Running Notes

Category IamLUG
You can read most of my IamLUG wrap up here in the LotusUserGroup.org Dev Tips Newsletter.

One big thing I neglected to mention was the Nerd Girls session that we had. The session included the announcement of our shop, on Zazzle.com, which can be found HERE. Please check it out. Proceeds will go towards funding future Nerd Girl gatherings! Click on any shirt with the logo you like, and you can pick a different shirt. Mens, Womens and Childrens products available! We'll be adding other logos in the future as well!

If you can't be bothered to read my wrap up, the quick version is that I (once again) thought it was a great conference. Incredibly well run. A great size to keep it cozy and informal. With plenty of time to network, chat with speakers and hang out with other Lotus peeps! I hope you go next year, I know I'll be there!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 2:57 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category IamLUG NerdGirlRun
Whew that was a heck of a cliffhanger, huh? Potential dead hookers, then no update for three weeks.

So, no, there were no dead hookers. At least, not in our room. And yes, Jenna was still there in the morning. Our first mission of the day was to find Starbucks. Of course, the NEXT exit off the highway had about 55 hotels to choose from, but let's not dwell. Clearly we (I) didn't look all that refreshed, the lady at Starbucks gave me an extra shot of espresso. And we were off.

Sadly, Indiana had no welcome sign for our arrival (all other states previously did, well not for us specifically, but for any vehicles on the highway). Ohio even said goodbye, which was nice.

Indiana...Indiana...what can I say? "Stay classy, Indiana". Jess and I stop at the rest area. We head to the restroom, I accidentally cackle loudly upon entering and a woman in a stall ON THE PHONE makes some sort of comment. I promptly turn around, leave the restroom, re enter and say "Wow, what was up with that chick laughing?". Cuz I'm kooky like that. Women on the phone proceeds to complain on her cell that she had her dog and just because there was a sign that said no dogs, that shouldn't apply to her, it wasn't like it was pooping or anything. Sigh. As I said, "Stay classy, Indiana".

Nerd Girl playlist:

INXS rock block
Kid Rock rock block (is that a Kid Rock block?)
"Single Ladies" - Beyonce

And peace out, Indiana. We had a license to Ill-inois.

Jess thought Illinois drivers were very Illinoy-ing.

But we still had some fun...

And then finally, at 1:51 central, 32 hours after we left Rhode Island, we arrived in St. Louis.

And we REALLY needed showers.

And our rooms weren't ready.

And there were already Lotus peeps in front of the hotel.

Taking pictures.

Of us.

Dammit.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 10:09 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (5)

Category IamLUG NerdGirlRun
We last left Thelma and Louise, er, Me and Jess in West Virginia.

West Virginia did not last long. We found ourselved in Ohio. Or rather, the GPS, nicknamed, "Bitch", directed us to Ohio. In any case, we were in Ohio. We knew we were somewhere behind a @the_turtle. We decided it was time to stop for food. This time at the lovely Ruby Tuesday in Somewhere, Ohio. Oddly enough, sitting in the parking lot...the Turtle. We went in for some dinner. And were met with ... ZOMBIES!

Okay, not exactly. We were seated at a lovely table overlooking the gas station, sandwiched between two families with small children. Now, Jess and I both have small children. So we aren't opposed to the little buggers. These were some fine examples. On my left, may I present Zombie child. Approximately two years old, the girl had a pacifier in her mouth the entire meal. She was well behaved and sat coloring for the duration of their visit. Oh yeah, and going "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" the ENTIRE MEAL.

On my right, I present The Extended Family. Seemed like many families had gathered together. Split over a couple of tables. Lots of adults, presumably happy to see eachother and catch up. And Mac n Cheese Boy. He had his dinner all over his hands. How do I know this? Because he repeatedly got up from the table and came over to me and grabbed my shirt. Extended Family didn't seem to notice or care about Mac n Cheese Boy, he was free to roam as he pleased. Extended Family then harrassed the poor waitress wanting their bill split into 65.3 different receipts.

