OSCON 2008 – Schwag Count
I had an idea to do a daily schwag count during OSCON. I came home with lots of goodies last year, and I thought it would be neat to see what I came home with — broken down by day on when I picked up the item. I’m not going to do a separate post for the schwag, except for today since there’s nothing else going on that I know of…
I am now signed in and have my badge and initial bag o’ schwag plus extras that I snagged from a table near the entrance. This means the schwag count for registration day is:
- 3 O’Reilly Pens. (I only took 2 extras because I found last year that I came home with more than a dozen pens from various sources. I’m a pen-whore, but I’m not that hard up for a massive count of pens!) I’ll probably hand out the duplicates at work to co-workers along with any extra t-shirts I get my grubby little hands on.
- 2 pin-on buttons (1 Ubuntu and 1 Firefox)
- 1 rubber-band launched Nerf dark from White Oak Technologies
- 1 blue stress toy shaped like a beaker from Port 25
- 1 small sheet of Ubuntu stickers [three of which are now on my laptop.])
- 1 install CD for Druid which appears to be a CentOS 5 derivative for VOIP and other communications.
- 1 DVD set (4 DVDs total) from IBM with sample software for a variety of their software packages.
- 1 ThinkGeek catalog.
- 4 brochures for events, magazines, and online information sources.
- 1 mini-notebook (3×5) from Google with a built-in ribbon bookmark, and an elastic band to keep it closed when not in use or to keep it open when in use.
- 10 flyers for “Please visit us at booth #XYZ.”
- 8 different sample magazines from a variety of related industry publications.
- 1 OSCON 2008 Who’s Who. (Yes, I’m in it, which means I checked the box for listing me when I registered. I’m not that special.)
- 1 flyer from Yahoo! announcing various sessions that they have going on. I’ll need to check my schedule to see if I should swap out a planned session for one of theirs if the Yahoo! sessions are interesting enough.
- 1 Expo Hall Passport. You get stickers from certain Expo Hall booths, and if you get them all, you get entered into a contest. This year the prizes are:
- Grand Prize: Pogo Linux Verona 550 Workstation with extras added for a value over $2,500.
- First Prize: Silicon Mechanics Rackform iServ R208
- Second Prize: $500 in O’Reilly books. I WANT THIS ONE!!!
- 1 OSCON 2008 Program Guide.
- 1 OSCON 2008 bag (for the schwag!) This year’s bag is far superior to last year’s. Last year’s was a simple shoulder bag with a throw-over flap that had a zipper for a small pouch in the flap. There was a small velcro patch to hold the flap closed, but you had to have the just right amount of stuff in the bag to make the velcro patch line up. Don’t get me wrong. I like the bag, and I still have it. However, this year’s bag is a Masarati compared to the Porsche of last year. This year’s bag has a webbed pouch on the side that is just right for a 20 oz. soda/water bottle. There is an outer pocket that velcros closed (correctly) and in this outer pocket are pouches for 2 pens, a portable (1.8″) hard drive with cable, and 4 different business card slots that will hold multiple cards. The main section zippers closed with a good zipper and can hold quite a bit of stuff. The handles are the perfect length (for my body) as they can be held in the hand without dragging the bag on the ground, or they can be slung over the shoulder for a comfortable carry.
Schwag of the Day: It’s a close call between the OSCON bag or the Google mini-notebook, but I’m going to have to go with the mini-notebook since I’ve been wanting something like this for quite some time. It will easily fit in a back pocket. I just need to find a flat pen to slide into the notebook. I know I’ve seen them around on the ‘net somewhere. Now to find them again.
PS: Is it “schwag” or “swag”? I always put pronounce is shh-WAG instead of s-WAG because it’s more fun to say it that way. I did some searching, and found:
- schwag:
- Free stuff competitors get at an event.
- A type of low-grade marijuana.
- swag:
- Hanging cloth like a curtain of sorts.
- Booty stolen by a thief, but not necessarily a pirate.
