We just had a break. We had no water. I ordered it and had it added to tomorrow’s delivery.

One speaker has withdrawn. He did not yet have a visa. As of two weeks ago, he also did not have a plane ticket.

History shows that I should expect one speaker to withdraw from each confernce. That happened with BSDCan 2007. This repeated with BSDCan 2008 and now with PGCon 2008. No worries. In both cases this year, the talk in question has multiple speakers.

The wireless problem was not unique to us. The whole campus was affected. It seems the master controller for the university wireless network was malfunctioning. They’d been looking for this problem for a while.

We speculate that this problem was the one we saw at BSDCan on Saturday.

I’ve heard from the hotel which will be hosting the PostgreSQL Dev Summit tomorrow. We made some final arrangements (food, drinnk, times, payment) and we’ll be in touch again later today to finalize things. I emailed the Sponsor of the Summit and passed on the details. I will take care of the payment details if they cannot deal with it directly and then invoice them later.

I pushed some BSDCan papers to the website. I’ve been chatting with some attendees who are not in the tutorials.

I heard from the T-shirt place. The PGCon 2008 t-shirts will be ready this afternoon. It would be good if I could collect them at the same time as everything else (from Staples, etc).

Today is the first day of PGCon Tutorials. I was out of the house by about 7am and settled in at Cora’s for breakfast 10 minutes later. They have free wireless there.

First order of the day, apart from OJ and Yoghurt Harvest Crunch, was email. I uploaded some slides from a BSDCan speaker and pushed them to the website. I answered a query from a former attendee who could not attend in 2008 letting them know how the BSDCan 2008 conference went.

I arrived at the tutorial location at about 8:10 AM. I set up my laptop and brought in the sponsorship signs and set them up. Coffee and tea arrived at about 0830 and I directed them to the right location.

David Maxwell was amongst the first to arrive. David is primarily helping out with the wireless and with other tasks as they arrive.

Attendees started arriving from about 0815. They were keen to get into the tutorial. The room is just about full with roughly 50 people in there. We had a problem with wireless, but David contacted the University and it’s being sorted out as I type this (at 0933).

One attendee arrived and paid late. I did not charge him the usual $50 penalty for late payment. We do not like handling payment during the conference. We have so many other things to do. Thus, we charge you extra for the convenience. Usually. I recommend against testing this.

An attendee, on the way to the head, just informed me that wireless is now working fine.

I chatted with a speaker/attendee over IRC and directed him to breakfast, coffee, and tutorial location.

Later today I will be headed off to various locations around the city to pickup packages from sponsors. Most of these will be for the registration tote bags. Those will be packed up tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, I will be printing the last of the badges and invoices. This should go well. I’ll retrieve the printer and desktop computer from the SITE building, where the U of O staff have generously allowed us to store our gear. I’ll set up first thing in the morning and stay there until mid-afternoon, when we will pack up and move a block down the road to the Royal Oak on Laurier for the Registration Pickup.

Tiph has arrived and she’s going to handle things while I’m out of the room.

Today was the first day I stayed in bed past 8AM since I arrived in Ottawa two weeks ago. It was also the first night I’ve had more than 7 hours sleep. I am not counting the time spent sick in bed just before BSDCan. That wasn’t really sleeping. It was more like short periods of slumber interspersed with difficult periods of pain.

I spent the morning reconciling about 8 PGCon payments with registrations. I also emailed some of the volunteers setting up the meeting time for tomorrow morning. I’ve also arranged the tote-bag stuffing for Wednesday afternoon.

I refunded an attendee who registered (twice) then paid, but decided to not attend. I emailed three coporate attendees who have paid but not registered.

I dealt with some PGCon Dev Summit concerns over transport and the weather.

I received clarification from a sponsor with regards to material being shipped.

I helped an attendee find their hotel when all they had was a reservation number.

I answered some email from BSDCan attendees who thanked me for a wonderful conference.

I sent out some email to tutorial attendees on behalf of their tutor.

I emailed the general PGCon population letting them know the location of the tutorials.

I had lunch with a speaker and helped him deal with material distribution issues after finding that there will be no copy centers open today (a holiday). Solution: we bought USB drives at The Rideau Center, which is open today despite the holiday.

Right now, I’m back at my Starbucks, typing away. After this, I’ll be thinking about what needs to be done next. I’m pretty much caught up.

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.

Monday - wrap up

Today was a very satisfying day. There were a wide range of problems to be solved and tasks carried out.

