CFUnited 2010 RetroSpective Part 2, Tour de T-Shirt

CFUnited and the Nadel Offense – Followup

My first tweet was just me being silly. But, as the tweeting continued, I quickly realized how very fun this could be. I do hoard t-shirts in a way that might require psychiatric eval, but the primary idea here had more to do with having fun whilst helping friends get a little extra PR.

Somewhere around this point, I did verify with Ben behind the scenes that he was into the idea. I’m not a total creep. He replied with, “It would make for an eventful last CFUnited.” My thoughts exactly! As the conference would soon prove, by far we weren’t the only ones in that sort of mood. From there, a blog post was made.

Thank you, webRat, for that new and scary perspective on what I’d just gotten myself into. Naturally, the only way to go from there was ”Dress me for Ben Nadel.” I think it registered 139 clicks on bit.ly before bit.ly finally just blew up.

You. Big. Bunch. Of. Freaks.
(Fortunately, @JasonPDean did come through in the end with helping me to look just a little less creepy. :)

about t-shirts and swag

Right. As this retrospective has become a two part post, apparently I had much more than t-shirts to talk about. Let me tell you, though, that this t-shirt madness was a blast. I do love t-shirts, but let me be clear. PEOPLE, KNOWLEDGE and FUN are what’s important at these conferences, and this enabled a lot of all three!

mr. nadel

By pure coincidence, Ben was the first person I laid eyes on when I walked through the front doors of the hotel. I will start by saying it was a privilege to hang out with Ben, not just because I was privy to how the whole Ben Nadel header machine operates. (Far be it from me to dispel any myths… ;)  What a smart, sweet and inspiring guy this is. Never a bad thing to say. He makes you feel like you’re special when you pose for a pic with him, and I found this to be no less true on the 20th pic than on the 1st. I also enjoyed a fair amount of geek talk with him, which is… let’s face it… a coder’s delight.

I only expected Ben to choose a single “winning photo” for his header. To my surprise, he put them all in! I’m sure that had a lot to do with a mutual respect for what each t-shirt represents. Photos here are in order as they appear there. To determine order, he does this whole bizarre chant thing with whey protein and free weights. Feels like something might break if I were to go against the grain. Click on the graphic to see the pic in Ben’s header.

CodeBass

I had some CodeBass t-shirts made as gifts for friends and people who inspire me in various ways. Believe me, it wasn’t a huge marketing campaign… as evidenced by the fact that I neglected to put the URL anywhere on the shirt. lol CodeBass is meaningful to me, as are the recipients of the t-shirts. Doing this also confirmed for me that those sending t-shirts also were not necessarily just looking for PR. When not purchasing in mass bulk, it takes more effort and money than I realized to have t-shirts made. I would have liked to bring double what I did. Anyway, this is one of those CodeBass t-shirts. When I saw Ben was wearing his angry monkey the first night, and it was clear the photo fest had begun, I had to get this one out of the way post haste.

cyril hanquez / fitzchev

Cyril Hanquez is a fellow Joss Whedon fan. I *love* this shirt. He had picked out a few shirts and let me make the final decision. I went with Jayne Cobb, hands down.

Cyril’s Blog: http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/
Blog Tagline: “Problem is just a bleak word for challenge.”
Cyril on Twitter: @Fitzchev

This one appeared in Ben’s blog header twice:
http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?site-photo=337
http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?site-photo=367

Cyril also appears in Ben’s blog header:
http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?site-photo=281

#monkehRadio

James & Matt make Friday special for many of us, they’re on the CodeBass team, and it’s no secret I’m a huge fan of these guys. #monkehRadio puts out ColdFusion & CFUnited playlists. What’s not to love? I drove down to Virginia in my favorite #80sFriday t-shirt. Hadn’t planned to annoy Ben with photos until the conference officially got under way the next day, but we apparently had some stuff to get out of our system that first evening…

James and Matt in Ben Nadel’s blog header.
Jason Dean’s motives here were questionable… :)

Todd Sharp / SlideSix

I am a yellow belt in Shido-Kan Shorin Ryu Karate and a general fan of Martial arts. So, when Todd let me pick from this awesome array of t-shirts, I just knew the one I picked would become a regular favorite.

Do I need to tell you that Todd is the brains behind SlideSix? Or that he is @cfsilence on Twitter?  Do a search on SlideSix for CFUnited, and you will find many worthwhile presentations. One of them is Todd’s own Real Life RIA Powered by the Adobe Stack.

Todd Sharp in Ben Nadel’s blog header.

Jim Priest / TACFUG

Jim offered up a number of t-shirt choices. Everything from retro CFinNC t-shirts to coveted ColdFusion themed fare. In the end, I decided nothing would make me prouder than to sport a TACFUG t-shirt, because I just think Jim, Dan Wilson (@DanWilson), Doug Hughes (@alagadinc) and all those NC folks are great people who accomplish a lot both together and as individuals. That includes Anant Pradhan (@blitheutopian) who was a dedicated CFUnited 2010 volunteer alongside me and a damned good Flipcupper.

These are the people behind NCDevCon, North Carolina’s premiere web conference.

Jim Priest on Twitter: @thecrumb
Jim Priest’s Blog: http://thecrumb.com/
Official NCDevCon Website
Official TACFUG Website
TACFUG on Twitter: @tacfug

I must say, I knew immediately that the vibrant TACFUG t-shirt was the same “make and model” as the t-shirt I picked up at NCDevCon 2010. My NCDevCon t-shirt is one of he most sturdy, best fitting and comfortable t-shirts I own. Good job to whoever handles the t-shirts in North Carolina. Jim also gave me the “ColdFusion Lives” t-shirt, one of which I did not previously own. Very cool.

