Tag Archives: ruminations

Attempting to catch up

Here’s a bit of an attempt to catch up. Having been offline since Friday, there’s plenty to catch up on, and I’m afraid I’ll miss something. Oh well.

Friday, after the conference was officially over, I had a liesurely lunch with Ken, after which I took a long nap. Wow was I tired. I tried to go out and read by the pool for a while, but there was a young’un out there who screamed without taking a breath for about an hour, before he was finally carted off to somewhere else.

I inquired about an Indian restaurant at the front desk, and walked down a few blocks to The India House for some very good chicken tikka and paratha. Mmmmm.

On Saturday morning, after a liesurely breakfast, I went off on my geocaching hike. I think that Saturday was about as close to a real vacation as I’m going to get any time this year. I walked about 1.25 miles to Washington Park, where I took some pictures. Also while there I visited the rose garden.

And I found 5 geocaches, most of which were actually very challenging.

I also found a wallet. I pulled a business card out of it, and attempted to return it to the address thereon, but he didn’t live there, so I took it to the police station. I think by that time I had probably walked 4 miles, but perhaps a little further.

While I was in the rose garden, my brother had called with the names and addresses of the various ethiopian restaurants in town, so after stopping by my hotel, I headed out for Mudai (45d32.0964,-122d39.44436). That was another 1.5 mile walk. Very enjoyable little hike.

On the way there I observed Flugtag, which was very odd. Strange people built flying machines (for a rather casual usage of the word flying) and drove them off of a 30-foot pier into the river. Very amusing. You should read about it on their website. I saw the Santa’s Sleigh team, among others. I even got a few pictures, although it’s a little hard to make out what’s going on.

Dinner at Mudai was fantastic. Just amazing. And well worth the hike. I was planning to get a taxi back, but the day was still so beautiful that I just walked back. Along they way I saw this Amazon.com advertisement on the side of a HUGE warehouse. Kinda funny. And that’s about it for Saturday. I have a remark to make about Sunday, but I’ll probably make that as another post.

Lightning has just struck my brain

I’ve just had an apostrophe. Seems that the reason that I enjoyed Wil’s book so much is that it has much the same theme as Dandelion Wine. (Heh. It always comes back to that, hmm?) That is, noticing life as it goes past. But he even goes a little farther — noticing the good bits, really remembering the good bits, and letting the bad bits just fade away. And, of course, enjoying being a kid, even if you’re not a kid any more. 😉

And, as an aside, apparently online snacks and food are terrorist tools. Now they’ve only got diet coke, water, and orange juice. And the flight to Portland has food available to buy. Oy. I’ll bet they have paper knives too. Or perhaps pre-chewed food. I think I’ll eat in Atlanta instead.

How to attend a conference

I attended my first conference in 1996, and, almost without exception, I’ve been to at least one conference, at usually two or three, every year since then. I’ve attended conferences differently, and observed a large number of people attending conferences differently. My first conference (some Sun event, for reasons that I don’t remember) didn’t do much for me, because I had no goals in attending the conference, except that I’d heard of some new thing called Java, and because I had no idea what to expect.

The key to a good conference experience is to have a good idea of what you expect to get out of it, and then do whatever is necessary to accomplish that end. If you’re very new to attending conferences, you may not know what sorts of things those could be. To this end, I’ve compiled a short list of some of the most common ways that people view conferences, at least based on their behavior. While there’s certainly some humor in this, it’s also a serious effort to get you to think about how to attend a conference so that you don’t get to the end of it and feel a sense of regret about what you’ve missed out on.

Of course, conferences will look somewhat different to me than many folks, since I’ve also been speaking at every conference I’ve attended since 1998.

Conference as week-long party

If you’re like me, a conference is the closest thing to a vacation that you get. It’s a week away from work, away from responsibility, and away from doing dishes. Party time! From observing folks at conferences, it would seem that the seasoned conference attendees have fallen into this view. The goal of any decent conference, therefore, is to spend as much time as possible hopelessly inebriated, and to attend as many parties as you can possibly get an invitation to, and several more if at all possible.

If this is your view of conferences, there are some warnings that I should make:

  • Most folks have digital cameras these days, and they will post their pictures to their web sites
  • Despite what you may think, your boss does read your blog
  • If you can produce no evidence that the conference was a worthwhile investment, you won’t get to come back next year

Conference as social gathering

This is somewhat different from Conference as Party. In most of the world, who you know is significantly more important than what you know. Conferences are the best possible place and time to meet the important people in your field, and to shmooze. Sometimes this is called “networking.” I’m not sure what the appropriate term is these days.

The seasoned conference-goer who is not firmly in category one is almost certainly in this category. They’ve long since exhausted category three, and now attend the conference to be with their friends. I readily admit that this is where I wind up. Although I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time contributing to the production of the actual conference (ie, speaking), I try to spend the rest of the time catching up with friends who I get to see two or three times a year, other than time online, which is … different.

