JAOO... day 3

Here it is my comment about wednesday.. a bit late.

Wednesday was my free day; I didn't have to do any crew work. So I enjoyed the conference all day. I skipped the keynote. Not because it was not interesting, but because I had to do some reading for my thursday exam, and I couldn't skip that!
During the day I attended four sessions in the Developer Best Practices track, and one in the Scaling Agility track. In this last one I had the pleasure to listen to Jeff Sutherland talking about distributed scrum, together with Guido Schoonheim, who was exemplifying fully distributed scrum witha project in his company that has scrum teams where half team is in Holland and half team is in India. And it has been working for them.. impressive!

The sessions about developer best practices were really interesting, specially the ones from Frank Buschmann and Kevlin Henney. Considerations for designing and coding, and the Henney's "Programmer's Dozen", with 13 recommendations. These two talks were fresh, they didn't feel long eventhough they were full of code samples, full of humor... amazing! I recommend to any programmer to go through the slides of the dozen and see if they recognize some of the things we do wrong all the time. The other sessions I attended in this track were Real-world Refactoring and TDD 2. The former was interesting, with good slides and a good speaker, but after the first two, it didn't seem that great... And the latter was not that good, it felt too long and too sleepy, but we got a laugh when James Coplien made his comment at the end of the session, leaving the speaker without any chance of answering it!

After the last day of conference, the crew had a retrospective, making a time line of what had happened during the conference; all the things that were great and all the things that could be improved. Lot of feedback for the JAOO team.
And then.. the expected Crew + Speakers dinner :) Great food, great wine (we got white Catalan wine ;-) ), great music and great company. I think it is a very good idea to let the crew mix with the speakers... it's a good chance to talk to them, beer in hand. Unfortunately I left just after the dessert, as I had exam the day after and I was really tired already.

Thank you all for a fantastic JAOO, I had a great time!

JAOO... day 2

Tuesday at JAOO was full of great talks! I could go to three of them in the morning, but I had to do some crew stuff in the afternoon. Only for those three talks, the conference was worthy to me :)
I listened to Frank Buschmann talking about Architecture Reviews first. The talk was targeted to software architects and architecture reviewers. I'm not none of these, but listening to this man is always a pleasure, and you get something out of it!
Then Linda Rising, talking about The Power of Retrospectives... wow! I could listen to her for hours and hours. Great sense of humor, and she is really passionate about retrospectives, even suggesting to apply the technique to your own life; stop and reflect what can be done differently to make your life better... I'll keep this in mind :)
Last but not least, I went to Cope's talk about Agile Architecture. There was so many people that he is repeating the talk today, because some people couldn't go in! I had to leave before he finished, due to my crew duties, but I really enjoyed the talk. Fresh and provocative as always.

The afternoon was a bit boring... I had to guard one of the conference rooms, and then sit at the registration office for like 2 hours.. and no one came! Well, that's the price for going to the conference!

Today it looks exciting.. I have problems deciding which talks to go to! More about it later.. or tomorrow!

JAOO... day 1

First day at JAOO is over for me. I met the rest of the crew, I talked with some of them, I even discovered there was a spaniard :). First, and big, problem: the crew had to wear a Microsoft t-shirt today... that was hard! Fortunately, we get a new t-shirt, with new sponsors (pheew!) each day.
I had to work this morning in the wardrobe, so I didn't attend many things. I could sneak away to go to the keynote, as the wardrobe was not very busy. Interesting talk about the future of programming languages :) Well, and of course I had time to go around the exhibition and get some of the free stuff ;-) That's what conferences are all about, right?

I didn't stay at the sessions after lunch, though. There wasn't any that had caught my eye, and I had some work to do at home. So there I went! (10 min biking... not bad :) ) There is a JAOO party tonight, but unfortunately I won't be going. I do have a lot of work to do... and there are also social events tomorrow and wednesday, and I prefer to go to those ones.

