If you’ve noticed that I don’t seem to be around much this week, it’s because I’m not. I’m attending this year’s Plone Conference in Washington DC and will be here all week. The first two days (Monday-Tuesday) were pre-conference training, and the other three (Wednesday-Friday) are actual sessions and talks. The first two days weren’t terribly helpful as I was in an introductory Python class which rehashed things I learned in my very first Computer Science class in college.
As I move toward the sessions and breakout material, the conference is ramping up in interest. Being a Plone newbie, I feel like a great deal of the material is flying over my head. So far today, I’ve been to talks on content mirroring and product migration. If you’re at all familiar with Plone, I’m very interested (and concerned) about the migration from 2.5 to 3.1… which is really why I’m here. For work.
Aside from the conference, I’ve been walking around DC and doing the tourist thing. Last night I saw the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Reflecting Pool, Lincoln Memorial, Eisenhower Building, Dept. of Treasury, and the White House. On foot. At night. It was a great relief from the semi-intellectual activities of the day. I can’t explain how impressive the Washington Monument is. You just have to be standing within 200 yards of it to really appreciate its size. I’ve got pictures of all the aforementioned buildings, along with a ton of pictures from the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History. There’s no way I’ll be able to upload them all to Flickr this month, so I’m not sure how I plan on distributing them.
Back to the conference… I’ve noticed that the scheduling wasn’t very well planned for my specific instance. The interesting stuff that I really want to see are on Friday afternoon, when I’ll be traveling back home (Iowa). I also feel that most of the sessions are either too elementary or too advanced for me. I’m in a weird spot where I know a great deal of Python but know very little about Plone. As usual, I’m a special case that the conference may not have been geared toward. It seems like it’s directed at people who’ve been using Plone since 2.0.
