Last August (damn! we are in October now!) was celebrated the most famous competition in the Ruby on Rails community which consists in setting a functional webapp and deploy it in less than 48h: the Rails Rumble.

The spirit of it is very similar to iWeekend and they share a lot of things; however, besides similarities they are quite different starting by the number of components which can form the team: as much as four, which let you have some programmers and fewer designers.

I really felt like taking part in such an event while commiting (nice word, huh?) one of my new year’s resolutions, so I proposed this to Felipe Talavera one of my partners in the startup we cofounded almost a year ago Biblioteco. I’m not part of that project anymore but I really admire the work the developers did then in order to have everything up and running. With no doubt they are part of the elite spanish rails developers.

Anyway, I was talking about the Rails Rumble. I came up with this and he told me that they already had a team, the Mallorca team where I gently was invited.

What came after were 48 hours of real extreme programming and some glances of design work. I would like to make a deeper analysis about the importance that the interface had in the final polls or the feelings I had about not being able of putting in the par of the rest of the members but as I said before I don’t really know how to express this.

Which remains from this great experience is a great mail voting system, Letsdecide.us and some impressions like the fact that 4 people were more capable than 40 to have a fully functional webapp.

I also want to congratulate the other Spanish teams which I only can bow to their work:

• Lets Wadus
• Diversion
• Parlio

And a enormous thank to the Mallorca team to let me join: Rai, Felipe and Fer. I’m so grateful for such an experience!

Extra balls: Fernando Guillen also posted something about this + Photo album +  Video demo

Anyway, I wanted to share with you that I’m immersed in the organisation team of three very interesting events in the Valencian area that will be hold soon in the next days.

BarCamp Valencia

You already know the first of them, I’ve already told you about it. Barcamp Valencia is an unconference where we will talk about Web2.0, Social Media and Open Source. We managed to Yahoo! to sponsor the event but we are still looking for a place. At first we thought that some of the Valencian universities would help us to promote a cultural event but all we have received instead are difficulties and refusals.

Anyway I know we will finally find a nice place (even if we have to go to the pub).

iWeekend Valencia

Then it comes the iWeekend. If you don’t know what it is about I will tell you that it’s a celebration where many entrepreneurs with many diverse backgrounds (design, marketing, code…) meet one weekend (d’oh) to create a fully functional startup.

It will be hold on the first week of June and we are still defining all the details. Inscriptions are still open so, I invite all you to join us because there are still vacancies, specially if you are a designer or a programmer.

Iniciador Castellón

And finally Iniciador Castellón, the one which will be my first raid into the events organization and has kept me awake the last days. I hope everything will go great but, frankly I’m a bit nervous. In some hours I will be picking up Mr. Rodolfo Carpintier from Manises Airport and then we all will go to Castellón and celebrate the event.

Wish me luck!

First of all, what is a BarCamp? As Wikipedia says:

BarCamps are user generated (un)conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. They focus on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

It perfectly fits with what we wanted! So now we need few things in order to this come real:

• A group of people that want to plan and organize all the tinglao. I think this is covered.
• A place where we could meet with a minimum of infrastructure: not really much, Internet connection and a projector. we can speak with UPV and let’s see if they let us one of the CPI rooms.
• Attendees; some will take part in the talks, others will just listen, but we need people to come.

And I think that’s pretty all. We need these kind of events in Valencia, which in my opinion has become a referent regarding Open Source, Innovation and all these beauty words.

Update: Reidrac has made a move; bought a domain, designed a logo and set a blog. Great!

That was my experience at EBE08, I still can’t believe I’ve had one of the greatest weekends ever.

I practally had more hope to attend than really was certain of my presence to the biggest event in the Spanish blogosphere because until the very last moment I still didn’t know how I would arrive to the Hispalense city (yes, if we are talking about Seville, it MUST be called that way, as well as we call Barcelona the Condal city… but that’s another story). But finally I did.

Day one – 14

Once in Seville, after being almost all day long in a train seat beside the lovely Coco*, we landed in the hotel room and started meeting people. One blogger after another; it was incredible the sensation of knowing someone and finally meeting him. There were some people that I specially wanted to know, like HUGE (because that’s how he is, in all its meanings) Alexliam or others like Andrés Milleiro which we met up again after his visit to Valencia. Tons of great people everywhere you were.

The first night we could have a walk by the old quarter of the city while we were looking for a place in order to fill up our tummies. We were starving and although Sevilla is not a quite cold city it’s almost Winter and we must carry our jackets so as we didn’t freeze.

