At NC State

I made it a goal of mine to start a project to inventory the web at NC State.  I explained the problem in my previous post, but am sorry to say that I don't think we are any closer to solving it now than we were then.  Honestly, it never became a focus of mine over the last year.  Hopefully it is something that I can actually begin work on in 2011.

My second goal was to begin to improve the brand adoption.  I actually feel like we made a difference in this area, albeit small.  We have continued the work with the NC State Web Developers Group and continued to push the university forward with Social Media, including an ambitious project creating a location-based service specifically catered to NC State.  We aren't any closer on a web developer / designer certification program, but not because of lack of trying.

My third goal was "More Mobile" and I have to say, we've made the most progress here.  We are launching a new site in mid-January focused on our efforts to mobilize (no pun intended) the Mobile efforts on campus.  We've released several applications into the app store, gave presentations on how we "do mobile", and have an organized and positive direction on where to go next.

Despite not meeting some of my goals, I feel like I accomplished a lot in 2010 at NC State.  Not to make excuses or anything, but I feel like a lot of my progress was impeded by some dire circumstances.  We've lost a significant amount of people in my department, with additional budget cuts looming on the horizon.  Morale is at an all-time low.  In fact, most employees I have talked to are just plain pissed off.  Pissed off at management, at politicians, at administrators, at the world.  I'm not pissed off.  I was, but I think I'm in the "accepting" stage now.  The higher education IT world just isn't what it was when I started working at NC State in 2001, and it likely never will be again.  Oh well.  Bottom line is, people are just not as productive or innovative when they are downtrodden.  Now on to some slightly better things...

Personal Work and Personal Goals

I wanted to grow my business in 2010.  That happened in a rather unexpected way.  AmberCube didn't really do a lot this year, but an offshoot of that occupied the majority of my free time in 2010.  I haven't blogged about it here, but if you know me personally, you have heard me talk about Destination Analytics.  I dedicated A LOT of time and effort to DA this year, with it finally paying off in December when we were able to post some profits.  Great feeling.

I wanted to advance professionally in 2010.  Since I already spoke a bit about NC State, this is more about my professional profile outside of that.  I've started contributing to some open source projects (Zend Framework), I've spoken at several conferences this year, I've started to help organize the Raleigh PHP User Group, and I've started sharing more of my code.  Along the way, I also found something that I am pretty good at...organizing events.  I organized BarCampRDU 2010 and also served as program chair for the UNC CAUSE 2010 conference.  Both were incredibly rewarding and exhausting, but I honestly had a blast.

Travel was also a priority in 2010.  Erin and I knocked this one out of the park pretty well with our trip to Rome, Sorrento, Corfu and Athens.  It was a flat-out amazing trip.  Best of my life so far.  We are already planning our next one, which seems to be directly related to what conferences I may speak at.  I also went to Chicago, the beach a few times, and camping.

I wanted to get out and explore more in 2010.  One of the places that I excelled at this (my friend Jen would hug me) is in the craft beer category.  I have discovered that I love the stuff.  I've tried more different beers in 2010 than I even thought possible.  I joined the Band of Outlaws at LoneRider (my favorite brewery) and even spent $19 on a single beer at one point.  My 2005 self would have kicked my ass, but that guy loved Bud Light so what did he know?

One thing Erin and I didn't really follow through with was our restaurant challenge.  We made it to precisely 1 restaurant on the list.  We just didn't end up having the time.  It's still on our list for next year though.

I wanted to lose some bad habits in 2010, but let's just ignore that.  I seem to have picked up more than I lost.  Maybe next year...

Overall, I think I did pretty well for myself in 2010.  Erin and I are doing great together, too.  I fully expect 2011 to continue on with some of the successes of 2010, hopefully limiting some of the let-downs.  Happy New Year and good luck to all my readers in 2011!

Waitress:  Hey!  Can I get you something to drink?

Me:  Yeah, do you have any local beer on tap?

Waitress:  Local beer?

Me:  Yeah...

Waitress:  I don't know that brand...

Me:  No, like craft beer.

Waitress:  Uh...<puzzled look on her face>

Me:  Like beer that was brewed in Florida...

Waitress:  I really don't know where our Budweiser was brewed.

Me:  Forget it, just tell me what you have on tap

Waitress:  Miller Lite, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, <insert more crappy beer here>...

