Workshop Wrap-Up
Published 19 years, 6 months pastI think that, overall, the workshops went very well indeed. Probably the most frustrating thing was that the hotel lacked net access for the entire time I was there. Oh, they had a network, with drops in the rooms and a first-floor wifi cloud. It’s just that the network was completely broken for the entire five days, save a two-hour window in the middle of one of the days.
But that annoyance aside, everything else was great. The attendees asked a lot of interesting questions and soaked up the firehose of information I was blasting their way. There was some good (and good-natured) give-and-take on the subject of tables versus CSS for layout, with plenty of examples of where each approach might be better or worse than others. And hey, I wore a tie! Both days! Ryan has the picture to prove it!
He also has the British spelling of “favorite” to prove that he’s been away from Colorado for too long.
Anyway, I’d like to send a huge thank you to everyone who attended for making it a great experience. I had fun, and I think you did too. Now for two bits of trivia about the attendees:
The quiet, bearded man who sat house right in the third or fourth row on Saturday was none other than Michaël Guitton, a significant and early contributor to S5, the slide show system I used to present the morning notes. I didn’t find this out until the end of the day, or else I’d have made him stand to take a bow. (Which might be why he waited until the end of the day to introduce himself.)
He was also the only person at lunch to order the salmon, although I came very close to doing so myself.
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On Friday, as a number of us headed up the street for social hour, one of the attendees mentioned he’d been in Cleveland and Columbus many years ago. I asked what had brought him there, and he said he’d been touring with a band.
“Oh, really?” said I. “That’s cool. Um, any chance it’s a band I might have heard of?”
“The Jesus and Mary Chain”, he said.
“WHAT?!?!?”
I had to ask him three times if he was having me on. Turns out he wasn’t: I was talking to Dave Evans, who was their guitarist in the late 80s. Seriously. I could not make this up even if I tried. I really had a former member of the Jesus and Mary Chain in my CSS workshop.
That’s so far beyond incredible that I can’t even describe where it ends up.
Comments (6)
Glad the workshop went so swimmingly for you as well. Any updates on whether they will release the workshop CD for public consumption? That would indeed be way cool to meet someone like that. Just goes to show you that you never know who is going to be interested in what these days.
Also, I have to give you credit though, doing the live redesign on their own page was a stroke of genius! I’ll bet that’s where everyone got the most from the whole thing. I saw Doug Bowman in Seattle do that to the Microsoft Homepage last year but then at that time he went so fast short of videotape there was no way to keep up as I couldn’t take notes fast enough..
But glad you had a good time.. and oh by the way… Nice tie…
I’d just like to say thank you for a very interesting and informative course. I must say, I particulaly enjoyed the "deconstruction" of the carsonworkshops site (sorry Ryan, but it was crying out for being ripped to shreds).
I hope to be able to come to more of these in the future, assuming you do some more that is, and also if my company are prepared to cop the cost…(you know how it is)
Thanks
Isn’t this specifically mentioned as a sign of apocalypse?
I was at the friday workshop and just had to say I enjoyed it thoroughly….but one question, ok 2
1. Where was the JMC guy sitting?
2. Where is that catscan site you mentioned, I’ve been looking for it everywhere, please help Eric
1. I don’t remember his seat position exactly, but I think it was on the aisle, house left, about halfway back.
2. The original is long gone, but here’s a substitute: http://www.tinted.com/aimless/cats2.html
I have to give you credit though, doing the live redesign on their own page was a stroke of genius! I”ll bet that”s where everyone got the most from the whole thing. I saw Doug Bowman in Seattle do that to the Microsoft Homepage last year but then at that time he went so fast short of videotape there was no way to keep up as I couldn”t take notes fast enough..