SuperSatellite

Unwinding

// February 10th, 2008 // Travel, Web

Well, I was wrong.  This last day worked out a spot of all right.  Originally, my plan was to take an day of vacation to stay in Miami a day longer.  This went to suck when I found out the hotel we were up in for the conference was…outside my budget.  This forced me to find a different hotel for the final day.  So I sorta thought that the mess wasn’t going to hardly be worth it, as I’d have to pack, switch hotels, be away from the nice area I was in, etc.  As it turns out, I got to enjoy the afternoon all right.  When I got here, they didn’t have a room ready, so I was forced to amuse myself for a couple hours.

As it turned out, the hotel is on what they call the “Miracle Mile” in Coral Gables.  Plenty of shops and stuff (though most were closed on Sunday), but there was a Subway for an affordable lunch, and a car show taking place.  I also found a sushi place about 4 blocks from the hotel the guys from dotMarketing were telling me about called Sushi Maki.  That was dinner.  So I was able to get out and about a couple times, did plenty of walking, and got to enjoy the weather some more.  I also rode in a taxi for the first time.  It was anticlimactic.

I saw a bag lady uptown too.  I was going to take a picture, because I’d never seen an honest to goodness bag lady (she had about 20 garbage bags full of random goods, stacked very well).  I thought better of it, as I should probably respect her right to…well, live how she wants to live and not be bothered by a random, curious, small town tourist.  But, interesting nonetheless.  I also saw a Bentley, which I didn’t think “real” people “drove” in normal, everyday life.  And more small dogs.  What the hell is with the small dogs down here?

Anyway, to the topic of the previous three days, the conference was excellent.  DotMarketing treated us phenomenally.  For one, they hooked us up with some decent swag, including a nice messenger bag that I’ll be putting to use (free stuff is all it’s really about anyway ).  They took us out bowling in South Beach last night, which was by far and long the fanciest bowling alley I have ever seen.  The discussions I got to have face to face with their developers were invaluable.  All the guys and gals there are very easy to approach and talk with things about, which is great.  They also bowl better than me.  Except Lianis and David.  Sorry guys, but at least I can beat someone, heh.

Next year, I expect the conference will be a good deal bigger, with a little more diversity in experience levels and presentations from more people in the community.  If so, it would certainly get better and better. All around it was very well organized though, and the tracks were balanced so that at least I never had to argue between two sessions I wanted to go to (or not, were that the case).  The round table discussion I was in was very promising with respect to unifying and building the community of users that were here, and I think that will have a huge impact over the next year.

I’m excited to get back now and put to use some of what I learned and talked about.  That’s the mark of a good product and company in my opinion, that they can get you excited about stuff.  I don’t feel like I’m going back to fight a monster, just build one, heh.

So I will now sign off.  I leave in the morning, and will apparently have to fight some less than appealing weather when I get into KC.  Hopefully it all holds together long enough to get home.