I'll get back to my duties now... and tomorrow the day is full of exciting talks :) And I promised to go to Sidebar in the evening for a drink... we even get a free cocktail, because it is the official JAOO bar :) And I love it ;-)

i'm back :)

no... I'm not back to Barcelona... or I haven't been away from Aarhus to have to come back here... I'm back into studying!
First day of class at Aarhus Universitet done! I'll be studying a Master in Distributed Real-Time Systems some years from now. It would take 2 years, but I will keep working so it will take longer! I made a good deal with my manager to reduce my working hours to 30h/week, and I'll take half of the subjects each semester. Stressed life again! :)
For the ones interested in knowing what's this master about (only danish speakers or readers), you can read about it here. The master is a collaboration between Aarhus Universitetet and the Engineering College of Aarhus. That makes it quite interesting, as it combines university style and more engineering/practical style... I'll learn a lot, I guess!

I'm happy to see some of my colleagues again... and I'm looking forward to meet new ones also!

going in the right direction

When I saw the sun rising when I was arriving to work I realised the day is getting longer... weee!!! We are going in the good direction.. spring, the season of light! And the sun was shinning! Perfect start of the week!
But... as it was expected... amazing danish weather is back! Grey, grey and grey! I'll have to get used to it again...

and x-mas starts... in two days!

Last year, when I discovered this crazy day called J-dag I got a shock... how can christmas start the first friday of november? But this second year... I've been waiting for it! The crazy day is a biiiig party!

Are you doing something special? I'll be in Harrys Kælder... hope to see you there!

Oh... and merry christmas to all!!

ja és nadal a dinamarca!

Increïble... aquest divendres comença el nadal amb l'arribada de la cervesa de nadal! Tota la propaganda que m'arriba a casa està plena de tonteries nadalenques, i les botigues ja comencen a adornar els aparadors... són bojos aquests danesos!!!

Prometo fotos de la super festa de nadal d'aquest divendres! Hi haurà gorros de nadal, adornaments per tot arreu.. i cervesa de nadal en abundància.. i gratis!

busy... and enjoying it!

It has been one month since last post... quite a busy month! :)

I've had some visits. First my mum and then Ve.
My mum came to spend a weekend with me, see my new nice tiny apartment and do a bit of tourism around Denmark. We rented a car and drove to the northern point of Jylland, Skagen, where the two seas fight against each other! We had fun, good meals, nice talks and... incredibly good weather!!! Check out the pics to get jealous immediately!

Ve came just two days after my mum left... not in the exact same plan... we partied quite a lot! ;) We also had fun, good talks, good drinks and we can't complaint much about the weather... we went to Copenhagen for the weekend and we didn't get wet!

Well, this month hasn't been only about visits... I have great news: I got a permanent contract in Kamstrup, where I have been working the last months! That means I can stay in Denmark as long as I want, not worrying about contracts... I have a good job, a nice flat... now I only need to speak danish ;) And that is coming soon... next tuesday I have my first exam in the language school. That doesn't mean I'll be speaking danish from next week, but it does mean that I'm trying hard, and that I'm improving!

Oh, and I can't forget about these news... I will go all Christmas holidays home!!! I already have the tickets! From the 23rd of December to the 8th of January! I'm looking forward to these family and friends days!

I hope I can come with good news about my exam next week... vi ses snart!

I can do it!

With this new blog my new life is starting. It's true that I have been here in Denmark for a while, that I moved to my new place more than one month ago, that I already had some danish lessons... But now that I started my own blog, my own pictures gallery it feels more like I am living my own life.
I want to thank all the friends that helped me in the process, some of them helped even without knowing they were doing so.
So.. what now?
I am installed in my place in the centrum of Århus.. I love this apartment! I am still working in Kamstrup, and I'm really happy with that :) And I'm learning danish to be able to understand people around me. In my free time... I go to the marked on saturdays, I cook and enjoy my kitchen, I read, I meet my friends... just a normal and not stressed life! I was looking forward to that! hehe

Now there is a friend from Barcelona here with me. She leaves tomorrow :( I haven't been that happy and enjoying life for a long time! Laughing together, drinking together, talking about everything, and also being together in some bad moments we've been through... Merci per ser-hi!!!
She leaves tomorrow... but my cousin and aunt are coming on sunday for 5 days, and then I'll have my mum visiting on september and also two friends from manresa (spain)... so I won't be bored! It's so nice to have people visiting you!