At the beginning of the night we said hello to Lynn Langit who introduced us to Anton Delsink, a Developer Evangelist based out of Dubai.  At the events he presents at in his areas, oftentimes the rooms are completely void of females.  As in not a single one.  However, in Turkey the percentage of females is quite impressive.  He said he once had an event where the entire front row were women, and all were engineers, physicists, and computer scientists.

While on the balcony, Ed and I met up with Barb Dybwad, a Senior Editor at Mashable.  We had some great sarcastic and hilarious conversations.  Ed and her were rapid fire with their comments.  I took a back seat for a good chunk here, as this was when I was yawning and such.  We hung out with her on and off for the rest of the night.  All in all good times there.

While we still owned the table we were at on the balcony, we also met up with Jim Pinkelman of Microsoft.  He has been a huge supporter of diversity efforts.  He explained that there had money put toward such efforts all over the place, and he has been working on focusing the impacts so the funds are used in the most effective manner.  Running into allies is always awesome!

I shot some footage of our journey to the Underground@PDC and it includes a few clips of the event as well.

Things were cool until folks got drunk.

I did not have fun tonight.  My evening consisted of dealing with drunk old men.  Pushy drunk old men who did not like that I would not dance with them.

Ed and I attended the Underground@PDC tonight.  During the presentation portion of the evening, we socialized on the balcony and had some fun conversations.  Since we didn’t move from the seats we were able to snag during this portion of the evening, my tiredness was hitting me hard.  Eight o’clock, and I could not stop yawning.  So goes the story of conferences and lack of sleep.

Then we moved inside where the dancing began shortly thereafter.  At first I was excited.  I love to jump around and dance.  Which is nothing like Ed’s dancing as she actually knows what she’s doing.  At the end of the first song, I remembered what’s it’s like to dance outside of Grace Hopper and at DePauw with kids I know.  Absolutely no possibility of dancing by myself without having to fend guys off.  I went back to where Ed was eating.

I am exhausted, so I’m going to try and cleanse myself of what I experienced as quickly as possible.

Ed loves to dance.  She was doing all sorts of salsa moves, and every single guy around her at one point was blatantly staring.  All I could think about was how awkwardly that translates into working together in a professional environment.  Not exactly respect being communicated there.

Then there was the guy who was purposely being an ass.  (He said such himself.)  “You’re in marketing, right?  You’re in sales, right?”  When I first replied, “No way!” I thought then we’d move into what I actually do.  No, he seriously didn’t believe I was legit.  This is the first I have actually had to prove myself.  I won that argument damn quickly to the point where he had nothing left to say.

This same guy (obviously) gets there are few women in tech but had a shrug your shoulders attitude about it.  “There’s a lack, but I have no idea what’s wrong.”  I spouted out the stuff about few girls who think tech is something for them and that mid-level women leave the field in droves while those with mentors and support tend to stay.  He was drunk, so I saved my energy beyond that.

Next up was the guy my dad’s age who harassed both Ed and I.  Ed and I had been hanging near a table, and this guy, after staring at Ed dance, sat down in the chair that was next to us.  Ed left to grab a refill on her drink, and I was arm’s length away from this man.  He put his arm around me and tried to pull me to him.  I stopped that and said, “No.”  His response?  “I see, playing hard to get.”

Later on, after Ed and I moved elsewhere, another guy appeared that was now staring at me while I danced.  I still feel disgusting from that.  Specifically because it went on for such an extended period of time.  Ed and I left for a while, and when we returned he wasn’t around.  At this point, we chilled sitting down.  This guy again appeared, and at first we actually had a conversation.  He was from Illinois, we’re Indiana.  Business, blah.  Then it was on to him being too close, and not getting the hint after we moved away to dance.

Then there was yet another man older than my dad who somehow learned I was from Indiana who would not leave me alone when I said, “No, I am not interested in dancing with you.”  His response?  “Oh, I know how you Indiana girls are.  You dance.”  Okay then.

Finally, there was the guy that a woman shared with me she has never seen sober.  He told me I needed to say yes more often.  Thank you for your unsolicited advice.

Should have left when someone we knew at Geek Fest told us to get over there.  At least there we knew non-creepy people.

So yeah, being a woman in technology is a joy.

Having the Flip HD is rather nice for shooting short clips.  Unfortunately, it being a simple device, my shaking arm made for obviously non-tripod shot video.  However, no matter! I was able to throw together a really quick clip showing just a couple of the many sites in the Big Room at PDC09, specifically at the Coding4Fun booth. Coding4Fun is demoing five projects and you’ll see shots of three in the video.

In addition to this video, Ed and I were able to get five interviews for Ed & Ashley’s 5 Minute Show, which focuses on women in technology, as well as an interview for Microsoft’s outreach efforts to students.

