I’m here! The Banning Mills retreat is beautiful, though I didn’t get to see very much of it today. When we got here from the airport, I basically dumped my bags in my room and went right to dinner—where I spent the better part of 4 hours talking with the instructor and a group of fellow students. It was one of the geekiest conversations I’ve ever been a part of… which was awesome.
Our instructor for tomorrow and Sunday is Mark Fenoglio. He will teach us the Objective-C language in those two days. Hopefully my brain will still be a solid on Monday, and not a liquid!
I got to hear a lot of his stories about past work experiences, how he got hired at Big Nerd Ranch, and his passion for JRR Tolkien. I didn’t do a lot of talking in that four hours—I just tried to absorb all of the history and knowledge and humor that I could! Between him, the other four students at the table, and the bottle of red wine that was consumed, it was a fantastic dinner. Oh, and the food was amazing, too.
At the airport, and on the 50-minute shuttle ride to the Ranch, I had some equally great conversation with some other students. There’s even someone else here from the Twin Cities, which is great! Another student is really into filmmaking, which was the basis of another great conversation. Essentially, everyone here is pretty cool and interesting. Of course, I didn’t expect anything less from a group of people as nerdy as me (or more so)!
My camera was buried at the bottom of my bag, so I didn’t take any pictures before getting to my room after dinner (and I didn’t want to seem like some crazy person who wanted visual documentation of the entire trip… even though I do). I did snap this picture of the jacuzzi I have in my room, mostly to make my husband jealous. I just might go relax in it before I go to sleep.
Tomorrow is a big day, and my brain needs to be as ready as possible to be completely overloaded with Objective-C goodness. I’ll write more—much more—tomorrow night.