I’m in the Dublin airport, waiting to go home. I got here rather early – I always prefer to be early rather than late. I’ve had a great time while here, although everything seemed very rushed. I’m really looking forward to being back in June when there will be more time to see things and more time to spend with folks. Noirin and Colm were an *enormous* help – we simply couldn’t have done it all without them. It’s going to be a great conference.

All the same, I really want to get home, and I hope I don’t have to spend overnight in Chicago.

I’m in Ireland, and it is beautiful here.

Colm and Noirin met me at the airport, and brought me to the hotel via the most curcuitous route possible, I am sure. I have a sneaking suspicion that Colm did it on purpose just to confuse me. 😉

It is warmer here than I thought it would be. Noirin and I went for a walk after I got here, and got caught in the rain while we were walking, but it really wasn’t unpleasant. We were heading somewhere to find some dinner, when Colm called and said that Ken was awake and looking for us. I hadn’t pounded on his door because I was sure he’d be napping. So we came back and got Ken, and went looking for some dinner.

On the way, we stopped by the Long Room Library, at Trinity. It was *amazing*. I could spend weeks in that room, I am sure. However, you have to be someone special to actually touch the books. We also got to see the Book of Kells, which was stunning. a 1300+ year old book, and still in very good condition. Very beautiful.

Of course, I couldn’t take any photos of any of this. But you can find many photos online, I’m sure.

We went to The Porterhouse for dinner, and I had Beef and Stout, which was a delicious beef stew that reminded me of my Turi days. Mmmm. Colm joined us a little later. I asked embarrassing questions about Ireland and its relationship to the United Kingdom, and Colm and Noirin set me straight on my ignorance. It’s a great big world, and I feel that I know so little about it.

We all went out geocaching, but it was getting rather cold and rainy, and got colder and windier the longer we looked, so we eventually gave up and came back. I went straight to sleep, as it was about 9pm and I’d been up for 30+ hours.

Today we’ll be meeting to select the talks for ApacheCon, see the venue, and other conference-related activities. Hopefully we’ll have a schedule by this evening, but it may be tomorrow before we’re actually done.

I’m in Heathrow, waiting for my next flight. I arrived at the gate as they were closing the door, and they wouldn’t let me on. So I have to wait another hour. Not a big deal, I guess, but I’m *so* tired. United “Economy Plus” is way *way* more comfortable than Delta – lots more leg room – but it’s still not quite the same as being in my own warm bed. So I got perhaps 2 or 3 hours of sleep on a night that was at least 5 hours shortened. I think. I’m not entirely sure what timezone I’m in. I’ll figure it out in time to go back home. 🙂

This is the most convoluted flight plan I think I’ve ever had. Well, Moscow was convoluted, but that’s half-way around the world, so one expects that. I flew over Dublin about 2 hours ago, and hopefully I’ll finally get there in about 2 hours.

I will *never* use cheaptickets.com again. Ever.

Turns out I misread my itinerary on the way home. I read that I was arriving in Chicago at 7pm, leaving Chicago at 7:45 and arriving home at 10. Turns out that’s 7:45 the NEXT MORNING. I’m very very unhappy about this. How could that be a reasonable flight? Hopefully I can fly earlier on standby, or perhaps find someone to pick me up at the airport. I really don’t want to have to spend the night at the airport.

I suppose my terrible itinerary with too-long and too-short layover times is my own fault, since I clicked OK and bought the ticket, but it’s still very annoying that it was put together as a supposedly-sane itinerary in the first place. Grr.

The ApacheCon Planners are pleased to announce that ApacheCon Europe
2006 will be held in Dublin, Ireland, at the Burlington Hotel, June 26-30.
Further details to follow as they are available. CFP to follow shortly. Please feel free to spread this information far and wide.

More details later about the conference, but it was really great. We’re delighted to announce that we had 500 in attendance (that’s actual name badges issued).

We’re also delighted to announce that FCP, who did such a great job with this conference, will be doing another US conference for us in the October-November time, 2006. Also, we’ll be doing another European conference in the April-May time. The exact location of either one of these conferences is not yet known.

And we’re very tentatively talking about having an Asia conference – perhaps not a full 5-day event – maybe something briefer. But we’re real excited about the possibility. Even fewer details are available about that, but you can be sure that I’ll share them when I know them.

I’m home again. Finally.