Conference as classroom

Most first-time conference-goers view a conference as an academic event. They are there to learn. It’s a good idea to have in mind exactly what it is that you want to learn. And do your research before (ie, reading all online available information on the topic) so that you are not wasting your time, and the experts’ time, asking questions that are in the FAQ. This should be a time when you get the hard questions answered, not the easy ones. If you’re asking the easy questions at a conference, you’ve wasted your money.

This is, incidentally, why I’m always amazed at how well-attended my “intro to apache” tutorial is. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t come, but it always seems populated with people who have not done the most basic of preparation work. And they’re paying extra to attend this tutorial. I sincerely hope that I’m giving them the content that they paid for, but I can’t help wonder if their money would have been better spent if they just read the documentation and then attended one of the other tutorials.

Particularly at a conference like OSCon, it’s very uncommon that something is covered in a session that is not already available online somewhere. Granted, getting it right from the expert, and being able to ask for clarification and demonstration, is of enormous value. But do the work ahead of time to make that experience more worthwhile.

Conference as vacation

One of these days, I’d like to just attend a conference. Not speak. Not have a panel. Not do “guru is in” sessions. Not even have to introduce anyone or chair a talk. But I don’t expect that’s going to happen any time soon. I am very ready to admit that I stand entirely on the shoulders of giants, and I owe much more back to the community than they can ever owe to me.

Having said that, I’m starting to view conferences as vacations. I give two or three talks (ok, at ApacheCon it’s more like four or five. Sheesh.) and in exchange I get to have a few days off. No to party, or socialize, but just to get away. There’s certainly an aspect of the party and social gathering mixed in there for me. Indeed, the Sams Publishing authors’ dinners are some of the high points of my year. But looking at the schedule for OSCon, the first thing that came to mind was that I have Tuesday and Thursday completely off, and I’ll probably just go geocaching. 🙂

Conclusion

Which one of these categories you fall into is entirely up to you. I just encourage you to give it a great deal of thought before you get on the plane, so that when you arrive, you’re entirely in the right mind-set to make the most of the conference.

For example, if you intend to have the conference be a social gathering, or a party, then you have to firmly decide to be the last one to leave any event, that you won’t sleep more than absolutely necessary, and that you are willing to buy drinks for those persons reticent to trade the talk on LOTR for your company.

Or, if you intend to treat it as an academic gathering, make sure you know exactly what you want to learn, and don’t let that speaker out of your sight until they have answered your questions. While many of the speakers just want to get back to the speakers lounge, or to the next party, most of them enjoy discussing their topic and answering (intelligent) questions about it. They will, however, swiftly tire of questions that you should have answered by reading the FAQ.

And if you intend to treat it just as a vacation, make sure you stage a few photos of you appearing studious, and that you cram the printed notes from a few important sessions on the plane back, so that you can persuade your boss that you need to come again next year.

See y’all at OSCon!

Increasing confusion and anger about our government

Just three random links which illustrate some of the bizarre things going on in our nation under the name of National Security.

An article about a student photography project. (It’s long. Read the whole thing anyway.)

Passenger arrested for carrying a DVD of anti-american material, or, as they call it, suspicious materials.

And an article about how post-outage reports are a threat to national security.

I’m increasingly baffled by the notion that we’re more secure if we’re kept in ignorance. This “closed source” approach to governance is completely opposite to the way that our government was created to work. Something about a government of the people, by the people, and *ahem* for the people.

I’ve complained about this before – the absurd notion that government must be conducted in secrecy. How, I ask, can one have a government of the people if the people are routinely kept in the dark?

I am getting really fed up with the press telling us to be extra vigilant on one day or another, due to unspecified threats that they can’t tell us about. I am confident that we would be more vigilent, and less terrorized, if we were simply made aware of what threats were being made, and what was being done to counteract them. But, instead, the Feds Who Watch Over Us tell us that there were threats, and that we should be afraid, but not what those threats were. The consequence is that people either panic, or complete disregard anything that these folks say. Personally, I think that they are self-serving morons fabricating threats as a means to preserve their job securrity. I have absolutely no confidence that they know anything at all.

Really, who is served by keeping these things secret? Presumably the terrorists who made the threats already know about them, so it’s not like we’d be revealing important information. So, by keeping the citizenry in the dark, who benefits? The fear-mongers do, of course. Both those who are the “real” terrorist as well as our own government. Our government does the terrorists’ job – ie, they terrorize us – and they create multiple departments with virtualy unlimited power, based solely on our ignorance.

So, I suppose this is one of the reasons that I’m not looking forward to flying out to Portland. I suppose I can just put my head down and endure it, try to be cheerful when I’m treated like a criminal, when my electronics are mishandled and treated like contraband, or, perhaps, explosives, and try to say “yes” with a straight face when they ask politely if they may paw through my personal effects.

Maybe it’s only a matter of time before I get tagged as an anti-government fanatic. It’s a label that I’ll wear proudly, in the fine company of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine. I just have to wonder if our government of the people does indeed represent the people in a meaningful way. Because, if it does, then I’m woefully out of touch with how the majority looks at things.

