Tomorrow I'm boarding a flight to go from Washington, DC to Chicago, IL to experience another Pycon. Pycon is the big Python Conference here in the USA.

You can thank the NASA Science Mission Directorate and Indyne Incorporated for sending me to Pycon 2009. I would like to toss out a hearty thank you to the following people for helping me get to this conference:

• Ruth Netting
  
• Jim Consalvi
  
• Corin Turner
• Kathryn Luke
• Malik Abdul Mahmad
• Candace Solomon
• Meredith Mengel
• Vicky Niblett

You can thank these people in person at Pycon:

• Katie Cunningham
• James Saint-Rossy
• Chris Shenton

I can't wait to meet old friends and make new ones. To again gawk at the feet of Guido van Rossum and other luminaries like a gushing schoolgirl over a boy band (All with the proper decorum of course).

While I'm there I guess I need to sheepishly admit to Bruce Eckels an apology. My idea was off. Lets just say that Pycon needs to keep corporate endorsements in the vendor area. It doesn't need help anywhere else. ;)

I am taking a whopping four tutorials, then attending the full conference, then working hard through four days of sprinting. I had thought of volunteering to help with a session or two but backed off since I am not paying my own way there. Instead I will stay focused on the task at hand, which is learning, networking, and contribution to various projects that NASA SMD is interested in supporting.

Look me up if you are there. I'll be playing with the other Python, Django, Plone, Pinax, and Zope kids.

My conference schedule:
webcal://us.pycon.org/2009/conference/schedule/ical/1c68d36a70bd61ea4d0de3a5d5d7e9b8g104/

For those of you who sent me resumes, you are not forgotten! We had hoped to get formal responses to everyone by Pycon but that was not in the cards. Feel free to chat if we bump into each other.

10th Wedding Anniversary

I got back late on Wednesday, real late. Work on Thursday was mostly meetings. Then I found myself in the gym being really tired and out of shape. Fortunately, for me being out of shape is only being able to go for 3 hours instead of the normal 5.

So Friday was our wedding anniversary. We are saving up for a nice vacation so didn't do anything too fancy. Bikes got fixed, and some time was spent cycling. The evening was a steak dinner that was really nice.

Saturday was sleeping in and doing family stuff at home. The evening was a celebration of sorts with friends that went really well.

Sunday we went to Frederick, Maryland. We means myself, Jen, and the kid. Plus one of my martial arts students who is as old as the kid (both 16). What we did was visit my best friend who now teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu. We did that for hours and it was a nice switch. Back in the day we did some ground fighting but not as focused as this. I'm happy to say that I didn't find it that tiring, although I had to stop because my knees are pretty torn up from the mat. Next time I'll wear gi pants. The important thing is that my son loved doing this, and wants to go again and again. Since its been so hard to get him to do anything beyond play video games, this is an awesome development.

Evening was more family time.

Yeah, it was pretty sedate. Working on cooking up something that is a bit more fun.

Flickr woe

I've uploaded lots of pictures but Flickr is unhappy with me. You see, I need to upgrade to $2/month to be able to show more than 200 pictures. Does anyone care enough for me to display my Chicago trip pictures? Comment if you care.

Finally, good food!

Ate at a place a mile's walk from the conference center. It served Chicago stle pizza, complete with cornbread dusted place. It was packed full of Chicago folks and when we got served we found why.

Good sauce on top, decent quality cheese, and the crust just plain tasted right. On the veggie pizza I ate around the onions since those had over-cooked. But the brocolli was perfect. The sausage/spinach pizza had the normal sort of bland pepperoni but the sausage was real good.

It ended up being about $15 a person, roughly comparable to a pizza meal in Naples, Italy.

They also offered Pizza Beer there, flavored with basil and other things, but none of us had the nerve to try it.

The food of Pycon 2008

Quoting Jon Prescott-Roy:

I was not expecting much in regards to the hotel fare, and I was disappointed.

First day of Pycon 2008 - The Tutorials!

Today I woke up, grabbed a nice, hot shower, then made my way to Pycon 2008 registration in the Crown Plaza Hotel, which is behind the DoubleTree.

