The LAH and GSD

Today is one of those awesome days. I awoke at 7:45 today, which was lateish. Waking up in the sweet embrace of a memory foam couch is also awesome. After wandering about to get a glass of water, I decided now would be a useful time to call my friend Mark, as we were supposed to catch up before he had company that afternoon. And, as he's in Virginia, where it was the much more sane hour of 15 minutes to 11:00, I figured I'd better get cracking.

We mostly chatted about the awesomeness of my good friend and hostess, Ms. Linsey Jackson, who will soon be marrying my good friend and host, Mr. San Mehat. The awesomeness of the Linsey does not map well to easy encapsulation in blog format, so I will summarize thusly: I hate bruschetta. I consume Linsey's bruschetta with a gusto I typically reserve only for hummus. And did I mention she provided us with four kinds of hummus last night? Plus her bruschetta is made with soy cheese, and it's still downright sublime. I don't even really like cheese. Linsey, in short, is amazing.

I heard the stirrings of people inside, bid Mark fond adieu, and wandered back into the apartment. San and Linsey and Mike and Vanessa and Dima and Rebecca all live in the same building, so communal gatherings on their balcony are a frequent occurence. This time, we were celebrating San's birthday (happy birthday again, San :), though Mike and Vanessa were off taking care of business in the Canadia. Linsey served champagne. With lemon pesto artichoke dip and other amazing accoutrements. And it's all vegan. And it all tastes good. Linsey is amazing.

I have only recently started attending said frequent communal gatherings on a regular basis, as I've been house sitting in San Francisco the past couple of weeks. I intend to continue attending for the pleasure of the company, but also for the pure bliss of enjoying the fine Lost Art of Hospitality (LAH), which clearly *is not* lost because Linsey does it. We all (that's me, Adriana, Linsey and San) converged on the kitchen, where coffee was made. Sigh. It was *really* good coffee. Followed by massive cleanup in approximately 15 minutes. About 3/4 of the way through, San looked up at me and said "Is this that whole GSD* thing? Because I want to recognize when it's happening." and I laughed and said "Yes."

Kitchen cleaned. San had business elsewhere. Linsey dropped him off. She returned, watered the plants, then escorted me to the nearby drug store, where I got to listen to awesome salsa music and people speaking Spanish. The she wandered out again, purchased champagne and made us all Pombosas, which is what I have decided to call champagne with blueberry pomegranate juice in it. I think we also should create a funky dance move to go along with it, which involves moving very gracefully but with a Latin shake. It must be lots of fun — fluid and free — but simultaneously you must make sure you are in no danger of spilling your beverage. It's too tasty to waste.

So just when you think your morning sitting in the shade next to the sun drenched tile patio on a balcony in the Mission in SF is just as good as it gets, Linsey disappears. Then returns. She has *drawn a bath* for Adriana. I am informed I may have one later, but Adriana asked first. Holy. Moley. Um, yes. When my turn comes, she later furnishes a towel, hot from the dryer, along with a pre-drawn bath complete with pre-included bubble bath. And extra tealight candles and incendiary device to make sure I can customize the light content of my bath experience. Linsey just GSD.

Linsey is a goddess. I am so excited that she and San are together and that I have the honor of being in their wedding party. Post-bath, I decided it was time to leave Adriana studying - GSD - and get back to my familiar computing environment so I could figure wedding logistics (flowers, suits, etc.) out efficiently.

Now here I am, comfortably sitting on Mari's couch in the lovely city of San Francisco, vaguely watching 300. GSD. Then before I get the change to push publish, Louis calls. I get the Real Time NOLA Update. Life is good.

* Ed. note: Failure to expand acronyms is the height of snobbery and also prevents GSD. If people know what you're talking about, it's much easier for them to GSD. Just a thought. NOLA, for those who don't know, is New Orleans, Louisiana.

G stands for getting. D stands for Done. If you haven't decided what S means by now, I leave that to your imagination. I don't want to impose my value system on you. Doing that sort of thing really gets in the way of GSD.

Boston

Ed. Note: This post is a recreation and I'm pretty sure the previous version was much more elegant. Such is life.

