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Today was the third and final day of the conference here in Norfolk. The conference itself was uneventful; heard a few presentations on the committees that are meeting to develop new guidelines for software certification. I’m sure I’d bore every single one of my readers if I actually described the details of the presentations, so I’ll stop. :-)

After the conference, I walked over to St. Pauls Episcopal church, just a few blocks away. St. Paul’s has met on that particular location since 1639. Parts of the current building date back to 1690 or so. There are a bunch of graves surrounding the church; some of those grave markers date back to the 1690’s as well. It’s quite a fascinating thing to visit a graveyard anywhere; but in the midwest the veteran markers we see usually commemorate WW I or WW II, or in rare cases the Civil War. In this graveyard there were several markers of folks who were Revolutionary War veterans. Too cool. There is also a small cannonball (it looked to be about grapefruit-sized) still embedded in the bricks of the building that was fired by the British back during the Revolutionary War. I love the east coast of the US for all the history. I can’t imagine how blown-away I’d be by European history if I ever get over there.

Did a bit of shopping after the church visit (hey, gotta pick up *something* for the wife and kiddo while I’m here), ate dinner (Max & Erma’s again… tasty!) and headed back to the hotel for a soak in the hot tub and now Sportscenter on TV. Ah… nice to relax. Suppose I should turn it in now so I can get up early in the morning; oughtta be checked out of here by 7 or so for a 9:10 AM flight.

That’s the report from Norfolk. I’ll try to remember to post some pictures when I get back home.

Another day in Norfolk, more of the conference. Fun fun. Today was “breakout sessions”, which means they had 4 different sessions going at the same time on different topics. I attended mostly the “policy and guidance” sessions, which were an overview/intro to the tasks of a DER. Once again, they were mostly presented by engineers who apparently have lousy public speaking skills. I’d better watch out; if I get a few years of DER experience under my belt, they’ll start asking me to present!

The other thing that has surprised me a bit is just how small a community it is. The conference was limited to 300 participants; that is basically all of the software DERs in the country. For the most part, they’ve been in these roles for a long time, so most everybody knows everybody. It will take a little bit of time for me to fit into and gain the respect of that group.

After the conference was over, I shelled out my $17 and took a 3-hour tour of the Norfolk harbor. It was pretty cool. We saw the huge container ships, a whole bunch of destroyers and missile boats, a few submarines (well, just the tops of the submarines), and then an aircraft carrier. The pictures don’t do justice to just how immense that ship is.

Got back from the tour, had a late dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack (I know, it’s lousy chain food, but it was the closest restaurant to the hotel and I was tired and hungry), and then came back to my room and talked to Becky and then my folks on the phone. I should really be getting to bed… it’s nearly 12:30 here. But I’m still on CDT, which means it only feels like 11:30, which is about my normal bedtime. Oh well, the conference doesn’t start until 8 in the morning, which will give me back my hour… unless I want breakfast. I haven’t eaten a breakfast yet this week… slept through them all. Maybe tomorrow.

Today was the first day of the DER software conference (excuse me, the official title is the “FY2005 Software/Complex Electronic Hardware Standardization Conference”) here in Norfolk, VA. (It’s at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott, if you’re really interested.) It started out pretty boring today. Most of today’s topics were on the certification of Complex Electronic Hardware (i.e. FPGAs, ASICs, PLDs, etc). Since I’m mainly a software guy, this hardware stuff wasn’t that interesting.

I found that the other danger of having an engineering conference with presentations by engineers is that, for the most part, engineers have lousy public speaking skills. The one presentation I thought I’d really be interested in was at the end of the day; the guy works for Honeywell (OK, they’re my competitor, but I can forgive him that) and has been a DER for 15 years. He was giving “perspectives on being a software DER”. Now, I’ll give him credit, the material was insightful. Unfortunately, his presentation skills were sub-par. He basically read/mumbled the content from his slides in such a quick, low tone that most of us wouldn’t have understood him if it wasn’t that the text were on the screen. Why is it that the good engineers can’t have some social skills, too?

I wandered around the waterfront plaza here in Norfolk during the lunch hour. After the conference finished for the day, I jumped into that shiny gray Mustang (sweet rental car!) and headed out to Virginia Beach (about 15 minutes away). I’d never been to the Atlantic Ocean before. I found an empty spot on the beach (a tough trick when it’s 100+ degrees outside) and just sat and absorbed for a while. There’s just something incredible about the ocean; the immenseness of it all, I suppose. The continual pounding of the waves, nothing but water as far as the eye can see; the knowledge that if you head out that direction, the next land you’ll come to is Europe.

Back to the hotel to get cleaned up, then I walked over to a restaurant called Max & Erma’s for a late supper. It was nearly 9:00, and the place was pretty empty. I had just talked to Becky on the phone and was feeling kinda lonely sitting in a booth all by myself staring out the window at the cars on the street. On the upside, though, I had one of the nicest servers I’ve ever had; she was very friendly, service was excellent. I ordered the “Garbage Burger”, which came with Bacon, 4 kinds of cheese (American, Cheddar, Swiss, Mozzarella), onions, mushrooms, guacamole and marinara. It was tasty. It was nice to walk the 4 blocks back to the hotel; unfortunately, it was so swelteringly hot that I wasn’t motivated to walk any further.

The one task I should still complete tonight is to prepare some slides for Sunday; I’m teaching Sunday School, and we’re discussing stem cell research. I think I pretty much know what I want to say, I just have to get it compiled and put some pretty slides together. But I know how to do that. :-)