Last Wednesday I went up to Nashville to hang out with my good friend Jason Romains (aka The Dax Shepherd) to be the second speaker at the Music City Data User Group. Honestly, it was a great group of people, of whom I knew several people from various other places, including Sven Aelterman who was a co-writer on one of the books that I gave away after the session.

It was a lovely group, and Vaco in Brentwood provided a lovely space, good pizza and drinks. Finding a great place to meet like this is such a boon for user groups, Always thank your sponsors and treat their house like your Aunt’s house that you visit only occasionally (keep it tidy and don’t break things!). Such a great space.

This may have been one of my best versions of this session I have done, everything flowed well, the jokes were moderately funny and other than my dubious fashion sense, everything went great. (I mean, it was freaky hot and humid out and I was in the car for 5 hours, so that wasn’t big on my mind until I was sorting through the video)

So in the end, I brought some books to give away that night, did my presentation, and left Jason a cache of books for the future.

Was a wonderful time and hope to come back some day.

The Scenic Route

When I go to speak in Atlanta and Nashville, I usually don’t get a lot of chance to sightsee. I typically drive up, speak, drive back. This trip was a bit different because I had work to do during the day. A couple of important meetings, and a couple of hours hashing over some work with Jason.

But we did that work in one of my favorite places to hang out in Franklin TN, the Factory. Got some Hattie B’s, then went off to the big area to work and chat for the rest of the afternoon.