Easy! Reader

I have now been full-time self-employed for six months now and I’m amazed at how fast it’s gone. I’ve had some incredible supporters and I’d like to take the time to thank them:

To Nate, Mike, Julian and the rest of the Bolt|Peters crew: You guys rock! Were it not for your support (and coaxing), I may not have made the leap so soon.

To Lane, Todd and all the folks at Adaptive Path: Our projects together have been challenging, but also incredibly rewarding and I’m very thankful to have you guys as clients, partners and friends.

To Gavin, Susan, Rose & the whole fassforward team: Your words of encouragement and advice on growing this business helped prepare me more than you know.

To Jeffrey, Erin, Erin and my other fellow A List Apart-ians: I’m floored that I’ve only been working with you guys for a year; it’s seems like I’ve known you all forever. Each of you brings a unique perspective to the magazine and I think it’s better for it; we’ve put out some remarkable issues and it just keeps getting better. This is one of the best teams I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.

To my friends in the web standards community: You are a group unlike any other I’ve encountered in my working life. You are always looking for ways to help one another without letting ego get in the way. So many industries are stuck in that dog-eat-dog mentality that’s such bullshit; you are a breath of fresh air and I am thankful to count myself among your numbers. I hope that I can do as much for others as you all have done for me. Were I to name each and every one of you, I’d be typing all day, but I’d be remiss if I did not single out one of you…

To Molly: You’ve done so much for me, it’s hard to find the words. You’ve been a tremendous mentor, a fountain of encouragement, and an incredible friend. You are one of the most genuine, thoughful and loving individuals I’ve ever met. I know you have a hard time seeing it sometimes, but you really are fucking awesome!

And finally, to my wife, Kelly: Thank you for pushing the fear aside and taking this leap with me. Thank you for your support, friendship, and, most of all, love. You are my partner in business and in life. You are my muse. You mean the world to me.

I know, I know, I haven’t posted anything in the aftermath of AEA-NYC. Things have been a little busy on the homefront (new roof, kitchen remodelling and the firing of a lazy, lying contractor) and since moving into the new office, I haven’t really felt much like bringing my laptop up to blog in the evening (instead choosing to enjoy spending my time with Kelly). Sorry.

To create a nice triumvirate of excuses, I’ll toss in this one too: I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time off-line, working on a chapter for an as-yet unannounced web standards book (more on that soon) in addition to plying my technical editing skills to the latest edition (3rd, I believe) of Jen’s Learning Web Design (note: the link still goes to the 2nd edition) and Andy’s Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design.

Anyway, so, An Event Apart…
I had such a great time at this conference. Not only was it a pleasure to speak at, but I met some awesome folks and got to spend more time with Jeffrey, Eric, Jason, Khoi, Tantek, and Rob. It was also great to spend more time with (Dr.) Kat and Carolyn (Eric’s family) and to finally meet Carrie and Ava (Jeffrey’s family) and Liz (Jason’s bride). I also got to hang out a bit more with Dan & Jon (both formerly of Pixelworthy). They are two truly fantastic gents and they played their roles as the AEA go-fers/whipping boys with gusto. Seriously, these guys rock. From purely a social aspect, AEA was fantastic; like an intimate SXSW.

As for the sessions, I thought they were incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed all of Jeffrey’s talks. He is such a great speaker, capable of moving an audience with even the simplest turn of phrase. It was nice to finally see Eric giving a CSS talk too. I’ve only seen him talk microformats (at SXSWi 2005) and general web standards stuff relating to search (on one of my panels at SXSWi 2006). I was delighted to find that he and I tackle layout problems very much the same way… making my methods not seem quite so mad. “Stan” was also a fantastic solo act (I’ve only seen him on panels) and he walked us through how the ALA redesign came to be. Being that I came on board just after the relaunch, it was nice to get some of the backstory.

The guest speakers were also a lot of fun to listen to. ze frank had me in tears I was laughing so hard and I had no idea just how much work Khoi puts into blogging and other non-NYT-related activities. It’s amazing he gets any sleep at all. Tantek’s microformats talk was also good because it helped amalgamate a lot of the disperate (and not always clear) information available on microformats into something usable, allowing me to take it beyond the simple hcard and hcal stuff I’ve been using for the last couple months.

I also thought the design and code critiques were excellent. The design one could have been a little more hmm, how to put this… aggressive? But design is such a subjective area, it’s hard to critique without some semblance of a creative brief or at least an understanding of the audience. Eric, Tantek and I were a little less forgiving in the code critique, but I think we brought up some really important points and kept it educational for everyone. Tantek’s got a nice write-up of the proceedings over at his site.

In all, I had a great time at An Event Apart. You may be thinking sure, but you were a speaker, but I am positive I would have enjoyed it equally as much as an attendee. There were great people, great talks and the food was fantastic.

If you feel so inclined, you can check out my photostream from the event as well as the AEA-NYC group photos over at Flickr.