Last night a memorial get together was held in honor of our friend, Tim “XMage” Tripcony.  We met at the Allentown Brewhouse which did seem like a pretty nice place.  It kinda reminded me of the Big River Grill at Disney where we always meet for BALD the day before Lotusphere starts.  So very fitting.

Jesse Gallagher, Chris Toohey and I wanted to have some kind of get together to raise a glass to Tim and share some stories and I think it worked out very well.

It was great to see old friends, Rob and Jim, and make new ones in Dave and Dennis. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Good enough that we might try to do another meetup in the area sometime in the future.

Here’s a couple pics from the event.

I’ve gotten a great response to this!  I believe we’re up to 11 people that are likely.  Amazing!

But the initial plan needs to change. Apparently some of the local colleges graduate that day and the Bethlehem location was booked.  So we’re going to try and move it to their Allentown location.

http://www.thebrewworks.com/allentown-brewworks/

This isn’t really a “room” or anything.  It’s basically reservations for 5:00pm.  I’ve never been there so I don’t know what to expect. I assume there’s a bar if you get there early.  I’m sure I’ll be there a little earlier.

This is low key! The same as Tim or any other LUG type event.  No real “agenda”. We’ll hang… chat… morn, commiserate…  explore the future maybe.  Just basically a meet and be social as in “real world social”.

Please let me know if you have any questions.  And if you’re planning on coming and haven’t let me know yet please do!

Thanks!

Dave

As much as I would like to, I’m unable to get to Tim Tripcony’s actual memorial with his family and friends in the Atlanta area. But here’s the thing, Tim has friends all over the world. So here’s what I’m going to do:

This Sunday evening, May 18th, starting at 5:30ish in the Bethlehem Pa area,  I’ll be getting together with Chris Toohey and Jesse Gallagher. We’re going to toast our friend*, maybe tell a story or 2 and then probably talk some XPages and whatever.

We’d like to invite anyone to join us for a very informal low-key event.  If we get enough interest one of the topics will be if we want to try and meet again for a more formal-ish “XPages and Beer” type learning event.

I feel that the best way to honor our friend is to continue to practice what he did every single day:

Learn. Code. Share

Again this is open to all whether you knew Tim personally, read his blog, or are just interested in talking XPages with like minded people.

If you are wanting to attend, please let me know ASAP – (dleedy @ notesin9)  so I can try and get a count for the possible venue – most likely at:  http://www.thebrewworks.com/bethlehem-brew-works/.  If you can’t make it on Sunday but are interested in a possible future event please let me know that as well.

UPDATE: Venue Changed to: http://www.thebrewworks.com/allentown-brewworks/

Thanks

* I personally will not be toasting with a White Russian simply because I don’t know how to drink “big boy” drinks and also don’t like coffee.  🙂

This weekend I was working on a NotesIn9 from Tim Tripcony that I’ve been sitting on for a couple of weeks. I pinged him on Skype this morning to ask a question. I was literally just about to start rendering the video when I got word that he has passed away.

Here’s the linked in post from Scott Hooks

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140512170336-24024491-tim-tripcony-you-will-live-on-in-our-hearts

Tim was my friend.  My heart breaks over this news.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

I want to be more eloquent but simply can’t.  I can barely breath.

I would like to put this idea out…  if anyone wants to send me any audio stories or memories of Tim, I’d like to put them together and publish them. just email me: dleedy @ notesin9

Here is one of my few pictures of the two of us.  It’s also my favorite.  Taken from the 2010 blogger photo.  Tim standing next to my putting his chin on my shoulder.

Recently Niklas Heidloff posted a lot of sessions related to XPages /IBM Domino application Development.

There are Thirty-Six (36) sessions listed.  The majority appear to me to be directly related to XPages itself.

There’s simply a TON of great XPages content at the conference and there will be lot of great IBMers from the XPages team attending. I see IBM is sending some big names right off the bat:  Martin Donnelly, Padraic Edwards, Eamon Muldoon and Tony McGuckin. I see Phillippe Riand, who to me will always be awesome and inspiring. I consider him the “Father of XPages”. Hanging with him beats hanging with Ray Ozzie the “Father of Notes” any day of the week.

But today I want to talk about Paul Hannan.

In my experience Paul Hannan is without a doubt the most visible “IBM XPager Community member”.  He reaches out all the time to people in need.  When I have a problem he’s first in line to ask for a demo so he can take a look. Heck he asks to help more often then I can accept his help. Usually by the time he finds out there’s a problem and contacts me, I’ve been so frustrated I just move on and do something a different way. So I don’t get a proper demo built for him for him to look into.  That’s actually one of my New Year resolutions.  To get better at tracking problems down.

Paul has been a friend to me and NotesIn9 since the earliest days. While I’ve been unsuccessful at getting him, or ANY member of the core XPages team on the show***, Paul has given me behind the scenes help on several episodes.  I think the first time he had involvement with the show was 5 years ago, in episode #007:

If I recall correctly, Paul heard about my issue of the day, got involced and even went to another IBMer, Marie Kehoe, to get a really good answer that I was able to share back out.  Back then we all struggled with XPages and it was amazing to get any help, let alone help from inside IBM.

Paul once even sent a problem I was having to Phillipe Riand himself. Unfortunately that was not an XPages bug that I thought it was.  It was a bug with my code and that embarrassment has haunted me ever since.  haha

Paul has also been involved in the original and recently updated XPages Mobile Controls Tutorial  as well as the XPages Extension Library demo database. I’m sure he’s done tons more that I don’t even know about.

He even was kind enough to give assistance to my daughter, who was in 4th grade at the time, for a report she had to do on Holiday traditions from Ireland.

His biggest contribution to the community may have been in the writing of the XPages Extension Library Book.  I recall that during a Lotusphere,  Phillipe Riand made some tweet about needing a book.  Then Paul got involved along with some non IBM XPages community members and made it happen.

I wonder if that could have happened if Paul had not attended the conference that year? 

I ask this because it’s my understanding that Paul is NOT going to IBM Connect this year. I’m not sure why.  I would hope that it would be a job requirement for at least him to be there.  I can understand that the whole team can’t always go.  Heck I’ve no idea how big the team even is.  But Paul is the only one that I know of the consistently connects with the community.

Another great IBMer that reaches out often is Simon O’Doherty.  I really hope he’ll be there.

The “IBM Champion” program excludes actual IBMers.  If IBM’ers were allowed to participate I would gladly give up my place for Paul.  He’s a true champion in every sense of the word. He’s the XPagers Champion!

You’ll be missed sir.  We will drink and code in your honor!

*** Oh yeah XPages Team.  Fair warning!  We’ll be discussing that issue!  haha