I went to Portland (for OSCON)!
Last week, I was in Portland, Oregon for OSCON. I had a good time, as I generally do. Portland’s a nice place, and when I’m there, so are a lot of friends that I see only once or twice a year. I got some tasty pizza with Piers at Sizzle Pie, had a really nice long dinner at Farm with Robert, got a milkshake with Andy, went to Le Piegon with Piers and John, Shirley, and Sonia, got Indian and ice cream with David, Julie, Ovid, and Vicky, and went to Base Camp with a whole ton of people. I’ve probably missed something in there. Sorry!
The conference talks and sessions that I went to were pretty good. I’ll write more about that another time or place. Now that OSCON is following YAPC’s lead and putting everything online, I’m going to be a bit less eager to get to as many talks. I think I want to sort of radically re-invent my OSCON.
When I get to OSCON, my slides are done. I don’t need to hole up and finish them. I spent a bunch of time holed up anyway, though, basically sitting in the speaker’s lounge and poking at this or that. I got very little of note done during this time.
I think that, instead of this, next time I will find a table to set up more or less permanent shop. I will make it very publicly known that I am available to hack on absolutely anything, to pair with anybody, or to do code review of anything where I might be able to help. I will also consider the occasional board game.
If nobody shows up, I will have a set of projects to work on, and I’ll work on those. OSCON will be a hackathon for me. I’ll take breaks now and then to be social, too, because half the point of going to OSCON is to talk to people, but when I’m not talking, I could be getting stuff done instead of wandering around like a drone. That’s the new plan. I just need to remember it when next July rolls around.