I just got back from the first Misoula BarCamp, and I think it was a success. We had about 18 people show up, which I think is very good for the first one. One attendee ( a fellow Rails developer ) came all the way from Helena. There were also some people that I was hoping/expecting would be there that weren't so hopefully they'll come to the next, whenever that is. There was a great mix of technical and non-technical discussions and presentations (I gave a little Rails demo). At any rate, big shout out and thanks to Harold for putting the whole thing together. I don't think anybody who went was the least bit disappointed in doing so, despite missing out on the first really nice spring weather in a couple weeks.

I don't consider myself anything remotely close to a designer. My aesthetic eye is completely non-existent (anybody who's seen me try to dress myself knows this). Which is why, once I grasped an understanding of the full power of CSS and learned how to set up a CSS friendly site, I came to really appreciate CSS. This way, I can turn over the beautification of the site (not this one specifically, this crap is all my doing) to a talented designer who can just work some CSS magic and make it all pretty.

Therefore, to help draw attention to CSS and promote web standards, 5Valleys is joining hundreds (thousands?) of other websites around the web, and turning off it's CSS for the day. See who's all playing along at the CSS Naked Day page. My apologies to those who followed a link here hoping to see a picture of me with my Johnson swinging in the breeze. Maybe next year.

The Obama Rally in Missoula this morning was fun and memorable. It was definitely worthwhile to be able to participate in such a historic event. I got there a little after 8 this morning and was amazed to see how long the line was already. I could see it stretching from the front door all the way back past the Montana Theater and to the end of the next building at the end of the block. I called some friends to see if they were already in line in hopes of being able to cut in line with them. They answered and replied that they were in line in front of the University Theater. "Dummy," I thought to myself, "that's not the University Theater.. that's the Montana Theater. The University Theater way down around the corner a couple blocks." But, no... he was right, they were in front of the University Theater... and they weren't even close to the end of the line. The line wound around from there and back on itself up and down several blocks. My unscientific guess is that the line maxed out at about 12 blocks long when it finally started moving.

Anyway, we managed to get some really good seats, and I managed to get almost the entire speech on video, which I'm now trying to get uploaded to youtube in 5 parts. The links to each are below (or will be once I get them all uploaded.) My camera's memory card decided that it had had enough politics for one day just seconds before the end of the speech, so that's where my footage ends. He was just wrapping up at that point though, so nothing of substance was missed.

• Obama in Missoula - Part 1
• Obama in Missoula - Part 2
• Obama in Missoula - Part 3
• Obama in Missoula - Part 4
• Obama in Missoula - Part 5

Thanks to my new Missoulian RSS Feed (what? huh? move along, nothing to see here... next post on that subject) I just found out that Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is having a free rally at the Adams Center Saturday morning. I'd be there even if it was Bush III, I mean John McCain. This is history in the making folks!

And on a completely unrelated note, Missoula is having it's own BarCamp on April 26th (also a Saturday). What's a BarCamp? According to Wikipedia....

The official site for Missoula's contribution is at http://missoulabarcamp.org. Registration is required. Early registration recommended. I hope to see a great turnout of Missoula's Tech Professionals.

I recently attended (and meant to attend) a few local events and lectures that I found particularly interesting (or thought they might be in the case of those I missed). One was a talk/slide show at the Rocky Mountaineers meeting by Dave Staling, who walked from Missoula to Waterton in 8 weeks via the back country. I suspected it would be a fascinating talk, and I wasn't disappointed. The next was a lecture at UM's Underground Lecture hall by a CalTech Chemistry Professor on harvesting power from solar energy. This was supposed to be a non-technical talk, but as a non-chemist, I found it still rather technical. However, it was highly entertaining and informative none-the-less. I meant to go watch a recent bicycle race at McCormick Park that sounded like fun (lots of obstacles and such), but completely spaced it out. And I heard belatedly about a talk at the UM on global warming that I would have loved to have gone to... if I'd known about it before it actually happened.

After the CalTech Solar Power lecture, I got the idea that I should post here about events that I'm planning to attend so that maybe others with the same interests might hear about them and want to go too. And maybe those who find themselves regularly attending the same things I do, might notify me of events I haven't heard of yet. Then, on a bathroom wall, I discover a poster informing me (and now you) that...

On Monday, November 5th at 4:00pm, executive editor of Wired magazine Bob Cohn will be giving a talk at the Missoula Art Museum. NewWest.Net says it "promises to be a fascinating conversation about Wired, technology, the Internet and the evolution of the media world." I think I might even manage to stay on the clock and drag along some co-workers for this one. See you there!