ApacheCon 2014

I’ve already posted from ApacheCon about my favourable first impression.  I’m happy to say my comments about the fantastic city and hotel have survived the week intact: I was as impressed at the end of the week as at the start.  Even the weather improved through the week, so in the second half – when the conference schedule was less intense – I could go out without getting wet.

The main conference sessions were Monday to Wednesday, with all-day schedules and social events in the evening.  Thursday was all-day BarCamp, though I skipped the morning in favour of a bit of touristing in the best weather of the week.  Thursday and Friday were also the related Cloudstack event.  I’m not going to give a detailed account of my week.  I attended a mix of talks: a couple on familiar subjects to support and heckle speakers, new and unfamiliar material to educate myself on topics of interest, and – not least – inspirational talks from Apache’s gurus such as Bertrand.

Socially it had a very good feel: as ever I’ve renewed acquaintance with old friends, met new friends, and put faces to names hitherto seen only online.  The social scene was no doubt helped not just by the three social evenings laid on, but also by the fact that all meals were provided encouraging us to stay around the hotel, and that the weather discouraged going elsewhere for the first half of the week.  The one thing missing was a keysigning party.  Note to self: organise it myself for future conferences if noone else gets there first!

I’ve returned home much refreshed and with some ideas relevant to my work, and an intention to revitalise my Apache work – where I need to cut my involvement down to my three core projects and then give those the time&effort they deserve but which have been sadly lacking of late.  Also grossly overfed and bloated.  Now I just have to sustain that high, against the adversity of the darkest time of year and temperatures that encourage staying in bed. 😮

Huge thanks to DrBacchus and the team for making it all happen!