29th Jun 2003
Oh, Portland Source
For the next week, before heading off to Portland OR, the low priority thread in my mind will be working on some sort of wordplay on “open”, “portland”, “source”, and “convention”. Another one is “packing list”.
I’m really looking forward to the OSCON. It’s going to be a week of drinking from a firehose of topics! (speaking of drinking, I hear Portland knows a thing or two about BEER. 20 brewpubs!) For me, Etech was a foray into covering an event. This time I’m focusing more on a few themes (one of which is PHP), and am building breaks into my week-long schedule to try to get some writing done while things are fresh.
One task for this “week before”: get my mitts on an iBook or Powerbook! I think that Hydra (Mac OS X collaborative editor) is so important in a conference setting, that I would rather have access to that, than cruise along solo in Windows or Linux. I am surprised that we still don’t have something like Hydra in the Linux neck of the woods.
I’ve never been to Portland for more than 15 minutes, so it’ll be fun to learn about the city. It looks like a beautiful place! I’m beginning to wonder if I should delay coming back by a day or so, and I’m not even there yet…
Equipment: For the conference, and for the joy of city photography, I’m lugging along a few cameras… I just got a Holga, and will bring a couple of Nikons (a D1, and the more incognito 950). Packing equipment for a trip is always fun: I usually end up with a 40+ pound duffel bag of computer peripherals, cameras and 3-5 lenses, and all manner of cables. I always seem to use a dozen Zip-Loc bags to keep the cables, power adapters, CF cards, etc. from getting into a massive Scrum, and I always bring a power strip. I simply deal with the weight in the airports, and enjoy having access to various doodads on the trip.
btw, If you are going to OSCON, you may want to visit the Wiki.
