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Crazy Night in Chicago

By KyleWith on March 16, 2011 in Travels

Friday night in Chicago went from new and interesting to crazy and exciting. Drupalcon was finished and we were just enjoying ourselves at this point.

We left the Hotel looking for a couple of taxis to take us to our restaurant and ended up taking a limo around Chicago for a good 20 minutes. We ended our ride at Lou Malnati’s where we had to wait 30 minutes for a table. We walked up the street to some fancy looking bar, where Dayan accidentally ordered a $20 bottle of beer she had to finish before going to Lou’s. Once we got to the restaurant we had amazing pizza and Andrew had his incident which ended up getting us a free meal.

After supper we took yet another taxi ride to the John Hancock Tower. At the tower, on the 96th floor is a rather Ritzy feeling bar. It was packed. Windows and people everywhere. Oddly enough because we were a group of seven we got seated rather quickly. We weren’t up the tower very long before taking the roller coaster of an elevator back down to ground level.

It was an odd evening. One I don’t think I will forget anytime soon.

For some reason not all of the photos are showing, so head to Flickr to see them all.

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REVIEW: Free Supper at Lou Malnati’s Pizza

By KyleWith on March 15, 2011 in Food, Reviews, Travels

Okay I’m back on Fort St John now, so I suppose I really should catch up on all the blog posts I wanted to do on my trip to Chicago. I figure a good way to continue posts about Chicago I should tell you about Lou Malnati’s.

Lou Malnati’s is a famous Chicago Deep Dish Pizzeria. The pizza is like no other. A thick 2″ tall crust, cheese underneath pizza sauce and all the ingredients. It is almost impossible to eat by hand it is so hardy.

The atmosphere of the place is great, so was the service. You could see the history on the walls and in the staff.

What makes our story of Lou Malnati’s so special was the fact we ended up with a free meal, which we can thank Andrew for once again. While our waitress was serving us our drinks her tray lost balance and tipped towards a wall behind Andrew. So Andrew reacting to the falling glasses reached out to prevent them from falling further, unfortunately one of the glasses had broken before hand and sliced one of Andrews fingers. There was blood, but it didn’t seems all that bad. Martin and Andrew disappeared to bandage him up. You could instantly tell the restuarant was very sorry about it and did everything they could to accomidate us.

We ended up with a completely free meal with dessert. Thanks Andrew.

See all the photo from Lou Malnati’s on Flickr.

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Dayna Manning at Uncommon Ground in Chicago

By KyleWith on March 11, 2011 in PhotoBlog, Travels

Traveling with Dayna Manning, is like traveling with a rock star, cause she is one. She’s had a record deal, several albums and can finger pick like no other person I know.

A couple weeks before we took off for Chicago for Drupalcon, Dayna reconnected with an old friend and tried to setup a gig while here in Chicago. Sure enough it happened, pretty much. Dayna got on the list to for an open mic night at a very hip(?) little restaurant called Uncommon Ground.

She was up against 10 or so other performers, but was by far the best taking home have the pot of tips. With her strong voice and amazing guitar playing she captivated the crowd as soon as she started. As the passion in her song was let out, the crowd was silent, not a word was spoken. When she finished the crowd roared and the compliments from the other performers continued throughout the night.

The restaurant was heavy with culture and showed it off throughout the whole place. Colours were everywhere, which made these photo below turn out so amazing. So thanks to Andrew for taking them for me as he was in a better spot.

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The Other Two Keynotes

By KyleWith on March 10, 2011 in Travels

I wonder if it is hard to follow a guy like Dries at a place like Drupalcon? I guess it isn’t that hard when your name is Clay Shirky or Jared Spool. If you want to watch those keynotes like head to the Drupalcon Live Page.

Clay, who is a writer, prof and new media guy, spoke about social community and how it is changing the way information and awareness is used, moved, and consumed. He spoke about a a political religious incident in Asia somewhere and how a Facebook group brought awareness and stopped the issue. He also spoke about Wikipedia and how it is all community driven.

Then there was Jared Spool, who is hilarious, who spoke about usability of a website. Instead of me explaining it quickly while I’m sitting in a session, go watch the keynotes from the link above.

Photo from twitter

This is a photo of Jared from someone on Twitter, but the streamed moved so fast I couldn’t see who said it.

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Day One at Drupalcon Chicago

By KyleWith on March 9, 2011 in Travels

Alright I’m not the greatest at actually writing about the sessions I attended. That being because most of the sessions I am attending are only somewhat related to my field of work, therefore I only really take in half sessions.

Nonetheless though, I’m having a fun time. Obviously it was good to listen to Dries early in the day. Then I went to the Media Session. After that though I ended up meeting up with our Web Designer, Steven, and hitting up the Exhibit Hall for free swag. Then I sat in on Andrews Bird of a Feather on local news sites, which was interesting, but only a small turn out and finally I listened to a session with Project Manager, which was neat. Of course the final, final thing I did yesterday was attend the Drupalcon Field Museum Party.

I have to say I got a little overwhelmed at certain points yesterday. There were just so many people and I did the stupid thing and didn’t really pay attention to where I needed to me. Today though I have a plan of attack, read the schedule a head of time.

Something I was told when I started playing with Drupal, although I haven’t gotten far, was to never hack Core.

The only thing I am regretting so far at Drupalcon is not being more out going in person. On Twitter I’m a little Social-lite, but in person I keep to my own in a sense. Wouldn’t mind meeting other people along the way and hearing their stories.

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Drupalcon Chicago Field Museum Party

By KyleWith on March 8, 2011 in Travels

I don’t know if anyone actually got all dressed up for the Drupalcon Party or not but it is was in the amazing Field Museum. There “grand hall” as I will call it was massive and the ceiling went way up.

The room was packed, of course, with buffet style finger food and booze scattered all around the main level and the second. I feel as those I let myself down a little bit that I didn’t have the guts to interact with more people, but I still feel some what of an outsider when it comes to Drupal.

Couple of other good and bad thing about this party. I loved having the exhibits around for us to wonder through and admire. What I thought was a disadvantage was the amount of space there was. People were easily able to go and hide in places and it really killed the push to have to communicate with new people.

We copped out early, but I suppose I could have stayed. Again with the not wanting to interact. Oh man am I tired right now, was hoping to write more but can’t as my eyes are closing on me.

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