Waitress:  We have this orange beer too...like he's wearing sunglasses or something

Me:  Shocktop?

Waitress:  Maybe...We also have yieng lieng (spelled phonetically)

Me:  You mean Yuengling?

Waitress:  Maybe...

Me:  Lemme just go to the bar and see for myself...<leaves to go to bar, comes back>  I'll take a Seirra Nevada.

Waitress:  We don't have that

Me:  You have a tap for it.  I'm guessing the Sierra Nevada folks would get pissed if that was connected to Bud Light.

Waitress:  Oh OK!

This sad story led me to post this tweet regarding beer, Central Florida, and the awesomeness that is North Carolina Beer:

That was promptly retweeted by a bunch of my #ncbeer followers, but it's very true.  I guess I am super spoiled by the amount of really awesome beer here in North Carolina, specifically in the Raleigh area (LoneRider, FullSteam, Big Boss, etc).  And by the way, my Seirra Nevada was flat and tasted awful too.

Day 8, 9 and 10:  Welcome to Athens!

Day 8 started out on a ferry, as we left the island of Corfu and headed back across the sea to Igoumenitsa, Greece.  Once we got into port, we offloaded and got on the bus that was to take us across Greece and into Athens.  The bus ride was actually pretty horrible to those of us who got motion sick.  The road was rough, windy, and for the most part, uneventful.  One of the things we did see in our 7 hour bus ride was the Rio-Antirrio bridge, which was built for the Olympics when they were in Athens in 2004.  We got a few decent pictures out the bus window, but didn’t stop to admire it.  I love bridges, so this was particularly cool.

As we entered into Athens, I noticed what a different feel it had than some of the other places we went.  Overall, the city was pretty dirty and graffiti was everywhere.  It was also very very crowded, but I think that may of had to do with the fact we were entering the city around rush hour.  We got to our hotel which had an awesome air conditioner and got cleaned up.

That evening, we headed down towards the Plaka district which was a few blocks from our hotel.  When we got down to the main square, I looked up and saw the Acropolis!  It was really amazing and very cool.  It’s situated on a hill overlooking Athens, so you have a straight-on view of it almost everywhere you go.

The Plaka district is known for food and shopping, and there were plenty of both.  Our dinner that night was a group dinner where we had some traditional greek food.  It was pretty good, but not the best food I have ever had.  After dinner, a bunch of us decided to talk a walk around through the shops and stuff.  Unlike Rome, we didn’t really have a map but I have a pretty good sense of direction so everyone started following me (yikes!).  Surprisingly, most of the shops were closed by that time, so we made our way on back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, a few of us decided to go hang out on the roof where we had a spectacular view of the Acropolis at night.  They have spotlights lighting up the ruins and it is amazing.  Unfortunately, our cameras weren’t the greatest, but we did get a few decent pictures.  We headed to bed relatively early as we were all kinda exhausted.

The next day started with a city tour of Athens.  We saw a bunch of ruins which were tucked in almost every nook and cranny of the city.  We also went by Olympic Stadium which is extremely beautiful.  The entire thing is made of marble, including the olympic rings above the stadium.  We also saw the site of the worlds first University.

As part of the bus tour, we were dropped off at the Acropolis to spend a little time exploring there.  This was one of the places that I looked forward to the most on the trip, and it didn’t disappoint.  We had a guide for the first part of the tour, and he actually told us a lot of good information.  He was probably one of the most knowledgable location guides we had.

After making our way through the entrance to the temples and up the mountain side, the Parthenon slowly came into view.  They are continually doing restoration work (you can see the cranes in the pictures) to try to keep the ruins alive for future generations, but they are decaying pretty badly.  You can see from some of the pictures that there are pieces that are whiter than others.  These are filler pieces that were made so that the actual ruins can be reconstructed.  Pretty cool stuff.

The views of Athens from the top of the Acropolis are amazing.  You can see for miles and miles all the way around you.  We took lots of pictures   After the tour guide got done, Erin and I quickly tried to make our way around to all the little parts of the Acropolis, including the theatre and the other temples besides the Parthenon.  The theatre is actually still in use.  They had done a play there the night before.  How cool would it be to be an actor in a play that was performed on Acropolis Hill?

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet was how unbelievably hot it was that day.  Almost 50 degrees Celsius.  That’s like 120 Fahrenheit.  We had to make sure we had water everywhere we went just to stay hydrated, but you couldn’t drink the tap water.  That meant we ended up spending a good chunk of change on water.  That sucked, but it was a necessary thing.