And, so, we’re coming up on another election. Is there any chance that voting for one or the other candidate will, in any way, change this political climate, and the downward spiral towards a police state? No, of course not. And I really don’t know what can break us out of this nasty state of affairs, particularly if those of us who think that it’s even a problem are in the minority. I’d say write to your congresscritter, but I’m no longer convinced that they are literate.

Drive-by deafening

After being subjected to another drive-by deafening, I find myself wondering what these kids are going to do when they hit 40 and realize that their various tatoos and piercings and partial deafness aren’t really so cool after all.

Reflections on an almost-perfect day

Today was very good. From a good breakfast (eggs, sausage, Ethiopian coffee) to a wonderful dinner (crab legs, lobster, fried shrimp, shrimp scampi) , just about everything was great.

This morning we went to the Wilmore Festival of the Fourth parade, which is always more pleasant than the Lexington parade, which we also attended. We went down to the campgrounds, where we ate too much cotton candy and snow cones, and Sarah got her hair painted red and blue.

The Lexington parade is always a showcase of nutjobs and fringe groups, from cross-dressing Harley-Davidson gangs to Gays for Jesus to John Kerry supporters.

I saw several people I knew in the parade. Tim Philpot was in the parade, as part of his re-election campaign. And Tim and Lisa and the kids were marching with the RailTrails folks (there’s photos of them in there somewhere).

Oh, and this year, I got footage of the Wilmore Precision Lawnmower Marching Brigade. (HERE and HERE) Fortunately, this year’s parade did not have the spectacular lawnmower-related injuries that accompanied last year’s parade.

Less time online, poison ivy, spam

For the last 3 weeks, and, minimally, for the next two months, I’ll be online considerably less. I’m working days at a customer site, Monday through Thursday. The network at this customer site has firewalling and proxing of the “prisoners in” rather than “invaders out” variety. So, no IRC, no ssh, not even any outside POP connections. As if I’d have time, anyway. I’ve been kept busy all day. It’s drudge work, but I’m busy, and doing largely useful things.

Anyways, this all means that when I come home, I have 1000+ email messages waiting on the server, and the predominance of spam is much more marked in these large numbers that it is when receiving email 5 or 10 at a time. Mortgage and Pharmaceuticals appear to be the in spam these days. I marvel that there are enough morons out there buying spam-marketed products that it’s still this lucrative.

Last Sunday, apparently, I got into some poison ivy. It started itching on Sunday, and has gotten gradually worse since then. This evening I was completely miserable, with both arms covered with blisters and itching horribly. I hope today was the worst, because if it gets any worse, I might have to go see a doctor about this. Note to self: No more hiking in short sleeves and sandals.

Anywhere but here

Where would you rather be?
Anywhere but here
When will the time be right?
Anytime but now

(Double Agent – Rush – Counterparts)

When you look at me suddenly it’s clear
You’re burning up my dreams
Crazy as it seems
I don’t wanna be anywhere but here
Anywhere but here

(Anywhere but here – Hilary Duff – Metamorphosis)

So book me on a plane for Paris
Or on a cruise to a desert isle
Anywhere but here where love disappeared
Anywhere but here
I wanna party in New York City
And climb over the China Wall
Anywhere but where your love disapeared
Anywhere but here

(Anywhere but here – Eden’s Crush)

You’ll always be with me, always be with me
Part of my heart for all time
Where I’m going , you’re going
Even if it’s just in my mind
Leaving’s not leaving
I’m not leaving you behind

(Anywhere but here – LeAnn Rimes)

(California is gonna be the place for me.)
Oh leave it all to disappear. I’m heading anywhere but here.
Because I want a life, a souvenir.
I’ll find it anywhere but here.

(Anywhere but here – KD Lang)

No, there wasn’t a point. Except that it seems that only a teenage girl wants to stay right where she is. I don’t expect there’s any deep message in that.

Ahhhhh

There are few things in life more pleasant than a liesurely dinner with dear friends. The only trouble is that I have to go to work in the morning …

Popcorn blog

Tim wrote some stuff about Casablanca as part of the “Popcorn blog” exercise that various people are participating in.

Things like this can be fun, but they also have the potential to be rather hokey. I mean, sure, literary criticism is a lot of fun, and is a useful exercise, but literary criticism with a particular agenda — attempting to draw a particular conclusion — has the potential to be academically dishonest, and a whole lot of hooey.

I’d say that it’s hard to find any half-way decent movie that is *not* about salvation. That’s why we enjoy watching movies, right? Because the good triumphs over the evil. Which is how Tim defines Salvation in his remarks. Sort of.

Strangely, it is the movies that are not about salvation – that is, the movies that have unexpected endings – which are often the more intrigueing ones, and the ones that make you think about your assumptions of what salvation actually is.

Like, say, Unbreakable, or The Talented Mr Ripley.

Because maybe, just maybe, they are about salvation after all.

For some of my more favorite “salvation” movies, I’d have to also recommend Unforgiven and The Shawshank Redemption. And for, perhaps, a more controversial one, A Clockwork Orange.

I look forward to seeing what some of the folks have to say about a few of the movies on the list.