lca2004

day 0, day 1: 'mad props to <organizers|keithp|...>': So, I turned up to the airport at about 6am to meet Thom May for the first time in way, way, way too long (2.5 years, I think). We both had a much-needed espresso and chatted about crap for a while before he jumped on his flight to Adelaide. I followed suit after a while, going on a Virgin Blue flight at 0815, arriving at 0900. We taxied to Lincoln College, and eventually went on a voyage of discovery to St Mark's (after Thom warning the dude at Lincoln about Jeff "jdub" Waugh, who was going to turn up and ask if they could put him up).

After finding my room, finding Jamie Wilkinson had a tutor room far, far bigger than mine with a couch and double bed in the mix as well, seethed for a while, but then got over it and went out for lunch with Thom and Jeff, and random other people (including Gus Lees, who later turned up and held forth about a variety of issues).

I then got horribly lost, and discovered how much Adelaide's public transport sucks on a Sunday. When I rejoined everyone, "everyone" was at The Archer (Stewart Smith, Dan Treacy, Gus, David Lloyd, eventually Mike Beattie, Jamie, Colin Charles, Stuart Young, Nathan Parslow, Jonathan Grey, Jason King), and we stayed there for a while before eating possibly the best chicken kebab (the skewer variety) and seafood pack I've ever had. Rock on Adelaide Burger Bar, on O'Connell Rd (very close to Lincoln, and thus quite close to St Mark's).

After going home and sleeping, we went off to line up and register. This netted us lots of cool stuff, including a laptop-ish bag, Vortexes for the professional attendees (not us skanky students), water pistols, complete with war games rules of engagement, and other way cool stuff. The organizers had everything down pat - although it's been said over and over again, mad props to them. They've done an amazing job.

Debian MiniConf was heaps of fun - rocked up, saw Mike and sat down next to him, and who was next to him but Matt Wilcox. Had a good chat with Matt about various things while KPresenter (not even kpresenter: kdebase) built on the iBook; I would later beg an AlBook off Apple as they were loaning them to finish the build. Then a 6'7" giant wearing a bright tie-dye shirt rocked up, to the cheers of all, and sat in the rows ahead of us. AJ Towns turned up later, as did a few other DDs. Jon Oxer sat up the front doing a masterful job of organizing (warning: vanity within), while Thom wrote his talk, a row in front of me. Most of the talks rocked, that's for sure.

The food isn't brilliant, but we're staying at a residential college and eating at a uni's food court. You can't really win, I 'spose. Unfortunately, it's been impossible to get connectivity in the theatres (apparently this will chnage) to do things like look up supporting material, although I'm sure half of everyone will just IRC. Interesting tricks with power boards to get laptops charged have ruled the day. At the end of the day, being absolutely buggered from a massive previous week (sort of a festival of my 18th), I wandered home, got into bed, and slept for about 12 hours. Now, breakfast time on day 2. (08:12 | #)