Hrmm…. Looks like schwag is the right connotation here even though I’m really not a competitor, but I am at an event. I’m going to stick with schwag, but it’s not the smokable kind!!!
OSCON 2008 – In Portland
I made it to Portland, but barely…
I got up early because Kiara was heading to a cat show and taking Kiernan with her, and she had to leave the house at 7 AM. I was planning on getting up at 8:30 to get to the airport on time, but I wanted to spend at least a little time with my wife and son before leaving them for a week. When they left, it was really hard to say goodbye to them. I’m going to miss them terribly while I’m here in Portland.
After they left, I didn’t go back to bed, which is what I would usually do when Kiara heads off to a cat show for the day. Instead, I got up, double-checked my bags (I still managed to forget to pack my mouse.), watched some TV, checked some email (work and personal), and shuffled some daily Firefox bookmarks into the more efficient Google RSS Reader. By the time I finished all this, it was a few minutes after 8:30, and I had planned on walking out the door at 8:30. It wasn’t a big deal, and I made good time to Denver.
For some reason I was daydreaming when I came to I-225 to get to the airport, and I missed the turnoff. As a matter of fact, the sign stating “I-70 – 2 Miles” popped up before I realized my mistake. Oh well. I hopped on 70 and cruised towards DIA. When I saw a sign saying “Chambers – 1 Mile”, I recalled that Kiara said her cat show was off of 70 and Chambers. It was only 9:45, so I had about 25 minutes to kill before I would be “behind schedule” for getting to my flight. I called her up, and got quick directions to the convention center where the cat show was at. It was good to spend almost half an hour with my family that I didn’t think I was going to get. With all three of us fully awake (instead of half-groggy at 7 AM) we made the most of the time. Alas, I had to say goodbye to my loved ones again in the same day, and made my way to the airport.
It took forever to find an open spot (even in the far corners of the lot that are halfway to Kansas!) I finally found a place for my car, secured things as best I could without setting booby traps, caught the shuttle and got into the airport. I managed to pick up my boarding pass and get through security in record time. From the time I got in line for my boarding pass to the time I finished tying my shoes after security, a mere 15 minutes had passed. This included the walking distance from the airline counter to the security line. I managed to get through security with almost an hour and a half to spare before boarding started. This is fairly normal for me. I’d rather sit at the gate and read a good book than race through the terminal trying not to kill small children and little old ladies in my mad dash through the airport.
Since I had time to kill (and I was starving,) I snagged some food and drink at The Cowboy Bar. While eating at the rather full restaurant/bar, another fella asked if he could join me at my table since it was the only empty chair. I told him that he could, and we ended up talking for a little over an hour over our food. Oddly enough, I found out a bit about his family, him, where he lives (NY City), and a few other things, but I never did catch his name. He learned about the same amount of stuff about me, but I never gave him my name either. The term from the great movie Fight Club is “single serving friend.” That pretty sums up the “relationship” I had with this very nice New Yorker.
Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in absorbing my “single serving” of friendship, I lost track of time and my bladder. I finally realized that boarding for my flight had started ten minutes ago, and it was going to take me about five minutes to get to my gate. On the way to the gate, my bladder spoke up and demanded a pit stop. Urgh. There went a few minutes that I didn’t have to spare. Fortunately, there was a bathroom along the way, and I still managed to make it on to my plane. I was one of the last people to board. As a matter of fact, they were calling up the standby passengers as I checked into the plane.
The flight went very well (psychologically for me [I really dislike flying] and physically for everyone) even though there were tons of toddlers and infants on the flight. There were nine of them that I could see walking around the plane, and I think there were a few more further up in the front of the plane. Even with all those little ones on the plane, there was little crying and fussing. Each time a cry or fuss went up, my “daddy instinct” kicked in, and I started looking for Kiernan. It made leaving him home (he’s with Kiara, so not alone!) instead of bringing him with me even harder. It’s best that he stays home since Kiara has the “food supply” with her, and I’m going to be way too busy to keep an eight month old baby happy.
