Over at my tech blog Global Nerdy, there’s a story from the recent CUSEC convention that’ll only seem funny (or even make sense) if you’re a programmer who knows about the Free Software Foundation and how they view Microsoft. It’s called Winning the Gnu, and it’s about my winning bid at Richard Stallman’s auction for a plush gnu.
This article was originally posted in Global Nerdy.
On Tuesday, the day that Barack Obama got sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, my 3-month probationary period at Microsoft also ended and I became a full-fledged Microsoft Developer Evangelist. I figured that if Obama could have a swearing-in ceremony to mark his official entrance into his new job, why couldn’t I?
As luck would have it, I was at the Vancouver Convention Centre to speak at Microsoft’s TechDays conference, where the Microsoft logo was projected onto the waterfall on the second floor. It made a pretty good backdrop for the ceremony, which was conducted by my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe. I swore my oath on a “Techie Crunch” box, a cereal box containing the swag we gave to every attendee:
This magic moment would’ve been lost forever if it weren’t for videographer, blogger and man-about-tech Warren Frey, who was recording interviews for TechVibes and caught it for posterity. Thanks, Warren! I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!
I’m flying out of Vancouver this morning to my next stop – Montreal, where I will be speaking at CUSEC, the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference. There, I’ll deliver my presentation, titled Squeezeboxes, Start-Ups and Selling Out: A Tech Evangelist’s Story.
Vancouver has been covered in fog for the past couple of weeks. They’re close to the record number of days of the pea-soup-thick variety of fog, as shown in the photo below:
Photo by Adrian Eden.Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
I think that this photo needs a teensy bit of editing:
Click the photo to see it at full size.
I found this poster amusing – click it to see a larger version:
I’m in Vancouver for one more night before flying off to Montreal to speak at CUSEC.
I’m meeting up with Boris Mann and the Vancouver Bloggers tonight at 6:00 p.m. at The End Cafe (2360 Commercial Drive). See you there!
