Me!
A recap of my 2010. Here's hoping that 2011 is just as productive!
Conferences
Codemash - Organizer
Day of .NET in Ann Arbor - Organizer
User Groups
Northwest Ohio .NET User Group
Training
Azure Boot Camp - Learner (Nashville)
Azure Boot Camp - Trainer (Cleveland)
Azure Boot Camp - Trainer (Southfield)
Community Events
Give Camp - Team Leader (Ann Arbor)
Give Camp - Participant (Lansing)
Speaking Engagements
CodeMash (Looting Design Ideas from WoW)
West Michigan...
This morning, I came across this news article about some patents that Bill Gates filed to stop hurricanes.
Sure, I never patented the idea or did any work to further elaborate on it, but I did blog about the same concept in 2005!
http://jasonf-blog.blogspot.com/2005/09/preventing-hurricanes.html
Bill, you can buy me a Diet Pepsi the next time that you see me...
Those of you who visit my blog's website will notice a new type of ad in the sidebar, replacing the AdSense skyscraper that was there previously. I'm proud to be associated with the list of other .NET developers who are all part of The Lounge's .NET Small Publishers Room.
On June 5th, I'll be in Columbus (Ohio) speaking to the Microsoft SQL Server User Group (Result Data) about using the XML data type in SQL Server.
XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008
Jason Follas, Microsoft MVP for SQL Server, will lead a discussion on the XML capabilities of SQL Server 2008. XML-based data is very prevalent in today's data world to the point that every database developer should know how to work with XML. Middle-tier translation of XML into relational data may be inflexible, and often leads to a loss of fidelity over time. One solution is to move the XML...
My surname is relatively unique, and in all my life, I have never known of another "Jason Follas". Well, that changed today when I got a vanity alert from Google that "Jason Follas is on Facebook".
I am on Facebook, but it seems that there's another from the New Zealand clan of Follases (there's quite a few of "us" down under)! I'm going to befriend him for the novelty aspect. :-)
There are a few events taking place in October that I would like to promote:
Day of .NET in Ann Arbor
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The fourth Day of .NET in Ann Arbor event will take place on the campus of Washenaw Community College in Ann Arbor (or is it actually Ypsilanti? I can never tell). The original conference was a collaboration between GANG, AADND, and NWNUG. This year, we have officially added GLUG.net and West Michigan to the list of groups who are assisting in the organization and promotion. So, for those of you following along at home, this event is the product...
Last week, I travelled to Philadelphia to work out of my company's office in Exton for a week. Before leaving, I took my youngest daughter for a hike in the park, which was a two-fold treat for her: she got to spend time with Daddy, and as an extra bonus, she got to ride in Daddy's truck. Being a two-seater, it is not often used unless I'm spending some 1-on-1 time with one of the kids.
After returning from out hike, I parked it on the street in front of the house. It looked something like this picture that I took...
This meme is brought to you by Michael Eaton, who just so happens to be a huge fan of my spatial talks. ;-)
How old were you when you started programming?
Well, we might need to better define "programming" here.
I started tinkering with computers when I was about 6 or 7 (is that right, Dad?). In those days, it was more about reading a book about BASIC and typing in the program to run. Then I would make changes to the program to see the results. If modifying an existing program is considered "programming", then this is my epoch.
I really didn't start creating...
Today is Dustin Campbell's last day as a resident of Ohio. As announced last month, he has left DevExpress and joined the Blue Monster where he'll surely be doing great things as a Program Manager on the Visual Studio team.
So, tomorrow morning, his family will embark on a one-way trip to Seattle and take up residence there. I cannot imagine the whirlwind of emotion that they must be experiencing at the moment! And, I can't imagine that his wife is doing all of this without ever having been to Seattle!
Over the past couple of years, Dustin has become one of my best...
I was originally scheduled to present tomorrow (along with Greg Huber) at the Findlay Area .NET User Group. However, due to a cascading series of events, Greg and I will not be speaking in Findlay tomorrow.
Instead, Dustin Campbell will be giving his fantastic Functional C# talk to the folks in his hometown. This presentation was originally scheduled for February, but bad weather on that date forced its cancellation.
I'm very happy that Dustin was able to jump in and offer to do his presentation on such short notice. Since there was no NWNUG meeting this month, perhaps a few of our...
This past Friday, I ended my 20+ year dependency on wearing glasses to see. And while there's a lot of healing that remains as I write this, my vision is already better than with my old glasses.
Find a Facility and Get Evaluated
I started my adventure by selecting a LASIK center near me. I was not necessarily interested in the lowest cost provider, but since I was using my Flexible Spending Account to pay for the procedure, I had a hard limit as to what I could afford. The doctor that owns this particular business is from the Cleveland area, and...
As I was cleaning my glasses this morning, I felt the lens suddenly come away from the frames. My immediate thought was that the screw popped out, which has happened before. However, upon examination, the screw was intact, but the frame itself broke near the nose.
NOOOOOOO!
I scrambled to find any type of superglue that we had in the house, and managed to locate a bottle of acrylic nail glue. It was futile to try to glue just the broken part, so I put a small bead of glue all around the plastic lens itself, and then assembled the lens into...