[Update: This is my initial impression, the middle of Monday -- I was feeling very cranky -- counterpoint to follow].
Poor Josh is running around like a mad man trying to keep everything running smoothly. Dorm rooms are a mess. ResLife hosed everything up -- the big stuff, the small stuff, everything in between. A day should have been scheduled just for working with ResLife through getting the room set up -- but then where would you stay while that happened? So I wound up sweaty, smelly, with bad breath come noon the next day after a red-eye flight. Mid morning I got to unload my bag and clean up.
The talks are boring. [Update: I wrote this Monday morning, and then found a bunch of really great talks, especially the lightning talks, afterwards]. There, I said it. I respect anyone willing to stand up and talk about what they're working on, what they're thinking, etc, when they're asked, or when no one else will, but all of the speakers are speaking about things that have been all the hype lately -- AJAX and Inside-Out-Objects have dominated 70% of the talks. I'd like to be made aware of things that aren't on the radar yet, not things that have been on the radar for six months, or an old fashion that came back for some bizarre reason.
1% of the people here are famous. It's neat seeing Larry, Damian, Audrey, etc cruising around, but I can't talk to them. They're busy. They're hanging out with each other, and their friends, and doing the things they had planned. So I'm left with a bunch of other people whom I don't know what they do. If people's name badges listed their modules and/or Perl related sites, conversation would be a lot easier to start up. As it is, it looks like a few kids in a sea of complete dorks.
The campus is gorgeous, and the dorm rooms are spacious -- I remember them being much, much smaller. And the bathroom, shared between two units or four people, are much larger than the master bath in the house.
Breaking the ice with people this reserved is hard, and I'm afraid I'm going to wind up bored this evening just like I'm bored now. Unless I can finagle my way into some cool party, that is. But I don't want to be one of those kinds of people.
So, gnat and company are having a great time, the Perl novices are learning some basics about what's popular (though not much actual Perl), and everyone else is... bored.
-scott
