Sunday was a whirlwind tour of Vancouver. We saw a lot of downtown, Gastown, Granville Market and a harbour. The Game Design program at Vancouver Film School had an open house so we were able to go participate in that as well. The Vancouver Film School started their Game Design program back around 2000. It looks like a pretty exclusive class to get in to - they accept only about 75 students each year. From what I saw in the open house, the Game Design program isn't just about coding or art, it's about putting together the whole thing. They have courses that cover theory of game play from the basics that make board games and paper games playable and compelling. They cover 2D graphics and gaming, from pixel art to Flash animation. They do 3D work in 3DS Max. Students build games using one of a few popular game engines, like the Unreal Engine. The idea is to prepare them for mainstream tools and they'll be able to adapt if and when they run in to other tools they need to use.

No time to write, just some of my favourite pictures from yesterday around the city (click for bigger of course).

Northern Voice was a big day. By the end I was wiped out in every way. We had walked in the Vancouver rain until it soaked us through, my feet were sore and tired, stomach was empty and my mind was stuffed. And I loved it all. The conference was great. I was prepared for a total blog love-in but what I got was a bunch of great ideas, some good technical advice and support from being around like-minded people.

After the keynote by Anil Dash opened the conference, we went in to a session on social software in learning. The university scene has changed drastically since I was a full time student. There are a lot of web-based programs to help bring education online. The reason I know this is that most people in the session seemed pretty fed up with them all. D'Arcy Norman talked about success using Drupal to get students blogging and using forums as an extension of the classroom. Specifically, Drupal can remove a lot of the administrative formality and busy work if it is configured well. This allows engaged students to self-organize. I've tried Drupal as an admin and a user and I have mixed feelings about it. I definitely believe that with the right person managing it, Drupal can be the right backend for a lot of different content management applications. Specifically, it does seem well-suited to the field of education. With the wrong admin though, users can be locked out of features unnecessarily and quickly get turned off. I guess that's like any good tool - users make good things great.

So it's pretty late here already (12 am Pacific, though my blog is set to Eastern so it's probably going to say it's after 3 when I post this).

So far Vancouver's a cool place, the Blue Horizon is a swanky hotel and the people at MooseCamp were pretty cool too. When Candace and I finally made it to the hotel yesterday we were amazed at the view. Here are a couple samples of the shots we took on the balcony.

Last night there was a dinner for Northern Voice attendees. We found our way there by Skytrain (which, oddly enough, we boarded underground at Burrard Station) and a bus. The food was good but more over it was great to start talking to the other people coming to the conference. We ended up sitting with Roland Tanglao, Catherine Winters, Dale McGladdery and some other interesting people whose names I can't find at the moment. We all talked about a bunch of stuff and it really helped to make more friendly faces at today's MooseCamp. In the morning Roland led a session on Social Media Diaspora. The real seed of the idea seemed to be about reconnecting with roots and how social technology is enabling that, but it got us talking and thinking about what it means to be part of different kinds of groups and what the repercussions are. Have a listen to the podcast on that page and you can get more of a sense of what I mean.

Wow. Busy times these days. I've been trying to hit 58 with my main in WoW and Candace and I have been having fun with our Shammies, but that's not what's been keeping me really busy. (Today's post is a brain-dump and some personal rambling, enjoy but don't expect enlightenment :) ) Jeff and I have been collaborating on some stuff that's not really ready for public discussion without ridicule. Looks like neither one of us is going to make it to GDC this year and that kind of delivered the kick in the ass to really move on a new project. So Jeff and I have some cool ideas and great progress around building simple games with a do-what-you-know attitude. Still, getting away to GDC has always been something that energizes and encourages me so that left me jonesing for a conference. I need to see some new places, meet some new faces and keep the daydream pipeline full. Jeff and I talked about Mobile Monday New York with SVG goodness. Candace and I almost did Podcast Academy. Both interesting options but neither worked out for us. In the meanwhile some hard working bloggers out around Vancouver have been organizing the third Northern Voice conference and un-organizing the MooseCamp unconference. They've offered Candace a travel bursary to help cover costs of getting there. That's a strong incentive to participate in something one is already in to. Being the friendly person she is, I've been invited to tag along. Last year I read a little about Moose Camp and thought it sounded like a pretty cool chance to get out, see BC and talk to some other bloggers who are probably more active than me. I really wouldn't have expected I could make it out there this year but here I am making plans. I'm excited to talk to some more avid bloggers than me. I try not to talk about blogging in my blog but I guess that any personal writing (which blogging inevitably is) has to include pieces of the author and a piece of that is blogging. I'm part of the crowd and it helps everyone when we share experiences. Since Candace just found out a few days ago, we had to rush to get plane tickets & hotel. I kind of like the sort of pressure I'm under when it's something I know how to do, so it was exciting yesterday finding a hotel that's near the bus route (Route 44 - UBC/Downtown - PDF) and far enough from the stadiums (have a look at the hotel and the P). The short time frame meant flight prices go up daily but I think we did all right flying from Detroit Metro to Vancouver. Unfortunately, flying from Detroit Metro means we're crossing the increasingly important Canada/US border. This leads to the next part of my story... Crossing from Canada in to the US by air now requires a valid passport. This is a change from the historically very friendly relationship shared across this border. What ever the subtext is, I'm not in a position to make a statement, I just want to go to my conference. And my passport is expired. So last night, after the hotel & flight rush, I had to zip across the city to see my friend who can be a guarantor for my passport application. Luckily I'd already got the photos and the rest of the hoops jumped through a couple months ago. Then this morning I realized that even the fastest turn-around the passport office can do is ten working days if you apply in person. Well actually I knew that but realized that the conference is about nine working days from today. So off I went to plead for expedited service. It's actually not hard to get express service if you bring your travel documents.