But I digress.

"Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi hit the playlist. In which I attempt to "Baby Take My Hand" and Jess dissed me. She says she was tired. Whatever. Oh speaking of tired. I fell asleep soon thereafter (at least judging by the lack of tweets). Jess was getting tired, so pulled off to the only hotel she could see...

The Econolodge.

Okay, fine by me. I'm laid back. I was asleep. If the driver says she is tired and we need to stop, then we need to stop. It's Econolodge. By the highway. How bad could it be?

Cut to "check in". Here's a travel tip: When registration has bullet proof glass, you MAY not want to stay there. We joked about paying by the hour. Ha ha. Ha. *ahem*.

After paying and receiving our room key, we walked out to the car, to see two "gentlemen" talking to the police. Always a welcome sight. Jess made a remark about finding a dead hooker in our room. At which point, I said, "I'd rather find a dead hooker than get broken into." Thinking a dead hooker is probably a one-off event, as opposed to a break in. The police had left and Jess and I carried every single item out of the car and into our rooms. I think we both secretly feared we would wake up in the morning to find Jenna gone. Touching as little as possible in the room, we went to sleep.

7 states in 15 hours.

Will Jenna be there in the morning? Will we find a dead hooker? Stay tuned for the next installment...

Posted by Kathy Brown At 1:48 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category IamLUG NerdGirlRun
Ahh...Pennsylvania.

The state in which:

Jess yells at the GPS.
We see a billboard for surfing. (WTF?)
I play a song for Jess that has a siren in it, but she thinks it's real. (Oops)
We see these at a rest stop...

And Amish Pr0n. That's right. Amish porn. We even made it a hashtag. #AmishPorn. Now sadly, at that point, we didn't BUY amish porn. But we saw it. At least, we think we did. We were getting a little crazy at that point. I'm surprised we didn't have someone stop us from getting in the car at the rest stop. We must have seemed drunk.

We also seemed to be chasing a Turtle. Yep. @the_turtle was driving to St. Louis, also, and was somewhere ahead of us.

Also at this point, "techs" came into existence. Jess was my window tech when I drove. I couldn't figure out how to roll the damn window down while driving. We thought that was hilarious. Toll Collector Boy didn't seem to see the humor.

Also in Pennsylvania (I warned you), we passed Shartsville. Much humor was to be had.

Then, finally, we were done. Pennsylvania was finished. We entered...West Virginia. ... [insert record scratching noise] West Virginia?! Did that sign say WEST VIRGINIA?! Are we supposed to be in West Virginia?! Thankfully, yes. We were supposed to be in West Virginia. The best we could say about West Virginia was that it wasn't Pennsylvania.

And then, Ohio. Where we caught a turtle. And saw zombie children. And possibly dead hookers. But first, more playlist:

"Hungry Like the Wolf" - Duran Duran
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys

Posted by Kathy Brown At 4:20 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category IamLUG NerdGirlRun
So we left off with impending disaster...

We had just stopped at Starbucks for some coffee. The guy behind the counter perplexed me. I was wearing a shirt that said, "Geek is the new black". He asked me what kind of geek I was. Uh...the geeky kind? Is geek so cool now that we must define our brand of geek only to be shunned by "cool" geeks?

Anyway.

Jess was driving. I was passengering. We were slowly coming awake. I must take a moment and describe our ride. Many of you may know of Jenna. Jenna is Jess' car. A totally cool MINI that Jess has seriously pimped out for autocross. Now one of the pimp-ations was tires. Jenna has got some bounce. And wouldn't you know it, just before I took a sip of my MEDIUM (suck it Starbucks!) HOT coffee, we hit a bump. A bump that somehow popped the lid off of my scalding hot coffee and caused it to erupt all over me, my seat, the floor and my purse. DISASTER! Hence forth known as the "Coffee Incident of 2010". Sadly, this happened not once, but twice.

