May 17, 2006
WildWood Flowers at Waskasoo
The Waskasoo Bluegrass Music Society presents
Four Chords of Wood
with
Wildwood Flower
7:00pm
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Festival Hall, Red Deer (4214-58 St., Red Deer)
Tickets are $20 in advance & $25 at the door.
Posted by songdawg at 7:52 PM | WildWood Flower
Back from Montreal
Montreal was amazing - what an great conference and what warm people. I had a blast and definitely want to save up to go again next year. I'll write more about the people I met at a later post.
Right now I am very tired and hot - the air conditioning isn't functioning at work and Edmonton is sweltering - it was 30 degrees outside today and who knows how much inside. Plus everyone in the city is hyped up about the Oilers game tonight - craaazy. (Go Oilers Go!;)
Bought our Marianne Faithfull tickets!
Well, I am off to go clear my comment spam - I have been getting over 200 a day so my apologies if I have accidently deleted your comments.
Posted by songdawg at 7:30 PM | My Life
May 9, 2006
Cellulaire
On Saturday when my Mom and I were walking around downtown Montreal we stopped to get a book. I saw a paperback copy of Stephen King's new book and decided to pick it up. It wasn't until we got back to the hotel that I realized I had bought the french translation. I can't remember the last time I read something in french.
Well, I have been slowly working through it and last night I had trouble putting it down - it's very good. Post-apocalyptic and kind of creepy - all about some kind of virus affecting people through their cell phones. So I read a few chapters and drifted off to sleep. Until the cell phone rang - which jolted me awake and freaked me out - funny how Stephen King novels get under your skin. It was Carol saying hello - we agreed to connect the next day.
So I drifted off to sleep again. Only to wake up in a start - by a fire alarm. For a few seconds I thought the world was coming apart. Maybe I have too much imagination and shouldn't be reading scary books at night alone in a strange city. It was a false alarm and went off again about an hour later. Getting up this morning was hard.
But it was a great day. Devteach is a good conference - it has excellent speakers and is small enough that you can meet them, ask questions etc. I am glad I came.
Well, I am bushed and going to crash. First though I think I'll just read a few more pages...
Posted by songdawg at 8:07 PM | My Life
May 8, 2006
Montreal
Yoga was awesome - I feel so much better - a little sore but all the kinks from sleeping in a different bed and from sitting all day are gone. I picked up some veggie sushi and a drink from the local depanneur and I am kicking back.
The session Introduction to Visual Studio 2005 Development With VB.NET today was good - the presenters were great even if the content was geared more towards .NET newbies. But I picked up some new tips about Visual Studio 2005 and got to play with the tools a lot. I had fun exploring Nullable Types, Table Adapters and Master Pages. One of the presenters - Rod Paddock - will be speaking in Edmonton on May 25th at 5:30pm for the Edmonton .NET User Group.
I met another Edmontian named Evan this morning and we had a good talk about Test Driven Development. I still don't get it - probably because where I work we autogenerate the "plumbing" business and data services so there is no need to write tests for them. What interests me is testing the stored procedures and presentation layers - maybe on Friday's Test-Driven Development (TDD) Hand-on workshop by Scott Bellware session a lot of my questions will be answered.
I would load up some pictures of my trip but for some reason the upload function isn't working on my blog.
Tomorrow is the first official day of the conference. I'll see how it goes with soaking up as much as possible without burning out :)
Posted by songdawg at 7:16 PM | My Life
Montreal!
I am here in "La Belle Province" and loving it. Montreal is such a beautiful city. I met my Mom here on Saturday evening and we headed off to explore la Rue Ste-Catherine. Lots of shops and even more people window-shopping. And here the pedestrians rule - doesn't matter if the light is green or not most people (except for tourists like us) just walk across streets. And sometimes they even look before they cross.
We ended up at an amazing Japanese restaurant called sho-dan. We started with miso soup which was delicious - not too salty. Then we had some off the menu vegetarian rice paper rolls with a black sesame dressing. We also had had the avocado maki and the vegetarian maki. It was beautifully presented and taaaaasty. We finished with a bit of mango and pear sherberts.
It was great seeing my Mom - we caught up and had a relaxing time walking around and checking out downtown Montreal. And eating of course - montreal bagels with cream cheese at a deli, cheese and fruit and salad on a patio. It was great - wish we lived closer - it would be great to meet up for a casual lunch whenever we wanted. I saw her off on the train on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday evening I had a quiet time in the hotel room surfing the web and watching Desperate Housewives (TV!!!!!!). Lame I know but it's been so long since I vegged and watched cable that I just had to indulge.
Well, gotta head off to a yoga class at Yoga Classique. I'll blog more later.