I've always loved BBQ - by far my favorite type of food. I've followed a Twitter account called AZBarbeque casually for awhile, and noticed yesterday that they were putting on a 4-hour training course to become a certified judge for the Barbeque Championship Series. I was free and looking for something to do anyway, so I signed up.
It was a great time. About an hour of discussions about rules and procedures, followed by a couple hours of eating. We went through chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket, as a simulated competition. In each round, we discussed how and why we ranked the items, talking about what types of things merit low or high scores.
So I'm now a certified judge, and while I don't know if I'll have the time to do this on a regular basis, it's definitely something I'd be interested in participating in once in a while.
Date: 2011-10-17 20:33:39
Name:
Flo M (via Facebook)
Joe i just helped one of my clients open up a BBQ smokehouse joint, its called rics smokehouse BBQ & Grill, Up by my work Happy Valley & 22nd ave..There is also another one called Pork On a Fork. They are pretty good. you can judge that!!
Tonight "Weird Al" Yankovic was in concert at the Celebrity Theatre. I got my tickets immediately when they went on sale last month, and got seats in the 2nd row right next to the artist ramp - some of the best seats in the house.
It was an excellent show. He performed a huge selection of songs, some new ones and a lot of old favorites. Several of the songs were grouped together in a single medley, only about one verse each, to squeeze more into the show. I might be missing one or two, but here's what I remember:
Polka Face Dare to be Stupid Eat It Confessions Part 3 White & Nerdy Beverly Hillbillies Another One Rides the Bus CNR You Make Me Gump Smells Like Nirvana Amish Paradise Bedrock Anthem Canadian Idiot Craigslist eBay Good Old Days Let Me Be Your Hog Ode to a Superhero Trapped in the Drive Thru Wanna B Ur Lovr Skipper Dan I'm In Love With The Skipper Fat
Encore: The Saga Begins We All Have Cell Phones Yoda
There were quite a few short breaks for wardrobe change, so they filled the time with various videos - lots of quick clips from TV shows and movies, a few fake-dubbed old videos, and a few fake celebrity interviews. Plenty of entertainment during the down time.
He's definitely a spitter - spittle was flying from his mouth the entire show, often into the first row.
I got some pictures, but flash photography was not allowed, he was constantly moving and shaking, and combined with the fact that I can't take a decent picture to save my life, the pictures aren't all that great. They'll be up shortly on Facebook, or they're available at http://jturl.us/weirdalpix.
Overall, an awesome show. Full of energy, lots of funny stuff, and the crowd really got into it.
Today was the newest Desert Code Camp here in Phoenix. This was the second time I've attended - the last camp was back in June, and was a lot of fun. This time around was also a big success. I attended nine sessions, and my reactions are below.
More Advanced Debugging with Visual Studio This session, led by Michael Collins, introduced some Visual Studio debugging techniques that may aid in debugging applications, both in development and production. The techniques I was most interested in were DebuggerDisplayAttribute and DebuggerVisualizationAttribute - these two attributes allow you to more easily visualize objects in the debugger windows.
Objective-C for Java and .NET Developers Objective C has been around for a long time, but I've never taken the time to learn anything about it. All I knew was that it was the language typically used for Macintosh and iPhone applications. This session, also led by Michael Collins, obviously couldn't teach a language in just an hour, but it did introduce some of the basics about Objective C and its syntax and basic use. Looks like a reasonable language that wouldn't be too difficult to learn, but I was suprised at how much it didn't look like C (or C++ or C#). I doubt I'll do any Objective C programming myself anytime in the near future, but I think it was worthwhile to see it in action, even if it was just for an hour.
CSS3: Behind the Website At the last code camp, I attended Saul Mora's session, subtitled "CSS Sucks", where he discussed a lot of interesting things about CSS. Today was like a continuation, called "CSS Sucks Less", where Saul introduced some new parts of CSS 3 that are currently in the works, but not yet fully implemented in all browsers. The most exciting features I saw were the ability to render objects in 3-D and animate them, using only CSS and little if any javascript. Combined with HTML5, these new design techniques may soon take the spotlight from Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, two web technologies I'd love to see die.
Creating Your First Proof of Concept in Expression Sketch Flow Visual design has always been my biggest weakness. I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't think that will ever change. However, there wasn't anything else in this time slot that interested me, so I figured I'd check it out. Joel Neubeck ran this session, and it was very interesting. It was a short session (30 minutes), so there wasn't a lot he could show, but he did make it through a demo of the Sketch Flow concept, showing how you can quickly put together a "sketch" of your application GUI, and give it enough functionality for a quick demo or proof of concept, while being robust enough to be an actual start to the real project. I doubt I'll ever use Expression or similar products, but I'm glad I got the chance to check out the demo.
Javascript: The Untold Story Saul Mora also led this session, which focused on some of the intermediate topics of javascript, such as prototypes and closure. It was interesting to see other developers' opinions and questions on this language.
Beginning iPhone Development This was a fast-paced demonstration of how to build an iPhone application from scratch, using Xcode with Objective C. The techniques are significantly different from what I'm used to with Visual Studio - it seems more complex than necessary, but since iPhone apps are so incredibly popular these days, it must not really be that bad once you really get into it.
Learning Web Security with Web Goat WebGoat was brand new to me - I've never spent much time on web security, other than ensuring my applications are designed properly to protect against SQL injection, XSS attacks, etc. As the speaker, Andrew Wilson, demonstrated, WebGoat is a great tool for learning about all kinds of potential vulnerabilities inherent in web applications. I'd be interested in learning more about this, as well as related applications like WebScarab.
