Let me first say – what an awesome city Vancouver is, and I’m more than appreciative for getting the opportunity to visit.
My Air Canada gripes aside (and yes, I realize they were trivial and perhaps petty, but that was the only downside of the entire trip, and more than a touch annoying when I was so close to being back with my wife and kids), this weekend was an absolute blast. I spent most of Friday with the folks over at Sophos – not sure what will come of the morning part, I managed (I think) to consistently shoot myself in the foot a few times, first by being prepared to defend my skills/knowledge the whole time (which put me on edge – and never came up directly), then by not realizing an opportunity when it presented itself (mod-perl related).
What an amazing group though – got to meet a few people I’ve only ever spoken to via irc/email, a few people that I’ve only ever seen in the perl mail archives or on cpan itself, and a brief introduction/moment with one of the mod-perl guys. I don’t know if I ever imagined sitting in an office with so many active, real perl folks – an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up. Funny thing is that I spent all morning hemming and hawing, and didn’t really relax (lunch time fun aside) until the afternoon where I got to give a brief introduction to PORTDIR_OVERLAY and writing a quick ebuild to a few of the Sophos folks. For whatever reason, talking Gentoo was what finally put me at ease, probably because I could finally live up to the introductions that were made on my behalf – “this is one of the *gentoo* perl guys” 🙂
Saturday was pretty cool too. Spent most of the day with robbat2 and his girlfriend, got to see a lot of the cool (and at a distant cool from the skytrain) sites of the Vancouver area, including a pretty awesome tour of one of the computer centres at SFU. At dinner hardave joined us. It was just too cool to be sitting in the same room with other Gentoo guys (remember, I live in the center of a black hole in virginia).
Hopefully the censor gods won’t take issue with this being posted on planet. No pics I’m afraid – didn’t want to risk the wife’s digital camera on the trip, and totally fogot to take any pics with the toss-away camera I bought, too busy doing and talking to take time out for a few pictures.
So, to everyone out there in Vancouver, thank you – your hospitality was most appreciated, hope to be there again soon 🙂 (though not via air canada – I mentioned that before, right?) Viva la Gentoo!