After we got done with the Acropolis, the bus took us back towards our hotel.  Kat, Jonas, Erin and I decided we wanted to go down to the National Museum of Art in Athens.  It was about a 10 block hike, but we decided to walk it anyway.

On our way, we saw a meat market that we decided to check out.  Mostly, this was my idea because I wanted to see the crazy kinds of meat there, so blame this on me...Anyway, Kat and Erin were walking in front of me and Jonas and all of a sudden, this creepy guy in a bloody apron comes up and touches Erin on the shoulder and says “You sexy, you sexy”.  I was almost in disbelief, but I looked at him and said some choice words before walking on.  Then I looked around and noticed there was nobody there besides us and the butchers.  I quickly said to everyone that it was time to go, so we got out of there fast.  Close call, avoided.

The museum was absolutely huge.  Sculptures, art, pottery, you name it.  All the busts of the Greek gods were there, including a lot of Egyptian-themed artifacts.  The coolest part were the bronze and marble sculptures, especially the one of Zeus (or Herculues...they aren’t sure).  When we went by that particular bronze statue, Jonas decided he wanted to get his picture taken in front of it, so he gave Kat his camera and started to pose, just like the statue, in front of the statue.  Little did we know that that was a no no.  From across the room, a very angry Greek man started yelling at us.  Apparently, you can take pictures, just not pose.  He gave us the stink-eye the rest of the time we were in the room.  Good times.  We spent a few hours in the museum, but gave out soon after the posing incident.  We headed back to the hotel to take a nap and get ready for our final dinner that night.

The final dinner was an extra add-on, but almost everybody in the group was going so we decided to go too.  Our restaurant was down in the Plaka district and it was absolutely awesome.  I don’t know how many different appetizers we had that night, but it was at least 5 or 6.  Then came the main course of pork kabobs, which were outstanding.  We also had a few traditional Greek dancers come in and dance during dinner.

After we ate, some of our new friends a table over (Rich and Kate) ordered a bottle of Ouzo and invited us to have a shot.  Needless to say, the drinks were flowing freely that night and everybody was having a great time.  After leaving the restaurant and taking a bunch of group pictures in the square, we headed to a bar that was a couple of blocks from our hotel.  This is where the night gets a little fuzzy for me, but not really because of any sort of drinks I may have had...

The bar was a lot of fun, and everyone was just letting go and having a good time.  John and his girlfriend Jacquelyn bought a round of drinks and we all hit the dance floor for a good time.  As previously established, I have some of the best white-boy dancing skillz known to man, and picture evidence proves that they were on display that night.  At some point in time, I remember dancing and then the entire world started spinning.  Then...that world abruptly stopped spinning and I felt a horrible pain in my head and face.  After that, I got nothing.  What had happened was that I took a ride on the shoulders of John (who is like 10 feet tall...) and when he put me down, I had slipped on a drink that someone spilled on the dance floor.  Dance floor, meet face.  Face, meet dance floor.

As Erin tells me, I ended up passing out either because of the blood (I'm a wuss like that sometimes) or the knock to the head.  I was told that a lot of people helped me get back to the hotel and made sure my nose wasn’t broken.  To them, I say a million thanks.  I think I did a good job of scaring everyone, including our tour guide Amedeo.  Sorry guys!  Either way, I closed out Athens with a bang...literally!

The next morning I woke up looking like I had been in a fight.  I had a cut across my nose, a busted lip, and a scratch above my eye...not to mention that my whole face was bruised.  I looked pretty rough, but felt OK.  We ate a quick breakfast, then went downstairs to checkout.  Most everyone else on the tour had left the hotel already, as they got to go on an add-on cruise (lucky bastards).  We ran into Amedeo as he was checking out and we relived the story of the night before one more time.  We got checked out, called a cab, and off to the airport we went.

Saying goodbye to Athens wasn’t as hard as saying goodbye to the folks on our tour.  I’m telling you, those people were freakin amazing and I will NEVER forget the awesome time I had with them.  It was the best trip I have ever been on, and it was special to be able to spend it with my wonderful wife.  We’re already planning our next trip, and we may have to hit up some of our new Contiki friends and try to get them to join us on the next one (hint hint).

