It's the first week of December, which means that I've made my annual trek to Las Vegas to attend the 16th annual Autodesk University. As usual, it's a pretty full week. I'm teaching six classes and taking at least that many. In addition, I'm trying to attend a wide selection of industry-specific events.
My AU experience starts with the speaker's reception on Monday night, outside on the roof-top terrace adjacent to one of the Venetian Hotel's many restaurants. Lynn Allen gave us all a quick pep talk and encouraged us to have a great AU.
Although attendance is down this year owing to the economy, you couldn't prove it based on the crowd waiting to get in for the opening keynote on Tuesday morning. It was once again wall-to-wall. What was even worse was trying to get into my first class at 8am Tuesday morning before the keynote. Seems like everyone had enough energy the first day to take one of the early morning classes.
Autodesk CEO helped kick things off on Tuesday morning at the opening keynote, although later in the day, at a press briefing, Carl had more cautious things to say about how our industry would fare in the short term.
It's shaping up to be another great AU. I'll try to report more both here and on my Revit-Up blog. Watch for AutoCAD-specific info here and more Revit-centric information on Revit-Up.
If I needed any confirmation as to the state of the economy, it was driven home on Friday, October 3. That morning, after returning from the season's first CAD Camp event in San Francisco, I was informed that I had been laid off from my job as an applications engineer with The PPI Group, an Autodesk dealership with offices in Portland and Seattle.
So after two years as an employed person, I am once again an independent CAD consultant. Maybe I'll find more time to post here more often.
I am actively seeking new clients. I know times are tough, but that makes it all the more important that users get the most out of the tools and technologies they are using. With more than 25 years of experience, I am uniquely qualified to help ensure that success.
The CAD Camp season is once again upon us. In the past week I've already taught at CAD Camp events in San Francisco and in Reno, Nevada, where I also served as master of ceremonies for the day's event, since Matt Murphy was on the east coast presiding over other events.
In the weeks to come, we've got events scheduled in Chicago, Boise, Anaheim, Portland, Calgary, and Orlando, all before we make the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for Autodesk University.
At upcoming CAD Camps, I'll be teaching classes on the new features in AutoCAD 2009, collaborating with AutoCAD and Autodesk Design Review, working with data and tables in AutoCAD, getting up to speed with AutoCAD's annotation scaling feature, and using Autodesk Impression. I'll also be teaching some Revit classes.
I'm just taking a few minutes to apologize for having not posted anything new quite some time. While not meant as an excuse, I've been on the road for the past several months doing AUGI CAD Camp events all over the country. And when I haven't been on the road with AUGI, I've been teaching classes, meeting with clients, and speaking at various other events.
But summer is here now. I'm not traveling as much (there's only one CAD Camp event this month, just across the border in Vancouver, BC). And I've gotten up to speed with AutoCAD 2009.
So stay tuned for new postings in the days and weeks to come.
So, I spent the weekend in Scottsdale at COFES without ever once getting online to post any of my impressions of the event. COFES 2009 was fantastic, and I made note of lots of things that I want to write about, but at this point, I still don't have time to do so. But stay tuned...
I'm now in Dallas attending Autodesk Tech Camp. I spent most of the day installing the software that I need to train on over the next few days. Right now I'm patiently waiting for Revit datasets to download from Autodesk...and waiting...and waiting. There's lots of content.
There's not much to report from here yet. Today was mostly about upper management telling us about the importance of digital prototyping, something that I've been writing and talking about now for several years.
The high point for me was a keynote address by Mario Andretti. Yes, that Mario Andretti.
Those of you who know me know that I am a big open wheel autoracing fan. And I readily admit that Mario has been a hero of mine for a long time. I knew that Mario was going to be talking at Tech Camp, and so before coming to Dallas, I located several photos that I had taken of Mario over the years and had two sets of 8x12 enlargements made—one to give to him and one for him to autograph for me. I was successful in that quest and will scan and post those photos in a future posting. (You can see examples of my professional race photos on my website at http://www.dscohn.com/racephotos.htm.)
I guess that's about it for now. I've still got more software to load before I sleep, and while I'd love to actually write something of substance tonight, I have to attend to the installs.
I just don't know how people who blog on a more regular basis do it.
Yeah, I know. It sounds like a Willie Nelson song. But after getting to stay mostly at home for the past several months, the travel season is upon me. I'm currently sitting in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, about to walk over to The PPI Group where I'll be doing a webcast this morning and then teaching a 4-hour "hands-on" BIM for Principals class this afternoon to a dozen architects that have flown in from various cities around the U.S. They're part of an AIA "Rainmakers" group, and I'm very excited to get to address these firm leaders.
I don't get to hang out and smooze with them, however, because as soon as that class finishes today at 5pm, I head right back to Portland Airport to hop a flight to Phoenix. Today marks the start of the 9th annual Congress On the Future of Engineering Software. COFES is an annual event that is part think tank, part technology summit, and part business conference. Run by my former partners at Cyon Research Corp., it brings together more than 200 top executives from the engineering software industry and some of their more influential customers and places them in an environment where they can talk freely about their future development plans and customer needs.
I look forward to COFES every year, both for the chance to engage in fascinating conversation and also to catch up with old friends. I'll try to find time to report on the event here on CADman-Do.
I won't get to relax very long, however, because on Sunday afternoon it's on to Dallas to attend this year's Autodesk Tech Camp, where I'll get my "official" Autodesk training on all of the new software. So continue watching this space for my reports on that event as well.
I heard the news as soon as I got up this morning to drive to work. A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train had collided with a tractor trailer truck near Marysville, WA. After attending a meeting, I got back into my car to drive back to Bellingham. As I came through Marysville on I-5, I could see a news helicopter hovering a short distance off to the east. It was clear that the wreck was quite near the interstate. So I got off at the next exit and headed toward the hovering copter.
I didn't have to go very far. There in front of me was the train. Two locomotives were completely off the track, with one coming to rest just inches from the State Avenue roadway. There was a small crowd of onlookers. We all had to stay back behind the police barriers that had been set up. But we still had quite a view. Above is the view from the 130th Avenue grade crossing, just north of the incident. Here's the story. At approximately 5:40am local time on Monday, March 17, 2008, a northbound BNSF freight train collided with a tractor trailer carrying a load of frozen pizza. The train crashed through the trailer, the cab having already cleared the grade crossing near Pacific Grinding Wheel just north of Marysville, WA. The locomotives pushed the trailer until it caught on a billboard on the east side of the right-of-way, at which point the three locomotives and one box car derailed, tearing up the track.
The train, bound from Pasco, WA to Vancouver, BC was mostly empty and there were no hazardous materials on board. The crossing had a stop sign but there were no gates or flashing lights. The news reported that the driver said that he misjudged the distance and speed of the train. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. By the time I got there, the cleanup had been underway for several hours. But the lead locomotive was still covered with insulation from the trailer as well as boxes of frozen pizza. By late Monday afternoon, BNSF was estimating that work would continue until well past midnight and didn't expect the rail line to be reopened until at least 3am on Tuesday morning.
I shot a bit of video with my Canon SD600 Digital Elph. (Important tip: Always carry a camera.)
I was also interviewed by a reporter from KIRO News, the local Seattle CBS affiliate. A small piece of that interview ran as part of this evening's 6pm newscast.
