Mon, 25 Jul 2005
A few pictures
Posted at: 15:53 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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Sun, 24 Jul 2005
Back from Stuttgart
So on Saturday, after sleeping in and hanging out in front of the tent for some time we decided to skip breakfast and go right for lunch. We chose a thai-chinese place and had a very good (and abundant!) lunch. After that we decided to go to the zoo which turned out to be a really good idea. The rest of the day was spent wandering through the zoo, looking at all kinds of animals, a funny shimpanse, a sneaky elephant and having little contests who first spots the leaf green triple spotted double striped poison dart frog (... and his fellow tiny creatures) in the terrarium. We stayed until the Zoo closed. Still totally stuffed from our lunch we decided to also skip dinner and went back into town to have a drink and wander the nightly streets of Stuttgart making fun of designer furniture and discussing movies (I shall remain silent concerning some people's weird movie taste, but ... *seriously* ... Flash Dance?!). After finishing our round (and some ice cream) we went back to the camping site and kept talking about this and that until the first among us fell asleep.
Sunday featured sleeping in even longer, a small improvised breakfast and The Unbelievable Packing of XTaran's car. I was really surprised, but it is indeed possible to fit a huge tent, three big bags, a camping table, a camping chair, a toolbox, three laptops plus accessories, a computer, a projector, even more hardware, two poster carzons and the $%&*§*# box into XTarans car! There was even some space left to sit :) Granted it took us some time and several tries but we made it and I ended up on the back seat in a nice and cosy nest made out of sleeping bags, XTaran's parka and other stuff. (Of course I fell asleep pretty soon. It was really just too comfortable.)
After leaving the exibition stuff with codebreaker we then went on to Frankfurt, were the guys accompanied me to the train and then went on. There was some delay "due to police investigations" (People, this is the decade of Terror Lunacy. PLEASE stay with your luggage!) but we are now approaching Fulda and I hope to be home at about midnight.
In the meantime, time for some conclusions:
At first I wasn't to sure whether going all the way down to Stuttgart just for these few days would be worth the hassle, but it definitely was! ApacheCon was a really nice event, and we were able to answer a few questions, maybe even convince some people of running Debian and generally show some presence, which I think was a good thing to do, since a lot of people there were also system administrators and we brought Debian back into their minds. Moreover I had a great time. XTaran and Tolimar are two fabulous guys to hang out with and made me laugh all the time. Also, apprently thanks to something called the "Debian Effect", we had really nice weather most of the time, so all in all I had five great days, was with lovely people and did something for Debian. ...
What else could you ask for? :)
Posted at: 22:16 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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Wed, 20 Jul 2005
First day
So, yes, I took the liberty to reproduce the famous Mike Poster. :)
Illiad provided me with a larger version of Mike and I then just scaled up the writing from the .jpg, redid contrast, redid the borders and basically just fixed it up letter by letter. (Yes, it sucked. Big time.)
I brought the poster with me when I went to Stuttgart and put it up at the booth before going to the camping site to meet the other two. I was *really* hard to keep the surprise to myself and I was close to letting it slip several times. But I "kept strong" and I must say, their faces were very much worth the hard times I had had the evening before :-) (Still smiling to myself when I think of it)
In other news: After arriving at Stuttgart, finding the "Haus der Wirtschaft" and completing a little odyssey to finally find the camping site I met up with Tolimar and XTaran. The promised three people tent Tolimar brought turned out be really HUGE! I think we could nicely fit in ourselves plus XTarans car :) We didn't stay up too long this evening since most of us were rather tired and I actually fell asleep within seconds when I lay on my sleeping bag. (I was planning to go to sleep, though actually not *that* soon. Oh well ... )
The Expo is going rather well. We set up a nice (and comfortable) little booth and people are quite interested. Usual stuff mostly: People telling us that they used Debian for years and they think it's cool, people telling us they used to use Debian but stopped for this or that reason, some techical questions, ONE DEBIAN-WOMEN INQUIRY (woohooo!).
Currently it's rather quiet. The talks have started again and most people are busy so we are just sitting at the booth, hacking away, fixing stuff, answering long overdue mail or chatting on irc. If it goes on like that this will be a nice and peaceful conference.
Posted at: 14:49 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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Tue, 19 Jul 2005
Train ponderings ...
Brain Protocol:
- If there is someone in your compartment with a pipe in his air tube it is rude to make loud comments about him. However it is *just as* rude, to turn to your boyfriend, move close to his ear, cover your mouth with your hand and wisper to him, while (....) staring at said person.
- I need a command line dictionary on my notebook.
- xmahjongg is great! But why does menu file it under Kartenspiele ("card games")?
- Text messages wishing me a save/nice/fun journey make me happy :)
- The Summer Special ticket makes you take ridiculous detours but you save money
- IC trains are so much better than ICEs. They may be slower, but the seats are just as comfortable, you don't have to pay extra fees, there are more power couplings, X20 sized folding tables in the back of every seat and they don't keep them at such ridiculously low temperatures as the ICEs.