I can’t sum up the trip any more except to say “all the crazy shit I did tonight...those will be the best memories...”  See you next time Contiki!

Day 5, 6 and 7:  Corfu baby!

When last we left, I said that the next night was one of the longest of my line.  Although day 5 started in Pompeii, most of the day was spent driving across Italy to the east coast.  Our destination was a port town where we would be catching a 7 hour overnight ferry ride to Igoumenitsa, Greece.  We were told that the original plan was to take the overnight ferry directly to Corfu, but for whatever reason we were being redirected to Igoumenitsa.  That in itself would have been fine, but the bigger problem was our accommodations on the ferry.  When I booked the trip, I was told that we would have a cabin with beds and our own bathroom while on the ferry, seeing as how it was overnight.  What we got was WAY different.

It was essentially an airline seat in a room with about 70 other airline seats.  Oh yeah, and there was no such thing as checked baggage here either.  We had to keep up with our own bags during the duration of the trip.  When we boarded the boat, there were already a few people in the room occupying our seats.  When our tour guide tried to get them to move, this woman went off on our tour guide...screaming at all of us in Italian.  Amedeo had to go get the captain to have him remove the people.  Drama!  For most of the boat ride, those same people stalked the room...walking by and peering in every so often.  It was creepy.  On top of that, random people would walk in while our group was sleeping and try to sit down with them!  Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep at all that night.

We finally got off that damn ferry at around 4am local time.  We checked into a hotel and got a whopping 2 hours of sleep before waking up to get on yet another ferry for a 2 hour ride to Corfu.  Dear Contiki, if you wanna make this trip even better, find a different ferry company.  Anyway, it was when we got to Corfu that our day started to get better.

After checking into our hotel, we all went down to the main square to have lunch.  I was very nervous about having Greek food.  I had never really had anything Greek that I liked, so I ordered a Gyro because everyone seemed to like those.  Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to change my mind about Greek food!  I LOVED it.  So tasty...mmm tatziki!

After lunch, we walked around a little bit and did some shopping.  We then caught the bus back to the hotel and chilled for a while.  Erin went to the pool and had a few tropical-looking drinks with some of the girls (she had actually managed to sleep a little the night before).  I went back to the room and crashed.  Naps are essential on a Contiki trip, because you really don’t sleep much!

That night, we had dinner in the hotel before heading out to a toga party.  That’s right.  Just like in “Animal House”.  Toga!  Toga!  Toga!  Erin and I hung out with Kat and Jonas, who we had met a few days earlier.  Like us, they were celebrating their 5 year wedding anniversary, and like us, they were awesome

After learning how to put on a toga, we headed down to the “party”.  Not only was our Contiki group at the party, but there was another Contiki group there as well.  Now at first, it was totally 8th-grade-dance lame.  But then we saw something truly amazing and gross all at the same time.

This girl from the other group was seriously trashed about 30 minutes into the thing.  While she was walking out of the dance floor room and onto the patio, she tripped and spilled her drink.  She looked at the floor, looked around, then got down on her knees and I kid you not...licked her drink off the floor.  We were shocked and amazed, but then just started cracking up.  That set the tone for the night and we sorta decided “we’re gonna act stupid and have a good time”.

We all started dancing and going nuts on the dance floor.  I broke out my serious white-boy dancing skills, which were appreciated by everyone I'm sure.  It was a great time letting loose and really not giving a crap.  As you can see  <- Jess was having a good time, along with the rest of us   It wasn’t long before the room got so hot we couldn’t stand it, so we made our way outside to the beach.  We hung out with a few folks and told our girl-licking-the-floor story.  Good times.  We wrapped it up there around midnight and headed back to the hotel exhausted.

The next day was the best day all around of the trip.  We got up early and headed down to the docks to catch a boat known fondly as “George’s Boat”.  While the name itself doesn’t exhibit much excitement, say those words to anyone who has done a Contiki in Corfu and they will surely light up and smile.

George is an awesome guy.  He’s probably in his 60’s and his job is to take all us crazy people around on his boat and show us Corfu.  George is also a dirty old man, which makes for some AWESOME commentary along the way.  Basically, George is the man.

