[This seems to be an appropriate literary device to reconstruct an event which makes it hard to remember in which order things happened. Also, it’s easy to be silent on certain things I have nothing to say of as well as just rant a bit here and there.]
888 Noodle Bar: has good and comparatively cheap lunch at ☞Las Vegas Hilton.
A Hat Full of Tricks with Sinatra: Blake Mizerany shows how to make a really good tutorial: By knowing your stuff well and being an eloquent speaker, you can nicely adapt to the speed of the audience. No preparation required.
Barry Manilow: the superstar of ☞Las Vegas Hilton. Use Barry Manilow key cards to open your door. Buy Barry Manilow water and Barry Manilow energy drinks at the hotel’s own Barry Manilow shop.
Bellagio: less tasteless hotel with a nice buffet and fountains.
Box Lunch: euphemism for serving cold sandwiches every day.
CabooseConf: a room where people read their email.
Carpet: The only thing not carpeted in ☞Las Vegas are the roads. One wonders why.
Continental Breakfast: euphemism for toasted bagels and cream, along with empty coffee containers.
Envy: excellect place to have Steaks at.
Keynote: Chris Wanstrath’s keynote reads so well I regret having missed it.
Las Vegas: The paradise of ADHD patients, the land where neon grows outside, the most tasteless city of the world. Not found here: dogs, birds and people reading books. Also, anything to not make you spend money.
Las Vegas Hilton: an off-strip hotel with that vintage 80’s porn feeling that the eponymous daughter lacks. Full of ☞Barry Manilow.
Mist: Place to be smoking a hookah if you need to wake up 6 hours later to get your flight.
Nobu: excellent place to have Sushi at. It was just perfect.
Rack: the hottest thing at the Conference. Not these. Really, I didn’t see a single talk that did not mention Rack.
Rails 3 and the Real Secret to High Productivity: DHH makes me go “I told you so” non-stop for an hour.
Rails Core Panel:
Are you guys letting Yehuda turn Rails into Drupal?
SOCKS over SSH: Way to surf when the Conference ☞WiFi HTTP proxy goes down. On one occasion I had 500kb/s for myself.
Sexy Blackjack: good luck trying to find it in ☞Las Vegas.
Smacking Git Around – Advanced Git Tricks: Scott Chacon shows how to make a fast-paced and really comprehensive presentation where everyone can learn something.
SpaceQuest Bar: at the heart of ☞Las Vegas Hilton, this is where I made $123.50 out of $7.50 with Video Poker.
Speakers Lounge: a room where people read their email, not always out of coffee.
Superbook Deli: serves ice cream at 4am, just in time when you return from downtown ☞Las Vegas after a few bottles of Jägermeister and ☞Sexy Blackjack.
Tempo: Bar at ☞Las Vegas Hilton that serves a nice Old Fashioned.
The 4-hour Workweek: EPIC FAIL by Timothy Ferriss. I wish I logged #railsconf during that talk, it was the best part (mail me your logs, if you have them, please).
The GitHub Panel: best panel, all questions answered (and pre-collected) and fun to listen to.
What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby Too: Finally a good (standing-ovation!) keynote, by Robert Martin. Even if I don’t agree with all points, allowing to make a mess easily is a problem in most languages I like.
What Makes Ruby Go: An Implementation Primer:
Charles Nutter and Evan Phoenix go into relevant implementation details
and lighten a few dark corners: Who knew super was that weird?
WiFi: inexistant for free outside, and highly limited at the Conference. (Seriously, if you do a tech conference for over 1000 people, why do you only get a 20mbit line?!)
Finally, I’d like to tell everyone at the conference, whether they paid lunch, dinner, drinks or the whole trip as well as everyone I spent nice hours with: thank you very very much! I had a great time, and I’m looking forward to meet you at a less crazy place.
NP: Sheryl Crow—Leaving Las Vegas