We quickly drove through Connecticut, New York ("trailer!") and New Jersey. Just before the Pennsylvania, we switched drivers! A practice drive for me from a McDonalds to a Starbucks and we were on our way. Just in time for Pennsylvania traffic. And Pennsylvania road signs, "Be Alert Heavy Truck Traffic". How about some punctuation, PA? I think the road was getting to us. A few hours sleep, four plus hours of driving and we found road signs to be hysterical.

We stopped for lunch at the oh-so-lovely-but-ubiquitous Cracker Barrel. Where I was "sooooo hungry. Had to restrain myself from knocking an old woman out of my way". And Jess was so hungry she forgot to use the NerdGirlRun hashtag!

The Nerd Girl Run playlist was born:

"Shut Up and Drive" - Rihanna
"The Road" - Tenacious D
"Every Woman in the World" - Air Supply (cuz that's how I roll)
"Truly" - Lionel Ritchie (which Jess didn't know. sigh.)
"What's Your Fantasy?" - Ludacris
"Love Song" - Sara Bareilles
"Something About You" - Level 42

Coming up in part 3 - Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, more Pennsylvania and AMISH PR0N!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:32 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (6)

Category IamLUG NerdGirlRun
It's been a week and I'm a little late blogging an IamLUG write-up, but what the heck. Conferences in general seem to mean more to many of us than just conferences, and IamLUG was no exception. So please forgive me if this post is more than just reporting on a conference. (And really, if you read this blog, you aren't here looking for journalism or news anyway).

So, somehow, Jess Stratton, aka @mattandjess, now aka @NerdGirlJess on Twitter, asked me if I wanted to drive down to St. Louis for IamLUG. For now unknown reasons, I agreed. Oddly enough, I didn't once look at what route we would take, or how long it would take, I just said yes. As time got nearer, Jess and I did briefly chat.

Me: "How long will it take?"
Jess: "Let me check. Google says about 20 hours. So we'll do it in 2 days"
Me: "Okay."

Later logistics included deciding who would bring snacks versus beverages. We decided the week before that I would drive to Jess' house in Rhode Island on Friday. We would drive from Rhode Island as far as we could on Saturday, crash in a hotel somewhere and then drive the rest on Sunday. That's as detailed as the plan got.

And so, following the plan, I arrived at Jess' house Friday night. Late. Did I mention it was late? I think was 3AM or something crazy when we finally went to bed. And we got up at 5:00 AM. Yes, you read that right, 5:00 AM. So I could run. I ran. A single mile, in the dark. According to the tweets. Oh. Did I mention we tweeted this? We used the hashtag #NerdGirlRun (Nerd Girls do Cannonball Run or something like that). At 6:32 AM, we tweeted the beginning of #NerdGirlRun.

We exuberantly hopped in the car. And promptly drove straight to Starbucks. But hey, it was in Connecticut, so we felt accomplished. We snapped this pic, and took off...only to have disaster strike...

Posted by Kathy Brown At 12:19 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Lotus Notes IamLUG
It's official, the Nerd Girls have a session at IamLUG.

Come meet other Nerd Girls for some lively conversation! Not a Nerd Girl already? We'll share Twitter IDs, Skype names, and introduce you to our Linked In group and Twitter list.

It is during the second half of lunch on Monday. We've done panel discussions and BOFs in the past at other conferences, we'd like this to be more interactive. Let's meet, mingle and connect.

AND, we will have a big Nerd Girl announcement to make, so make sure to be there!

As with all of the Nerd Girl events, men are welcome!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:19 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Running IamLUG
If you think you might want to run with others at IamLUG, then follow @RunningNotes on Twitter. Direct Messages sent to that account will go out to all followers, so everyone can coordinate a time to run.

It was hot and humid last year, but we still had a nice time running around the arch and chatting.

If you haven't registered for IamLUG yet, get moving! I think there are still a few slots left, but I doubt there will be for long.

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 2:14 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category Development IamLUG
Most of the sessions are up on the IamLUG site here. As you can see, Tom "Duffbert" Duff and I will be speaking together once again.