Intro to jQuery This was the topic I was most looking forward to - I've been wanting to learn about jQuery for a long time, but just never got around to it. This session was led by Remi, who demonstrated how simple it is to incorporate into a web application and get started. It's an exciting technology, providing the ability to manipulate the DOM, modify styles, and fire off AJAX, much simpler than using straight-up javascript. I'm looking forward to continuing learning about it and incorporating it into my own projects.
Intro to Azure The last session of the day was about cloud computing with Windows Azure, Microsoft's version of cloud computing. Andrew Wilson also presented this session, and provided a good explanation of the concepts, advantages, and disadvantages of this new technology. Azure will probably play a huge role in technology over the next several years, so this is something I'm going to have to keep an eye on.
Of the nine sessions, the two that I got the most out of were Saul Mora's CSS3 presentation and Remi's jQuery sesssion. All of the sessions were interesting and educational, but I think these two technologies will most directly affect me in the short-term.
I'd like to thank Joseph Guadagno for putting this together, as well as all of the presenters and others involved in making this a success. I had a great time and look forward to the next one.
Hi! Thanks for the write up! The tough part about presenting is missing other super awesome sessions. I'm glad you got something out of my talks today. It was a good time, even if I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day...
Date: 2009-11-08 01:00:00
Name:
Christopher R (via Facebook)
jQuery makes client-side scripting fun and worth your while. And if you're really motivated, jQuery makes it much easier to make your pages dynamic without resorting to Update Panels. I can't imagine writing JavaScript without it.
Why do you want to see Flash and Silverlight die? What better solution exists for lightweight client-side applications that are easy to deploy and cross-platform?
Date: 2009-11-08 02:00:00
Name:
Florencio M (via Facebook)
I wished i would have continued to code after ASU, the stuff you talk about sounds real interesting. Was the camp expensive?
Chris: My biggest beef with Silverlight right now is that it doesn't work for any OS other than Windows or Mac (there's Moonlight for Linux, but it really doesn't work). In my opinion, the web is the web is the web, regardless of what browser, OS, or hardware you're using.
Adobe is just plain evil - their stuff is bloated, not open, and not free. A big chunk of the evilness is in the implementation, so some of the problems like un-searchengine-friendly content, ludicrous ads, or badly-implemented video are developers' fault, not necessarily Adobe, but still, with HTML5, CSS3, and javascript working together, maybe we can start to see more consistency, and transparency in development.
But of course this is the real world, so I'm sure it will still get worse before it gets any better.
Florencio: It's kind of a fun career path - and it's not too late to get back into it if you want - there are plenty of free tutorials, free APIs and SDKs, and networking opportunities to get back into it - shouldn't take more than a couple years if you really wanted to.
Code camp is totally free. They're very developer-friendly - some of their core values are that they only hold them on weekends, it's always free, including food, and it's always by the community, for the community, so anyone can present, and anyone can attend.
This was a great event, targeting programmers from all environments and languages, in a "by the community, for the community" format. The speakers are real-life experts in their field, and are there to teach, demo, and provide insight into their particular technology. Classes ranged from the basics, like intro to OO, to specific sessions like the new FILESTREAM feature in SQL Server 2008. Technologies ranged from specifics like Microsoft.NET or Ruby, to general techniques like table-less CSS web design.
Of these sessions, I was especially interested in aspect oriented programming, led by Andrew Wilson, and ASP.NET MVC, led by Scott Williams. Aspect oriented programming has always been somewhat of a mystery for me - I've worked with attributes, and even built my own on occasion, but never really understood how some of the popular frameworks like PostSharp worked - this session helped me to understand what is actually going on behind the scenes with these attributes. ASP.NET MVC seems to be an up-and-coming technology that potentially has a bright future in the .NET world - it still seems a little strange to me, coming from a WebForms background, but I think I'll give it a shot - it could be fun. The two hours of live demos and Q&A beats out reading half a dozen tutorials online.
Code Camp is always free to the community, sponsored by outside companies - I really didn't see any advertising anywhere, so these companies apparently are anonymous to the community. DeVry of course was a big part of the success, providing their campus and several classrooms for the event. Lunch was free - there were probably close to 100 large pizzas from Domino's, and dozens of Subway sandwiches, and there were muffins and danishes for breakfast.
I don't know when the next camp is coming, but I will definitely be attending. I highly recommend it to anyone in the software development industry, whether you are interested in hearing about new technologies or techniques, or if you just want to meet up with your peers throughout the valley.
Isn't Phoenix great? Two days ago it was close to 110 degrees - very hot for most of the country, but the start of an average summer here in the valley. Today it didn't even approach 70 degrees. And when I got home, a huge storm hit for only a few minutes, and the ground was covered in hail. And we'll be back over 100 in less than a week.
Date: 2011-10-17 20:33:39
Name: Flo M (via Facebook)
Joe i just helped one of my clients open up a BBQ smokehouse joint, its called rics smokehouse BBQ & Grill, Up by my work Happy Valley & 22nd ave..There is also another one called Pork On a Fork. They are pretty good. you can judge that!!
Date: 2011-10-17 20:36:36
Name: Joe Enos
Website: http://www.jtenos.com/
Cool, I'm always looking for new BBQ places.
Date: 2011-10-17 22:08:44
Name: Wendy E (via Facebook)
Awesome ... my son the judge!