A Nerdy First Trip to Dallas
Next weekend, Kari and I are making our first trip to Dallas, and it’s going to be nerdy. We have, at this point, driven around Dallas on I-35 three times, but we’ve never been through the city itself and we certainly haven’t stopped there. This time, we are specifically targeting the city, and we’ve got three great events planned.
Our first task is to attend the Facebook Developer Garage – Dallas, which is being held in fairly-central Dallas. This will be exciting, as it might be the first developer gathering for a platform I already develop on. There seems to be two tracks, technical and marketing, and I’ll be in the tech track. The business side of Facebook development seems straightforward enough, but technology can usually use additional explanation.Another fun aspect of this event will be getting a chance to see central Dallas. The DFW metro area is pretty spread out and nothing else on this trip will be eve slightly central, so spending some time near downtown should be worthwhile.
On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be attending WordCamp Dallas 2009 at UT-Dallas. Obviously, Wordpress is a platform I use, but I’m not really doing any development with it. Hopefully, this event will help me move from user to developer, even if all I manage to do is tweak a theme or something similar. Also, it seems like there are few, if any, WordCamps in Austin, so I’m hoping this event will pull in more Austin Wordpressers than Kari and I. When we get back, I hope to attend some more Wordpress events here in Austin and I hope to have met a few people involved in the Wordpress meetups around here.
On Sunday night, as we leave Dallas, we’re going to see the Texas Rangers host the San Diego Padres in Arlington, TX. We’ve never been to this ballpark, and it is a minor obsession of ours to visit new ballparks (we’ve only visited one this season, and it was Tulsa’s minor league team’s stadium)[update: Kari pointed out to me after this was posted that we also visited the Portland, OR minor league ballpark this summer], so this is a great way to finish up the trip. This last stop, I guess, isn’t very nerdy, but at least we approach it in a very nerdy way.
Posted in Baseball, Dallas, Programming, Sports, Technology, Texas, Texas Rangers, Web.
– June 20, 2009
Secrets of Simplicity presentation
Making things simple is the second biggest task in a project. The first is having a good idea.
Posted in Philosophy, Technology, Web.
– June 19, 2009
Hecuba: Who Are They and Where Did They Come From?
Hecuba “Suffering” [Official Video] HD from Hecuba on Vimeo.
We saw Hecuba open for Bat For Lashes in Portland a few days ago. They’re a two person band, and the lady-half of the band is hardly even in this song or video (you can see her wiggle a little sitting on a car in the second half of the video). This is possibly the least representative song of their actual sound, but it’s an awesome video and song anyway.
– June 14, 2009
Letters To Cleo Lives!
Letters To Cleo live at The Parish in Austin
After about 14 years since the last time I saw them, I got to see Letters To Cleo last Friday. That’s almost half my lifetime, which has got to be a record for time between shows for me, probably never to be broken. I’m hoping they head out on more frequent reunion tours for the next few decades, as I’d be happy to see them every few years for the rest of my life.
We also got a great picture with Kay Hanley and a signed poster for the show. I feel like every show we see in Austin is better than the last, and Letters was no exception.
Posted in Arts, Austin, Music, Texas.
– May 24, 2009
