SPFoxhole Blog

Wow what a week! Just to prove to all you naysayers out there about how it is completely impossible to teach Bob (whatever version) anything related to Development my "Boss" Chris Regan (or Krissy as i like to call him)  decided to send me in for an edumication.   At first even i thought he was joking but after some prodding by him and AC i decided to go and cement the fact that I am not in any way shape or form cut out to be a Dev type.  Funny thing happened though..... sitting?  I uhmm actually enjoyed what i was learning and understood it.  Hats off to the Ted Pattison Group and especially my good buddy Andrew Connell for such a wonderful class.  It was not only very well put together and informative but also fun and interactive at the same time.   For the other students in the class they had a rare opportunity to hear both sides of the fence.  I was able to step in and provide the pains we Admin types face when working with Devs :)  I think the other students found alot of benefit in this.   Andrew is one of those trainers that really knows how to make the student GET what the subject is about and the labs were superior to any course i have taken thus far in any IT Discipline i have been associated with.

The course was very dev centric but it wasnt purely doing code.... What i really wanted to get out of this was a deeper understanding of the publishing aspects of MOSS and this is exactly what i got.

You can see all the topics covered here.   Bottom line is if your interested in WCM this is THE guy to learn from (besides Spence of course)

So why the funny title... what the hell do you mean by how did you survive?   Ok so the week wasnt all classroom related.......

One of the jokes i was telling around was that Connell hasn't been to NYC since he was a kid and I made it sound like his first day in the city he appeared to have that deer in the headlights look about him... and he did.   As the week progressed and he learned from his mistakes on the Subway he started acting like one of us locals.   Tuesday night after class we decided to go find a tavern for a quick drink and i swear the boy has Irish radar.... "Uhm Hey Bob look over there isn't that an Irish Flag?"  (for those not in the know that is an indicator for a bar)  Sure enough 5 hours later and many pints of Guinness (mostly me) we called it a night.  We  also brought with us some of the other students and gave them some an additional "from the field view of MOSS".  Back to Jersey for me and to the hotel for Andrew.  On Wednesday night we had him present at the NYC SharePoint User Group and with a turn out of between 125 and 150 he was a big hit.   After the meeting a small group of us headed over for a dinner at Gallagher's Steak House on 52nd street and another late night getting home for Bobby but it was a great night.

So now i have a break from seeing the lad for 2 weeks where we again regroup at MVP Summit.   Im Connell'd out :)