ALT.NET - Day 1

I’m up here in Redmond for the the 2^nd ALT.NET Open Spaces gathering.  The first one was truly a great event.

Unfortunately I flew up Friday afternoon and missed the Friday night fish-bowl session.  I had to miss this last year as well, and next time I want to come up early enough to participate.  The fish-bowl session (from what I gather) is a rount-table discussion about the topics that should be covered in the open space the following 2 days.  If you want to learn about F# or Git, shout it out!  If you want to talk about jQuery or BDD, then let it be known.  People gravitate to the good ideas and that’s what’s covered.

I decided to rent a car and drive to my hotel.   I figured it would be cheaper than taking a taxi and easier than bumming rides off of others.  I checked in and quickly headed over to DigiPen, where the conference is being held.  Stupid me, I forgot my jacket and it was snowing!  I ran into Eddie Bauer next to the hotel and picked up a jacket to keep me warm.

The campus is next to Nintendo, as you can see in the picture.  I’ve heard that DigiPen graduates are guaranteed internships at Nintendo.  That’s awesome.

I ran into Brian Donahue, Dave Laribee, James Thigpen, Raymond Lewallen at the front.  Inside the main room there were about 120 geeks all chatting intensely.  I glanced around and saw many known faces in the industry.

After a while a bunch of us headed over to Desert Fire, a southwestern grill near the hotel.  The room was probably going to exceed fire code and would definitely impede us getting some much needed food (and beer!) so a few of us decided to go get a different table.

If you’re on twitter, then check out the hashtag #altdotnet to see the live tweets about the conference.  For me, I don’t do much mobile tweeting, but I might post a thing or 2 during the day, so follow @subdigital if you’re on twitter.  Here is Jeffrey twittering on his phone at the restaurant:

Next to Jeffrey was Jean Paul Boodhoo, who was chilling out with a large glass of milk:

Here is the rest of the table:

There’s Evan Hoff, Chris Patterson, Dave Woods (forgot your last name!), Dru Sellers (behind Dave), and one of Chris’ co-workers, (I forgot your name as well!).

After dinner it was drinks and geek discussion in Phatboyg’s hotel room.  Here’s the night’s progression:

(luckily only 2 of those were mine, otherwise I’d be hurting this morning!)

ALT.NET day one was pretty fun, but I’m looking forward day 2.  Right now I’m off to eat breakfast with some people at Ruby’s.  Until next time!