Our trip had 3 stops planned and then a “secret” stop.  First stop was a beach where you could swim or do water sports.  Some people did parasailing, some did the banana boat thing.  We just chilled on the beach and went swimming a little.  It was really nice to just relax for a few hours.  After getting back on the boat, we had lunch on the way to stop number 2.  We had cold cuts, chips, and tatziki (good for your sex life, per George).    It was good freaking food, especially since it was crazy hot and we had been swimming all morning.  Stop number 2 was a place to go swimming and play with George’s balls (volleyballs, that is).  We dove off the boat into the clearest water I have ever seen.  You could see 30 feet down.

Stop number 3, or “skinny dippy island, hanky panky island, freaky deaky island”, was a spot to go skinny dipping.  Thank goodness skinny dipping wasn’t required, as I don’t think the word is ready to see that from me in the light of day, but we went swimming anyway.  That’s probably one regret I have that I didn’t do.  I mean, how many people can say they have been skinny dipping in the Adriatic sea?  Well, not this boy...

After that, we had a surprise stop by a stand where seals were putting on a show.  They jumped through hoops, slid around the deck, and even put a little kissing show.  It was pretty cool.  On the way back into the harbor, George made everyone from the different countries get up in front of the boat and sing their national anthem.  We represented the US well, but I think the Canadians may have had us out numbered.  We pulled back into port and thanked George for an awesome day.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and it was one of the highlights of our trip.

That night, about 10 or 12 of us went back to the square for dinner.  It was amazing again, but this night we followed up with shots of ouzo for dessert.  Ouzo is a traditional Greek dessert liquor, and boy does it have a kick to it.  Very good, very strong, very awesome.  We finished up with dinner then did some more shopping before finally deciding to head back to the hotel.  We tried to catch the city bus back, but we couldn’t find where it picked people up so we decided to spring for a cab.  I was with Erin and two other girls in our cab, so they made me ride in the front with the driver.  I seriously wasn’t sure if I was going to make it out alive or not.  See, these roads were tiny and curvy.  And Mr. taxi man decided it was beneficial for him to go like 100km/h down these tiny little streets.  I think I closed my eyes for most of the way back.  Crazy cab drivers...

Back safely in the hotel, we packed everything up then went to bed.  The following day was full of more ferries and busses as we traveled across Greece to Athens.

Day 3 & 4:  Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii

Leaving Rome bummed us out.  We seriously fell for this city in the short 2 days that we were there, but our trip was just getting started.  We had about a 4 hour bus ride to Sorrento which left much to be desired.  I’m not sure if it was the Italian roads, the lack of air conditioning in the bus, or the driving of our bus driver, but I got crazy motion sick on this thing.  And I wasn’t the only one.  But if there is one thing that could make me feel better, it was when we drove along the winding highway and the beautiful cliffs of Sorrento came into view.

After stopping to take pictures, we continued on to our hotel where everyone was really happy to get off that bus.  After checking in, most everyone spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool and having a few drinks.  It was nice to relax for a little bit after a hectic few days in Rome.  One side note, our hotel had the worlds smallest shower.  It was 18 inches square.  You could barely turn around in the thing.  Anyway...

After relaxing by the pool and getting ready, everyone got ready and took a 10 minute walk into downtown Sorrento.  The square was full of life with restaurants and shops.  Amedeo suggested several places for dinner and the group went their separate ways.  Erin and I tried a pasta place where we had a decent dinner (not as good as the one in Rome, but still pretty good).  After dinner we were brought shots of Lemoncello, which Sorrento is famous for.  It was extremely sweet but very good.

After dinner, we headed down to the center of Sorrento for some shopping, then headed back to the hotel early.  When we got there Jess, Cloé and Katie (some of our new Contiki friends) were hanging out by the pool, so we joined them and had a few glasses of wine.  This brings me to one of the best parts about a Contiki tour...the people we met!  The experience wouldn’t have been the same without our new friends that we made on the trip.

The next day, we got up early and all headed down to the port at Sorrento.  We had an early ferry ride over to the island of Capri, which is one of the wealthiest places in the world.  While getting off the ferry, someone said “In Capri, even the poor are filthy rich” which isn’t far from the truth.  Either that, or the poor are the tourists (hint: us).

First up in Capri was a boat tour around the island.  Capri is famous for it’s rocky grottos, soaring cliffs, and crystal clear blue water.  The cliffs were absolutely amazing.  I tried to take some pictures, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of these things unless you are in a tiny little boat looking straight up at a cliff that is hundreds of feet high.  All along the coast there are openings in the rocks that form the grottos.  We saw 6 or 7 of them...all beautiful.