Once in PDX, I snagged my bags, hopped on the MAX (light rail), and got right to my hotel. It’s a different one from last year. Last year’s hotel is cheaper and right across the street from the convention center. They were full by the time I received authorization from work to do the trip, so I had to go to the second choice. It’s not much more expensive, but it’s about two blocks away. I don’t care about the two blocks so long as it’s not raining. What I do care about are the room accommodations. Last year’s hotel was nicely put together and well done, though the Internet connection sucked rotten eggs. This year’s hotel has less walking space in the room than the quad-cube that I share with three other people (and a spare table) at work. The desk is nice, the bathroom looks nice, and the bed will be long enough for my to sleep on so long as I lie a bit diagonally. There are only two spare outlets, and I need three for my gadgets, so I had to unplug the TV, which I won’t be using anyways. I’m not sure if there is any surge protection available in the room’s outlets. I hope things are fine, but I’ll be watching for storms. I just hope the Internet connection (which currently rocks) holds up through the week as more geeks show up to crush the network. If it doesn’t hold up, I always have my AT&T air card for slower connectivity.
The registration desk for the event will be opening up in a few minutes, so I’m going to start my “arduous” (overheard in the lobby from another OSCON attendee who is in my hotel) two block walk to the convention center to get my paperwork, books, bag, pens, schwag, name badge, and other goodies.
You may get another post from me later on tonight. It depends on how bored I get while here in the “hotel room of claustrophobia.”
OSCON Prep
I’ve been prepping my schedule, thoughts, ideas, and such for the OSCON trip that starts in 2 days (less than 48 hours at this moment, actually.)
Tomorrow will be the physical prep portion which is packing, making sure I have what I need, and what I can’t take with me through security. There’s very little that I carry that can’t get through security, but I’m sure that trying to take my Leatherman through the metal detector will cause issues. I also need to take all of my electronic gadgets (yes, I carry plenty around) and put them in a plastic bag for ease of tossing (ok, gently placing) them into a bin for scanning.
I’m really looking forward to getting to Portland. It’s going to be a blast!
EliteXC on CBS
I just finished watching the EliteXC fights that were on CBS tonight. The fighting was high quality, and I have a great deal of respect for anyone that gets in the cage. I also have even more admiration for those that do well, and everyone did well tonight.
However, I have some major complaints about the support staff that surrounded the fighting.
The fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young went to the end of the second round, and then was stopped by the doctor because of Young’s eye. I disagree with this stoppage. The cheekbone around under Young’s left eye was swollen, but it was not impairing Young’s vision at all. Young’s eyes were clear, and vision was fine. I think the doctor pussed out and stopped the fight “in case” vision became impaired. You know what? That’s the ref’s job. He is there to pause the fight if he thinks that an injury has become dangerous enough to warrant a doctor’s inspection. At that time, the doctor can review things and stop the fight if necessary. If fights were stopped because something might go wrong, then the fights should never happen at all. I don’t know what kind of doctors New Jersey has or what kind the NJ Athletic Commission has, but I’m starting to think that the doctors were proctologists hired to make sure the fighters’ visual abilities aren’t impaired.
Also, the fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith was a championship match that was stopped before the end of the 3rd round because Smith got poked in the eye. The stoppage was another doctor stoppage. Again, I think it was a proctologist was in charge of checking for eye damage. Because the 3rd round didn’t finish, it was declared a No Contest fight. They got a camera right up in Smith’s face immediate after the doctor stoppage, and his pupils were equally dilated, and his eyes were very clear. If there was a problem, it was a scratch to the eye. In this case, if the fighter says he can see clearly, then let the fight continue. I know that the fighter will almost always say that they can continue, but without fancy optometric equipment (which I doubt is handy in a fighting cage), a doctor cannot determine if a scratch impairs vision or not. In this case, they must trust the fighter and let the fight continue.
