Monthly Archives: April 2007

Flying in April to avoid snowstorms? Ummm think again!

Travel

I am currently in Seattle where I did some really fun presentations (thanks INETA) at Bellingham.NET and South Sound .NET (in Olympia) on Wednesday and Thursday. (I’ll write about them in a separate post). I put off travel until April so that I could avoid winter travel problems. That didn’t work out so well.

Flying to Seattle on Wednesday through O’Hare proved to be (as usual) quite a problem as Chicago had a big fat snowstorm. When we landed at O’Hare, we had to wait one and a half hours for gate. Then I got off one plane and onto another. They boarded us (huge plane) and then we sat on the runway for 3 and a half hours before taking off for Seattle! Unfortunately, arriving in Seattle over 5 hours late meant that I was unable to drive the 2+ hours to Bellingham. So I boarded a 6:50 flight to  Bellingham and actually started my presentation at 8pm! (That was 11pm my time.) Luckily, Paul Mehner had driven up and did a fabulous two hour talk on Workflow while they waited for me to arrive. So they got 2 hours of that and then 2  hours of LINQ to SQL. A double header. After this, Paul and I drove (well, Paul drove) the 3 hours south to Olympia where he lives and I stayed overnight at his family’s beautiful house on the Sound.

The next night I did my talk at the Souht Sound User Group and then spent the rest of the time with Camey Combs and her family, visiting the very cool Olympia Farmer’s market and being treated to a fabulous home cooked meal. I’d call it a home away from home except they don’t serve food like that in my house! 🙂

Today is my trip home. I fly from Seattle to Washington D.C. and then take a small flight to Burlington. However, Burlington is expecting a major snowstorm tonight – 100% chance, sleet and snow with 5 – 9 inches expected. So I don’t have high hopes of getting home tonight. I have a great back up plan to stay at Andrew Duthie’s however (MSDN Dev. Evangelist in Washington D.C. area) . (All links coming but I’m typing quickly so I can go board my plane.)

So place your bets. Will I get home tonight? Will the little prop plane fly into a big snowstorm and land in burlington at 11pm? Then will I drive another 1/2 hour in the big snowstorm to my house? We’ll see how it goes.

Vermont IT Jobs: C# developer and Technical Architect at MS Gold Partner in Burlington

Jobs

These jobs are for Competitive Computing (aka “C2”). They are a Gold Partner and have some big name clients.

 

C# is a must for both jobs

Software Engineer

 

C2 currently has openings for intermediate to senior level software engineers to join our team of application development professionals. In this role, the candidate will be responsible for working in a team environment in development of web portal and ASP.NET applications for major client projects.

The ideal candidate will have a strong foundation in the concepts of
web-based application development, experience with ASP.NET (C# or VB.NET)
using the Visual Studio development environment; SQL server 2000/ 2005; (X)HTML and XML; client side development in JavaScript; and a comfortable with Object Oriented development methods. In addition to core skills, experience with rich client side technologies and/or industry certifications a plus. 

A passion for systems development, a strong willingness to learn, and an ability to work independently or as part of a team are essential. Bachelor’s degree preferred, associate’s degree considered, along with 2-5 years experience in an application development environment.

 

In addition to a competitive compensation and benefits package, C2 also promotes opportunities to advance technical knowledge through industry certifications, technical conferences and other training programs. This is a unique opportunity to join a local company and work on challenging projects for large well known local and national clients.

 

Senior Software Engineer/Technical Architect

 

We are seeking a senior level software engineer/technical architect to lead design, architecture and development of custom application development solutions for large client projects. The successful candidate will have previous experience with ASP.NET (C#) development, with a strong background in web based development, object oriented concepts, relational database design and SQL Server development.  Strong hands on application architecture and designs skills are required for the position, with excellent written and verbal communications. Previous experience on large client projects and technical presentation skills are a plus. Bachelor’s degree preferred, associate’s degree considered, along with 5-7 years experience in an application development environment.

