I know everyone's been anxiously checking in for the weekend Minnebar Geekcamp round-up, so huge apologies for the delay. It turns out that after all that testosterone, internety goodness I had to get my girl on yesterday by photographing a local florist wrapped in a lilac boa of her own creation. Don't get me wrong, Saturday was more fun than I've had in a really long time but I'm just not sure the "Roll Around in a Bed of Lilacs But Don't Forget to Get Your Sexy On™" -session would've gone down all that well with the Ruby guys. Plus I just really want to get invited back to the next Minnebar meetup, yo!
Still, I'll bring up the boa idea with Ben to see what he thinks.
So yeah, Saturday's Minnebar Barcamp meetup was an overwhelming success. I went in to the conference expecting it to be, you know, "good" but left with A) a head exploding with ideas, B) almost more photographs than my computer can handle, C) more kick ass, creative, developer-type contacts than one girl should ever be allowed to have, and D) almost one entire platter of taco dip. Because curiosity compels you to know how it all went down, I passed on the dip because Rysavy's fork assaulted the big meaty feast after everyone left (I have photographic proof!). Basically I decided it was safer for my constitution, and not to mention mental health, to just let the whole thing go.
Trust me, you would've too.
On top of extreme sessiony-goodness, I was fortunate enough to be stuck in a studio with some of the most incredibly talented, creative, genius designers and programmers I've had the pleasure of meeting in quite a long time. They were also incredibly normal, showered, well-dressed, and I didn't catch sight of even *one* pocket-protector the entire day. Ha ha ha, kidding. KIDDING! (... mostly)
A few other things...
+ Turns out that lots of technology and design people are in to, get this, CAMERAS! I saw at least 6 Nikon D70s throughout the day (but not one Canon DSLR), which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Getting to talk about programming, design, the internet, and media was fucking hot... but getting to talk about photography on top of that made a tear well up in my right eye. The event, it was well documented. Check out the flickr Minnebar group for photographic evidence (my contributions are buried in there somewhere, too).
+ It also turns out that... I HAVE A SOUL!!! YAY!
+ In what has to be one of the weirdest coincidences of the day, I met fabulous Norm during a session. As we got to talking we discovered that A) we're both web designers, B) we went to the same college, C) we graduated in the same class, D) we lived, quite literally, a few doors down from each other in the same dorm... on the same floor, and E) we both have a peculiar affinity for pink. WTF?! How could I have not come in to contact with this person before? It was like meeting a parallel universe me, only he used to walk The Hill. Anyone that's been to UW-Eau Claire knows how fucking mentally irresponsible you have to be to be one of those people who walked The Hill. A) You either drove your ass to class or B) You went sledding down the thing on a cafeteria food tray. Seriously.
(I might've been *slightly* paraphrasing when it came to the bit about the pink, you know, just in case your name is Norm and you're reading this.)
+ Ben's already drunk with power and apparently has the beginnings of the next un-conference in motion. Sign me up!!
+ Many thanks to Peter for the pre-camp warmup at the Acadia. No BARcamp is complete without, well, a BAR if ya'know what I'm sayin'.
+ All those people who didn't stay till the end will be so disappointed when they find out they could've had an alttext.com t-shirt. Then again, clearly *I* won the Nikon dual and earmed me some schwag.
Again, many thanks to Benwards for orchestrating the entire thing and Catalyst Studios for putting up with us for a full Saturday. Let's do this again sometime, eh?
Comments
Luckily I took a gander at the Minnebar pic's from Ben's website, you guys looked like there was much fun to be had! Needless to say I loved the lilac boa...how delicious!
Funny thing about the color pink...madeline.orstad.com! A very pink sight indeed! It was a pleasure meeting you as well. I no longer feel like I am the only designer who loves code. I wish I could have stayed the photo dual looked like it needed spectators or a referee. Next time we will present "Design guys(people) for the [insert company here]" The big noob won't know what hit them.
I knew it - you DO like pink!!! I could tell by the baby blue shirt you had on this weekend and how well it went with your man-purse.
That's it, "Design Eye for the [companyname] Guy" is the best idea I've heard in a long time and simply *must* happen. It's time for the midwest to represent, yo.
Didn't say you had a soul - I said that working at a newspaper doesn't drain it away- who knows, maybe you never had one in the first place :-).
I will never argue with communing with lilacs! Programming languages are with us year-round, but we only get lilacs for a few precious days.
So I'll be expected that session next time!
Ok, Rysavy here, I'm not sure I recall the dip-assualt, but I'll take your word for it. I'm clean. You can eat off my fork any time and live to tell about it (I think). As for the next Minne-Spar, i'm planning on bringing my Canon 30D to bring shame to the Nikonettes.
Hopefully we get the opportunity to host the next O-B, it was a blast. Catalyst was a bit stinky the next day, but I think the post-party-streaker-food-fight-show had something to do with that.
thanks all!
You can't shame the Nikkonistas. They lost all shame long ago.
And thanks for giving use of the space. I've often walked past there wondering wtf those snowball lights were.
Need to do the cabin thing yo.