CodeMash 2008 wrap-up

As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended CodeMash 2008 this past week. I got back on Friday. Funny how a conference can be so physically draining from lack of sleep, mentally draining from so much information, yet so invigorating, too. I've gotten lots of sleep, yet somehow I'm still tired! But it was a an awesome event! Thanks to all the people who put in so much hard work to make it happen!

I seem to always come away from these conferences on a bit of a high from meeting new friends, from the thought-provoking conversations I've had, and with lots of thoughts an ideas bouncing around in my head of things I'd like to do.

I got to meet Dianne Marsh, one of the speakers. I was told by Josh Holmes several months ago that if I go to CodeMash, I need to meet Dianne because I reminded him a lot of her. During the conference, we had an good time together as I was trying to gather ideas about getting more women involved in the Columbus Ruby Brigade. We had some similar points of view in general,. And we had some interesting conversation, that others in the room joined in, too. Good times.

I also met a guy that I went to high school with, Dustin Campbell. I knew the name but vaguely remembered him, and he didn't remember me. (not surprising, since I spent a lot of time in high school trying to blend in with the wall, and not be noticed for any reason. I must have gotten pretty good at it.) But I checked w/ him, and we did indeed go to high school together.

I met a lot of people who also use twitter, a service that I describe as some hybrid of a Blog and Instant Messenger. You send short messages (tweets) to twitter about what you're doing, and anyone who is following you on twitter will see your tweet. I'm only coming up on my 2-month twitterversary, so it's still pretty new to me. But, I learned some new, fun twiterology (terminology relating to twitter?) at CodeMash:

• twistory [Brian Prince] - twitter history (say it out loud, it sounds a bit cooler than it looks written) Example: "I have quite a twistory of being cold due to weather."

• meta-tweet [I forget who said this one?] - tweets (messages) about previous tweets (twistory). Example: "This one time, I twittered about band camp."

• tweeps [Josh Holmes] - The people (or "peeps") who follow you on Twitter. Example: "I really enjoyed getting to know my tweeps" or "I have lots of new tweeps ever since CodeMash"

And lastly, I've been inspired to try and get away from my old habit of blending in and not being noticed, and try my hand at starting a separate blog with a more technical focus on computer languages, writing code and IT in general (or something like that). I definitely plan to summarize my aforementioned conversation with Dianne et. al. on my new blog. I will probably summarize other good conversations I had at CodeMash to start off other blog topics, too. After that, we'll see what happens and what I can come up with. I'll update this blog post with the location of the new blog as soon as I can figure out a name for it.

/*UPDATE*/ Here's my new blog: http://gayleforce.wordpress.com/

I took a few pictures at CodeMash, although it seems that most of the photos were of the water park and not so much the conference itself. But still, here they are.