Ben Ramsey

I’m writing this from Los Angeles during the session (or conference) day of CodeWorks. The “A Team” (tutorial team) is en route to Dallas today, while the “B Team” (session team) gives their talks.

Our flight yesterday was short, but we didn’t arrive at the hotel until nearly 4pm, and then I had to leave soon after to make it to the combined OCPHP and LAPHP user group meeting. That’s definitely been a highlight of my trip, since I enjoy meeting other user group organizers and seeing how other user groups work. I was able to meet Oleg Baranovsky and Joe Devon of LAPHP and William Estrada of OCPHP. Special thanks to Rutger Hensel for letting us meet in his co-working space in Fullerton.

There was a great crowd at the OCPHP/LAPHP meeting, and I spoke on Grokking REST, while Jason Mauer, Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, spoke about Microsoft Silverlight (and touched a little bit on Windows Azure and WebsiteSpark). In all, they’ve got two great PHP user groups and if you’re in the Los Angeles or Orange County areas, you should definitely try them out.

Today was a whirlwind of a day for me, as I’ve given three talks already, and I’m writing this just just before heading back down to the conference for a Future of Web Development panel that I’ve agreed to sit on. Since there’s been no real preparation for it, it ought to be fantastic!

This is only the second stop on the tour — five more stops to go — but already it’s been a great and exciting show. Even some of the folks from the OCPHP/LAPHP meeting last night who were on the fence about attending CodeWorks decided today at the last minute to come see what it was all about, and all I have spoken with are glad they made the decision.

Tomorrow, we head to Dallas. I hope to see you there!