- The battery of my mobile phone lasts a few days in standby but only 20 second when actually doing a phone call.
- You cannot recharge your mobile's account within 20 seconds.
- German book translators: Please DO NOT translate deadlock with "tödliche Umarmung"!
- 12:22 Just as boredom and tiredness start turning into deep dispair this wonderful woman enters the compartment, carrying a single cup of coffee on a tray. She stops at every seat asking: "Coffee?" but nobody wants one. I do!! She gives me the cup, I give her some money. I wonder whether she'll go get another cup and finish her round but she doesn't return.
I think I believe in angels now ... - ...
- I want an mp3 player
- Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof brings up memories of a horrible night in lovely company
- ...
- I seriously need to overthink my money_saved/travel_time ratio!!!
Posted at: 15:53 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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I repent, I utterly repent! I shall never, never ever mock Murphy (He, who is the only power there is) again!
I left my house in time to get my train to Hannover and headed to the station through the pouring rain. Luckily, being the daughter of an ex-army member and having gone through several holidays that rather resembled a survival camp than a family holiday, I know how to properly pack a trecking backpack so that the weight is evenly distributed and everything sensitive/important is stored close to the padded back so it cannot be reached by blows or rain.
So, when I finally arrived at the station, my jeans and my chucks were rather wet, but overall I was quite fine.
EXCEPT!
Fsck ...
I'd forgotten one piece of luggage which was still sitting in my room, next to the door. Argh!
Time from my house to the station: about 10 min
Time left: 12 min!
After spending about 15 seconds pondering what would suck more, sprinting back, or going without that piece of luggage I went for the sprint back option.
So, here is how you do it: Turn on your heels, pace back home (*pant pant*), drop big trecking backpack and messenger bag at the bottom of the staircase, sprint up four floors (this was the moment when I think I heared a squishing sound that I assumed was some important muscle of my heart giving up), grab that §$%&*§*# box, hurry down four floors (almost tripping because my legs start acting up), readjust rain coat, big trecking backpack, messenger bag and §$%&*§*# box, check watch, realise you got about five minutes left, leave about 12 seconds for excessive cursing, then run all the way back to the station, hear your train being announced, see it coming in, hurry up the stairs to the tracks, jump into train just as doors close, stop at the first available seat, drop off §$%&*§*# box, messenger bag, big trecking backpack and raincoat, drop into seat and faint without further comment.
Things I learned from this:
- Leaving early, is a good idea, leaving earlier is better
- DO CHECK your luggage when leaving the house
- I seriously need to do something about my fitness!
- You can store an amazing amount of water in a pair of chucks, jeans and a baseball cap.
- Train seats take some time to absorbe all this but will eventually do so.
- My heart can make squishing sounds
- ... so can my lungs
- Murphy is the only power there is and I shall NEVER EVER make fun of him again!!
Posted at: 10:47 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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FSCK #2 This shall be a lesson to me :-/
Just looked out of the window. It's not raining, it's f***ing pouring!
Murphy vs. Meike 1:1 ...
Posted at: 08:32 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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FSCK! Just finished packing for my trip to this year's ApacheCon. Just to be sure I checked my train times again ... Jep, train leaves at 10:00 but - argh! - not in Hildesheim, but in Hannover (This is the moment when I remeber thinking it would be much easier to travel from Hannover since it is the bigger city and I can easily get there with my student ticket). However, getting to Hannover with sufficient time to change trains etc. will cost me another hour. fsck!
Luckily I am totally paranoid when it comes to plane/train/bus times so I actually got up so early that leaving ~1hr earlier won't be a problem.
HA!
Meike vs. Murphy 1:0 !!
Besides that I am really looking forward to Stuttgart. After miserably watching everyone else having loads of fun in HEL it feels good to be on the road again. I just hope the weather won't let us down, forecasts are mixed.
Right, time to run. Next post from Stuttgart :)
Posted at: 08:03 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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Thu, 14 Jul 2005
ApacheCon 2005 in Stuttgart
However, I offered to help and within the next day(s) Tolimar and XTaran joined in too, so we got ourselves a nice little expo team now.
There was a little trouble as to where to sleep since the prices at the Stuttgart youth hostel are rather steep (especially since two of us fall in the additional "senior citizen charge" of 3 Euros per night *g*). We then sent a mail to the Stuttgart LUG asking for some space to crash. Granted, a rather bold venture, but the very nice people there actually offered us their floors and sofas! I am once more intrigued by the solidarity of the Linux community! Unfortunately no one was able to host all three of us and we prefered to stay together.
So, we found ourselves an other solution: We'll go camping! There is a campground pretty close to Stuttgart's city centre and Tolimar managed to get us a tent suitable for three people (or so he says).
Well, I am very much looking forward to this. I am sure we'll be worthy representatives of the Debian project and maybe we'll even have some fun in the process ;-)
Posted at: 21:30 in /english/debian/events/apacheCon
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