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2008-03-04 . 7:53 p.m. - FOWA Miami 2008So I wish I could say "I just got back from FOWA" or at the very least "My flight is leaving in 20 minutes." Sadly, I am here to say that my flight home has been delayed 2 hours and I won't be boarding until 10:30pm. This is why Spirit offers $0.29 fares. So when shit goes wrong they can say "Yeah we goofed, but you're only out a few bucks."
Anyhoodle, FOWA was six kinds of awesome. The first day (Thursday the 28th) was Workshop day. In the morning, I attended Dan Rubin's workshop on Interface Design. The most important thing I took away was that people will forgive "ugly" before they forgive "broken." I guess I already kind of knew that considering one of my favorite phrases is "It's not pretty, but it works." In the afternoon, I took in Joe Stump's (of Digg fame) talk on Enhancing the Performance and Scalability of your web app. Unfortunately, I doubt that I'll be able to use a lot of the info in the near future as most of the stuff that I build is for small, specialized userbases. There was a girl named Skye there that felt somewhat the same about the workshop and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the conference.
On Thursday night, I had my cousin Suzette pick me up and we crossed the causeway to eat on Lincoln Road and this cute little mediterranean cafe called "Pasha's." After dinner, she dropped me off back at my hotel and I watched Love Song for Bobby Long on my laptop. I highly recommend this movie. As far as "indie" movies go, this one was really good. It was nice to see John Travolta played a really flawed character.
So Friday was the "conference day." I could list the speakers, but it's much easier to just link to the schedule page. My favorites were Kathy Sierra, Matt Mullenweg, the panel on how to build a web app in 40 minutes, Emily Boyd, Cal Henderson, and Gary Vaynerchuck (whom I hadn't heard of until that day). I really wish I would've kept count of the number of lolCats used in the presenters' slideshows.
Skye and I stuck around for the live filming of Winelibrary.tv and then shared a cab with a couple of guys to get over the causeway for dinner before going to the Scrapblog party at Nikki Beach. We left around midnight because she had an early flight the next day & I didn't want to stick around all on my lonesome.
Saturday morning was checkout, then a cab ride over the causeway again for breakfast at Jerry's Famous Deli. I met some guys from Orlando that are planning on going to BarcampOrlando, so that was cool. Oh, and Ryan Carson picked up the check, so that was even cooler. On the way out, I passed by a table with Tantek Celic (one of the conference's chairs), Mel Kirk (the conference's organizer), Joe Stump, and Blaine Cook and thanked them profusely for such a great conference. I was wearing my Tree Brains shirt and Tantek commented on it saying it was really cool. Which is awesome because he'd never heard of The Sneeze, so it's nice to know the shirt stands on it's own. Anyway, he asked if he could take a picture of it /me and I obliged.
After breakfast, my mom & dad picked me up and we went to lunch with my aunt, uncle, and cousin at an AWESOME restaurant called Rosa Mexicana in Mary Brickell Village. They make the guacamole fresh at your table. They bring around a cart with all the ingredients and a decorative mortar and pestle, mix 'n mash it all up, and then leave the mortar on the table along with chips and freshly made soft taco tortillas.
That afternoon, was the AOL beach party (also at Nikki Beach). The schedule said 4pm to 1am, so I figured I'd go back to my parents' house, relax a bit and then get ready to go out again (borrowing my mom's car). But then at around 4:45, we rented an OnDemand movie (Rendition) and it gave me time to think about how I could very well show up to the party at Nikki Beach and everyone would be in their cool little cliques and I would have a horrible middle-school-lunchroom flashback. That didn't stop me from getting ready to go out after the movie was over. I was just about to ask my mom for her keys when I really let my fear sink in. I think my mom saw something in my eyes because she said "Do you want to go have dinner at dad's instead?" I didn't even fight her on it. So she got ready to go out while I called the restaurant to give my dad the heads up that we were coming.
When we got there, there were people waiting inside and outside. It was a busy night. My mom & I didn't mind waiting because busy pays the bills. We didn't leave the restaurant until around 10ish, so when we got home, I just crashed on the couch. I queued up an episode of Law & Order: SVU that my mom had saved on the DVR, but I remember falling asleep before the first "bonk-bonk."
This morning, my mom and I both woke up early so we went to the pool for a bit while my dad played tennis and we all worked up a nice appetite for lunch. We ate at a cuban place called Cafe Romeu, and I had a HUUUUUGE bistec empanizado (breaded steak cutlet). It was so big that I was able to take home half. I thought I'd have time (or at least the appetite) to eat it before we left for the airport, but I ended up leaving it at my mom's house and now I'm wishing that I had it with me.
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Ok, so now it's Thursday and I'm just now getting around to actually POSTING this entry. By the way, here are the pictures.
blog comments powered by Disqus Hope you didn't miss these:
2008-04-10 - Sad Realization
2008-04-08 - BarCamp Orlando Links Roundup
2008-04-04 - Jeffy Says
2008-04-02 - The Stranger's Funeral
2008-03-10 - I have room for you in this Melee
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Knitting Projects:
Nautie #1 [pattern] Robot for Neutron [model] Seed Stitch Scarf for Neutron [XXXXX] Katamari Damacy Hat for Dan [pattern] Katamari Damacy Hat for Pete [pattern] Katamari Damacy Hat for Bob [pattern] Katamari Damacy Hat for Drew [pattern] Kate [pattern] Cable, zipped jacket [model] Fuzzyfeet [pattern] Drop Stitch Scarf #2 [XXXXX] Drop Stitch Scarf #1 [XXXXX] Cell Phone Cozy [XXXXX] Striped Pastel Scarf [XXXXX] Punk Rock Backpack - Monkey [model] Starfish Washcloth [XXXXX] Flower Washcloth [model] Flower Washcloth [model] Horrid Halter [XXXXX] Honeymoon [pattern] Kyoto [pattern] Spiral Hat (sans stripes & pom pom) [pattern] Bar Color(s) = Project color(s)
