Changing nickname in Irssi

I usually use Colloquy on my Mac (OS X Snow Leopard), but when I couldn't get it to connect to irc.codehaus.org so that I could get into the #camel room, I decided to fall back to Irssi. I installed it via MacPorts and started it up via the normal command line prompt:

bash_prompt$: irssi

and tried to connect:

/connect irc.codehaus.org

However, I kept getting the following message:

11:00 -!- Irssi: Looking up irc.codehaus.org

11:00 -!- Irssi: Connecting to irc.codehaus.org [63.246.7.185] port 6667

11:00 -!- Irssi: Connection to irc.codehaus.org established

11:00 -!- Irssi: Connection lost to irc.codehaus.org

11:00 -!- jessieberlin Erroneous nickname

I tried to change my nickname inside the Irssi application:

/nick jessie

but was told:

11:02 -!- Irssi: Not connected to server

However, I was able to connect by passing in my alternate nickname as a command line option when starting up Irssi:

irssi --nick=jessie

and then connect normally:

/connect irc.codehaus.org

[Changing my nickname before connecting via Colloquy still didn't allow me to connect - not really sure what I am doing wrong there]

Hopefully this will help some other irc/Irssi newbies.