I got into town about 7:20 p.m. and called Robert Scoble to find out where they were. He said they were at Whitey’s World Famous Saloon on Hennepin. So, I headed over there and noticed that Robert was sitting out front with Chuck Olson doing a video interview for Rocketboom.
I figured I should just go in and have a beer, which I did. I didn’t know any of the group so I waited for them to finish the interview. Once Robert came back in I met the entire group. This was really a great group of people interested in computing and blogging.
We hung out at Whitey’s until about 9 p.m. and headed over to Keegan's Pub on University Avenue NE as planned.
Once there we met three podcasters/bloggers. Cody from http://vinylpodcast.com, Tim from Winecast.net and Garrick Van Buren from garrickvanburen.com. We talked at the front until we got several tables in the back.
We had quite a roundtable; here is the group that sat around talking with Robert when we got to Keegan’s:
Tim Broeker
Michael Peterson he has another blog at:michaelgalloway.blogspot.com
Kevin Remde
Jack and his mom
Tim talked about Mambo the open source software. This guy sounds like a great resource on open source. I will probably say this too much, but I wished I lived in the area to talk to this group of people on a regular basis. Tim was coming down to Chicago. Tim – You have to let me know if you got over to the Apple Store or not…
Jack runs a software company in Prague. He is another great resource. His mom works for Cargill and specifically on routers. I spent most of the night talking with them and I have to tell you it was really interesting. We talked about everything from punch cards to European travel.
Michael Peterson runs several blogs and does intranet/database work. We talked a bit about the issues of large amounts of data and how to make it easier to access.
Kevin Remde is an IT Pro Evangelist from Microsoft – He has a job I think I would enjoy. There were tons of discussions on internet security and some of the things coming up soon from Microsoft like Longhorn.
I have to say this was a really great group of people. The conversations were very engaging and that made for quite a fun evening. I really needed that after the 6 hour drive. At least I was going to be in town until Sunday.
Now, at the end of the night I am the one who drives Robert back to his hotel. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t smart for the “guy from Chicago” to drive him. Needless to say he arrived back at his hotel without issue. We just got to see quite a bit of downtown before we found the hotel.
Thanks again to everyone. I was the outsider crashing the Minnesota “Geek Dinner” and I appreciate how welcome everyone made me feel. I hope to stay in touch with all of you and I hope you all stay in touch with me. Of course, thanks must go to Robert, because without him that group would not have gotten together. If any of you are coming to the Chicago area let me know.
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