Upcoming Tour - Florida

Here's a heads-up for my tour through Florida from February 8th through February 19th. I'm actively seeking hosts for this tour, so please contact me if you are interested. The basic premise of the pair-programming tour is that I pair-program with people in exchange for room and board. Room can be anything from a guest bed to a spot on your floor for my air mattress. I'm a vegetarian, but otherwise completely flexible for food. If you happen to be flush with money, a hotel is okay, but I prefer staying with my hosts as a way to get exposed to people's lives outside programming.

This tour marks a very important milestone for me, as it is the first tour outside of my local area; I'm flying down to Orlando to attend acts_as_conference as part of my "How I Got Started In Programming" interview series, then beginning a journeyman tour from February 8th to February 19th. While at the conference, I'll be interviewing as many people as I can for the series.

This tour came about through some pretty awesome sponsorship coordination by Anthony Eden of chi.mp. I want to express just how overwhelmed I am by what he's done in support of both the interview series and the journeyman tour. Anthony contacted me on twitter about coming down to Florida and interviewing ruby/rails people at acts_as_conference for the series. I figured that, as long as I'm heading down to the Orlando area for a couple days, why not extend it into a pair-programming tour, as well. Since being hosted dramatically decreases my expenses while on the road (hosts provide room and board), extending the trip isn't a huge deal.

Anthony really pulled through for me, finding enough funding for both the plane ticket and hotel during the conference. There are some other incidentals that we are looking for support for, but I already am absolutely floored by this kind of support for both the interview series and the journeyman tour idea. I'll be creating a separate entry about the exact sponsors as the tour gets closer.

I have a few people starting to sign up for hosting, so I'll be posting more information as it gets closer.