I just got back from a long weekend spent in Pittsburgh. I went there to attend Steel City Ruby Conf, which was pretty good. The first day had a lot of self-described “touchy-feely” talks, which I wasn’t crazy about, but understood why they were being given. Though Julie Pagano’s talk on Front-End Development was pretty good and Jim Weinrich’s “Friendly Flying Robots” was a lot of fun. The talks on Day 2 were much more what I was looking forward to. The talk on git by the Steven Ball was really informative and I’m hoping I can start using some of his tips right away. Avdi Grimm’s talk on Pair Programming has pretty much convinced me that I should give it a try as soon as I get some time. And Leon Gersing’s inspiring talk was the perfect finish. So, based on the strength of those talks, I feel it was a pretty good conference.

My time in Pittsburgh was enjoyable as it usually is. I got to see a Pirates game where they won. (Yay! Because pretty much since then, they’ve been losing.) I also got to walk around a lot (my calves are finally not sore today) and see my favorite sites. I’ve posted the pictures I took here. The weather could not have been any better for my time there or the drive in and out. Pittsburgh is a pretty easy town to get to. Just for reference, it took me about seven hours to drive there. It cost $7.60 to drive across Indiana, $16.50 to drive across Ohio and $5.25 to go IN to Pennsylvania. (There was no toll when I was leaving Pennsylvania on the same road. Weird.) My car was great the whole trip and I really did enjoy the drive. Tomorrow it’s back to work with a renewed sense of trying to accomplish some amazing things. I’m looking forward to it.