 

This is a unique opportunity to work in a highly collaborative team environment, on large challenging client projects, and offers significant growth potential for the successful candidate.

Heading out west to speak at Bellingham, WA and Olympia WA User Groups

Ineta

Tomorrow I am flying to Seattle then speaking tomorrow night at the Bellingham.NET User Group (which is even closer to the Canadian border than where I live) and then Thursday night at South Sound.NET in Olympia.

Thanks to my pal Camey Combs for suggesting the trip and to INETA and user group leaders Paul Mehner and Andy Robinson for making it all happen. Apparently, Camey and Paul have been promoting the heck out of this. 🙂

At Bellingham, I’ll be presenting on LINQ to SQL and all the fun ASP.NET databinding you can do with it. In Olympia I’ll be doing a 6 hour overview of ADO.NET Orcas. Just kidding. I wish I had all that time to talk about ADO.NET! Alright, so I will try to keep it under 4 hours. No? Nobody wants to stay at a user group until 10pm. How about 2 hours? Heck, I’ve done it in 75 minutes and 90 minutes in the past (and 2 hours and 15 minutes also). We’ll see how it goes… [evil laugh].

LOCK THE DOORS!

I finally got my ski legs back today…

Purely Personal

We have had some gorgeous snow reappear in the past week. Friday was an historic powder day at Mad River. I went on Friday and skiid like sh*t. I was so disheartened. Rich went yesterday and came home to say it was the best skiing of the year. Since it snowed more last night and today; and since Mad River was allowing weekday pass holders to ski for free this weekend,  Rich and I went again today.

On our first run, Rich took me into the woods. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat in the woods but, while I didn’t swoosh straight down through the trees, I didn’t have to pause and get my courage up between every turn like I usually do. It was actually fun. And nice powder!

Then when we hit the trails, something amazing happened. I started skiing the way I know I can ski, but rarely  seem to pull off except on the groomers. I ski on telemark skis – freeheel. I switched over from being a very experienced and confident alpine skiier of 30+ (on and off) years to tele about 5 years ago but never really regained my confidence.

But today my ski legs returned and I was just bopping down the hill doing what felt right. When I looked at (and blogged about) this great video of some tele guys at Mad River from Friday earlier today, it nearly made me cry to see these guys skiing the way I know I should be skiing. Perhaps it was watching that video and keeping that in my head, rather than the image of me really sucking! Who knows. But that’s how I finally got to ski today and it just feels so good! 🙂

If only I had been skiing more frequently this year and this had happened earlier, because sadly, today was the last day of the season for Mad River.

So next winter, I have to start all over again. Oh well. At least I can end this season with a big smile!

F’in airline pilot f’s up their Easter

Travel

As someone who flies quite a lot, I am always interested in stories and news about airline flights. Today’s CNN story about a Northwest flight out of Las Vegas being cancelled because the pilot (I can’t believe this, yes the pilot!) was causing a disturbance (swearing up a storm and even at the passengers) that resulted in the police being called. Definitely something not right there and obviously, not at all normal. Talk about killing your career.

The fact that the flight was cancelled and the 180 passengers are now stuck in Las Vegas as a result of this definitely sucks.

They probably wouldn’t be in the mood to watch this hilarious t.v. ad for the psycho stewardess who is trying to quit smoking. I wonder if that is what was wrong with the pilot?

I have definitely not had either of these experiences when flying.

Danny Simmons (from ADO.NET team) talks about Entity Framework on DotNetRocks

Data Access

There are a lot of us who have been looking forward to this show being posted: Daniel Simmons on ADO.NET Entity Framework. Now I have to find some time this weekend to listen to it. Roger Jennings has a fantastic analysis of the show here. While at DevConnections, Richard and Carl were talking about how much fun this show was to do. They didn’t know anything about Entity Framerwork when they started and were definitely fascinated with it. I’m glad that more people are going to get exposed to EF!

Here is a link to Danny’s blog.