And it begins…
May 21, 2007 · by Josh Swan
I think the title of this blog posting is more than appropriate. It summarizes quite clearly that something new is on its way or has recently arrived. For me this week has been full of beginnings and firsts. One you may have guessed is the creation of my blog here at QWANtify. It is something I have been meaning to do for ohhhhh… about 6 months that just has not seemed to materialize. So what is different now, why create my blog now. Well, I have had an opportunity to go to an event that gave me something to write about. I went to RailsConf 2007. In fact it ended only 5 hours ago (it took that long to get the wireless in my room again :) ) and it was great. Since this is my first posting, however, I am not going to go into the details of the conference now. I will leave that for my following posts. Instead I will give you a little bit of an intro to me.
My name is Josh Swan and I am a software developer for a company in Madison, WI called QWANtify (that bit may be a bit obvious from my blogs name and url). I have been working in Java for around 5 years professionally but have a wider array of skills that just Java. For example, right now I am functioning more as a web service architect at work and outside of work I am building Ruby on Rails projects. Interests I have include agile development and project management practices, Ruby on Rails, Test First Development, application integration technologies, and problem solving in general. I’m the kind of person that if I’m trying to solve something I will have a hard time going to bed at night if I can’t figure out a solution. I also tend to be a bit of a jokester too, just to warn you. :) I like to answer questions and help people when I can, so feel free to email me at josh.swan@qwantify.com or post comments to this blog.
Now that we have that out of the way. Here is a list of firsts that I experienced by going to Rails 2007.
- Rode on a plane for the first time in 12 years. I found this was much more involved when you have to plan the flights yourself. Last time I was in high school.
- Used a taxi for the first time. Yes I know this is a bit strange but keep in mind I grew up in a town with the population of around 650 people. :)
- Rode on a train for the first time. The TriMet MAX public transportation system in Portland Oregon was great since the airport, my hotel, and the Oregon Convention Center (where RailsConf 2007 was held) were all on it. Madison Wisconsin has a lack of rail transport.
- Attended my first Rails conference. The conference had lots of useful information and all of the key people from the Rails community were present. I thought it was put together really well.
- On the last night of the conference my friends and I went to a nice restaurant down town for dinner. Besides being one of the nicer restaurants I’ve been to, it had the best King Crab Legs and Steak I’ve ever had.
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