The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

As I wrote earlier, I’ve been waking up to see strange ceilings, what with my spending about half my time away from home since the beginning of the year, and it hasn’t stopped yet. Last Friday, I hopped a Porter flight to Boston to attend a BarCamp there; the full details about that event are posted on Global Nerdy.

After setting my stuff down at the Marriott in Cambridge, I quickly hopped on the T to meet with the BarCamp organizers for dinner. Luckily, my hotel was practically on top of Kendall Station, and my destination was only a few stops away: Downtown Crossing.

My final destination: Kingston Station, for a bite to eat with Jonathan and Stephanie from Grasshopper Group, along with Josh, Jay and some of the other BarCamp people. The food and drink were great.

And finally, as we were walking out, Carl from the band Authentic Counterfeit noticed my accordion and said hi. I asked if I could join the band in a quick jam; he said yes, and I hopped in to solo along with Sade’s Smooth Operator.

(I like to think I was operating rather smoothly that night.)

My bit done, I stepped out of the restaurant to be buttonholed by Justin, who books bands at Kingston Station. He asked if I played with any bands, and I had to tell him that I wasn’t from around there. Still, it was  flattering to be invited to come back and play.

I’m in Vegas for the MIX Conference until very late Thursday night (or possibly Friday morning – I may change my flight home). Expect the usual accordion and what-happens-in-Vegas-ends-up-on-this-blog sort of hijinks.

With me are my coworkers John Bristowe, Jaime Sorgente and Frederic Harper, none of whom have ever been to Vegas before. Fred’s a special case – this is only his second trip to the U.S. (his first one was to Seattle in February), and now he’s experiencing Extreme America, which must be doubly weird for a French Canadian. This should be interesting.

Even just five years ago, you might not have predicted that a computer programmer would have a movie made about him or that he and his software would be on the cover of MAD Magazine.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

No joke, this is an actual title of a presentation taking place today at the Enterprise Data World conference:

You’ve got to hand it to presenter Jim Goetsch: there’s no doubt as to what his session is all about.

Karen “DataChick” Lopez took a photo at the session and threw in a Ken doll for surreal good measure:

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

Here’s what Dan Deluca of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about one of his experiences at South by Southwest:

I still didn’t feel I had really arrived until I sat myself down at a picnic table outside the Austin Convention Center with my schedule in hand and heard a pair of duelling accordions tooting away on the Clash’s "Should I Stay Or Should I Go." Turns out it was a pair of squeeze box squeezers named Joey DeVilla and Jon Grossman, who had only met moments before.

Grossman plays in the band Uncle Lucius, and he just moved here from Kentucky four months ago. "Once you’re here, you don’t want to leave," he said. DeVilla is a self-described "developer evangelist" for Microsoft in town for the winding down Interactive conference who uses his accordion as a social networking ice breaker. It’s working. After "Should I Stay," they stuck around, and Grossman sang Stephen Foster’s "My Old Kentucky Home."

John’s a great accordion player and a really nice guy to boot! Go check out his band, Uncle Lucius, and their tasty southern-fried rock at their site.

“Dude, check out the hipster checking me out.”

I never met Ryland Sanders in person, just online. Still, I feel that his passing should be noted because a) he often made me laugh, and b) he often made the internet laugh with his site, Says-It, and the many sign/sticker/seal generators he created for that site, including the ever-popular Church Sign Generator.

He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for some time, and as a result died this weekend – twice. Once in the ambulance, and after being revived, for the second and final time in hospice. True to Ryland form, his last words were written in a note to his family: “WTF?” He was the same age as me: 43.

In his honour, here’s a “Church Sign War” purportedly between a Catholic church and a Presbyterian one. It was created with his Church Sign Generator, got forwarded like mad in a zillion emails and caused such controversy that Snopes had to step in and debunk it:

Requiescat in pace, Ryland.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

Charcuteroulette is a site that displays random charcuterie. What’s not to like?

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.