There and Back Again: A Speaker’s Tale

In a neighborhood in Detroit there lived a speaker. Not a fancy, ritzy, immaculate neighborhood, filled with crystal fountains and yellow brick roads, or smelling of fresh roses, nor yet a boring, basic neighborhood with nowhere to drink and have a good time: it was home, and that means comfort.

THAT Conference

My journey started off flying to Milwaukee where my good friend David Pine picked me up from the airport after taking his middle son to zoo camp. We headed back to Dave’s house right outside the city and hung out, barbecued, played catch, rocked out to some music and drank some mighty fine summer shandy’s.

Life was good, that was one day of vacation I was able to have while on the road for a three conference tour that started in the Midwest and ended in the south. It felt great to just relax and enjoy good company with his three sons and wife.

We woke up the next day, Monday morning, and drove up to the Wisconsin Dells to the Kalahari to enjoy THAT Conference, which conference you ask? That one 😉. We were both speaking on different topics. I gave my “Focusing on Focus” talk, and he was giving a talk on WASM and Blazor. My time at the Kalahari was short-lived because I had to catch a flight to Minneapolis for another conference.

Image 1: Dave and I on our way to THAT Conference, Image2: Attendees at THAT Conference, Image 3: Dave Pine and Dave Neal working on code.

Image 1: Chase Aucoin’s talk, Image 2: Dave and I in the parking lot drinking a beer.

I can tell you this though, the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells is WAY bigger than the one in Sandusky.

It was great hanging out with friends and seeing the immenseness that THAT Conference is. Huge thanks to Clark Sell for having me come out. It was a blast. My friend, who is an awesome speaker, Jennifer Wadella hooked me up with a ride to the airport and I was off on my way to Minneapolis.

My room and talk for THAT Conference

MidwestJS

The flight to MSP wasn’t long, the second we were in the air, we started to descend. I rolled in to MSP where I caught a lift to the Double Tree downtown. I have never seen the views from downtown before and this was the third time I was in Minneapolis.

Downtown Minneapolis

I believe all the speakers were at that hotel so I got a hold of my buddy Justin James and we went down to the British Pub where I had a few bud lights, he had root beer, and I had a burger that was pretty good. The next day I woke up having to deal with some administrative things I was helping out with for a conference here locally, but by the time the speaker dinner started, it was squashed.

Dinner and drinks at Brit’s Pub.

I didn’t get a chance to attend any workshops that day because like I said, I was taking care of stuff at home and I was trying to relax from the first conference before I left this one and went to another one.

Thursday was my day to speak. I found out through Twitter that one of the attendees, Amy Gebhardt, who came to my talk at THAT Conference, was also going to be speaking at MidwestJS and she came and saw my “Focus” talk again. I thought that was THE coolest thing someone could’ve done at an event. Watch the same speaker in two different states at two different continents. Humbled by her awesomeness.

The talk went well, as usual I made it as engaging as possible for my attendees. I had to switch my slot to the after lunch slot and we all know how that works out. BUT, we made it through and it was great.

Conference badge and attendees.

Once my talk was over, I stuck around for a little while but than it was off the airport to catch a flight to Atlanta than to Jacksonville. The flight was delayed because of storms in Atlanta, but I finally got on the plane where the flight attendants proceed to corral a few of us off the plane to the jet bridge to check out luggage.

CHECK the luggage as in check-check. I have never had to “check” my bags other than gate check. This is the point where things turned bad…

Code on the Beach

I believe I landed in Atlanta late night/early morning, there could have been turbulence, I don’t remember. Luckily my gate was close by the gate I landed in so it wasn’t too long before I was settled in to a seat for my connection.

Well, you would think things could start off smoothly, but nope. Delta wouldn’t let anyone board until the last flight attendant made it and they came in very, very late. We ended up boarding sometime after 1am.

I proceeded to head to baggage claim and started to scratch my head. Hmm..this ticket ends in a 6, yet there is no bag of mine here. At that second I had a WTF moment! I went to the baggage claim office and they furiously searched for my bag.

Now mind you, this luggage easily stands out. Yet, it was nowhere to be found.

According to the computer, there was a claim filed for this persons luggage that had my name on it so we decided to file a claim as well. Just what I needed, to be in Florida with no clothes. Just great. I did have two shirts in my bag, a Chocolatey shirt from Rob Reynolds and my Detroit vs. Everybody shirt. That surely wasn’t going to do.

I got to the hotel around 4am and had to speak at 9:30 that morning. I powered through three hours of sleep and headed to the venue where I met up with the organizer of Code on the Beach, Pete Cochrane. I got to my room, set up, started playing music and drank a coffee while attendees started to funnel in.

Drinking coffee pre-talk and lunch and lunch with Chase

I turned around and my boy Ken Wheeler stepped through the doors of my room with a smile on his face. He was excited for the conf, as was I, and he decided to stick around and watch my talk. This was the first time he has seen me speak at a conference and he thoroughly enjoyed it.

The room was pretty packed, not standing room only, but there were a lot of people there that wanted to learn about css. That is always great to see and the feedback I received up until the time I came home was great. Did I mention that myself and few friends/speakers went to a Edgar Allan Poe inspired restaurant called Poe’s, yeah, it was sweet.

My talk at Code on the Beach

A local speaker, Ashley Grant, offered to take me to Target to get some clean boxers and socks, etc. We got in his ride and rolled out to a super Target. I grabbed some boxers, socks, and a bathing suit because you know, Florida and all. Well, I went to pay for my clothes and my bank card didn’t work. My bank was bought by another and before I had a chance to get my new card since I was on the road, they deactivated all the old cards. NOW I am stuck in Florida, no clothes, no money.

Ashley paid for my stuff and we went back to the hotel. I felt completely embarrassed by all of this. But I was told, this shit happens. It just finally decided to happen to me at this very moment. Also, side note, mercury was in retrograde through all of this. Once I calculate when that happens, I will avoid things.

Eveyone was kind and hospitbale though, friends like Ken and ChaseAucoin had my back generously with all the shenanigans that the universe was drumming up right in front of my face. If I didn’t have the love of the community through the third leg of my trip, I would have been screwed.

I got two see a couple of friends give their talks to packed rooms and even saw Jon Galloway talk about .NET Core, Blazor, and WASM. His talk gave me the fuel I need to move our applications out of the .NET full framework and into .NET Core across the enterprise.

Talks by Chase Aucoin, Gaines Kergosien, and Jon Galloway

I finally made it home to Detroit in one piece, no luggage, cash from friends, and a lighter that ran out of fluid. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the night of the VIP party, my lighter ran out of fluid. One of the organizers/speakers was kind enough to let me use theirs and eventually they let me keep the lighter they had. Good lookin’ out!

One Ocean Resort & Spa

Today

Well, I got home to no water because a main broke at the corner of the street, luckily it was fixed in the evening and the water came back on. Oh yeah, the luggage has been completely lost by Delta.

The moral of this whole story is to never travel when mercury is in retrograde, but more importantly, when shit like this happens, especially if you are a speaker and away from your comfort zone, friend will help. The developer community is THE best community I could be a part of. I didn’t know Ashley, but he stopped what he was doing to help. I didn’t ask Chase, Ken, or the other unnamed attendee to throw me some money, but they did it anyways. That is what community is for. To have each others backs when shit hits the fan.

#DeveloperCommunity