thursday and friday were good conference days. On thursday I caught some of the Apache lightning talks, which went over rather well, considering they were thrown together at the last minute. I also caught Stas' mod_perl 2.0 talk, which was good even though he only had 45 minutes to explain 2+ years of development.
after that, I went to Exhibit Hall to do an author signing for San Diego Technical Books. The signing actually went pretty well - I signed 6-8 books (I don't remember exactly) which was apparently very good compared to the other authors there (though ours hasn't been out for as long, so people are less likely to already have the book).
For dinner, the folks at Sams Publishing took all their authors out to dinner at Panevino. The food was excellent, so if you're ever in San Diego, check it out. The dinner was nice, despite my being the only Perl guy there (Sams authors who attend conferences seem biased toward PHP, apparently). more drinks followed until far too late in the evening.
The Friday Lord of the Rings keynote was really cool, and I caught MDJ's judo presentations which were quite entertaining. however, by lunchtime I was done. So, I spent friday afternoon at the pool with some fruity drinks.
Dinner was the typical cast of characters (14 people in total), a fine dinner at Panevino (again), followed by scotch in the Sergeant's room. I got the chance to meet (and drink with) DJ Adams and Piers Harding, who were really nice people - I wish we had hooked up earlier in the week. At about midnight we called it quits, said our goodbyes, and went back to our room to catch our early flight
So, raise your hand if you know that cellular phones are illegal when an airplane is in the air. everyone? is this new news?
With about an hour left on our return flight, the bonehead next to me decides to turn on his Nokia phone and do, well, something with it. Why I end up next to freaks on a regular basis is beyond me, but after about 5 minutes a flight attendant tells him he needs to turn it off. He argues for a few minutes, she walks away, and he keeps playing with it. Said flight attendant comes back, tells him a little firmer that he needs to turn it off, he argues, and she walks away. Now, by this time I'm a bit nervous, and he places his hand over the phone in his lap and continues to use it. Now, if we've learned nothing in the past 9 months it's that you don't fuck around on a plane, right? Well, now a male flight attendant comes over, tells him he needs to turn off the phone right now, hands him an FAA citation, and says the captain has called the police who will meet this guy at the terminal. Remember, this is the passenger right next to me, so for the next hour and a half (our landing was delayed) I get to listen to him talk at me about how the flight staff is on a power trip, how his civil rights have been violated, and sing (yes, sing) Bob Marley's 'Get Up, Stand Up!'
not much happened once we landed (no swat teams or anything) and it was no shoe bomber, but it was more excitement than I'd prefer on an airplane.
and so ended OSCon 2002.
