My new rule for conferences is: arrive two days before it starts. That way when the planes are late, as they inevitably are, I can recover before the conference starts. Last year's YAPC was a bugger to get to, this year's YAPC was a bugger to get to, and I'm sure next year's will be no different.
Lenzo's in fine form, running around and being presidential. Every year his beard and moustage change, but his sense of humour and incredible energy remain as strong as ever. Helping him are lucs and mendel, the on-the-ground organizers. Mendel's been running around theatres, making sure everything's working.
Montreal is very cool. The campus is neat, there are a lot of gorgeous arts students bouncing around, and there's a hot dog stand only a short walk away. The venue's working out really well.
Damian played Virtual Larry (who is trapped in California with a virus, a virus that Damian is now implying he planted :-). He gave the opening keynote, which I recorded, on perl6. He's such a good speaker. What a perfect choice for the first YAS grant--nobody could have spread the gospel of Perl the same way as he does. An excellent ambassador.
I had one of the first sessions of the day, taking the place of the temporally displaced Michel Rodriguez. I asked the audience what the wanted, and settled for something on idioms. Then I moved off to the Apprenticeship talks. Schwern plugged CPANTS, Damian plugged a couple of evil topics, and I plugged some of mine.
For lunch a bunch of us wandered into town, and ate at a food court underground. Ok Chinese teriyaki, and some good conversation. After lunch I watched Brian Ingerson (Ingy)'s Inline talk. It's effectively a tutorial on extending Perl with the Inline module. What an incredible accomplishment! As complex and painful as XS is, Inline is easy. Brilliant!
After the conference day was over, I headed back to the hotel and caught up with my wife and son. I had a YAS meeting from 6 to 6:45, so they went off in search of my sister while I was at that. We talked about what had happened so far this year, and what we might do for the next half of the year. When we met back up with Jenine and Bree (wife and sister) Jenine had discovered that the dorms are a long way away. Uphill. Did I mention it was hot and humid? Yikes.
Bree had apparently partied hard last night. There were lots of stories of drinking, amusing foreigners in bars, opening the taxi door to chunder, and so on. Oh to be 20 again. No wait, thank GOD I'm not 20 again :-) Fortunately that some of NY.pm were drinking with her and took care of her. She was late up this morning. In fact, in her words "I woke up in a strange room. My first thought was `shit! Someone stole all my stuff!' and then I realized I'd fallen asleep in an empty room."
For dinner, we had Ingy, Pudge, Lenzo, Ziggy, Lisa Nyman, David Adler, Schwern, Damian, Mark Rogalski, and us. We went to a market-type restaurant, where you wander around, getting food from various tables and having your card punched. Fun, but by the end of the meal the family was ready to call a long night over. So we stumbled back to the hotel with Damian, and dropped off.
One of the reasons that I want to get a good night's sleep before the next conference is so that I can remember peoples' names. I have an awful head for names, and I've met a ton of cool people whose first names I can't remember!
--Nat