The referee of the final fight (some hard to pronounce Italian name — Margliannio or something like that) stopped the fight as a TKO while Thompson was still standing and Kimbo Slice was still swinging. If Slice landed two more shots, Thompson was going to go down. However, Thompson had been in trouble a few other times during the fight, and had taken the fight to the ground. Slice showed little-to-no ground skills, and the referee should have allowed Thompson the chance to take the fight to the ground… or be knocked the ground. My guess is that Slice was going to knock Thompson to the ground, but the referee should have waited until that happened before stopping the fighting. I think the referee was just too chicken-shit to jump in between Slice and Thompson if it went to the ground-and-pound by Slice.
The doctors and the referee should not be allowed near another MMA fight until they are better trained to handle the complexities and “normal situations” that occur in MMA fights.
Before I finish, I want to say something: Safety is paramount for the fighters. I’ve often heard that the #1 job of a referee is to keep the fighters safe. Bullshit. The #1 job is to enforce the rules properly (most of which are designed for safety first and fairness secondary.) The very close second job is to keep the fight as safe as an MMA fight can be. If someone is still standing, and is about to be knocked out, then let the knock out happen. Don’t jump in because someone might get hurt. That’s an insult to everyone involved in the entire thing, from the fans, to the fighters, to the trainers, to the managers of the fighting organizations. Yes, you want to keep the fighters safe, but their job is to step up and hurt each other in the most effective manner allowed by the rules. You can’t guarantee 100% safety during their “working hours” like you can a software engineer, receptionist, or a CEO. It’s a different kind of job, dammit.
OSCON 2008 Approved!!!
After about a month of silence from the bosses on getting approval for OSCON 2008, I received a reminder from O’Reilly that early registration ends on Monday. I decided to nag a little (I had also been silent about the whole thing) and found out that my trip had been approved for the time off by my daily manager, and for the budget from my money manager. Now I need the Executive Vice President (who happens to be the boss of both of my managers) to sign off on things. I filled out the appropriate paperwork, and gave it to the budget boss. I should find out in the next day or two if the EVP signs off on the trip.
Things are looking up for a trip to Portland in July! I can’t wait!
Great Comic
PVPOnline is one of my daily web comics, and I’ve enjoyed it for years. I’ve laughed at a greater percentage of PVP than most other web comics, so I keep coming back. The comic from yesterday made me cry. Not tears of laughter, or tears of sadness. They were tears of happiness and being touched. This is a great moment in the long-term story arc between Brent and Jade, and I can’t wait to see what Mr. Kurtz has in store for the cast of PVP in the future.
OSCON 2008 Proposal
Registration for OSCON 2008 opened today (or maybe yesterday?) and I put together what I thought was a compelling argument to both my bosses to allow me to go again this year. By the time OSCON rolls around, I’ll have the vacation time, and maybe the money to just go on my own dime. However, it would be really nice if the employer would pick up the tab again this year.
We’ll see how it goes, and I’m hoping for the best!
Domain Name Expired
I screwed up and must have missed the warning emails from Network Solutions (my domain name registrar) about the fact that my domain name was about to expire. I got an email this morning telling me that my domain name protection service had expired, which meant that anyone in the world could have scooped up my domain name. Fortunately, the domain name is worthless. It’s really not a great e-commerce or business name, so it’s pretty safe.
I’m just glad someone didn’t snag it, park it, and ransom it for big bucks. I’m not sure I would have shelled out the money for the ransom had this happened. I guess it would have depended on the price and how well I trusted the ransom holder.
Anyway, beosig.net is safe for another three years.
PS: I did check my other four domains (yes, I have five total), and they are fine for a while. As a matter of fact, the one I have for my son is good until he turns 10 years old, and he’s only four months old at the moment. Heh. That’s assuming that the whole WWW as we know it now still exists a decade from now.
