This year's Codestock was my third and it did not disappoint. I was scheduled to deliver two presentations - Visual Studio 2010 Database Tools and An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming. These were two talks I had not given for some time and I altered both considerably since I last delivered them. I stayed up most of Thursday night preparing to deliver them during the first two time slots Friday.

By 11AM, I was finished presenting and prepared to relax and enjoy the conference. After a leisurely lunch, I attended Seth Juarez's 2-hour presentation on Machine Learning. I heard about this talk last year and was determined not to miss it this year. Seth described algorithms that allow computers to predict results after observing a set of sample data. I was impressed enough with this talk to invite Seth onto Technology and Friends.

The keynote address was Friday evening at the nearby Bijou Theater. Charles Petzold - one of the world's most famous computer science authors - delivered an impressive narrative about scientists of the 19th century. He began with the work of William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) and his analog computer designed to predict the height of tides. Petzold expanded the talk to cover Thomson's clashes with the geologist of his time and with naturalist Charles Darwin. Petzold was informative and entertaining and delivered one of the best keynotes I've ever heard. I was thrilled when he agreed to appear on my TV show the next day.

Saturday was supposed to be spent taking in sessions and open spaces. But a speaker canceled at the last-minute and I was asked to fill in. I chose to do a talk on Data Visualization, which I originally delivered at the Kalamazoo X conference and which I am scheduled to deliver at Devlink in August. Originally, this talk was only 30 minutes but there were so many good questions that it lasted almost 60 minutes.

Later in the day, Mike Eaton asked me to help him deliver a presentation on user interfaces. I stood near the stage and made a few contributions, but he did not need my assistance. Mike showed off some impressive WPF applications he has built and described why he made the design decisions in these applications.

I brought some work with me - a problem with Microsoft Windows Identity Foundation with which I had been struggling - and Microsoft Evangelist Brian Prince was kind enough to sit with me and patiently answer my questions. This assistance alone was worth the trip.

I brought my video camera and recorded 5 episodes of Technology and Friends, which will air over the next few weeks. I also filmed some spots for a user group project I’m assembling. The final result will be published in October. Improbably, I did not take any photos at the conference.

As always, the best part of this conference was meeting and interacting with smart people, exchanging ideas and business cards. It’s funny how I can attend a conference, sit in only one session, attend no open spaces and still manage to learn a lot