Ancient City Ruby 2014 Day One

The actual conference was split across two days, and followed the single-track format.  This was unlike my experience at Ruby Conf 2013 - Miami, which was multiple topics going on concurrently.  For the first day, the following speakers were lined up:  Leon Gersing, Justin Searls, David Copeland, Katrina Owen, Richard Schneeman, and Ben Lovell.  Of all those speakers, I only had ever heard of three, and as it so happened, met each one of them: Justin Searls, Katrina Owen and Ben Lovell.

In a quick summary of the day, I wrote the most notes from the talk by Leon, learned the most from Katrina's talk and laughed my ass off, and learned some stuff, from Ben's talk. Justin talk also had my interest and I had jotted down some notes from his presentation.

I really liked Leon's talk as to me it was not directly programming/developer related, but more so a spiritual and inspirational discussion.  I don't know if it was planned this way, but I believe it was perfectly executed as the first talk of the day - really set a good mood and environment.  Something that Leon said really moved me.  He said: "Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all simulations of relationships."  I thought that was very powerful.

Before I continue, I just want to say that I enjoyed all of the talks from the speakers on this day.  But given my current skill level with Ruby and as a programmer, some of the talks were more moving and relevant to me.  I'm sure others had similar, but different results.

Three speakers in, some brief talks by some sponsors as well as lightening talks, and it was time for lunch.  I really enjoyed the lunch that was provided at the hotel for the conference.  Not only was the meal yummy, but the deserts were great as well.

On a nice full stomach, with a big smile on my face, it was time for Katrina's talk.  I really enjoy her presentation style and I feel that the delivery was at a level that I was able to absorb.  Katrina took us through a refactoring session for "Bob."  Frightenly, some of that code looked familiar :)  If you get a chance, you can check out her prentation at: [Overkill]

Being the last speaker on a given day is a tough task.  People tend to start getting tired.  Leave it to Ben to fire up the crowd.  He had all of us rolling with laughter from his opening remarks to his closing arguments.  And along the way we learned a bit about testing APIs.  Watch out for those "f#$@ing sharks!"

Day one didn't actually end after Ben's talk.  That evening some of the conference attendees went on the Ghost Ride, while the rest of us got to do the Pirate Ship adventure.  Even though I live in Jacksonville, which isn't too far from St. Augustine, I had not ever been on the Pirate Ship.  It was a lot of fun.  I just wish that I had my heavier hoodie and it got a bit cold on the water.  On the ship I got to meet a few other people from Hash Rocket, including Paul Elliott.  I had heard Paul's voice on several episodes of the Ruby5 podcast, and it was nice to meet him in person.

All-in-all, day one was a big hit for me.  Oh, I almost forgot!  At the beginning of the day, before the first talk started, I got to meet and shake hands with Aaron Patterson.  Yeah, you could say I'm a fanboi of his.

Learn Something New Every Day

Last Edited by: John on December 29, 2015