It is not often I blog about non-DNN subject matter, so allow me a little leeway in this posting. I am often allowed to travel to industry conferences so that I can keep abreast with what is going on in the world of .NET. This week I will be attending Mix 07 with several people from CrystalTech Web Hosting as well as a few fellow DNNer's. On the way here today, I had one of the most interesting opportunities to sit next to someone who I think is one of the most profound supports of .NET, Scott Cate from myKB.com. Being in Phoenix we often forget just how much of a hot bed of .NET development it truly is. Scott is a Phoenician and someone I had not had the pleasure of really sitting down with and sharing some experiences with. He runs our local DNUG, but I find it very hard to get there. Something I have vowed to change after todays meeting. In our hour long flight we shared some great conversation, thoughts, stories, and ideas. We even managed to give each other a few tips and some laughs.
To me this was the kind of story I had only read about in blogs. Well now I see just how awesome something like this can be. It made me remember why I was a developer, why I love to program, and more importantly why I love being around other developers. It is that brother / sisterhood we form that only comes with from spending hours upon hours of writing and reading code. As we sat and talked, I felt as if I had known him for years and that he was one of my dearest friends. That I think is in part due to the fact we have chewed on the same bone and have had the same experiences. It reminded me of just how important developer to developer contact really is. We often get ourselves surrounded by the same people we forget how important those outside influences are to continuing the creative juices that we all so desperately need.
Tomorrrow will be a long day, I hope to get some face time with Scott Guthrie, but I doubt it will happen. There are some very interesting tracks tomorrow as well as a mashup session from 8PM until 2AM. I will let you know how that goes as I am most interested in that.
Well it is time to sign-off. The drinks are fading and so is my energy. I will write more tomorrow. Maybe I can get a hold of Antonio and Phillip, it would be nice to meet some others that volunteer for the project.