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Video in Barcelona's "Feste de la Merce" at Drupalcon 2007

Posted Mon, 2007-09-24 11:20 by matthew

I captured and edited the following video that covers part of the "Feste de la Merce" the evening of the last day of Drupalcon 2007. The drumming is fun and quite cool, but the fireworks are crazy!

Fireworks DIGG THIS


Drupalcon Day 4

Posted Sun, 2007-09-23 06:07 by matthew

I can't sleep, so I thought I would sit down and write my thoughts about day 4 of the convention.
Yesterday was the last day of the conference.  The first session consisted of Dries giving a talk on the state of Drupal.  As Kevin, Rad, Greg, and I figured it would be a popular session we skipped sitting down for breakfast favouring heading to the Citilab to scope out seats.  We arrived early and shortly after we settled down the rain came heavy and soaking.
Dries session was very interesting.  It was based on a survey that he put up a month earlier.  He had over 1000 respondents, which seems pretty darn good to me.  I will cover the highlights of that presentation in another post on my overall thoughts of Drupal and the Drupal community.

Drupalcon Day 3

Posted Sat, 2007-09-22 15:15 by matthew

On the third day of Drupalcon I attended quite a few interesting sessions. 
The first session was entitled "What Makes Websites Work? Bringing Information Architecture into the Drupal Development Process." What was nice about this session was its validation of pingVision's process of Drupal development.  The pingVision team has embraced the user-centric methodology and integrated an Agile system of project management into the process.  Basically this means that a client's project is broken up into user stories, descriptions of how the user interacts with the system, which are further broken down into tasks.  These stories enter into an iterative cycle.  Breaking a project down into small chunks allows for easy digestion of large systems and provides a pretty accurate assessment of resources have been consumed and how far the project has proceeded.

Drupalcon Day 2

Posted Fri, 2007-09-21 06:14 by matthew

The second day of Drupalcon was terrific.  Kevin, Rad, and I started out by going for breakfast at a counter that had pretty much no English skills.  That, by the way, I have found interesting.  English is not spoken very much at all in Spain.  It has given me the desire to go home and learn the language.  Perhaps it is an exercise for me and my daughter to do together.  It was a curious experience at this little restaurant.  Rad asked if they had breakfast to which he was asked, "Do you want a sandwich?"  "No, do you have breakfast on plates?"  This was greeted with a reluctantness.  Finally the lady running the counter told us that we would have "Huevos et Bacon."  I've never been told at a restaurant exactly what it was I going to eat before.

The Trek Begins-Drupalcon Barcelona

Posted Mon, 2007-09-17 14:19 by matthew

I'm sitting at the Denver International Airport eating a burger and using the tiny keyboard on my treo to thumb out this post.

This morning I got up and took my kid to her school. My wife noticed that the dog had pulled his stiches out. I thought....uh oh....gonna be one of those days.

Actually the morning was pretty good. I knocked out a little bit of work and then headed to the airport.

Security was pretty light, although I only have boarding passes through Frankfurt. I guess Lufthansa can't issue a ticket from Dulles to Frankfurt in Denver. Go figure.

I just grabbed a burger at the Colorada Sports Bar-the service has been on the light side-and the burger is just passable.

The Great Euro Hunt

Posted Sat, 2007-09-15 16:18 by matthew

The Great Euro Hunt.

  • I got up this morning and prepared for the day--shower, shave (just the cheeks and neck), dressed
  • Grabbed Quinn, who had surgery on his two back paws a few days ago
  • Got in the car and drove from Westminster to Boulder to Quinn's Vet who checked his paws
  • Drove home
  • Drove to the credit union to deposit money and get cash out for Barcelona
  • Went to Wells Fargo because they wouldn't answer the phone and found out that there are only two Wells Fargos in Metro Denver that sell euros--one in Denver and on in Boulder. The one in Denver was closed and the one in Boulder was not answering its phone.
  • Back to Boulder to go to the bank and found out that they don't sell euros on Saturday. The only place I'll be able to score them is at Denver International Airport.
  • I drove home and had some lunch
  • I drove to DIA and scored some Euros
  • I drove back home

Sum total today--over 120 miles.