About half-way through the boat tour, we stopped at a beach to take a swim.  The first thing we noticed was that the beach wasn’t sandy.  In the place of sand, there were small rounded rocks that made up the beach.  It was kinda weird at first (and much more difficult to walk on) but it was still fun.  I jumped in the water as soon as we got our stuff put down.  There was a huge rock in the middle of the swimming area that you could jump off...yeah I had to do that.  It was awesome!  At one point I just laid there thinking... “I can’t believe I am swimming in the Mediterranean Sea right now.”

After an hour or so, we got back on the boat and continued on our tour.  We checked out a few more grottos then headed back to the main port.  We had a lunch of homemade ravioli while overlooking the bay, then headed off to do some shopping.  This place had every high-end shop imaginable.  Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Rolex.  You name the designer, they have a shop here.  While we couldn’t really afford any of that, there were still other very cool shops to look in.

One of the cooler experiences we had was at a store that sold Erin’s kryptonite...shoes.  Capri is also famous for handmade leather shoes, so we decided to check one of the stores out.  The clerk was really helpful (surprise, eh?) and Erin found her some white sandals.  While we were checking out, the clerk mentioned that the shoes Erin picked out were “Jackie O shoes.”  I was like, “Jackie O?  As in Jackie Kennedy?”.  The clerk nodded then pointed to a picture behind us featuring none other than Jackie Kennedy.  In that shop.  Buying the shoes Erin just bought!  Very cool!

After hitting up a few more stores and a gelato stand (don’t judge me people), we headed back to the ferry to catch our boat back to Sorrento.  After getting back, we cleaned up and then had dinner in the Hotel with the group.  It was pretty good food, but not memorable.  After dinner, we crashed and crashed hard.  We were totally exhausted and actually went to bed early.  The next morning we said goodbye to Sorrento and got back on that damn bus, heading north towards Naples and stopping in Pompeii.

In the shadow of the ominous Mt. Vesuvius, the remains of Pompeii holds some of the most well preserved ruins of the fallen Roman Empire.  We had a special tour guide take us through the ruins.  At one point in time, this city was bustling with life.  Now, there is an eerie quiet to the streets, even though it is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world.  When Mt. Vesuvius covered the town in ash, it froze the city in it's tracks.  Now it provides incredible insight into the lives of first century Romans.

The frescoes and mosaics were stunning.  I can only imagine the beauty of this city when it was in it’s prime.  We saw the remains of one of the city’s brothels, which had some not-quite-so-G-rated scenes depicted on the walls.  One of the coolest things we saw were the Roman equivalent of road reflectors.  When they constructed the streets, they inlaid pieces of travertine in the stone to act as reflectors so that the streets could be seen at night.  The ingenuity kinda blew my mind a little bit.  One of the things that we didn’t get to see was the stadium, but I guess we can catch that next time.

After the tour of the ruins, we had lunch in the square and did some shopping at the market.  I had a lot of fun negotiating prices with the vendors.  Erin rolled her eyes at me (she hates when I negotiate prices with people) until I scored a necklace for her for less than half price.  After shopping, we got back on the bus and prepared for an epically long ride to the east coast of Italy where we would eventually catch a huge ferry to Greece...and have one of the longest nights EVER!

Days 1 & 2:  Viva Italia!  Rome

We arrived at our hotel in Rome around 5pm local time after a fairly long flight.  We were pretty much exhausted, but there was not a second to rest.  Our tour group was meeting at 5:30pm to go to dinner, so we quickly checked in, met our tour guide Amedeo (who was awesome...more on that later) and joined everyone in the lobby.

Dinner that night was pure Italy.  We had wine, pizza, bruschetta, gelato.  A very nice man serenaded us during diner, and we got to know some of our fellow Contiki-ers.  At one point during dinner, I leaned over to Erin and whispered...”can you believe we’re in Italy?”

After dinner, Amedeo led us on a walking tour of Rome.  Amedeo is a native Roman and he is rightfully VERY proud of that fact.  He knew everywhere, everyone, everything about Rome.  We started in Piazza Novona, seeing the 3 fountains at dusk.  We went on to check out the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps.  It was very rushed, but we got to see a taste of Rome that night.  We made it back to our hotel and crashed...the following day was going to be a big day.

