Thursday, August 15, 2013

Been a while since I have been able to post something that all the other Revit Blogs have not already posted.

Yes, lots of blogs about the Revit Technology Conference 2013 held in Vancouver, BC, and yes, I was there.  The trip was great.  I drove from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to make the trip since I have a passport card instead of a passport. Drove pretty much the whole way with my Jeep top off until I hit Snoqualmie Pass where the tops went back on. (No wonder this pass is always closed in the Winter, its cold in the Summer too!).  I did get a bit lost getting to RTC, since I didn't have a data plan there so my smartphone was useless.  Luckily the GPS was working and I could see where I was at via a crude faded out map.  So I did get to where I wanted to go and was even able to make it to the Speakers Party. No, not a speaker, I just know a lot of Revit folk and at least my Twitter worked with the hotel wifi.

The Conference.  Got to meet a bunch of folk who I haven't gotten to meet at previous RTC's or AU's.  Marcello keeps blowing me away with his approach to Revit. OMG!  I have a whole day of just LABS! Take that AU!  Keeping this part short as everyone has read about it already.  By the way, finally met Dave Baldacchino (Do U Revit Blog) and Jeff Pinheiro (aka TheRevitKid)) along with the Pragmatic Reviteer himself Gordon Price (a fellow RFO member).

Cutting to the end....learned lots at RTC NA 2013.  Drove back the Sunday after the conference to CdA to talk about all the cool stuff I learned the following Monday,.

Get called into the Principal's office at 9am.....I am being let go because of "lack of work"!.  OMG!!!!....WTF!!!!  Along with a lot of other not safe for the web words.  They send me to RTC, everything paid for, only to let me go when I get back.  Starting to really question who is running things at this time!!  I got two weeks notice, can search for jobs on their time.  Send a guy to training then let them go....did anyone look at the cost beforehand?

Well, I did find a job, and its with a company that my previous company thought I was lacking the knowledge of how construction works.  Yep, its with a residential construction company.  Here is the kicker, they don't use Revit.  They use Chief Architect.  The folks behind the 3D Home software you can find at Staples and Office Depot have a design program too.

It will be one week tomorrow since I started this new job.  So far what I can say Chief Architect is ALOT like ArchiCAD (Where I have almost 3x the experience with vs Revit).   But there is a lot that Chief Architect can do that neither ArchiCAD or Revit can do that actually makes me admire the program.

So......Not Another Revit Blog is transforming to a comparison blog.  I love Revit, but I work for people that use ArchiCAD and Chief Architect. Stay tuned for some comparisons between these three design programs.  
BTW, I say "Design" as Chief Architect is NOT a BIM program.  It is a Design and Construction Document  program only.  A lot like ArchiCAD.  But, I am still learning, so who knows?