Heading off to Pycon 2009!

Tomorrow I'm boarding a flight to go from Washington, DC to Chicago, IL to experience another Pycon. Pycon is the big Python Conference here in the USA.

You can thank the NASA Science Mission Directorate and Indyne Incorporated for sending me to Pycon 2009. I would like to toss out a hearty thank you to the following people for helping me get to this conference:

• Ruth Netting
  
• Jim Consalvi
  
• Corin Turner
• Kathryn Luke
• Malik Abdul Mahmad
• Candace Solomon
• Meredith Mengel
• Vicky Niblett

You can thank these people in person at Pycon:

• Katie Cunningham
• James Saint-Rossy
• Chris Shenton

I can't wait to meet old friends and make new ones. To again gawk at the feet of Guido van Rossum and other luminaries like a gushing schoolgirl over a boy band (All with the proper decorum of course).

While I'm there I guess I need to sheepishly admit to Bruce Eckels an apology. My idea was off. Lets just say that Pycon needs to keep corporate endorsements in the vendor area. It doesn't need help anywhere else. ;)

I am taking a whopping four tutorials, then attending the full conference, then working hard through four days of sprinting. I had thought of volunteering to help with a session or two but backed off since I am not paying my own way there. Instead I will stay focused on the task at hand, which is learning, networking, and contribution to various projects that NASA SMD is interested in supporting.

Look me up if you are there. I'll be playing with the other Python, Django, Plone, Pinax, and Zope kids.

My conference schedule:
webcal://us.pycon.org/2009/conference/schedule/ical/1c68d36a70bd61ea4d0de3a5d5d7e9b8g104/

For those of you who sent me resumes, you are not forgotten! We had hoped to get formal responses to everyone by Pycon but that was not in the cards. Feel free to chat if we bump into each other.