Day 2 in Rome started with a bus ride through the city taking us to the Forum and the Coliseum.  The Forum ruins were amazing.  I love all kinds of history like this, so I was in heaven.  We walked down the streets that Julius Caesar walked.  We stood in the shadows of 2000 year old columns.  The detail and longevity of the structures were amazing.

From the Forum, we walked down a long cobblestone path.  Just over the trees, we saw the Coliseum.  I was speechless.  No words can describe the feeling you get when you see this place for the first time.  It was huge!  We took LOTS of pictures, then went inside for a self-guided tour.  Everything was so awesome.  It was my favorite part of the trip.

After the Coliseum, we had a quick pizza lunch and then proceeded to Vatican City.  We got to go through all the Vatican museums.  The map room, the library, the sculptures.  Everywhere you looked, something was painted or sculpted.  Amedeo mentioned several times that Vatican City is the smallest and richest nation in the world, and you could really tell.  Everything was in top shape.  We then got to go into the Sistine Chapel.   The mastery of Michelangelo was on full display on the ceiling.  It was absolutely beautiful...not bad for a guy who said he wasn’t a painter.  We then got some not-so-great news that we wouldn’t be able to go into St. Peter’s Basilica because the priests were practicing for some event.  That kinda sucked, but we did go by the square and take some pictures.

After we left Vatican City, the “organized activities” for the tour were done for the day and it was still early.  Erin and I decided that, instead of taking the metro back to our hotel and sleeping until dinner, that we would go back down to the city center and see some of the sights.  We walked from Vatican City down to the Pantheon first.  This was one of the places that I REALLY wanted to see, so we went in and took some pictures.  It was very cool.  We then checked out the Trevi fountain and made a wish or two.

We also hit up Piazza Novona again where there were lots of artists out painting.  We checked out some art, then met a very nice artist who was painting in the square.  We talked to him a little bit then ended up buying a painting of the square.  We were getting kinda hungry, so we decided that we really needed a pre-game gelato fix at a place close to the Pantheon.

After gelato, we hiked back to our hotel room and chilled until about 7:30.  Dinner was on our own that night, so we set out to find something to eat.  There are restaurants everywhere, so we knew we wouldn’t have trouble finding anything.  We walked about 5 or 6 blocks from the hotel and came across a tiny little restaurant called “Le 2 Colonne”.  We decided to take a chance...and we were so glad we did.  The food was amazing.  I had a hand-made cheese tortellini in cream sauce with proscuitto.  Erin had an eggplant pasta in red sauce.  We shared a salad as well.  For desert, we had some homemade tiramisu that was out of this world, and I don’t really like tiramisu.  It was the best meal we had over the whole trip.

After dinner, we decided we wanted to walk some of our dinner off, so we decided to go back and have desert #2 from the same gelato place we ate at before dinner.  We made our way back there and ate our gelato on the steps of the Pantheon.  Very cool.  We walked around a good bit more...back to Piazza Novona, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  It was getting late so we decided to take the metro back to our hotel.  Only problem was, it was about 12:30am and the metro was closed.  Oh yeah, and we were about 3 or 4 miles from our hotel.  We ended up getting back to the hotel around 1:30am, but it was really cool to see Rome at that time of night.  The whole city is full of life and really was one of the coolest places I have ever been.  We only got a taste of Rome, but it was enough to make us want to come back!

Stay tuned for more...if you are even still reading all this

The night before tek-x started, I got to catch up with some old friends who I really only get to see once or (if I'm lucky) twice a year.  I know it's incredibly geeky, but I enjoyed talking shop with everyone.  Seeing what projects they are working on, complaining about the latest tech news (Apple vs. Adobe, Facebook vs. Privacy, etc), and just generally hanging out with people who have similar interest as mine is a lot of fun.  What was better was that we got to do all this over pizza and beer at Giordano's.  Their pizza was legen...wait for it...dary!  So awesome...

The next day the tutorials started.  The first session I went to was on Mongo DB.  Mongo is a completely new take on the traditional database strategy.  The idea is that you interact with your data as objects, and not tables and rows.  It totally challenges the relational database paradigm I have been working in for the last 10+ years.  Mongo is super fast and scalable, and you create all your data structures right in your code.  It is incredibly applicable to a lot of the projects I work on, especially Destination Analytics.  During the talk, I got Mongo up and running on my local machine, connected to it, and created a "hello world" type script to interact with it.  It was incredibly easy.