Developer Tips EVERY Dev Should Know

Ever wish you had a list of all the top mistakes to avoid when developing for Domino? What about all the tips you need to know to create successful applications? Join Tom and Kathy as they show what EVERY Domino developer needs to know. They’ll explain what you need to know and why you need to know it. They’ll also share how they learned some of these tips the hard way, so you don’t have to!

This is a "repeat" of our session from Lotusphere, but we've changed it up a bit and added new jokes. If you're following our @NotesDevTips account, you'll no doubt see some familiar tips. But the best part is we'll cover more than can be conveyed in 140 characters!

As you can see here, I had a blast last year at IamLUG. It was great fun and I learned a lot. And did I mention that the conference is FREE?!

Hope to see you there!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 11:09 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Lotus Notes Running IAMLUG
Yesterday was the final day of the IamLUG conference. I attended several sessions, Eileen Fitzgerald and Jamie Magees's "Obedience for Developers", Matt White's XPages session, Michael Masterson's Plug-in and Sidebar development, Rob Novak's session covering MyDomino. I especially pleased to attend Matt White's session since I had missed it at Lotusphere.

Twitter I really *can't* get away with writing a wrap up about this conference without discussing Twitter. As many of you know, I am an avid Twitter user. And yes, "user" is appropriate in this context, as many tell me I have a problem. I don't see it as a problem at all. Thanks to Twitter, I have gotten to know many people in the Lotus community. This made meeting people and getting to know them that much easier in person. It is highly amusing the number of pictures of IamLUG attendees with mobile devices in hand. And I become the butt of many Twitter jokes. In no less than THREE of the sessions that I attended, the speaker made reference to me and my Twitter addictions. I was even made fun of in Chris Miller's closing.

Regardless, I think it made my experience at the conference that much more fun. For those of you who still hang back and aren't on Twitter, or are on, but don't participate, jump in! CAUTION: Be sure you REALLY are sending a Direct Message if that is your intent. And perhaps after having a beer or two, consider a ban on sending Direct Messages from Twitter. Just sayin'.

Wrap Up

Overall, I think this was a fantastic conference. I have been to Lotusphere twice and (obviously) it is a completely different experience. I believe attendance to IamLUG was near 200 people. That creates a much more casual atmosphere. People really get to know eachother. I never once passed out a business card. Isn't that funny? I think part of this was the casual and close nature of this conference. As I said, I already knew a lot of the people I was meeting face to face from Twitter. Judging from the number of new followers I got this week, I think any new people I met just started following me on Twitter rather than exchanging business cards. Although I think Lotusphere is an integral part of my year, I really recommend attending one of the smaller user conferences such as this one. It's a really fantastic experience. All the benefits of the big conferences, like great speakers and great content, but a more casual and open atmosphere.

HUGE kudos go to the team that organized this! Things really proceeded smoothly and had I not known that this was the first time for this conference, I never would have guessed it. I'm sure more work than we could ever imagine went into this conference behind the scenes, and I THANK YOU ALL.

Run Report

Final day for a run. I was running on empty! I'd had very little sleep, but I knew Paul, Karl and Paul would be waiting for me, so I went. We ran. I won't lie and say it was a good one, but we got it done!

[edited for a typo, I REALLY CAN recommend this conference! Duh. Why I should never write/tweet/email/really do anything when sleep deprived.]

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:17 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (7)

Category Lotus Notes Running IAMLUG
Today was the official first day of the conference. The day kicked off with registration, breakfast and then the Opening General Session. Kevin Cavanaugh spoke, and I am sure what he said is covered in much more and better detail on other people’s blogs. My big take away was the new marketing campaign, “Lotus Knows”. Pretty quickly people were jumping on the hashtag #LotusKnows all over Twitter.

I attended some great sessions throughout the day, John Head’s Integration and Coexistence, Paul Steel from RIM showing development for the Blackberry and Julian Robichaux’s Free Your Data!

