OSCON… or rather !OSCON
July 21st, 2008 by HenMy third day down in Portland. Mostly here for the Foundations summit (now over) in which I wore a vague Apache hat and got to listen to some very interesting conversations. I skipped out on the last couple of hours of Sunday to pick up a doughnut at Voodoo Donut and spend far too much money at Powell’s (my first trip!). The happiest thing was finally finding the out of print “How the Whale became and other stories” by Ted Hughes. I’ve been looking for that for 5 years or more now (not very heavily to be fair, but still always asking for it at bookshops) and to see a couple of copies on the highest shelf in the kids section was delightful. Once I’d found someone to clamber up and get it down (oh to be a primate) I entered happiness mode.
This was probably a bad thing in hindsight as I then went to the scifi section and bought 8 books. Curse that happiness. First one of those I’ve started reading is the 4th in the Lost Fleet series. It reminds me of one of the Baen book series I’ve read, but smoother, and also of Heinlein juveniles but with more depth of story. I’m quite addicted and I’m sure it’ll take another 52 books for the lost fleet to get home. Or destroyed. Or find aliens. Or find out they are aliens. Or wake up because it was all a dream and Bobby is in fact fine.
Back to OSCON. I’m only here for the one day of OSCON. A bit frustrating in that lots of people are arriving today and tomorrow and at best I’ll wave and say “Bye”. Of course, that’ll stop them having to lie and say they understand that I’m choosing family and home over oss for a year. I wanted to leave halfway through the day in fact - traffic etc - but you can’t buy only one tutorial. You have to buy two. Curses. So I get to go to A/B testing and see what there is to learn. Then I get to drive through traffic. *grumble* And of course I was up bloody early to check out of the hotel and then make it in time for registration to make me late for the tutorial.
Happy thoughts. Whale.