I’ve talked to my favorite pizza place and they’re doing lunch for Wednesday. A Thai place is doing dinner Wednesday night. Thursday is a box lunch and an Indian sit-down dinner. This will be great food. Oh? What? Yes, the FreeBSD Dev Summit is pretty much good-to-go. So is the PostgreSQL Dev Summit. I’ll be scouting a venue for the latter tomorrow. With fewer people, we can go somewhere off campus.

Tasks today also included:

• Confirm delivery by PGCon sponsor of registration pack inserts
• Arrange an import certificate for my Subaru
• Visit my doctor regarding the gut problems I’ve been having
• Dealing with a speaker who can do no evil
• pickup registration pack inserts from local printer
• ping some sponsors regarding their inserts

Known tasks for Tuesday will include:

• confirming dinner for Saturday night
• picking up lots of $2 coins from the bank (for parking)
• site visit to confirm the room for the PostgreSQL Dev Summit
• mail pickup at the UPS Store
• pickup the BSDCan + PGCon tote bags and lanyards
• pickup the BSDCan t-shirts
• finalize and sign the BSDCan contract with U of O

It’s now 1726 and it’s been a very busy day.

I’ve been to the campus and scouted out some secret hacking lounges. Four of them. This will be good for the beer and pizza sessions we have planned.

The PGCon t-shirt has been approved. Complete with deliberately known “error”. You find it.

More registrations to reconcile with payments. 13 in fact. Done.

Sent out a lightning talks / Work In Progress announcement.

Sent out a Tutorials location announcement.

Did a Letter of Invitation for a Danish speaker. Guess who.

Sent out a tutorial total for those interested. 38 so far for the wireless tutorial.

Dealt with a speaker who cannot find his passport.

Picked up a passcard and key for on-campus storage during the conference.

Arranged $650 worth of pizza.

Handled a whole bunch of stuff that arose via IRC.

The third Australian speaker for BSDCan is at least now in North America. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to be precise. He should be in Ottawa by late morning.

I’ve done my email for the day. I left the house at 0715 and its now 0741. I’m not sure what time the medical clinic opens. Their phone number does not give hours. I’ll drive there next.

Sunday - Penguins win game 2!

Sunday was busier than I expected. I made it home about 2pm and sat outside with my folks talking to Ted. He’s been our neighbour since I was a teenager and we’ve known him since before that. Some of his daughters had lived in the house before he moved in. I asked Ted about living in Holland during World War 2. His part of Holland, closer to Belgium and farther south from the ocean, was relatively well off, considering the circumstances. It was nearer the cities that food shortages occurred.

I watched a bit of the USA/Finland game. It got pretty dirty at times.

By about 4pm I got antsy and had to check my email. Back to Starbucks and see what’s going on. Found out that two out of three speakers from Australia had some sort of light delay.

Sent some email to a contact in the SITE building asking for a storage area during the conferences. They have been good to us every year.

I also contact OGWIFI asking if they wanted to be involved with the conferences.

Confirmed some conference attendees for another sponsor.

Refunded someone who will not be attending BSDCan after all.

Sent off a query to someone about staying at Algonquin college for accommodation.

Back home at 5:30 for dinner. Steak. Potatoes. Broccoli. Finland had won. After dinner, back to the email.

Confirmed with a speaker that I gave him the wrong dates for his accommodation. The reservation was correct with the hotel, I just got the dates wrong when composing the email. Sorry about that.

I refreshed the website with a speaker’s biography.

I heard from Mr RT regarding the PGCon lightning talks.

Back home to watch the Pittsburgh/Philadelphia game. I’m rooting for the Penguins. End of period two, it’s back to email.

I sent off an email to the FreeBSD Dev Summit group telling them about the secret hacking lounge for evening use. I find out that two of our three Australian speakers have made it. Speaker Three will arrive on Monday morning, a day late, but still in time.

I do a quick check of the budget pages to see if I’ve missed any speaker travel/accommodation requests. I find nothing I have not already dealt with.

Back home for period 3, now 7 minutes in progress. Good 3rd period. Lots of good action and quality play. Penguins win game 2, 4-2.

For Monday:

• Visit U of O and check on catering+room selections
• Get a room for the 15th for one chap visiting from out of town
• arrange a place for dinner on Wed night
• Contact the pub regarding Sat night.
• See about pizza for Dev Summit
• Ask residence about remote internet access
• Get hacking lounge finalized
• let the Royal Oak know numbers for Tuesday

Oh, and perhaps call Subaru, make a doctor’s appointment, and see my dentist.