Registration took 3 minutes. I grabbed a bite to eat and became friends with a married couple, pythonista Joanna and her husband, a java developer named John whose second job is that of an author (and of the same sort of stuff as my loving wife).

Right before my tutorial started I stumbled into my co-worker Chris. We chatted for 30 seconds and then joined our respective groups.

One thing to note, Internet access in the conference is really shakey.

Alas, I only had two tutorials today, with a 5 hour break between them. Fortunately John, the java guy had nothing to do today so we made our way into downtown Chicago. Which was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of pictures, and will get them on-line tomorrow along with a report as to all the fun we had in just a few hours. I'll post about our adventure next.

I got back, ate pizza-shaped food in the hotel, proving yet again that hotel food in the US sucks, then joined the second tutorial.

Tutorial Report: Numpy

My first day in Chicago

So getting from National Airport next to Washington, DC to the DoubleTree Hotel was an exercise in patience. I won't go into the details but lets just say I arrived about 4 hours later than planned. I couldn't find my co-workers, felt mopey, so spent the small amount of daylight in my room.

Part of it was that when I finally landed in Chicago I didn't feel like I had actually gone anywhere. The hotel park around O'Hare airport is a lot like the hotel parks around Dullas, but without as many trees. Unlike Naples there was a total lack of soul. Chicago depressed me.

After several hours I made my way downstairs looking for food. The hotel has two restaurants. The more prominent one was Gibsons Steakhouse, but it was packed with a 30 minute waiting list and no available menu to peruse. The other was a quiet place with a menu, albeit overpriced. I choose the latter. I didn't expect much, figuring that this way I wouldn't be disappointed.

Nevertheless, I managed to be disappointed.

I went to the sundry store, bought a few necessities, and found sleep waiting.

Another hour of waiting for my flight

Lots of delays going on. My flight hasn't even shown up yet and I'm on standby for other flights as they come.

And I had wanted to be able to look around Chicago today.

On my way to Chicago and Pycon 2008!

After getting through a ditzy United Airlines counter attendant, then literally racing through security, I'm next to Gate 31, my journey to Pycon 2008. I got here about 100 minutes early, which was good because we had a minor work emergency. After struggling with T-Mobile to connect to the Internet, I got on and addressed the issue.

I'll be posting here for the duration, and also on my technical blog. I'll be taking photos, but being stuck next to Chicago O'Hare airport in a Hotel Park, I'm not sure how many will be worth looking at.

I do plan to sample Chicago Pizza and also visit a few museums. The Museum of Science and Industry looks fascinating, and there are a few art things I want to try out as well. The Museum of Natural History has the best T-Rex around so I plan to stop by there as well.

I would like to thank Sharron Sample, who made this all possible. She had the vision to try new things and reach high in the quest to make the NASA presence in the world just that much better. She is trusting myself and the others of my team to deliver the goods, and carry her good name forward.

2 days until

Am I excited about Pycon 2008? Heck yeah!

Do I care about being in Chicago? Erm. Not really. I've never been but I don't like it when its cold and windy. And I doubt staying in a hotel park next to the airport is conducive to doing anything noteworthy in a city. Naples was filthy, but historical. The food was all really good. We walked a lot. Drank cheap but incredible table wine. Sampled pizza and pasta at places in gastronomical history.

Someone give me something fun to do or a good place to eat in Chicago.

Please.

Pycon/Chicago ho!

All things are prepaid or reserved now. I have to pack and make sure I've got my shifts at the gym covered. And maybe ask people for advice on what to do with my little bit of free time there.

I'm wondering if my hotel, the DoubleTree near O'Hare airport has a laundry facility. That would make life so very much easier.

Pycon

• Got my plane tickets purchased.

• Hotel reservations complete. I'll be at a DoubleTree Inn. I wonder if they have laundry I can use?

• Conference registration delayed. Can't pay cause no option to pay is listed! Submitted a ticket but have yet to receive a response!

Pycon

I'm going to Pycon 2008! Hooray! Chicago here I come!

More as things develop.