After that I could attend to the live recording of Kafelog in the Barceló Renacimiento Hotel, the building where all the activities of the event took place. Absolutely hilarious, as always. In addition, the sponsors gave some prizes. I didn’t get any, but some people near to me did >.<

I was demolished after 2 days (no, I worked and didn’t slept the night after) of rush and I didn’t stay to the party; headed my way to the hotel (where the young lady was already dreaming) and silently put myself to bed.

Day two – 15

We recharged our batteries and went to the Barceló. I wonder how many times we covered the same path and really consider staying there in the next year’s celebration. We were late to the first talks but we were really tired and I think many people would agree with me if I say the talks weren’t as exciting as meeting people in the hall and talk to each other.

The food in Seville is a maraville marvelous. The Twittche connection went together for lunch to one of the many tapas restaurant and rapidly returned to the convention building before the drowsiness came to us.

More talks, more people, and more fun. Another live recording, this time a special interview to the Master of Ceremonies, A. J. Paniagua, for the Tortilla de Patata podcast. Great interview and lot of professionalism and fun by both of the parts¹.

After that, the Bitacoras.com Awards Ceremony, with all the glamour and excitement as expected. Except for some rare cases, all were well deserved prizes.

And finally one of the best parts of EBE08, the Beers & Blogs. As we had the feeling that the organization will be short of booze, we turned it into Beers & Vodka & Rum & Gin & Blogs. We were not wrong and, even more, not only they where short of beers and snacks but also we didn’t smell any cocktail. Of course I don’t feel swindled at all with such a FREE event, however it was a totally FAIL by the organization, as they sold tickets that included all this stuff.

So, we went to the hotel, had a quick shower, suited up, and came back to the party. There, I was able to ascertain that despite some people defend that we shouldn’t clash in groups there always be alienation from ones to others; but I think it’s perfectly normal.

When it seemed the party was flagging, the vast majority of the Venecia hotel went together to the 107 room and there an EPIC PARTY took place. I’d like to note that when I say EPIC I really mean what happens in EBE08, stays in EBE08 PARTY. Then, the party moved to the 306 and there’s not much more to say…

Day three – 16

Hangover + Train to Valencia. That’s all. We missed the Hernán Casciari talk which was the better of the program, but we had to return to the terreta

To sum up, I do must say that this weekend has been GORGEOUS. Really. From the very beginning to the very end.

Thanks to everybody (in order of appearance): Andrés, Manu, Manu, Guille, Miguel, Dani, Alex, Rick, Elvira, Roberto, Miguel, Verónica, Pepe, Ángel, Jose, Rafa, Pep, Javi, Pablo, Javi, Kiko, Ángela, Gina, Marcos, Pedro, Carlos, Álvaro… (sorry if I miss you, just make me know) and specially to the little lady that puts up with me; without her beside me all this would have never been possible.

I left Seville longing to know more the people I don’t know yet and better the people I already do. You are extraordinary.

Congratulations to the winners of Bitacoras.com Awards, the speakers, and the organization.

See you on EBE09 (or sooner…)

P.S: ¿Que paasssa?

1. You already know my opinion about ones or another.↵

Last Wednesday Spain Ticket Bureau, a company dedicated to sell tickets for sporting and music events invited a series of bloggers -including myself among others such Albert Barra, Carlos Mantero, Ruben Temporal, Daniel González and Ángel Custodio who was my companion- to the Copa del Rey match between F.C. Barcelona and Valencia C.F. that was held in the Camp Nou.

So that I went to Barcelona keen on cheering my team, Valencia C.F. The night started frankly great, with a little reception in which we could have a bite to eat and refresh our thirsty throats. I must say we drank all we could wanted but they where a bit short on food. Hey, we the bloggers are hungry people!

After that and with a bit of rush we could find our preferential seats and the referee gave beginning to the match. The first half passed with no goals between the Valencian team and Barcelona, that didn’t take advantage of their ball possession. In the second half the match got a lot of play, with as many efforts on goal by either side as the goalkeepers and defenders saved. Eventually Villa made the first goal for Valencia, which lasted until the very end despite the persistence of Barcelona players -specially Messi-. Finally, Xavi succeeded at making a goal in the fourth minute of added time to gain a 1-1 home draw that leaves open the qualifying round for the match in Mestalla.

With no question it was a great experience; Barcelona impressed me in many ways, I met some people whose blogs I usually read and to see more than 90000 people going crazy after Barcelona goal left me stunned.

Disclaimer: If you didn’t realized yet this is a sponsored post. To end up I must thank Roser and Carolina, our hostess of Spain Ticket Bureau and Eduard Corral from Bloguzz for preparing everything.