Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the ExpressionEngine / CodeIgniter conference. For those of you not in the Tech world EE and CI are made by EllisLab which is where I currently work. This was my first time in New York City. As the date approached I was quite nervous. I usually travel well but this trip was throwing me a bit. I think it may have been a combination of my new role as Director of Services and Product Evangelist for EllisLab or the idea of going to NYC after not having lived in a city for a number of years (grew up in DC).
The trip was great though. Flying in was awesome as we got to see the skyline (oooo preeety) and the Statue of Liberty. The drive to Brooklyn was no disappointment. Those NYC cabbies make you feel like you are riding a roller coaster at Coney Island. I had dinner the first night with an awesome group of EE devs. Eric Miller played host and introduced us to a nice Latin joint not too far from the hotel. Bigota Bistro was the name, and their fish tacos are A.m.a.z.i.n.g.
The next day I hung out with Jeff Claeson and some other Scottish dude that is lost in New Zealand named Iain Urquhart. Seriously though, Jeff and Iain are awesome. We made it to Times Square before they decided that they were starving and needed sustenance. After that Leslie decided to join us and we made our way to the Empire State Building. This was the sightseeing highlight of the trip for me. I thought I would be a bit freaked out by being 80+ stories high but I did not freak out. The day was perfect for it. Outside of that, I made a blunder. I wanted very badly to visit B & H Photo since I have ordered so much stuff from them. Unfortunately it was a Jewish Holiday and they take that sort of thing very seriously so I was out of luck.
The conference was awesome. I am always amazed at the talented people that I get to talk to at conferences. It was fun being mentioned by Les a few times during the keynote. And even though I would consider myself an expert in EE I am always learning. Tech is definitely an area that you can spend a lifetime not mastering. Matt Weinberg of Vector Media Group is always great for some good information. He did a really nice Top 10 this year. His talk on ecommerce last year was something I watched several times. And Aaron Gustafson made me feel like I didn't know a thing about HTML/CSS. His talk was jam packed with good tidbits for those of us wanting to master HTML and CSS as it relates to Responsive Web Design.
All in all it was a good experience. My only wish was that we had had more time. There were so many people to talk to I felt like I didn't get to everyone I wanted to catch up with. I left NYC feeling like I had eaten well, talked to a lot of very smart people and experienced something I will remember forever. I mentioned on twitter that I felt the same leaving EECI as I used to when I would go to a camp during the summer. So many friends that you have to say goodbye to...
