Hotel Wanderings

I haven't used my hotel room that much except as a place to keep my stuff and sleep. Well, I suppose that's what people do with hotel rooms, isn't it? You're at a hotel because you want to visit some place, but if you stay in all the time, well, why did you spend all that money going out there in the first place.

But, oh my, I just met Justin Gehtland!

Who? Yeah, that's the question, isn't it. Not exactly like meeting Justin Timberlake where someone might have heard about him. Justin is, I suppose, the co-founder of a company called Streamlined. Or maybe that's the product name. It's a Ruby on Rails enhancement. He's written books, been a speaker at Just Fluff, etc. He's got a beard too.

And he was on the same floor as me! 9th floor! Holiday Inn! I could have run over to his room and we could have rapped about Rails!

You know, if there's celebrity, there are celebrity stalkers. But are there geek celebrity stalkers? And is Justin Gehtland even at the celebrity level? I mean, is he Richard Stallman? Is he Donald Knuth? Is he, well, are any computer science/computer technologist really celebrities?

Oh, yes, there's DHH. That's David Heinemeier Hansson, but we all in the inner circle call him DHH. Because we can't pronounce his name. He should throw in another "H" in his name, sort of like J.R.R. Tolkien. He could be David H. H. H.

He's blond. He's Danish. He's a blond Danish. Mmm...Danish! (What do the Danish call a "Danish"? A "Swede"?) He's the closest to a rock star in the Rails world because he invented (extracted?) Rails. It doesn't hurt that he's moderately good looking (well, as coders go) wears odd shirts that probably favor the Threadless, Burning Man, Penny Arcade, local art crowd than the computer science types.

I suppose DHH could have stalkers. Teeny bop girls, er fanboys, crying when he writes out a snippet of Rails 2.0 crowd, throwing out the PickAxe book (oh, I know, a different Dave wrote that) to adoring fans. Ooh, me, me!

But this isn't quite that kind of conference, though I imagine it aspires to be something of an Amway experience, audience a-clapping, arms a-swaying, lighter a-flicking, wireless bytes a floating, coffee a-latte-ing. I'm sure medical conferences lack this kind of excitement. Of course, people claim high temperature super conductors was a Woodstock moment some 20 years ago for physics dude. We're hip (to be square!). We're freaks and geeks!

So, I'm making this experience of riding down an elevator to be completely exciting, all nine floors. I didn't even have a pitch to give Justin Gehtland, and I always figured the elevator pitch would be made going up.

Well, farewell, Justin Gehtland!

And hello, Jared Richardson!

As I was walking down the windy (that's with "wind" not twisting and turning) road towards the convention center, Jared yelled out from behind. At least, I've talked to Jared before. He had his Starbuck's, but I ate at the hotel, and the salmon omelette is just not agreeing with me. We talked the few minutes it took to get inside. He let me know that RubyConf is likely to be in his backyard. Might be worth going to.

Jared! Sign my SQL book!

Sigh. I'm just too old to be a good fanboy.