cf.Objective()--a great conference all around, and some news and tips from it

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Like others, I could go on and on about the great food. Man, that really was awesome. And of course the great people you got to meet. I met a lot of new and old faces who I just hadn't run into before, and of course I reconnected with lots of old friends. Then there are the awesome talks. And Jared and Steven (and Jim and others) all did a great job organizing things.

Some News Items (You Won't Hear Elsewhere)

While you'll find plenty of folks sharing their positive sentiments like the above, let me take the chance to offer a couple of comments that I doubt you'll see elsewhere. :-)

First, I'll say that the only negative of the event was that I still had to explain to some that I no longer work for New Atlanta! It's been over a year now (left at end of March 2006). Oh well, time heals all wounds, right?

Indeed, if my carrying around an Adobe bag and even wearing an "Adobe Community Summit '06" shirt one day wasn't enough to show that I was "back in good graces", I also led a "birds of a feather" session on "hidden gems in Scorpio" (joined by the fearless leader himself, Jared). Of course, I had cleared them all with CF Product Manager Jason Delmore first. Though we often only spoke for a minute on each item, and were just talking (not showing slides or doing demos), we were able to speak for over an hour, and by the time we were done it was about 25 people attending.

I also presented a talk on understanding what happens under the covers in the database when you do or don't use CFQueryParam. Both days it was against other strong presenters, but the second day the room was nearly full, which I can hope was because there was good buzz about the talk. The evals will tell for sure, though your comments here are welcome also.

I want to say, too, that I hope folks took advantage of the chance to talk with the guys from Intergral, makers of FusionDebug and FusionReactor. Darren Pywell, CTO, and John Hawksley, one of several engineers, flew over from Germany for the event. They knew that people would have questions regarding the Scorpio Debugger if it was announced (Darren's on the Scorpio beta so has known about it). Sadly, it wasn't announced till after they left Sunday morning (just bad timing: Ben couldn't get in till then, and Adobe was saving the big announcement for his talk.) Even so, they got to talk about their plans for enhancements and indeed new products. I'll have more to say on my favorable opinion about the future for these tools, and SeeFusion as well, in a later blog entry.

Finally, I want to also put in a plug for the Sofitel itself. My goodness, what great service, on every level.

So now, about those tips I promised.

First, if we are back in the Sofitel next year, or indeed if you have any occasion to visit them in the US or abroad, do be sure to join their "privileges card" program. There's no fee, and from your first signup you get benefits, including a room upgrade and more. See their web site for more details.

Second, if we are back at that hotel next year, and you find the bite of a cab from the airport a bit high ($25-30), check this out: you can take public transport quite easily for just $1.50 ($2 during rush hour). From the airport, you'd take the light rail just 10 minutes to the Mall of America, and from that, just steps away you'd catch the 540b bus (free on a transfer) which terminates (in about 25 minutes) behind the Sofitel, at 78th St W and Picture Dr. Same in the reverse, of course. More at http://www.metrotransit.org/.

Indeed, if you want to visit the Mall while at the hotel, you can catch that bus (again, just $1.50/$2). But note that a transfer permits travel anywhere for 2 hours, including back in the other direction, so you could see a good bit of the mall and hop back on the bus for free (the terminal is in the basement of the mall). Even if you'll be longer, it's cheaper than the $20 cab ride.

Of course, in all these cases, if you can share a cab, it makes the cost less significant.

In that regard, my last tip is that if you do share a ride to the airport, be aware that there are two terminals, and they're not as close to each other as you'd expect. I was invited to join Mark Mandel, Mark Drew, and Derek Perez to share their cab. As we approached, the cabbie asked and the 3 of them were going to Northwest. I was going to Airtran. We dropped them off and it was another 10 minutes (and literally another 10 dollars) to the other terminal. As I always say, "forewarned is forearmed".

Even so, it was a delight to share the cab with those blokes. Like so many at the conference, they were just a great bunch of guys and it was a ball to spend even a few more minutes with them.

So I'm looking forward to next year, but in the meantime, I'll see you at CFUnited, and indeed I hope Max as well. I was there last year--again, fending off the cold stares of some who asked others, "why did Adobe let him come?"

I'll have plenty more announcements of things I'm doing to show the community that I'm back in the saddle and on their side, including being picked to present two Scorpio talks at CFUnited as well as contributing to Ben's upcoming Scorpio rewrite of the Web Application Construction Kit books. I'm not knocking BD or turning my back on it. It's not like I was in a dream or a long sleep.

I'm just glad to be able to as boldly and confidently proclaim the benefits of Scorpio and other Adobe products, like I equally support it and the products from Intergral and WebApper. Like all of you, I'm just a fan of the various technologies we've all come to know and love, and I look forward to sharing that with those who it would help.

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