So here I am sitting at the Starbucks on First Street in downtown San Jose. It's a nice morning, a little overcast but warm enough for shorts. I took the VTA for the first time this morning - that's the light rail that goes through the city here. It was just a few minutes from the Hyatt where Candace is doing the Blogher thing. Every time I come to San Jose I feel inspired to code or write or construct, so I figured that while she's doing the conference I'd spend a little time catching up on some projects I'm in the middle of. That and maybe just a little bit of WoW. Yesterday we went down to Santa Cruz. We saw the boardwalk and some beaches there then had lunch and got on Highway 1 down to Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Last night we got together for dinner with Erik, Dan Howard, and Scott. We got to talking a little about scrum and agile development, micro ISVs, and working in the software industry. All-in-all what you'd expect when some software-types get together and chat. Today we took it easy, tooled around Mountain View a little bit in the morning. Scott took us for a quick walk around Yahoo! It sounds like they're doing some pretty exciting things there. The next generation of Photos will be pretty sweet. Here's what the weather's been like for us: Okay, it hasn't rained the whole time, but I've seen a lot more of the windshield wipers this time than any other California trip.

The drive yesterday was simply amazing. Jeff and I have seen LA before and we've both been to San Jose, but the drive between the two has some of most beautiful natural views I've ever seen. We flew in to Los Angeles on Saturday and spent the afternoon there. After picking up dessert at Real Food Daily we drove up to Ventura where there was a room at La Quinta waiting for us. After checking in we took the half-hour trip to Santa Barbara for dinner at Spiritland Bistro and drinks in a local bar. The part Jeff and I have been planning out over the past couple months however, was yesterday's journey. I've done parts of Highway 1 before - Candace and I travelled between Malibu and Laguna Beach last year on our E3 trip (you can see some of the photos from that trip at OnBeaches.com). This year Jeff and I packed the whole 350-odd miles into one day. In the morning we got on the road pretty early, maybe a little after 8:00. Jeff drove first and I took a few pictures out the window. I know logically that there's no real reason to pick up a camera in a car driving at 70 miles per hour, but there's something that gets me every time I'm on a trip. There's this instinct to capture and hold on to great memories of great places. There's no real shareable value in photos shot out the window of a moving vehicle. Generally they're only of interest to the people who were there since the quality is only good enough to act as a queue to the sense of adventure that the scenery stirred up in the first place. When we got into Santa Barbara in the morning we went up State Street (the main drag). There's a wharf that juts a long way out into the water. We took a walk out to the end and soaked in the ocean smells and clear views out to the horizon. The wharf also affords a look back over the city laid out in front of the mountains. I'm still learning to use my new camera - a Digital Rebel XT, but I think I shot a few nice ones. We'd hoped originally to spend some time on Leadbetter beach, but when we got there it was way too windy. I took a couple pics of the highway winding up and away from the city and a couple of the sand and surf, and that was enough. I guess next time I'll pack a little warmer when the weather reports say 50 degrees and overcast.

Since Jeff and I are looking for something to do on Monday (March 20) in San Jose for dinner, and Joel Spolsky's going to be speaking at EclipseCon in Santa Clara that week, I thought I'd check the

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