Karen Leary / HigherEdCamp Philly

This is among my favorite photos. First of all, LOOK AT IT. :D

Secondly, I’m so happy this photo op was for a good cause. This t-shirt represents what’s called HigherEdCamp Philly.

HigherEdCamp is a one day un-conference connecting communities involved in higher education technology. It will take place on Friday, July 23rd at the University of Pennsylvania. Attendance is completely free.

HigherEdCamp is about innovating education through an understanding of emerging technologies, adoption of open standards, and participation in evolving communication channels.

Though the date of the last conference has passed, this looks like a website worth watching. In addition to good information, I see many familiar names up there. Karen Leary (@karleary) and Adam Tuttle (@tuttletree) are listed as organizers, and I see an article by Terry Ryan of Adobe. Adam actually handed me the t-shirt on behalf of Karen. Registration was a bit of a blur, but now I’m having a flashback!

Had I but one photo to choose for Ben’s header, this would have been it. All good stuff here. I don’t live incredibly far from Philadelphia. I hope they will let me know if there is some way I can contribute to this cause in the future. Karen also scored some Ben Nadel Header Real-Estate, and here she is on LinkedIn.

kev mccabe / RedGiraffes Unique Development

Last but certainly not least are the t-shirts design by Kev McCabe. You probably know him on Twitter as @bigmadkev. Kev was one of the first to let me know he would be sending t-shirts. Not only that, but he specifically designed them himself. As you can see, one is a real life version of Ben’s header. Someone asked me why Ben went ahead and labeled the pic. I’m going to guess sheer habit. Though, if it were my header, the inconsistency caused by lack of standard labeling would make me insane.

The other t-shirt Kev made for me is the awesome @fuzie t-shirt pictured on the right. What you’re seeing is the back of the shirt. I had fun wearing this. Believe me, I did. But, Kev, I’m sorry… I just didn’t feel like my arse needed to be immortalized in Ben Nadel’s header. I do have standards. (Ok, I don’t. It just doesn’t need to be there. lol) I’m sure I will enjoy wearing this t-shirt at future conferences, among other places. I love it.

I’m glad to have met Kev on Twitter, hope to meet him IRL soon, and am thankful for the t-shirts. Ben and I gathered up around 8am on the last day of the conference to work out this photo. I don’t know about Ben, but I was riding on about 2 hours of sleep.

Kev McCabe on Twitter: @bigmadkev
Kev’s Blog: http://bigmadkev.com/blog/
RedGiraffes Unique Development
BigMadKev in Ben Nadel’s Header

jason levine / the missing shirt

Jason Levine is Adobe’s Sr. Worldwide Evangelist for Creative Solutions (i.e., all Creative Suite stuff). In keeping with the cross-platform portion of the CodeBass theme, I started experimenting with audio and Audition awhile back. I reached out to the multi-talented @Beatlejase for help with a CodeBass article on the topic. He’s since become a good friend and true inspiration.

While I have the attention of mostly ColdFusion coders at this time, allow me to remind you that peeping into some of Adobe’s other platforms might surprise you in terms of what you’ll find that could enhance and inspire your development. When was the last time you browsed Adobe’s list of products, the Developer Connection, or the Product SDKs, for example?

If you’re into digital audio or video, CS5, tutorials, great music, or any number of other cool topics, start here…

Jason Levine’s Blog: http://boodahjoomusic.com/blog/
Jason on Twitter: @Beatlejase
Jason’s Vimeo Page
Jason on Adobe TV

These two shirts, my favorites of the bunch, arrived too late to bring to CFUnited. Alas, I gave Jason the wrong date. It was a bummer for me, as I really wanted to wear the CS5 shirt the night of the open mic. At least I would have looked nice as they threw us out of the pool pavilion.

official Adobe ColdFusion swag

This is some of the official Adobe ColdFusion gear I picked up at the conference. Loving the sexy CF9 colors. Between this stuff and my Adobe ColdFusion 9 WACK, I’m all set.

CFUnited, fare thee well.

With that, I bid a fond farewell to CFUnited in its current format. I hope someone steps up to fill in what will no doubt be a huge hole in the conference landscape. I had a phenomenal time with a lot of terrific people I will surely see again one way or another.

5 Responses to “CFUnited 2010 RetroSpective Part 2, Tour de T-Shirt”

1. Lola LB says:

   August 10, 2010 at 7:02 am

   Nice summary!
2. Ben Nadel says:

   August 10, 2010 at 8:23 am

   Yo, I almost wore my CodeBass teeshirt to work today :) Great write up of the conference and our shared good times.
3. Jim Priest says:

   August 12, 2010 at 6:46 pm

   I just realized two things:

   a) Codebass is filtered by the Govt firewall at work (?)
   b) *I* didn’t get my picture taken with Ben at this CFUnited! #fail

   Great write up and photos!!!!
4. Jim Priest says:

   August 12, 2010 at 6:48 pm

   Make that 3 things.

   I just clicked for 5 minutes on Ben’s site looking for the photo then realized you had linked to them from here… :)
5. Karen says:

   August 16, 2010 at 8:32 am

   It was great to meet you. Thanks for the write up on HigherEdCamp. We will let you know when we are planning next year’s event!

   Karen
   @karleary