Elizabeth's Blog

People have been asking me about the camping arrangements for PHP Appalachia, so here's the deal, if you're interested.

In order for us to formally reserve camp sites or cabins, we would have to provide upfront the full deposit on the cabins and one night's fee for the tent sites. Not only do we not have the cash to front that, quite honestly I'm not sure how many of our attendees will want to camp versus making other arrangements (how many people can think that far ahead? :) )... thus making it difficult to reserve anything formally at this time.

However, what we've worked out with the Pigeon Forge KOA is that you can call and make your own reservations for whatever you want (camp site versus tent site) and mention that you're with the PHP Appalachia group. They'll do their best to keep us all together as a group.

Although they're completely open right now, the sooner you make arrangements, the better chances you have of getting a reservation and being put with the rest of the group.

To make your reservation, you can call the Pigeon Forge KOA at (800) 562-7703. Incidentally, at the moment, if you try and reserve online it erroneously says that they're all booked up, so you'll have to call.

I've started updating the PHP Appalachia site (http://www.phpappalachia.org) with more details on our 2008 un-conference.

It's important to note that we've changed the date to October 11-14, 2008.

We have 6 rooms left in the lodge, so if you want to reserve one, you need to act quickly.

If you'd prefer to stay somewhere else you can still register for the conference; registration is only $15 to cover the cost of incidentals. Your registration fee includes an official PHP appalachia t-shirt.

Check out http://www.phpappalachia.org for more details.

We had such a great time at PHP Appalachia '06, we've been dying to do it again... so here we are!

WHAT IS PHP APPALACHIA? A PHP unconference nestled in the Smoky Mountains, for those who like to camp or stay in a cabin, enjoy spending time with friends, and talking about PHP. As before, we will have a few presentations, but a lot of the time will be flexible and spent how the group sees fit at the time.

WHEN? The first week of September, 2008 (that's Labor Day for you US folks).

WHERE? We are moving the shindig to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Tennessee area, and we're considering renting something like this:

http://www.alpinechaletrentals.com/viewproperty.aspx?PropertyID=18016

This is only one of the large group chalets we're considering renting; it's all going to come down to how many people we have and the dates we can reserve.

Besides PHPing, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg offer many fun things to do, including hiking, horseback riding, whitewater rafting, outlet shopping, indoor skydiving, and of course who could forget Dollywood?

TAKE NOTE:
We're immediately opening up pre-registration to whomever is interested in joining us for this adventure; a great time is guaranteed to be had by all.

HOWEVER - SPACE IS VERY LIMITED! We are cutting off the number of attendees (staying at the chalet) at 50 and those spots are filling up fast.

HOW CAN YOU REGISTER? Send me an email to elizabeth _at_ naramore _dot_ net. I will email you back with PayPal information.

HOW MUCH IS IT? Right now, we're taking a $200 + $15 registration fee if you are interested in reserving a spot in the chalet. If you want to attend, but would rather camp somewhere or make other sleeping arrangements, that's perfectly okay, you can still send us your $15 registration fee, and we'll mark you down.

We have groups coming in from Cincinnati, Washington DC, and Atlanta, so if you're in those areas and are interested in attending, you should contact your local PHP usergroup to perhaps arrange rideshares or sharing a room with someone.

REMEMBER, SPACE IS LIMITED AND FILLING UP VERY QUICKLY, so if you want to participate you'd best hurry.

Remember this is in the planning stages so if you have any suggestions or questions, don't hesitate to contact me or Keith Casey.

Oh yeah, WHAT ABOUT FOOD? Well, to be honest, we haven't quite figured that out yet. But we're working on it :). Suggestions are always welcome.

By the way, if you want to see pictures from the previous PHP Appalachia, you can see them all at Flickr.

Hope to see you there!

The PHPWomen.org site now has an easy way for you to help out, if you're so inclined. We've added a "Donate" button so that if you have some extra cash and want to support a good cause, you can do so easily and securely.

Where will the money go?As you know, we like to give out our free t-shirts at conferences to help spread the word about our group. Soon, you'll be able to buy them yourself, but in the meantime the cost for all of those shirts (and the travel to and from the conferences) comes out of our pockets. Occasionally we get help from corporate sponsors, which helps tremendously, but other than that it's really been up to us. So some of the money will go to promoting our group through giveaways and exhibiting and traveling to conferences.

We also want to help out those who may be in need of training materials, help with the ZCE exam, or who want to speak at conferences, but may not afford to be able to do it. So part of the money will go to help our members achieve their goals.

Additionally, we have some cool fundraising ideas floating around, but there are times when you have to have money in order to make money. So some of the money will go to helping our fundraising ideas get off the ground.

What if you want to help out but don't have any spare cash?We can still use your help! We are always in need of volunteers for our mentoring program, website help, writing articles that will help our members, and help in other areas. We welcome anyone (and yes that means you too, guys) that wants to lend a helping hand. We can also use your ideas! If you have a great idea for a fundraiser or something that will make our group better and more effective, we would love to hear it! You can email me at elizabeth [at] naramore [dot] net.

Is this PHPWomen thing really making a difference?I have had numerous women come up to me and say "thanks". Thanks for giving them a place to go for PHP help and friendship, thanks for bringing us out of the woodwork, and thanks for saying things that they've always felt but couldn't really say to anyone. I also had someone thank me for being "normal" about it and keeping the group open to everyone. Of course, the same issues exist in other languages besides PHP. Just last week I spoke to several other women at Codemash (Python, Ruby and C# devs) and while we laughed at the lack of the female presence there, it's still unfortunate. It'd be nice to see a difference made in our PHP subculture that other groups can use to their advantage.

Incidentally, on our site, we've also posted the conferences where we will be exhibiting, so if you're going to be there, please stop by our booth and say hello! (And make sure to pick up your t-shirt, sticker, or whatever we happen to be giving away at the time :) )

CodeMash

Thanks to WebDevRadio and the CodeMash.org folks, I'll be attending this year's CodeMash, Jan 10-11, 2008. Lucky for me, it's about a 4 hour drive, and any time I can avoid flying to get to a conference is a good thing.

I'm excited to be a part of this interesting concept, where many languages are thrown in together and stirred up like a big batch of cookie dough. Although I've not been before, I've heard that what comes out may even be better than a fresh batch of warm chocolate chip cookies. (And if you're wondering, PHP is so the chocolate chip part of that recipe). I really like chocolate chip cookies, so it may be a tough sell for me, but I'm really looking forward to going nonetheless. There are some familiar names on the speaker circuit, and some new names (well, new to me anyway), but not one session that holds absolutely no interest for me. They all look like they would be worth your hour of time. If you're considering going, you can see the full schedule here: http://www.codemash.org/SessionList.aspx.

And if this weren't enough, the resort where the conference is being held looks cool as hell. I may bring the kids and hubby along, just because I think they'd have a blast. It's going to be at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. Too bad it isn't later in the year, or we'd hit Cedar Point while we're up there.

At any rate, thanks WebDevRadio and CodeMash- really looking forward to attending! (And if anyone else is going to be there, give me a shout and we'll grab a beer.)