buckyschwarz.net

Well, CFinNC is over, and from the accounts we’ve seen so far, it didn’t just rock, it Rocked the Casbah!

It was the first conference I’ve ever been to; I have to say, I can definitely see what all the fuss is about. I’ve already started following several new and interesting people on the twitter. I met so many cool and smart and nice people this weekend, and just got a chance to talk with people who want to share what they know. Even being part of the event staff, I got to see plenty of really good talks, and I learned so much.

Before last weekend, I was pretty dismal. I wasn’t really excited about web development anymore, in my mind, ColdFusion was a dead, bloated, washed up corpse of a former lover, being pecked at by sea gulls, and Flex was about as far from my mind as it could be. This conference completely re-energized me and gave me a new sense of motivation and a fresh new batch of ideas to go explore. It could not have come at a better time. I feel so excited and motivated about working with ColdFusion and Flex again.

And that is just about attending the conference. It was pretty awesome being able to work with really great people, especially the two really cool guys who shouldered a large portion of the responsibility. I can’t believe we actually did it. I can still remember our user group meeting back in the spring when Dan said he wanted to put on a conference. Nothing major, just a one day affair for locals of the Triangle Area, maybe people from Charlotte or even Asheville. Somehow, over the course of a summer it turned into a full-fledged, free, two day, international event with people coming from New York, California and Canada and a full list of well-known speakers. We kind of just did it as we went along, and some it was really done by the seat of our pants, but due to the hard work and determination of everyone involved, it turned out pretty okeydokey.

I think most of the people involved feel the same way: Last night, we had our debriefing/postmortem of the conference, at the beginning of the meeting, we cautiously approached the subject with the attitude of we may do this again next year, but let’s not commit. By the end of the meeting, when asked who would want to do it again, everyone in the room raised their hands. So without letting too much more out of the bag, it looks like there will definitely be another CFinNC conference next year and I’ll be  happy to work to make it better than this year’s.

Given that I was laid off in October 2008, and that kind of experience is surprisingly relevant in today’s economy, a friend and former co-worker from college, Willie Jackson, asked me to write a guest blog post over at his site. It’s titled Why losing your job is not the end of the world and what to do if it happens: An essay on the interoperable relationship between business and fear, in particular as it relates to the current world economy, especially having to do with the prospect of losing one’s job vis-á-vis layoff. Head on over there and let him know what you think.

I’ve finished the second redesign of my site. After using jQuery extensively while preparing a presentation for my local ColdFusion usergroup, I decided that I wanted to redo my site with more jQuery. I initially wrote it using PHP, styled it, and published it, but quickly grew tired of the dark scheme. I’ve restyled it now with a lighter theme, which I’m pretty pleased with. I’ve also gotten my WordPress custom theme pages working correctly, and it was surprisingly easy.

So that’s about it.

Well, I’m finally starting to get settled in to my new place in Cary, NC. I’ve been here for a few days now, and so far, I really like it. The weather has been nice and cool: in the 40’s and 50’s during the day, and the 20’s and 30’s at night. It rained and misted all day today. It’s weird; I’m not used to it being rainy and cold, I rather like it.

After two days, I want to say that my new job is fantastic, thanks for asking. I’ve signed on to be a ColdFusion developer with SRA International in Durham. Again, today was only my second day, but the first two were great. Yesterday was an orientation that was presented via a teleconference call with people across the country. Today was my first real day. I have to say, I’m very impressed with how organized and employee-oriented the company is. I have a nice sized cubicle that will have a name plate on the outside wall. Inside my cubicle today was a Dell PC with a dual LCD setup, which I thought was pretty cool. Also inside my cube were a stapler, a tape dispenser, a staple remover, a magnetized paper clip holder, paper clips, staples, and tape, two pads of paper, two pens, two pencils, two stacks of post it notes a telephone directory and instructions on how to use the phone. All of the office supplies were brand new in boxes. It was incredible, and also a little exciting to see the company that hired me putting in just a little bit of effort to show that I’m welcomed. That little bit went a very long way. It’s quite exciting to be working for a company that has their act together and tries to let their employees know how they feel about them.

I’ve made some changes to my site: I redesigned (read: designed) it with a new layout, changed the default behavior so going to buckyschwarz.net doesn’t take you to the blog, and played around with Wordpress layouts to integrate blog posts directly into the site, viewable by going to the blog navigation header tab.

All of this was done because 1) I had a lot of free time, not having a job, 2) I was bored, and 3) I wanted to refine my PHP skills and increase my knowledge and skill with the language. It’s a work in progress, as always, but so far, I’m pretty happy with the results. As of now, I haven’t gotten comments to show up or work when integrated with the site, which is fine because 1) no one is reading this blog in the first place and 2) when people are reading it, which they aren’t, no one is commenting. The tags still aren’t showing up, which is kind of disappointing and frustrating, so I’m going to work to get that up as soon as possible.

I’m back on Wordpress, and version 2.5.1 is fantastic. It’s much better than version 2.3.1, which is what Daniel and I are using at 2ndplayer . I’m hoping that I’ll update this semi-regularly with some nuggets of wisdom. If I get any readers, I’ll be genuinely surprised.