper	Raymond Magness The Idea Exchange: Managing Features By Inspiring Customers	Michael Lotter Building and deploying custom SharePoint Application pages (_layouts) with Visual Studio 2008	Timothy WrightUsing JQuery
10:30am - 11:45am	Chris Williams XNA Development That Rocks	Troy Tuttle Continuous Integration: The "Original" Best Practice	Todd Kitta SharePoint and Silverlight	Jeff Julian Developing Multi-Touch Applications for Windows 7
12:00pm - 1:00pm	Lunch
1:00pm - 2:15pm	Rob Reynolds Inversion of Control with Windsor Container	Dru Sellers & Chris Patterson Message Based Application Development with MassTransit	Becky Isserman Cheap and Easy Wildcard Search	John Alexander Developing for Microsoft Surface Applications
2:30pm - 3:45pm	Rob Kraft SQL Injection: How it works and how to stop it	Yair Segal Entity Framework versus Linq to SQL	Steve Walker Team Development using SharePoint	Muljadi Budiman Parallel Programming for Managed Code Developers
4:00pm - 5:15pm	Lee Brandt Your Code is Trying to Tell You Something: Reading Static Code Analysis Metrics using NDepend	Van Ice Adding Silverlight to your Enterprise Applications	Todd Bleeker Sharepoint custom membership provider	Shawn McCubbin Microsoft Dynamics
5:30pm - 6:30pm	After Party & Giveaways