drupalcon

DrupalCon lunch

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My, how DrupalCon has grown from the Open Source CMS meetup way back in 2007. It's starting to feel like SxSW circa 2006, where you can still meet up with a lot of the people you want to meet up with, but can't quite spend enough time with everyone you want to hang with.

Decided to walk the Great Mall

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On my way back to the hotel, Jessica texted me that she was in a meeting, to take my time, so I decided to walk along the Great Mall. I wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, more so than any other monument or statue in the area. Since there wasn't any reason not to go, I went.

I was quite entertained at the pickup game of ultimate happening on the Mall. I ended up setting a couple games, one was a lunchtimate game, of crappy quality and not enough people. The other was a high level game with subs, enough for another game, if they wanted to start another game.

As much as I wanted to join in the fun, I was there to walk the Mall, so I kept walking.

The sun cooperated with me with the Washington Monument.

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I felt the irony was lost on the Dubnium-sounds-like-a-dumb-president, who authorized the World War II monument.

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Yes, I was really there.

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Eventually I made it to the Lincoln Memorial. Although there were "Quiet please, be respectful" signs up all over the place, the place was loud. I went up the stairs, dodging small children and school aged kids as they darted in front of me playing on the stair, and walked into the Memorial. I had hoped it would be quiet. It wasn't.

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Didn't stop me from crying though. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and unable to do much more than step behind a column and wait until the moment passed. It did. I had a big red nose, and tears in my eyes.

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I guess that's the point of these Memorials, to help us remember those who are dedicated in these buildings, remember their actions, their work, their successes.

Find it relaxing?

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You know, if you're not going to pay attention in the session, maybe you shouldn't have come.

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I guess Drupal conferences are where Northrop Grumman employees go to relax.

Talked to the guy next to me

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As I boarded the Metro this morning on my way to the Drupal Conference, I couldn't help but notice I was the only white person in the car I had boarded. I can't say I was pleased about this realization, but my displeasure was most likely not for the reasons you may think.

I was annoyed by this realization because I realized that as soon as I walked out of the train, up the escalator and into the convention center, I was going to move from a spot where 100 people were black and I was the only white person, to where 1000 people were white, and more than 90% of them male.

The contrast of the two locations was the source of my annoyance: the large difference between the "haves" and the "have nots," between those who grew up with technology for whom this tech stuff is second nature, and those who flinch when a petite white woman talks to them on a train (which is what happened when I talked to the large black man sitting next to me on the train yesterday).

I don't know how to address this annoyance, other than to comment about it, and continue to break the commuter taboo and talk to the people on the train.

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Worst potential to actual session EVAR

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With a title like "Advanced Theming," a theming session is guaranteed to attract a whole lot of people into the room. When the outline of the session is posted online and includes such goodies as how to

# keep themes compact and easy to manage
# take advantage of Drupal 6's sub-theming features
# use the more flexible hooks available to modules to do theming
# use Zen and the Themer package to reduce amount of theming required
# take advantage of existing styles to solve common problems

the room will be PACKED.

Oh, and hey, it was.

The session had so much potential! It was a session I was REALLY interested in attending. There weren't many sessions I figured I'd learn from, this was one of them.

Until less than halfway through, I had to think, "Hello, Tim."

Cornered

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Yeargh!

If I'm standing in the corner, please don't spread all of your crap out around me, then start moving in towards me.

My personal space is MUCH larger than yours.

Really.

And if I HAVE to pee? It's your laptop I'm running through on my way to the bathroom.

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DrupalCon 2009

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