On Tuesday I got an email that told me the next CSS Dev Conference would be happening in San Antonio, TX in October — which reminded me that I started writing all about my little solo trip a few months ago and then promptly got distracted. So, let’s continue!

The conference rooms board the Queen Mary were outstanding. Full of character and history — it was quite the place for a such a visual conference.

Part of the job for the volunteers was doing head-count and speaker assistance for each session, which we split up as best we could. Most of the time we had no trouble taking the duty for the various sessions we were all interested in, but it was a lot of moving around. I got to see some really cool ideas and take in some great presentations in all of the shuffle!

(The presentation photo above is Brenna O’Brien talking about creative typography with SVG — definitely one of my favorite sessions from the event.)

There were also “other duties as assigned” to go with the volunteer gig…

Luckily it was two of the other volunteers that got to don the Left Shark costumes for the (amazing) (ridiculously fun) (happenin’) opening night party. I got to just enjoy the entertainment, i.e. Yacht Rock cover band!

Left Shark volunteer, Matt, was thrilled to get this photo of himself with Dave Rupert while we were all on the dance floor.

At one point I did let myself get swing-danced until I was dizzy, but that was still fun. Somewhere there may be video evidence, but I don’t have it. Being dizzy, though, took a little of the edge off when my CSS fangirl personality tried to take over — I met Chris Coyier!

(Selfie to prove it happened & make two of my other favorite developers, Aly and Bertine, a little jealous – if I’m honest.)

I still think that party was the most fun I may have had at a conference, ever. 3 and a half months later and the memories still make me laugh!

The second day started off strong, with a keynote from from Val Head — presenting a live demo of CSS animations in a website for making reservations at a cat cafe.

Of course there were still volunteer tasks going on, and we all stayed connected through a chat client we had installed on our phones. Modern day walkie-talkies!

There were some unique conference schedule ideas that I really liked. For the final morning session on day two, all of the speakers got on stage for a final Q&A. Such a unique idea and a great way to reconnect all of the different session tracks. Some of those speakers also won for the “best of” voting that attendees submitted and got to present their session a second time that afternoon.

If someone didn’t want to attend a “best of” session? Then they could head over to a website/web idea/live coding show and tell meet-up.

There was a third day of workshops, but after the closing keynote for the day, volunteer duties were over. Everyone that stuck around was invited to attend a local dribbble meet up (also on the boat, thankfully) and relax a bit. So of course we (the volunteers) had to grab some fun photos with our temporary supervisors.

A couple of the volunteers were local to Long Beach so a few of us got adventurous for dinner that night and headed to Roscoe’s House of Chicken & Waffles. Yum!

Such a weird combination, but somehow magically delicious.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: I am already trying to plot how I can get to the next CSS Dev Conference!