I have the best intentions of blogging every day of an event. But every day is always so full, from morning until the time I drop into bed exhausted.
I used to imagine wandering around the world like Hemingway, seeing exotic places, and writing witty stories about the interesting people I met. I have the great good fortune to have the traveling as part of my job. If only I could find the time for the stories.
Anyways … I’m in Barcelona for OpenStack Summit. This is always an impressive, and somewhat overwhelming, event, with 7000+ people attending, dozens of companies presenting their various products, hundreds of technical presentations, and after-hour events every evening.
The photos are on flickr, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/rbowen/albums/72157675620637236
On Sunday, I met up with Jen and various other members of the events team to scope out the venue. We walked over to the Princess Hotel where a number of our meetings and social events are to be held. And we walked down to El Boo, where the employee party was to be held. Both venues were just great.
Later in the day I visited Sagrada Familia, a cathedral which has been under construction since 1884, on and off, and isn’t done yet. It was weird and improbable, and fascinating, and beautiful. I think the architect’s driving passion was to be different from anything you’ve ever seen before.
I also spent a little time on the lovely beach, Mar Bella, which is right in front of my hotel.
On Monday, we had the RDO Infrastructure gathering in one of the rooms at the Princess. we had about 20 people in attendance, and made good progress on a number of issues. The Ocata cycle is going to see more improvements to how RDO works. More details on this meeting coming to the RDO mailing list soon.
Although the conference didn’t officially start until Tuesday morning, the “booth crawl” was Monday evening – the odd ritual where swag-hungry attendees rush from booth to booth, grabbing all the free stuff they can carry, and having the occasional conversation with booth staff. Sometimes, the booth crawl can be a depressing experience, with people refusing to make eye contact, and just grabbing the stuff. But this was actually really great, with people excited about RDO, and wanting to learn more about we had to show.
Monday night was the Red Hat employee party at El Boo. It’s a boat-shaped restaurant sitting on one of the stone piers along the beach, and we had the whole place to ourselves for the entire night. It was a lot of fun. I stayed until midnight, when several friends toasted my birthday.
All together, it was a lovely start to the week. And there’s so much more to come.