OSCON 2007 Trackback
As most of you know I went to OSCON 2007 last year. I recently subscribed to the OSCON 2008 RSS feed in anticipation of going again this year. The OSCON 2008 RSS feed had a large dump of articles today, and I was linked in with them!!! This really makes me happy and proud that O’Reilly thinks that my write-ups on the conference warranted linking to.
Here’s a blurb that they pulled from one of my posts and put on their site:
“The trip was worth every penny, every bit of effort, the lost sleep, and the crazy schedule. I learned more than I ever thought I would. I met more people than I thought I would, and I got to learn about new companies, new products, and new ideas. I really hope to be able to return next year, but that’s a year off. We’ll see how it goes at that time.”
I tend to try to work my links into my wording, but there are too many to try to do that with. Here they are:
Exploding Appendix!
In continuation to the Health section of my most recent post, I’ve decided to let you know what the last week plus a few days has entailed.
As you already know, I came down with constipation last Friday, overdosing on prune juice last Tuesday, diarrhea, gas, and finally feeling more human last Wednesday.
Turns out that I felt wonderful on Wednesday because my appendix ruptured sometime Tuesday night, and this relieved the pressure that I was feeling in my gut. Shortly after my post last Wednesday, I ended up taking a turn for the worst. I hopped in the bathtub, and soaked in a luke-warm bath that I was trying to make hot for about 30 minutes. Then I went to bed, and I’m pretty sure I moaned my way through the rest of the night.
For some horribly stupid reason, I went to work Thursday morning. I was feeling about as bad as I’ve felt since my last case of food poisoning, but I wasn’t throwing up. I really should have hit the ER Thursday morning. I managed to suffer through Thursday, and when I got home, I had some after-hours work to do. I expected to start it around 8 PM, and finish it long before 9 PM. 11:45 PM rolled around before I was done and shutting down my computer. I emailed my boss and told him that I was going to my doctor or the ER, whichever could get me in first thing in the morning.
The ER won that contest hands down, and I’m glad they did since they had all of the appropriate equipment to take care of me here at the hospital. I got to the ER around 10:45, got triaged right away, got into an exam room within 25 minutes, and started getting checked out. After some blood work, urinalysis, and questions by the doctor, I was headed to radiology.
Something on the films in radiology, and the fact that my white blood cell count was very high made the doctor have me sent for a CT scan of my belly. However, I had to drink this contrast stuff and wait 2 hours. I downed the contrast stuff as quickly as I could, and I was done with it by 13:18.
About 15:40, I was taken for the CT, where that went well enough, and then back to my room. From there, I was hopped up on some pretty good pain meds, but I still managed to call Kiara a few times to let her know that I was still kicking, but had no diagnosis just yet.
I was woken up some time later by Dr. Tracy (her first name, not her last. I never got her last name, but I do remember vivid green eyes that were very soothing to look into) who told me that I had appendicitis!
Well, now I knew what the problem was, and what the treatment was going to be. A specialist was called in, and it took him a while to show up, but he got there. He started arranging for an OR, and staff and such like that. I called Kim to let her know what was going on, what I wanted from the house, and then started calling family to let them know.
At 19:51, I was rolled into an OR, and was out fairly quickly after getting settled on to the operating table. I was told that the surgery took about 45 minutes (as was expected), and that the appendix had burst, and turned gangrenous. Uck. That means that it had burst several days before which the doctor and I figured out after comparing notes later on.
I’ve been on IV antibiotics since the surgery, and things are progressing well. The pain is getting less and less every few hours, and I’m able to move around a little more. Just a few hours ago, I managed to get my first shower in since Tuesday night, and that made all the difference in the world!
I was hoping to go home today, but that didn’t happen. I’ve been told that the goal is for tomorrow, so we’ll have to see how that goes.
I’ll try to keep you updated as things progress. I better wrap this up since my early dinner just arrived, and my digestive medicine has finally had a chance to kick in.
Maybe I’ll post tomorrow, but no promises.