When Ed and I got in Monday night, our original plan was to head to the tweetup.  Which we did enter, but then immediately headed out to dinner with Microsoft employees we met at the 2009 US Imagine Cup finals.  There we met Lynn Langit who invited us to a private reception that took place tonight.  There we ran into Jennifer Marsman whom we met at GHC09, and it was awesome to see her!  Especially since she introduced us to folks.  (That was really helpful for the introvert in me.  Which I don’t actually have to worry all that much about with Ed around.  No, she’s not an extrovert or anything.)

Once we met a few folks, it became a lot easier to hold conversation.  Had a good chunk of discussion on women in computing.  It’s interesting holding that conversation with men, since I am so used to discussing the topic with a group where the majority is female.  I was pumped when I was able to give folks a head’s up on some of the studies and research I learned about at GHC09 on women and diversity in technology. Next week I’ll be publishing a post where I go through some of that information, since I covered it during my presentation on women in technology to an Introduction to Women’s Studies course.

Besides talking women in tech, skipped from random tech topic to the next.  All in all, a successful night.  Someone even followed me on Twitter right there on the spot.  Then I remembered I could do the same via text.  (He had a fancy iPhone with a nice Twitter app.  Someday, I will have that and my texts can once again solely be used to contact me directly.)

This week must be better.

I would say it’s already off to a significantly better start. I never explained what was up, and since we’re keeping a public blog to provide people updates, I’ll quit being so vague.

My uncle Rick who is only 46 years old suffered a massive heart attack on Sunday, November 8. Sunday my mom woke me to the news. Monday my mom woke me to say he got worse. Tuesday and Wednesday he wasn’t getting better, and Wednesday night they put him on a ventilator. Which the nurse really wanted my family to call a “higher form of oxygen therapy” since TV shows only show ventilators being used as life support. Thursday my mom woke me AGAIN and thus far that was the worst day. The previous two times of being woke up, members of my family took time to shower. This time after simply visiting the bathroom to pee, brush my teeth, and wash my face, everyone in my house was gone.

That day he was transferred from Fort Wayne to Methodist in Indianapolis in the case he needed a heart transplant. HOWEVER, since that day we’ve stopped receiving more bad news than good. On Saturday they removed the balloon pump they had put in his heart the previous Monday. Today they finally took him off the ventilator! Which means he’ll finally be weaned off sedation! Man, he’s in for quite the shock about what’s happened since being put on the vent.

So, please hold for a moment while I do a happy dance.

*Dance Dance Dance*

Alrighty. Today I leave for PDC, which is kinda rough seeing as I missed way too many days of work last week. However, I am determined to enjoy this week as the stress from last week was exhausting. (Meaning, Rick, you best continue on your upswing. Just saying.)

More details to come!

I know I’m overwhelmed when I can’t look at my email except for immediate action items.

Everything was dropped for the family member at the hospital. Nothing else mattered in that moment. It was just making sure all the family was okay or as okay as we could be.

This also now involves monitoring Facebook. First, my sister found out via Facebook from the youngest (10 years old) cousin’s status update, since she left her phone upstairs. (It did make her finally call us.) Now, my younger cousins and my younger brother have vaguely referenced said family member being in the hospital. There’s a section of my family that I just became Facebook friends with in the past six months, and we don’t often see each other despite living in the same city. It consists mostly of my dad’s cousins, and they see the random mentions and go, “What? Is that family member alright? What hospital? What happened?”

I sent a detailed FB message to the oldest cousin, since I don’t have her email address, and asked her to let her siblings and families know. It was a rather disjointed message, but I’m pretty sure it got the important details. I’ll send her another update tonight, since at this point it’s “good” news.

It’s really bizarre spreading that information via Facebook. But it’s not like we’ve had some organized means of spreading the information in the first place. It’s also hard deciding what information is appropriate to share, but I figured sending a message is better than no information at all. This also saved the immediate family and parents from dealing with inquiries. At least, hopefully it did anyways. We’ll see what my parents have to say on how I dealt with it. I just know, I’d want to know what the heck was going on.

I think I may bring a print out of the shout outs of thoughts and prayers on said family member’s wall to the hospital. If the family member is asleep, it’ll be for the spouse and kids.

Unfortunately, I already felt behind at work due to time off for the job hunt combined with my upcoming week in LA for PDC. And I’m starving. I was walking to a meeting with frozen food, and I needed to put it in a freezer. A co-worker told me to put it in this fridge on the floor I work on. I did, except that used to just be an employee’s lounge and now doubles as a conference room. So I’ve been waiting for a meeting to finish. I may give up and interrupt, cause my hunger is distracting.