February 2004 Entries

I would recommend St. Thomas to anyone! It is beautiful.  While I was there I went snorkeling, shopping and parasailing. It was a great real vacation spot.

Register your blog and help your city win! The DevDays Bloggers site has put a bit of extra incentive together for blogging about the events!  I promise the prize is cool - the content we are going to make available as part of the prize is great stuff from some new books and the coupon can't be beat!  50% off of anything you want to buy off the Sams site and free shipping.  Plus, bragging rights for your city - and I know that is worth something in this community! Make sure you are counted.

I am going on vacation!  A real one without my laptop and everything.  The hubby and I are off to St. Thomas tomorrow for five wonderful days of doing nothing. It is a bit of crazy timing as my work travel is kicking up, but you can't pass up a good deal and 85 degrees and the ocean!

Everybody likes surprises, right?  Everyone likes to win, right?  Keep an eye on the DevDays Bloggers site! 

The blogging bug has bitten again...One of my fellow PR folks at Que and Sams has started his own blog. Kit's blog is mostly focused on open source topics but he also likes good music and cheese!  You can see photographic evidence here.  I hope to find lots of interesting things and reasons to link coming from Kit's new blog.

The newest interviews from Stephen Ibaraki of note are with Mark Schmidt and Matt Weisfeld.  Mark is the co-author of the Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook and Matt wrote The Object Oriented Thought Process - you can check out some excerpts here.  Both interviews offer a great glimpse into the mind of the author/programmer.

I must say San Francisco took its toll this time around. Well, at least the festivities of our sales meeting must have. I have been sick with a cough cold deal for the past few days and am finally feeling okay to type again.  The highlights that I can share with the world would be the love of the cheese bar at the Exploratorium, a great trip to Alcatraz with many of our Bay area authors, and casino night with the clan.  See my photo gallery - San Fran 2/04.

The Train show in San Francisco last Thursday night was fantastic. Being in their hometown and a very small club made the energy electric and fired up the band.  I do have photos and if you want to see them - ask.

Some days I get to feel really good about what I do. Today is one of those days.  I received an e-mail this morning from a volunteer for Books For Soldiers. She explained:

I am a member of the Books for Soldiers program, a web-based volunteer group that matches up soldiers who request books and other media with folks who have paperbacks, CDs, and DVDs at home to pass along.  Due to present circumstances, a large number of the current requests come from US soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have requests from other deployment areas as well, such as Bosnia and Korea.

Most requests for books are for entertainment purposes, but Books for Soldiers also receives some requests for technical books or medical books from soldiers who want to improve their skills but have none of the usual resources available to them in the field.  Most of the civilian volunteers don't have technical books at home to pass along, though.

Our national sales meeting is being held in San Francisco starting on Friday.  I am heading out on Thursday and can hardly wait. The weather in Indy is leaving a lot to be desired right now and I just love San Francisco.  It is one of my favorite places in the world.  Probably doesn't hurt that one of my very good friends lives out there and the scenery is amazing. So, if you are looking for me later this week check around Union Square!

Well, I just realized how busy the .NET world has gotten!  Wow!  As some of my readers know, I try to keep up with any and all activities of our authors especially as they relate to user groups and conferences.  It is the best way for them and me to get some recognition for their great books.  First of all, I had to revert to the good old fashion way of keeping track of them all - I have a calendar in my office that I write all the events on and put a little mark when I have set off a support box.  February already looks like a mess - Red marks everywhere and little boxes designating a box has been sent.  And I keep finding out about MORE events and speaking engagements!  All I have to say is keep them coming - this is absolutely fantastic. Note to my authors and friends: Let me know where you are speaking and make my calendar keeping a bit less frantic!

There are so many things going on in February that I am sure I will miss something as I attempt this round-up.  First, there is still a chance to catch Rob on the ASP.NET Exposed tour in New York, Boston and Houston. And good authority tells me that keeping an eye on the site for additional dates for the tour is not a bad idea!  This week also brings Paul Litwin to the DotNetUsers in Seattle and Steve Walther to ASPRockville and ASPVienna - if you are in the Maryland/DC area I would not miss the opportunity!  Next week Steve Smith will be in Montreal and the next week he will be at the Michiana group.  It seems Steve likes cold weather!  The last week of February brings the start of DevDays in New York City and Web Services Edge in Boston. Web Services Edge brings an opportunity to see my friends, Brian and Julia speaking! Sounds like a good February to me... 

Last night I got to see Train in Chicago at Schuba's with only about 200 people.  It was awesome!  The band looked like they were having fun and enjoying having the freedom to do whatever they wanted on stage.  I have been lucky enough to see Train quite a few times in the last few years from some pretty spectacular seats and also in some smaller venues. But, this was a great place to see them and a great show.  Highlights for me were the opening of the second set with Idaho and Free and then later in that set a kickin' rendition of Train.  The show reminded me - except for the fact that they had to walk in from a door to the street in winter coats - of seeing them play Summer Stages in Indy a couple years ago which was a great show done in the same spirit.  You can see Brandon Bush's take on the show in the journal on the Train site.  I am glad they decided to do a small club tour, it is a great way to give something special to your fans.  And they actually have everyone a gift as they left, a CD of the first set of the show we had just seen!  They must have the burners running at a frantic pace for an hour and a half to make 200 CD real quick.  I can't wait for a warmer show in San Francisco on Thursday - I will take photos there.  Could it be possible that the hometown shows will be even better?