If you haven't already read my previous blog about the inaugural Umbraco MVP summit, this is a follow on from that.
After an afternoon of bouldering on the Tuesday, I did some coding and then headed back down to Storms for the usual pre-pre party meetup.
As I said in the previous blog, this is one of the easiest places to meetup with people before the official HQ pre-party, it's easy to find and offers a great selection of food and drink options.
Storms for dinner
I arrived, ordered my food and went to the bar to order a really enjoyable 0% beer that I stumbled upon on Sunday evening. I then joined the crowd outside to enjoy some socialising and catching up with people who hadn't been at the MVP Summit.
It was a really nice way to ease in to the next 3 days. Usually I arrive on the Tuesday at some point, rush to get to Odense to quickly check-in, then get to Storms for dinner, meet everyone, catch up, miss speaking to so many people and before you know it, the week is over.
This year I felt far more relaxed.
The pre-party
I always try and enjoy the pre-party but without wiping myself out completely. It's too easy to go hard on the first night and then the first day is a struggle and you're just constantly fighting a losing battle that way.
The pre-party theme for this year was Pirates.
One of the best dressed for the evening was Hookie from Gibe Digital, he went all out as Captain Hook. Loved it!
I went for a easier option of wearing a black tshirt that said Napster on it and a couple of floppy disks with bootleg copyies Umbraco 20 on them. A different kind of pirate and some said, a bit too subtle. :) I was limited by my carry on luggage on RyanAir, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
I spent the evening mostly just walking around Umbraco HQ chatting to people. Enjoying a few beers and a couple of drams as I had picked up a bottle of whisky at Duty Free to share with anyone that fancied a dram.
It was a nice ice-breaker too as people would come over and ask if they could have a dram when they saw me pouring. I did have to stop pouring when I'd gone throw half the bottle as I wanted to take some to the Thursday night dinner - thankfully that was about the same time we were asked to leave HQ.
Some people went on to party the night away but I decided to call it a night and head back to my hotel. I was meeting the #cgRunners at 7am for a 5k run before Codegarden kicked off.
Day 1
My alarm went off at 6:30am and I jumped in to my running kit and then thought to myself, I could have had another 15mins of sleep! Then I wondered - what is the weather like? If you read my first blog about the MVP summit, you'll know the issue here.
After a bit of scrolling on my phone, checking the outside weather conditions, I decided to just go up stairs and out in to the daylight. At about 6:45 I headed along to the usual meeting spot for the #cgRunners, the Plaza hotel.
There is never any requirement to sign up, you just turn up ready to run for 7am on the Wednesday and Thursday. We used to meetup on the Friday but numbers were usually very low and most people were either sleep deprived or feeling the after effects of the night before.
This year, Ask, one of the developers at HQ and I were taking the run. I had mapped out a route for the first day and Ask was going to lead the second.
CgRunners!!
Before we headed off on the run, we found out if there were any first time Codegardeners and there was so the route we ran was to head from the hotel down to DOK 5000, the venue for Codegarden. This meant people know how to get to the venue from their hotels.
The sun was shining and it was a lovely morning for an easy paced 5k. We arrived in DOK 5000 and got a quick photo and then headed back to our hotels. First run done!
A quick shower and then it was time to head down to the venue and get Codegarden under way!
I arrived in plenty time and since I already had my name badge I was able to take my time to wander around the venue, grab a coffee and get ready for the keynote.
All the usual first day things were in place, live music, a unicorn, fresh coffee available any time you wanted it, lots of High Fives and hugs and just a fantastic vibe about the first day.
The keynote started at 9 and Codegarden was underway. It was a long keynote, 2 hours in total so I was pretty pleased when we had a 15min break at 11 but it also meant I decided to miss the next speakers slot. I popped in and out a couple of talks and had some great talks in the "social" space. The most common thing people were speaking to me was about my ADHD and change of job blogs that I had recently published.
I was really surprised how they really got people talking and I'm grateful for all the chats I had with people. I always find it surprising when people thank me for being so honest in my blogs. I mostly use blogging as a way for me to unpack things in my own head, whether anyone reads them or not, I really dont mind.
The first day flew by and I really enjoyed the talks I attended. I did feel the first day was maybe a bit too business / umbraco product orientated for me but that's probably just because I try and keep up to date with Umbraco stuff anyway. I think if you were a business owner, there was probably a lot of good content for them.
The Umbraco Awards were after dinner and once they were over, I decided to have an early night and headed back to the hotel and get ready for Day 2
Day 2
Another run at 7am and then back to DOK 5000
Today I had a busy schedule ahead of me, I had everything planned out as to who I wanted to hear talk.
9am - Jason Wodicka : Intentionally building community through ritual
10am - Callum Whyte : Advanced Search 101
11am - Georgina Bidder & Steph Peschel : From Functional to Successful: How to continually solve problems and not make new ones
12:45pm - Phil Whittaker & Matthew Wise : From Clicks to Commands: AI for Editors, Developers, and everyone else
1:45pm - Luke Hook : Gotta Cache'em all
2:45pm - Quite time to myself.
4:30pm - Networking / Boat Trip!
6:00pm - Dinner and Entertainment
All the talks were fantastic and I'll be watching a few of them back again when they become available online.
I decided to take some downtime in the afternoon, I found the silent room, put my headphones and took a quick snooze. Recharge the batteries before the evening kicked off. I love how Codegarden has made sure there is an area for disconnecting for a while, an area where you are allowed to hide.
Recharged, I then went out on the boat trip, it had been missed the past few years. It's just a short wee spin around the docks but its a great way to see the venue and the local area from a different perspective.
I decided I wanted to head back to the hotel, drop off my laptop and then get back for the dinner and entertainment. I headed back with Matt Wise and mid way back, our phones pinged to say we should grab a seat by 5:30 to get ready for dinner - this was at 5:15!
We quickly got back to our hotels and then decided the quickest way back to the venue was to hire some electric scooters! Zoom Zoom!
Thanks to the Gibe team who saved us some seats on their table.
I had picked up my duty free whisky from the hotel, got a seat and the evening kicked off in typical Codegarden style. I'll not say more about it, but it was brilliant!
It was crazy, it was fun and it felt perfect for the 20th Codegarden. It had the feeling of old times but without anything too edgy - which is probably a good thing.
Day 3
This was meant to be a bit of a hackathon day. I had a later flight booked, not leaving until 5pm but unfortunately, due to train cancellations between Copenhagen and the airport, I decided to leave early. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to find alternative ways to get to the airport.
I usually just jump on the train from Odense and get off at the airport - but this time I had to get off at Copenhagen and then work out how to get the Metro to the airport. It was a bit stressful but it's actually a really quick and easy way to get from the airport in to Copenhagen.
I had hoped to see the closing speeches and one or two of the last day talks and say cheerio to everyone but it wasn't to be.
I loved my time at Codegarden this year and I'm hoping to get the chance to go again next year, especially since Codegarden is going back to Copenhagen next year! Exciting!
Thanks everyone who made CG20 a really enjoyable experience for me this year. The chats, the inclusion in games and just being amazing. I loved meeting new people and even though I was socially exhausted by the end of it, I would totally do it all again.
Hopefully see you all at CG21!