[Novalug] My personal FOSE wrap up / tues and wed

[jerry w]

Here are some detailed comments from my experience at the booth
Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday midday, Thursday 10 through strike to
'bitter' end...

Tuesday, kind of popped in early to orient myself to the booth, people
(including Kevin hadn't seen in a year? with XO and my first XO
meshing), situation (CDs, what are we saying, i.e. party line on
various things), etcetera, and not sure people wanted me there as it
was crowded, but tried to help out anyway.

Late break for lunch walked XO out and got questions while
eating...Heard other XO saw me moving!...

I was giving Ubuntu CDs beyond the 'burn rate' as people  kept  asking
for them and you never know how to forecast the next days.  Hard to
say to people, yes we have them, (or lie?) but no you can't have one..
(Raffle?) We went over the days allotment.

Much of my time was in the chair stuffing tux fliers into magazines
(NOVALUG.tux.org better point to the newer novalug.com redesigned
website, or /dev/nulled lots..)

Got a few pictures...

Wednesday:

I showed up unannounced around 10.30 am? with my XO because downtown
anyway and no one seemed to have one that day.  Some more people saw
XO that might not have otherwise..

Rather high level people that day, as I recall...

I was getting pretty flakey by 2 pm from lack of sleep, bordering on
getting kicked out with some of my comments?
But I mentioned I was tired, even laughed about it (yeah, the other 32
bit Ubuntu...), and left around 1.45 pm for my downtown other
stuff...

Thursday:

Showed up 10ish and got briefed by Roger.  No electrical power,
someone asking about money ($100?) the day before, and Roger was 'out
of pocket' providing blanks and coordinating burning..

Sarah showed up with 2 XOs later in the day, but we never really got
time to mesh ;-(  Learning some XO from someone who presented at
NovaLUG (hoping to get the lug video...)

Heard a fair amount about TV show 60 mins OLPC piece, but hadn't seen
it, too busy...

Roger going after full day, and as first in... Hope you feel better too!

Phil showed up around end for strike?

Took a break to walk part of the floor and finally see some other FOSE
booths after 3.15 pm and MacKensie was there when I returned...

Idea based on visitors: suggest creating a young person's SIG?
Another younger person, or  mom looking for to improve their son's
tech social environment... i generally mentioned our young board
member's activities (Benji info from website, but haven't seen in
person since  election? nudge nudge ;-} )

Strike:  people who assembled it were there and remembered how it went
up YIPPIE!  packing.  Many Linux Journal mags lost, as could not carry
out...

Out to eat nearby. Would have liked to  buy people food as thanks, but
I'm too poor.  Did get some fun gadgety GPS, cooking and other
comeraderie, feedback, FOSE show and tech techniques plus impressions
discussion started...

Haul out backdrop and heavy stuff to rail... Offer old duffle to get
heavy box out...

Luckily caught waiting time call taxi ride back (never  got a call
that they arrived...) in heavy rain. Collapse, catch up on email, like
this, and rest of life after busy week out..

Summary?:

Made my 5-6th? annual FOSE pilgrimage milestone this year when seemed
like I was going to miss it last week.Thanks to 'booth captain' nick
danger for organizing, all booth people for putting up with me (what
was said at FOSE stays at FOSE!? ;-}, new FOSE show company for
letting us in, and all the attendees who (mistakenly?) thought we were
the Linux genius bar ;-} and definitely some booth mates are!


On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:16 PM,  <nick at hackermonkey.com> wrote:
> I always forget how much I liked DC, NoVA and the Linux guys down there. I had a
>  great time at the booth. I love talking to people at the booth, both the workers
>  and the people visiting. A few notes about things.
>
>  1) The visitors seemed more polarized this year. Usually we have a huge spectrum
>  of people from experts to beginners, and people that want to try, people that
>  refuse to try and maybe a few swag-baggers. This year seemed much more extreme.
>  The experts seemed more expert, the haters more so, and the swag baggers even
>  more blatent.
>
>  2) The longer I spend in the booth talking to people, the dumber I feel. Not bad
>  dumb, I leave with a list of more things I need to learn and read up about. So
>  its a good thing, a nice personal growth thing :-) I still dont quite understand
>  64bit HW vs 32bit HW, but then I have all old HW and nothing remotely close to
>  64 bit anyway.
>
>  3) I have a doppleganger that works for a VT based scanning company!
>
>  4) My personal low moment of the show was when I gentleman came up and asked
>  "Which one of these is for Windows XP?" I explained what they were and he said
>  no way he needed to "remain compatible. Goodbye" and waved off. I yelled
>  something after him about "compatible with what?" and then I felt real bad
>  about it, I should have been more polite. The more I think about it, the worse
>  off I think the poor guy is. Not because he didn't listen to me, but simply
>  because here is he running a horribly vulnerable OS and he wanted "the XP
>  compatible" cd from me before he even knew what it is I had. So who knows what
>  sort of condition his PC is even in.
>
>  5) We should have done something post show, gone to Fado or something? I would
>  have liked to 'debrief' after each night. I dont think the wife cared much
>  about my ramblings of the show and who I talked to about geeky things. (Did I
>  know there was a DC chess group? NO! Wish I knew then, I STINK and would love
>  to play with people and learn to play well!)
>
>  6) One of the USB encrypted key people told me their product worked with Windows
>  and no plans for OSX or Linux, yet, but maybe. "We had to go after the biggest
>  market." Ok, no problem. Thats a good company plan, but no plans for Linux yet?
>  I actually said "if I buy one, and get drivers written for it, would you want
>  them?" and he goes "No."  Fast foward to the other side of the show floor and I
>  find IronKey. They were working on Linux drivers, I read about it. Not only are
>  they excited that Im from tux.org and know about their product, they want me to
>  review it and hand me a 1GB key. Unfortunately it had the old code and wasn't
>  Linux ready, so they are sending me a new one in the mail. I can't wait to try
>  it on every system I have (CentOS, Ubuntu, RedHat EL, Linux Mint and for the
>  hell of it, OpenBSD :-) and just see what happens! I don't know why but lately
>  I've been very crypto concious.
>
>  I think thats all I have for now, other then a HUUUGE thanks to everyone that
>  showed up. If you helped or just stopped, you made the day go great and I can't
>  wait to do it again. Next time I'll do the whole show, and show up for
>  setup/breakdown, I forgot those were a fun time as well. Yes, Im weird like
>  that...
>
>  Did anyone ever get the CDs burned on Thursday? We ran out sometime Wednesday
>  afternoon and I know we had made some arrangements with MicroTech (?) to get
>  some extras for Thursday. Looks like 300 just isn't enough. We could probably
>  make due with 600 or so.
>  Nick
>
>
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-- 
Jerry W