Punderings

I took an early morning flight on Saturday so I’d be able to go trick-or-treating with my daughter, which was a lot of fun the night before. JetBlue was uneventful, except for the curse of free cable TV, which caused me to not sleep as much as I needed.

Arriving at lunchtime, I seem to have missed a big chunk of the preliminary talk selection process – some of it was amazingly quick in terms of putting together preliminary track schedule ideas. We then went through a draft schedule, talked about special events, and running Apache 101 sessions during the lunchtime slots.

The whole planning team met downstairs to decide where to go for dinner, but group dynamics took over – or rather, Greg simply started walking in one direction – and we split up into a couple of groups. I followed Greg, since I still had plenty of energy and was looking forward to something interesting. We walked past Paul Prudhomme’s restaurant, which of couse on a Saturday night was packed with a 2 hour wait.

Continuing on down the street we found ourselves in front of the Chartres House Cafe, which looked pleasant enough with a nicely local menu. We all enjoyed some variant of local cuisine, whether it be red beans and rice, gumbo, po’boys, and the like. I had a hurricane to sample one of the locally famous drinks; it was good, but didn’t live up (too sweetly fruity without being exciting) to what I thought was it’s reputation. Perphaps that’s a lesson in ordering at the bar instead of at tableside, I’m not sure.

Of course I went back to my room and tried to do more work; I finished a few urgent things but left many more undone as I almost fell asleep over the laptop.

I’ll be posting (probably a little late) the story of what I did at ApacheCon US 2008 this year. To save the regular readers of my blog some column inches, I’ll post updates over here, instead of in my mainline blog feed.

One question I do have: it seems like the blogosphere was awfully quiet about ApacheCon in the past couple of months. There are certainly dozens+ of ASF committers and PlanetApache’ers who are daily blogging about interesting stuff now that the conference has started, and that’s great for the existing community to keep up on the conference.

But why weren’t more people blogging in advance – at a time that would help draw new attendees, or would allow people to make plans ahead of time? Just wonderin’.

A laundry list of things I’d like to do this week. The normal ones, not the conference ones.

• Go shopping. Anyone up for a Whole Foods run, or is there any place else to get healthy snacks?
• Visit the WWII museum, which is right down the street almost.
• Try a ‘muff, a hurricane, and a few other local delicacies. I especially want to try some Café Brûlot Diabolique, which I’ve always wanted to try since reading The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery.
• Have a great dinner with good friends every night. At least every other night needs to include healthy food, however.
• Walk through a couple of famous places in the French Quarter. Whichever ones the group I’m with trys out first.
• See at least one of the levees. The whole concept of living in some land that’s below the local sea level is just… alien to me.
• Have a great conference, and help out on next Saturday.
• Have a small party in my hotel room. I got a really nice room this year.

MSY Airport Tip: There are two separate baggage claim areas. Bag claims 1 – 11 are at one end of the airport, claims 12 and up are down a loooong hall the other way. Ooops.

See everyone at ApacheCon soon!

Social Networking

Sign up on CrowdVine; it offers discussion boards, photo streams, and blog feeds of everyone who’s filled in their Profile. Then use the My Schedule feature to select talks you like, get personalized iCal; session evaluations will be there during the conference. A full iCal is available.

Add ApacheCon to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, Upcoming!, SlideShare profiles. Signup on the BarCampApache wiki. Read PlanetApache blogs.

Tag Your Photos: ApacheConUS2008

See the flickr ApacheCon and ASFPeople groups; or on Picasa. Blog with our banners.

Local Weather, Food, Fun

It’ll be sunny and 74F days/55F nights. Local and Wunderground weather reports. The local paper has neat art all around town. Some great restaurants prefer proper attire. SeeWatchStrollHear or find NewOrleansTips.

How To Get There

New Orleans Airport (MSY) has ground transport options; cabs are ~$28 and hotel shuttles (866-596-2699) are ~$15. Head to the Sheraton New Orleans (504 525-2500) at 500 Canal St.; be sure to tell your ride the address (there are two Sheratons). Register on the 3rd floor.

Special Events & Saturday Voluntourism

Overviews: Schedule and Special events; get a tattoo; Signup for Tuesday BarCampApache; write your Lighting Talk for Thursday evening; win prizes for Hadoop Hacking; stay Saturday to help Volunteer.

Can’t Come To ApacheCon?

Watch it! Streaming video available; keynotes are free.

Like this list? Link to it, and then make sure to participate in our many social networks!

If you’re coming to ApacheCon, that’s what you’ll hear me say Wednesday morning, in the opening plenary to start the conference sessions, just before Jim does his State of the Feather. Of course, many folks will have started trainings, the Hackathon, or worked in the BarCamp for over two days at that point, and some of us will have been there over the weekend doing setup or future conference planning.

You can also read the welcome message in the printed program handed out in the attendee bags. For those of you who aren’t coming to this ApacheCon, here are some of the high points as I see them. (under the break)
Continue reading ‘Welcome to ApacheCon US 2008!’

  Actually, I am affected by the recent French Toast Alert, which was just upgraded to Guarded as the result of the forecast for snow, albeit mostly in the ‘burbs, and not in the Hub proper. I’d say that it starts earlier every year, but then again, this is New England, so it could snow at any time. I fondly recall a foot+ snowstorm one May long ago, which thoroughly covered the bright pink azalea bushes my father had in the side yard at the time.

Nope, I’m still wearing shorts today, and am looking forward to wearing them at least part of next week too, for I shall be next to the French Quarter enjoying 70F days next week attending lovely ApacheCon US. If you’re attending too, please add your favorite links to our handy ApacheCon wiki, where everyone can participate. The famous Sally has already done her part in adding a ton of suggestions for FoodNewOrleans, and we still need more BOF Proposals too.

In any case, even if it does blizzard tomorrow, we’re fine: I bought eggs, bread, and milk yesterday, so my family is secure even in the case of Weather.

If you’re attending ApacheCon US this November, please consider volunteering with us to help beautify (a very small part of) New Orleans the Saturday following the conference.

The ASF through it’s software projects has done an amazing job at what it set out to do: provide software for the public good. Through the example of it’s communities and it’s governance model, it’s been a leader in the open source realm, changing how the world thinks about and uses information technology and computers.

Now, with ApacheCon in New Orleans, we’ll have a chance as a group to directly help people in the real world as well. When making your travel plans, consider staying for the following Saturday, and help volunteer.

Yes, Virginia, there’s still time to get a great deal on ApacheCon with the super Early Bird discount, which now really truly will expire on Friday, August 29th. Given the gas crisis, early airfares are still your best bet so be sure to book travel soon.

Don’t forget our special Voluntourism day, the following Saturday, November 8th after the conference. We’ll be working with a local New Orleans charity to help do some good in the physical world working in their city, to help match all the good that the ASF does in the electronic world.

Special note for those who’ve had issues registering last weekend: fixes have been applied, so if you haven’t finished registering yet, please try again