Well, although I was invited this year to it I missed Foo Camp. Too bad. Turns out even our new Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie was able to make time to go the event. So my excuse of "the week getting away from me" really does not hold water. Heck, if Ray can make it, how can I be too busy? To be honest, it was an amazing week. It was the first week since India and some vacation time where I really got back into the flow of things at work and man, what a great week. We're doing so many amazing things around Channel 9 and 10 right now it is really easy to get caught up in things. I am glad in a way that I missed the weekend as it allowed me to attend my first all Corvette show at the XXX Drive-Inn at Issaquah, Washington. Well, attend as an owner that is. :-)
To be honest I didn't plan to show off my car, I was just planning to go and check out some of the cars, see some aftermarket products and call it a day. As I drove by though the friendly folks at the entry waved me in and I donated $15.00 to the local charity and parked my car amongst the other C5s. Heck, I might not show my car but the parking is great!
It was instant community though. Folks immediately popped over to say Hi who had similar cars as mine. We talked about my car, theirs and they asked about my stereo (more on that later) and we got to know one another. It was great. Wonderful people, instant family. Man, I learnt a lot about my car and some history items that I didn't know already. The entire history of the Corvette was represented with over 200 cars in attendance. I was able to grab a lot of photos and uploaded them to my Flickr site.
I've actually started the process doing some minor modifications to my Corvette. :-) (You can jump in chorus with my Wife to say, "But didn't you just get it?"). Well, the first logical step is to upgrade the audio system. The stock systems (made by Bose) in the Vettes really aren't that great. Ok they suck. In fact a common phrase is, "No highs, no lows, it must be Bose!" I went down to Car Toys in Issaquah and spec'd out a pretty decent system. This is actually something I was really into in high school, entering sound-offs and audio competitions with an Alpine installation that I had in my car. For all of my systems in the past I went Alpine all the way (subs, amplifiers and head units). With the Corvette I ended mixing it up a bit. The world really has changed in the audio world and boy are there choices.
For the head unit I purchased an Alpine 9857 with XM Radio and iPod support. The iPod support is interesting in that you can control the iPod completely via the head unit. I also like the fact that it supports data CDs and WMA|MP3 which allows you to pack together music on compilation CDs. (I don't own an iPod right now. :-)) For front speakers I went with Focal 165 K2P and in the back I left the stock speakers alone (might need to upgrade these later). We put a 10" Pioneer subwoofer in the rear compartment in a custom made box. All of this is driven by a JL 300/4 amplifier.
I was pretty nervous to let my car go into day surgery, but the folks at Car Toys in Issaquah were top notch. Here are a couple of photos to show the quality install.
The Alpine 9857 Head Unit
Downward firing subwoofer box and the amplifier
Subwoofer box (rotated forward to show speaker and the connection)
So what does it sound like? Awesome. Crazy Awesome. If you work at Microsoft and want to listen, just drop me a line. :-)
I think I spent about the same that I did when I was in high school for the overall system and it absolutely blows away anything I've ever had before. There are highs, lows and a really decent mid-range. Lots and lots of bass. (Can you ever have enough bass?) You can get one hell of a back massage with the right choice of music and in with some songs (mostly dance stuff) it will actually lift your hair up.
So I am very happy with the whole thing, very happy in fact.
So all of this and my experience at the car show got me to thinking about the software industry. Why aren't we creating more opportunities for people to show off their software? Sure, we have Chris Shipley's demo conference that most will never get to enter or even attend. Mike Swanson had some luck creating Show Off at PDC but what about every day? How can we share ideas the experiences we're building with one another? I know there is Source Forge and Code Plex now on MSDN, but what if you don't want to share the complete source?
There is nothing out there for folks day to day to show cool experiences that they are building in the software business. We need to create something similar to the car show I went to in Issaquah.
So what is it?
I'm willing to throw Channel 9 into the equation.
Is it user videos?
Is it some sort of aggregate of the Channel 9 Sandbox, Flickr and YouTube?
We need folks in the software business willing to share dreams and show off what they are doing with software.
Let me know what you think.
tags: Foo+Camp, Car+Audio, Things+That+Make+Me+Go+Wow, Show+Off
