On the way to Southwest Fox

I’m on a plane heading to Phoenix for Southwest Fox and I can’t wait to get there. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t even really had time to look at the session schedule let alone the downloadable materials.

There are so many promising sessions it will be hard to decide which session to see during some of the time slots.

I’m particularly interested in Doug Hennig’s session, Creating Exlporer Interfaces in Visual FoxPro. I had just starting playing with the DBI controls that came with Sedna the day before Doug posted his excellent teaser video for this session.. The video convinced me to stop playing around and wait for Doug’s session. This could be one of the many sessions that “pays for the conference” for me.

I’m also interested in several sessions that have received great reviews at DAFUG. Perhaps the thing I miss most from Michigan is DAFUG. I’ve missed rehearsals of at least three sessions that I want to see in Mesa.

Cathy Pountney’s Customizing your vertical market Application got great reviews and although I don’t currently have a vertical market app, there is potential and I’m really anxious to see this session.

I’ve also heard great things about Toni Feltman’s Square Peg, Round Hole – Retrofitting Client Server Data Access into Legacy FoxPro Applications. All the VFP apps I’m working on now have a SQL Server back end, but I’m expecting that there will be an increasing number of opportunities to retrofit legacy apps and I’d like to get as many tips and tricks into my arsenal to better prepare me for such opportunities.

I also want to see the session that Rick Schummer just rehearsed at DAFUG last week.

After seeing Alan Steven’s great session on TDD last year, I’m really looking forward to both Ignorance is Bliss: Why you don’t need to know where your data is stored and Manage Complexity with Agility. Following him on his blog and twitter over the last year has certainly shown that he is passionate about these issues.

There are also sessions by Rick Strahl, Rick Borup and Barbara Peisch, Craig Boyd, Andrew MacNeil and Mike Feltman.

There are also several sessions which are aimed at beginners and others that I’ve seen before (or seen something similar before) that I’d attend this time if I could squeeze them in. Watching Andy Kramek talk about Working with Objects in Visual FoxPro would certainly yield something new or clarifying for me. Barbara’s session on Understanding scope and Mike Feltman's session on Collections Arrays and Iteration would do the same.

I’m not sure how I’ll squeeze them all in, but I’m really looking forward to trying.
As a side note, this is the first flight I’ve taken with an MP3 player full of music. What a difference that makes! I downloaded several podcasts from http://www.bandsundertheradar.com/ and have listened to the first 3 (from 2004/2005) and have really enjoyed most of the music included.) I haven’t listened to a flight full of music since my walkman days in the 80’s. What a difference it makes on a longer flight!

I’m looking forward to getting on the ground and getting set up to stream the keynote tonight.
I’ll be posting here more as I work my way through the conference and I’ll likely be hitting twitter a bit throughout the conference as well.

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FoxForward - getting here

Made it to the airport on time for my 7:09 AM departure. Whew.

Slept on the plane.

Landed, got my luggage, picked up my rental car. (Remind me never to get the cheapest no-name rental from Orbitz again.) The service was a bit slow and at one point the clerk asked where I worked and looked at the Geeks and Gurus logo on my shirt and asked If I could take a look at her computer, which was on the fritz. I told her I really write custom software and don't spend so much time fixing computers - which is mostly true these days. Anyway, got the hand-written paperwork (since the computer wasn't working) and followed her instructions to take a U-turn around the counter and cross the street and wait in the "orange" section. Fortunately a shuttle was there waiting and off we went.

The shuttle took me to the off-airport lot where my car was ready and waiting. I was told it was a purple Cobalt in space B5. I couldn't see any markings for the spaces, but I did see two Cobalts. One I'd call blue and one gray - no purple. The keys didn't work in the blue one so I tried the gray one and lo-and-behold it is actually purple in the right light. These cars we all so beat up I couldn't believe they'd rent them. Anyway, other than the fact that I was parked in I haven't had any problems with the car so far.

The hotel has been great so far. Very courteous help checking me in - keys were ready upon arrival. Took my stuff up and came back down to move the car - leaving the room keys in the room. The front desk kindly made me another set and told me to bring the first set down when I had a chance. A little while later I went across the hall to get a coke and discovered I took the old set of keys which didn't work any more! Back downstairs where they kindly made the original set work again.

So I'm here and need to spend some time reviewing my session. The conference starts today, but I don't present until tomorrow at 8:00 am.

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Visiting Louisville

I was in Louisville, KY a couple weeks ago (we were providing cyber cafes, training machines and other support to an educational conference)


My wife and kids were able to come down for the leading weekend of the conference which allowed us to spend at least part of Father's Day together. I'm really glad they came - and more glad that the kids were good for my wife on the 6 hour ride back home!


On the way down, we stopped in Cincinnati to see my brother and his house that is very much in the middle of a complete renovation. The inside is all 2x4's, but the outside looks great. While there, he took us to an excellent local pizzeria. If you're ever in the area, make sure to check out Dewey's. They make "gourmet" pizza and have several very good choices on the menu. They also let you create your own and everything was excellent.


On Saturday, my family and I went to the Louisville Slugger Museum and factory which was a surprisingly worthwhile visit. The tour of the factory takes just the right amount of time to keep a 5-year-old and 8-year-old entertained throughout. What really amazed me is that for the whole length of the factory tour, you're within inches of the production lines - very cool.


As soon as the boys found out that we were going to Kentucky they started talking about how we're likely to see a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken stores. I told them I didn't think we'd see any more or less than we do in Detroit, but they were certain we'd see more. As it turned out, we didn't see any. For some reason, though, this was really on their mind. As we were walking around after the factory tour, they started talking about it again. It was to the point where I said to them that KFC probably wasn't even from Kentucky. Not more than 10 minutes later we walked past a visitor's center that had a life-sized statue of The Colonel himself. The boys were thrilled to have their picture taken with him. A few minutes later I saw my 8-year-old earnestly listening to one of the workers at the information counter. He'd walked up and asked what the story was about KFC and Kentucky. He was all-too-happy to come give us the details. Colonel Sanders was born in Indiana, but did indeed open his first store in Kentucky.


On the opening night of the conference, they had an off-site reception at the Muhammad Ali Center. I'm no fan of boxing, but this place was incredible. The curators did an excellent job of capturing my attention from the minute I walked in the door. I only saw one of several floors of the exhibits, and only part of that floor. The video clips they put together painted an excellent picture of this man, his attitude and his boxing career. If you're ever in Louisville, you should check this place out, even if you have no interest in boxing.

The reception was catered and had excellent food. I didn't get to try the shrimp, but I hear it was incomparable. I did have the best slices of beef tenderloin I've ever had in my life - really.

The next day our friends (and customers) mentioned that the caterer, Emily Fultz, insisted they come to her restaurant before leaving town and we were invited to tag along. We walked a few blocks to Jarfi's Bistro. The restaurant is attached to a performing arts center where The Lion King was currently running. The show started at 8:00 and our reservations were for 8:00 and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The chef, Jeff Jarfi, prepared the most wonderful meal I've had in quite some time. I'm not going to pretend a food critic so I won't try to describe how these things tasted or how they were prepared. (You can look at the menu to get all the details) Chef Jarfi prepared a 5 course meal that was out of this world. We had Baby Lamb Chops, Awesome Sea Bass, Tomato Mozzarella Salad, Filet Mignon and a Raspberry Sorbet with fresh fruit. I'd like to thank Amy and Sarah from Organizational Services, Inc for inviting us to tag along. I'd also like thank Emily and Jeff for such a wonderful meal and evening.

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