The other session I went to was about Code Reviews.  This session was 50% presentation and 50% actual reviewing of code.  We have been trying formal code reviews for a while, but I feel as though we aren't very good at them.  And they haven't become an enforced part of our development cycle.  With us using additional developers at NC State, we need to formalize this so that we are sure we are shipping quality and correct code.  The talk gave me some good hints about doing formal code reviews, including strategies for execution and tips on how.  The last half was looking at code from web2project.  It was interesting watching other people analyze code.  I thought it was incredibly beneficial, so it was definitely worthwhile.

After the sessions, Adobe sponsored an event for speakers at the Goose Island Brewery.  Their beer was absolutely fantastic.  I tried a few of them and had a great time with some other developers.  I even made some Raleigh connections when I met Matt Schmidt who works at DZone and is a NC State grad.  They are located in Cary and I had no idea.  The entire night was a blast.  Any time you can pick the brains of some of the smartest developers around, you take advantage of it.  Much thanks to Ryan Stewart at Adobe for setting it up.

That's it for day one.  The full conference starts tomorrow with lots of sessions.

• Saint Jacques French Cuisine
• Bella Monica
• Red Room
• Second Empire Restaurant and Tavern
• 18 Seaboard
• 42nd Street Oyster Bar
• Vivace
• the Pit
• Glenwood Grill
• Ruth's Chris Steak House

Of those, I have been to the Pit and 42nd Street Oyster Bar.  Erin's hasn't been to 42nd St. but they have had some sanitary issues lately, so it is coming off the list.  We both LOVE the Pit, but this challenge is about exploring new places, so it has to come off the official list (doesn't mean we won't go get some of Ed's famous ribs though).  In the place of both of those, I am adding Poole's Downtown Diner and the Angus Barn, both recommended to me by lots of people.

So our challenge is this.  By 2011, we will eat at all 10 of these restaurants, and of course report back here.  I kinda wish some of them were a little cheaper, but it will be nice for Erin and I to have a nice night out every once-in-a-while.

What Raleigh staple am I missing?  Anybody care to join us on our quest?  Anywhere I can get coupons so I don't spend a fortune on dinner?

1. iPhone Developer Contract for NC State is SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED!
   After countless hours by a myriad of people at NC State, we finally have a campus-wide iPhone developer contract.  I posted a blog post on our Outreach Technology Blog, and before the end of the day got messages from a few other schools inquiring how we did it.  I think that just shows how inflexible Apple has been with regards to securing iPhone Developer programs for higher education.  It really is a shame.  Apple was all over higher ed many years ago, but now it seems they have essentially written us off as less important.  Either way, NC State has accomplished this, so expect to see some iPhone apps coming from us very soon!
2. Lost Weight and Ran a Race
   So far, I have lost nearly 10 pounds since the first of the year.  I have tracked my food and workouts every day...working out 21 of 31 days in January.  I also ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge and finished!  I felt great about my accomplishment, and feel much better by losing the weight.  Still have a few more pounds to go to get back to my Weight Watchers "goal" weight, but I am well on my way.
3. Mobile Committee Proposal Under Way
   I wrote a first draft of a proposal for an official Mobile Committee and sent it to a few people.  We have got it about 80% of the way there.  Everyone in the current mobile group really embraced the idea, so we hope it will be well received by the higher-ups.  It is an important step to take, but we are well on our way.
4. Big AmberCube Launch
   This is something you will just have to take my word on right now, but we are about to launch a very big initiative with AmberCube.  Garrison and I have been working nearly every night, with the hopes that we can launch the application very soon.
   
5. First Web-Dev Meetup of 2010
   This was in the first week of February, but it still counts.  We had about 40 people at our first web developers meetup, where my friend and colleague Jen did a presentation on Web Usability.  There were people from all over the University, private industry, and even other neighboring schools.  It was well received, and we are already planning the next meetup next month.
6. NCSU Dining Mobile Sub-application
   At the end of last year, we worked with the University Dining folks to get access to their menu data.  A few weeks ago, we started working on the mobile sub-app so that we could make the menus mobile-friendly.  We spec-ed it out, and our part-timer started working on the project.  It should be done here in a few weeks.  Good stuff all around.

That's pretty much it, but that is a whole lot of stuff.  January was busy, and February has started out with a blaze as well.  Gotta keep that momentum going...