When the Good Times Roll....

I have insomnia. I've had it since I came back from Holland. It happens. The trip was well worth the disruption of my circadian rhythms.

The plan was to head to Dublin from 3 - 6 December, then pop over to Holland to give a talk on Google and Open Source in Den Bosch at Dutch Joomla!Days. Unfortunately, a bout of food poisoning meant that I didn't get to enjoy much of Dublin - well any of it, really - and I missed the GSoC student lunch in the office on the 5th. Well, at least I got to see one of you. I met Ernest once before at GUADEC; he arrived a few minutes early for lunch, early enough to watch me turn ever greener on the lobby sofa of Google Dublin before hurrying off to get medical treatment. Thanks to Dublin engineering for taking care of our visitors for me.

I now have a new and permanent addition to my travel case. I have never been to the emergency room alone before and do not highly recommend it. I spent an extra day in Dublin recovering, then headed to Amsterdam on Thursday the 7th.

Wilco Jansen, Joomla!'s organization administrator and a mentor for GSoC 2006, was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. We were joined in the hour plus drive to the Golden Tulip Hotel, the conference venue, by Alex Kempkens, another Joomla! core developer and a GSoC mentor. I enjoyed listening to the two of them catch up and hearing about their students and their successes in Google Summer of Code. It was also awesome watching the two of them make a series of rapid fire calls - I think I heard Dutch, German and French in the space of about twenty minutes - while I just got to sit back in the car and enjoy the ride. Truly, just lovely.

The hotel was very nicely appointed and had a lovely bar area, where we had a beer or two, followed by dinner and a few more beers. I got to meet Hannes and Laurens, which was terrific. They are both very smart, passionate and witty. They also are great at explaining technical things to the uninitiated - ah, the joys of geeking out.

I gave my first public presentation for Google the next day. When the video is published I'll update this post. I have to admit I was pretty nervous, but I think it went very well. Many people asked me great questions afterwards about Google and open source, as well as our API offerings. The rest of the program for the day was in Dutch, so I wandered about with Hannes, who also was not Dutch enabled. Den Bosch is a beautiful city, but my camera chose to misbehave, so no photos to share. I have some lovely post cards which I would be happy to show you, but for now feast your eyes on Wikipedia or Hagengraf's Photos.

At dinner that evening, Antoine introduced us to his lovely wife Linda. Congratulations to them on their nuptials - they've been married for four weeks now IIRC. She did great at her first geek fest. The meal was delicious and the salad just fantastic - covered in raw sunflower seeds. Mmmmm. We finished off the evening with dancing, and a lot of it, at a little club that seemed off the beaten path. I had the name of it written on a coaster, but can't seem to find it for now. I'll list the name later; the place is well worth checking out if you find yourself in this wonderful town.

I couldn't sleep when I got back to the hotel. It may have had something to do with the the constant fevered sleep each day in Dublin, which meant I never adjusted to European time. I think I was just excited. Besides, the temptation of Cuban Rum and Coke Light is too much to resist, so I braved the late night caffeine demons.

So I didn't sleep. Instead, I stayed up and subscribed to Ubuntu mailing lists and stared out my window, watching the lights flicker. A single truck roll quietly in, the well in the center on the square swallowed minutes later by a brilliant display of fruits and vegetables. The sensuous smell of meat lurked in through the window, nudged aside occasionally by diesel fumes. Then the truck noises began in earnest, and all hope for sleep was lost. I later found out what I was smelling down in the market square was roasted nuts.

I attended Johan's keynote the next morning, bleary eyed. Precious coffee was served in abundance. Johan's talk was also in Dutch, so during the parts I absolutely couldn't follow, I zoned out noticing just how well orchestrated these two community days had been, and just how pleasant the entire experience was. If you're an old hand at shows you could tell that it was put extremely well put together on a modest budget.

I was really impressed by all the effort Wilco and Henk put forth to ensure everyone felt welcomed and educated. The tutorials and other community building sessions were well attended, though I spent the afternoon listening to Laurens' talk on his GSoC project, SITEman. He was kind enough to translate his slides and give his talk in English for my benefit. Very cool. The session was intimate and interactive; all of my questions were answered well and thoroughly.

And now, a word on RTFM....

So the problem with RTFM is that it works very poorly for auditory learners, like myself. Frankly, there's a whole class of learners for whom it is not well suited, though the developer mind seems to absorb written knowledge well. On the other hand, after sitting through Laurens' talk, I can now give you quite the schpiel on REST, XML-RPC and SOAP. Woot! I have to say that anyone who wants to attract more testers and passionate users, do a video demonstration of how to use your software. Or even upload video of a presentation you've given for others who may find it useful.

And now, back to our story...

The day wound down after some quick shopping. Thanks to Linda for helping me find a nice warm jacket. :) We had a beer or two at the close of the conference and Hannes explained his User and Access Management GSoC project to me, using a few empty Coke Light bottles, and one bottle that once contained Schwepes Lemon Something or Other. Hannes, I hope you can forgive me - I left Super Administrator on the table.

After dinner, everyone went their separate ways. I went back to the hotel but still couldn't sleep. I screwed around on teh interwebs until the morning, when I began the long cab ride back to Amsterdam. I could have taken the train, but I still felt very delicate after Dublin. I did stop in dowtown Amsterdam to pick up some Wynand Fockink, but they didn't open until the afternoon. I headed to Schiphol and managed to jam back to SFO, only missing my connection at IAH. It happens. While I was waiting for my ride, I met a gentleman working for a company in Amsterdam working on open sourcing some music stuff. Tres cool - check out the gratis and copyright free recordings of live concerts in Amsterdam.

Thanks to all of the core developers for the speaking invitation and the opportunity to spend quality time with such a healthy and vibrant community. I had a wonderful time meeting each of you and sharing your stories about the joys of coding content management systems, effective community building and the importance of youth education.

It's great to be back home with Ben though. Now all I have to do is get some sleep. And learn Dutch.