It has been a week since my last post. I believe I have reasonable reasons for abandoning the blog for that time.
Many interesting things happened over the past week. Many good times. When I had three minutes to myself, some event would come back to me and I’d think it blog-worthy. I hope my memory serves me well when it comes time to recount the past week.
Tuesday:
I picked up Robert Watson. Poul-Henning Kamp, and Doug Rabson from the airport. They checked in, and we spent the rest of the day at the pub. Many Dev Summit and Tutorial attendees wandered through the Royal Oak at some time over the next few hours.
Wednesday:
First tutorial day, first day of the Dev Summit. Also the registration tote-bag packing. Many people helped with this. Keith White. Sukneet Sini. Tiph. Paul Chvostek. Brodey. Thanks. it’s a long tedious job but you did it.
I was standing in the lobby, phone to my ear, waiting for the other party to answer, when I had a fan-boi moment. Michael Geist entered my field of vision. Phone still to my ear, I called out: “Michael!”. He stopped. I quickly hung up the phone. We had a short conversation. I thanked him for his writings on technology law and that was about it.
Wednesday lunch was pizza. It was Colonnade Pizza. We ordered the right amount. Only a few slices were left. This worked well.
Wednesday dinner was Royal Thai. It was wonderful. We ordered the right amount again. I was zonked. I sat in a chair after retrieving the Thai food and waited for others to get their food. I watched the NHL game and we started developing “Dan’s rules of Conference”.
Thursday:
Day two of the Dev Summit / Tutorials. Box lunches today. I kept having to stop pilferers from snagging the coffee and drinks set aside for the attendees. What is it with those particular people who see something set up and assume they can freely partake? It is not the cost involved that annoys me. It is the false/inappropriate sense of entitlement. I suppose it could be entirely innocent upon their behalf, but I think it’s more stupidity or arrogance.
That night we did Haveli for dinner. We had fewer people than expected but we will had plenty of people.
Thursday is also the Registration At The Pub night. We settled in there at 3pm and had a steady stream of registrants until 7pm when we shut down. It’s a great place, the Royal Oak.
Friday morning. The conference proper starts. I arrive about 0805 and Dru is already there. The tables are not. They arrive about 0830 and they set them up. By 9AM it is time for the opening session which doesn’t start until about 0910 as we’re waiting for people to stream in from the lobby. I’m also jiggering around with the laptop and we finally get going. The session was not as great as 2007. Sorry.
Immediately after this session, I leave the conference venue. I needed to do a site visit of a venue for PGCon and there was no other time but now. What more could anyone ask for than to be accompanied by Emma, Leslie, and Randi as we sought out Starbucks and then the venue. We walked there, I inspected the venue, then we all took a taxi back to BSDCan. Emma then helped me sort out some HTML for the conference monitor (the same one that displayed the NHL playoffs in 2007 when Ottawa was still in).
Friday goes well, all in all. I head off to the pub after the last session of the day and stay until about quite late, but leave many people still in the pub.
Saturday: a slightly later start. I arrive about 0900 and we start setting up registration again. More good talks. My parents turn up for the closing session, which goes well. We raise about $1000 for charity when we auction off swag, some of which is autographed.
That night, we hit Paddy Bolands pub. I meet up with some local Ottawa friends and we eventually arrive at Lone Star. I take a taxi home and get to sleep about 0300.
Sunday: I arrive at residence at 0910 to find most people have already headed off to the War Museum and/or Cora’s. A small group heads off to Cora’s. Leslie obtains a bottle of HP sauce. I retrieve my car, and I lead the group to the yarn shop. Leslie does some repairs. We take photos. Emma and Leslie do the airport thing. The rest climb into my car and I act as tour guide for a few hours.
I drop a speaker at the airport and head home.
It’s now Monday morning and I’ve been processing PGCon registrations. It’s now time for lunch with some of the PGCon people. BBL.