My last session of the day was Ed Brill’s session. Again, I am sure a lot of others covered the content a lot better than me, so on to…

The Run Report

This morning the group grew to five people and we didn’t lose anyone. A very very humid run, so an impressive run for all of us, especially since three of the runners come from countries where the humidity is less than it was today, which felt like it was about 10000%.

Running again tomorrow, meet at 7 AM at the fountain if you’re interested! (way to get people to run, hey join us, it's really humid!)

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:30 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Lotus Notes Running IAMLUG
Sunday at IamLUG. After the run described in part 1, I went to the St. Louis Cardinal’s game with several IamLUGers. People met back in the hotel atrium for beverages, dinner at the burger place in the hotel, then we… [this entry was edited for general audiences] (I am joking, just not much happened that is blog-worthy.)

The Run Report

Johnny Noltensmeyer joined me for my run this morning, and much to my surprise, so did Paul Mooney. Despite his protestations that we would have to (and should) leave him behind, Paul managed to keep up.

Anyone else who would like to join us for a run, we’ll meet in front of the fountain at 7AM…

Posted by Kathy Brown At 4:03 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Lotus Notes Running IAMLUG
My worlds collide, a post about Lotus Notes AND running!

I flew to St. Louis yesterday. Got here in a reasonable amount of time. Checked into the hotel. The rooms are terrific, they’re all suites with a living area and a separate bedroom. Met up with some IAMLUG’ers, had a few drinks, and wound up at a rap concert of all places. Apparently they have concerts by the arch during summer. I saw that guy, you know, the one with the two CDs. Unh huh. Him. Right. Sorry, I don’t really follow rap, but I had a fun time, probably due to the excellent company.

I had to call it a day around 10:30 or so. Need to pace myself.

Up this morning and headed out for a run. Taking the advice of the front desk, I headed over towards the arch. A nice little pathway circles around the arch, making for a very nice run. There are some river views, views of the arch of course and just for @AngryJohhny there are some stairs if you’d like to run them! The surrounding park has a nice little pond, and is shaded much of the run.

I always find running in a new place an interesting way to see it. The area near the hotel is a popular spot for bars and clubs and such, so of course running there the next morning includes seeing a lot of people cleaning up a lot of um…messes.

Also watching the crews in the park taking down the equipment from the prior night’s concert.

So, a great start to what I think will be a great conference. (I was told there will be diet Coke available all day.) Looking forward to a lot more people arriving today! And heading out for a Cardinals/Astros game!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 11:33 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category IAMLUG Lotus Conferences
I AM IAMLUG

Cue Ironman (Black Sabbeth, not the movie)

I’m not the only one that sings Ironman when I think of IAMLUG, right? Right? Anyone?

Anywhoo, I am going to IAMLUG in August. Details HERE.

I am really looking forward to it, lots of great sessions, lots of great speakers, and it’s FREE!

If you’re going, don’t forget your running shoes! I heard there are some beautiful routes to run along the river.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:14 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (7)

Category Developer2009 IamLUG
[Originally posted on my prior blog]

(Commence Temper Tantrum) I want to go to Developer/Admin2009! I live 45 minutes away! I went last year and had a great time! Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (End Temper Tantrum)

Okay, I'm okay now. I will just have to live vicariously through everyone's tweets. And sit and wait and be patient and hope details come out for IamLUG really soon, so I can have something to look forward to that is sooner than Lotusphere!

[Comments posted on my prior blog]

Vitor Pereira said...
You should come to UKLUG :)
April 14, 2009 2:21 PM


Kathy said...
I *knew* I forgot something in my temper tantrum!!! I can't go to UKLUG either! Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! I would love love love to go. Visiting Scotland and Ireland are on my list of things to do before I die. That and Italy. Is there an Italy LUG?
April 14, 2009 3:21 PM


Vitor Pereira said...
Yes, there is.
April 14, 2009 4:04 PM

Posted by Kathy Brown At 8:21 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)