dutch

So, at the Dutch PHP Conference, they were making a video and they interviewed me. The video is at http://www.bachelor-ict.nl/dpc and it is also featured in this article on DevZone which is exciting! The video is mostly about the PHPWomen organisation, rather than my talk but it does have some footage of me speaking and of the conference itself.

Well, its a misleading title because the day is only half over but the Dutch PHP Conference 2008 is well and truly underway! Today I've been in the Zend Framework tutorial given by Matthew Weir O'Phinney, which is a full-day session. Its been excellent - with some concepts, some examples, and now a real working application to take a look around and learn from. I've had to work with ZF a little bit lately and I wish I'd been able to have this tutorial before I did that!

I've been able to catch up with a lot of people since arriving late last night and making the mistake of not going to bed until late because I wasn't tired (still on UK time) and then having to get up early today! Tonight we have an Ibuildings employees event which will be great, I'm excited to put faces to names for all my colleagues - the downside of the telecommute is that I mostly know people on Skype or IRC and not in real life. Later on there is a pre-conference social as well (from 8pm) - which is why my day is only half done :)

Looking forward to tomorrow, when there will be a phpwomen stand upstairs outside the main hall, we'll be giving out shirts (they're white this year) so if you want one then come and get it! Tomorrow at 2pm I'm giving my talk "PHP Deployment with Subversion" which looks like it will be well attended. Oh and its Worldwide Knit In Public Day as well so I'll be attempting to fit that in as well!

Today I leave for Amsterdam, to visit the Dutch PHP Conference where I will be getting my first experience as a conference speaker. It would be fair to say that I'm very nervous - its a high profile event and the other speakers in the lineup are pretty amazing!

When I was invited (or perhaps that should be "volunteered") to speak at this event, I realised that I would need a lot of preparation in order to be able to deliver something like this. I arranged to give short technical presentations at local GeekUp events and went to both Leeds and Sheffield and spoke there. When I had assembled the content of the talk for Amsterdam, I circulated the slides around a few technical colleagues and friends, to make sure that it was accurate and covering sensible material. I was also charmed and excited to have the chance to attend the PHP London User Group meet last week and to give the actual talk there. So, at this point, there is little more I can do to prepare other than attempt not to get too drunk at the pre-conference social on Friday night!

The social side of things is something I'm really looking forward - this conference is organised by my employers, so I'll have the opportunity to meet the developers I work with every day but haven't met yet or don't see often. This in itself I know will be fabulous, although I will certainly forget everyone's names! In addition there will be people I know online from #phpc and of course some members of phpwomen.org as well - we are running a PHP Women stand at the conference and giving out shirts - so if you want one you had better come along and ask nicely :) I am also looking forward to meeting new people that I don't yet know I'm going to meet - so here's hoping for a wonderful time and not too many talk nerves!! To recover I'm staying on in Amsterdam for a few days since I haven't visited the city before, seems like a good opportunity.

Recently my friend Deb, Leeds Geekup organiser and Ruby developer, gave me two baby courgette plants ... she even went so far to photograph me, slightly tipsy, leaving the pub to get the bus home:



I did get the plants home intact and planted them out. I was going to post a whole garden post as I have a few other things also to plant, but I've been elsewhere all week and now its raining rather a lot, so I'm blogging instead. Here's the courgette plants in their new home:



Waiting for my attention are some sweet peas given to me by Great Uncle Sid and some training lobelia I bought yesterday to try to improve the view from my new kitchen window ... more about those another day.

Here's the view from my hotel balcony yesterday evening:



So far the Netherlands is a great experience, my colleagues are friendly and its a lovely country to visit.

For once it'll probably be pretty quiet around here next week. That's because I'm catching a ludicrously early plane to Amsterdam in the morning to spend a couple of days in the Ibuildings Vlissingen office, and then flying direct to London to work there the rest of the week.

There are going to be a lot of firsts, I don't fly a lot and haven't flown outside the UK alone before - so flying through both Schipol and Heathrow in the space of a few days is going to be probably a bit scary! I don't visit London much either (haven't been for almost a year in fact) but I have an Oyster card and an underground map to assist me. I'm also delivering training for Ibuildings which is a new career step for me but one that I'm very excited about (as well as hyperventilation-inducingly anxious) so all in all its going to be a pretty exciting week! I'm also getting to meet colleagues from both offices and practice my dutch for real :)

(Of course, there will be lots of blog action if I find myself at a loose end and with internet connection!)