I left for Boston the day after MJ's birthday bash, late in the evening. I'd spent the morning buzzing around the house with Steve, performing post-party clean up, in the suitably lazy style required for such affairs, particularly when you'll find any excuse to not probe some obscure nook for various detritus. Not sure you want to look behind the couch? Have a bagel. The wet bar excessively sticky with what you're pretty confident is maraschino cherry juice? Wander around wondering aloud just how many people were there last night. People still on the couch sleeping? Clearly you can't tidy up in that room just yet; better to go to the kitchen and slice up some fruit to have waiting for them when they awake. Grab a few bottle caps along the way, toss them into the recycling bin, feel a real sense of accomplishment.

Eventually, the entire house was back to its previous state of cleanliness, and shortly thereafter MJ awoke and we settled out on the patio for an afternoon of absolutely nothing. Steve has a lovely view of the entire Valley from his deck, and the day was absolutely perfect: shining sun, crisp air, windy and chill but not cold. The Santa Cruz Mountains were visible, for a change, and lovely; the air was utterly clear. Bliss.

I flew from SJC to LAX on a turboprop plane and I don't recommend it. I also intend to never do it again. It's a slow and loud experience, the insistent hum of the engines reminding you of the inevitability of software and hardware failure. They happen. In fact, Paul Fenwick catalogs some of them quite expertly in his An Illustrated History of Failure. I remain confident, with no evidence whatsoever, that an excellent way to not meet with failure is to avoid turboprop planes, and I intend to heed my own counsel on this matter in the future.

An hour in LAX, then off to BOS. Real plane. Real sleep. Really good. After a briefish cab ride to my lodgings, I crashed for a few hours before heading out to get my hair done at theEl Coco Salon. The gentleman who gave me a cut and style had once worked at Yosh for Hair back in the day, when they were still up in San Francisco. He brought me coffee and we discussed a new fashion spread with Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn Monroe. We both agreed Lindsay didn't cut it. It was my best salon experience ever, hands down. I usually only get my hair done while I am in New Zealand, so yes, at best, once per year, but I think Boston may now be a better option. The flight time is considerably less and it would finally give me an excuse to fly JetBlue.

Monday morning, Drupalcon began. So many reunions, most of them not mine. So many Summer of Code students and mentors, so many friends I was stoked to see again. As usual, I'll leave the commentary on the sessions to those better versed in the milieu than me, but Dries' keynote was quite spectacular; it's particularly exciting to see that Usability is the watchword for Drupal 7. Now if I could only hunt down Anna Dirks and have her teach me how to make those mobile usability labs I saw her present on at GUADEC 2006, life would be even better. I've got it on the ever growing list. The Drupal as a GIS Mapping/Platform session was also quite spiffy, but then again I have a map fetish. I'm much better with the hallway track anyway.

Drupal Makes Sandwiches Happen!
Turns out that there were several GHOP students at the conference, and they invited me to be on their panel. I was truly honored to accept, so we met up at lunch time to grab some food and then plan for the presentation. We discovered that the lines for food were incredibly long, so we finally gave up and decided we'd simply power through and get food later. As we wandered through the lobby of the Boston Convention Center, Angie stopped to say hello to a lovely lady, who turned out to be one Suzi Arnold. Suzi invited us to head out for lunch, but upon hearing of our predicament promptly offered to bring lunch back for us. Have I mentioned how awesome Drupal people are?

We headed to the room for our panel discussion, which is where I discovered that Drupal apparently also makes pancakes happen. Or something. As a big fan of pancakes, I was deeply pleased. This prep was my first chance to really spend time with these folks, though I'd corresponded with several of them. Adam shocked me by being the third open source doctor I'd ever met, and since I never thought I'd meet one, I am now fairly sure there must be a secret manufacturing plant for them somewhere, probably tucked away quietly in the Midwest. Like Indianapolis. But that was the following week, this is still Boston.

I sit in utter amazement of the accomplishments of these students. In addition to other Drupal magic, Charlie Gordon made DROP happen. Michael Fogelman writes great docs and after interacting with him for just a few hours it was plain to me that he's got that rare skill that allows him to glean the necessary information from the uber-techie without causing undue irritation. It also strikes me that he doesn't ask 'stupid' questions; certainly never asked me any. Then there's Jimmy Berry, with that whole Click HeatMap and Version Control API for Git thing. Not to mention Dmitri Gaskin, who was too young to participate in GHOP so instead he mentored other students. And gave a session on practical JQuery. If these gentlemen weren't so inspirational, I'd be feeling terribly inadequate right about now.

I finally gave in and got a Flickr account. If you're interested, you can see pictures of some of these wunderkind and the few scenes I snapped in Boston here.

Monday night was my first meal in Boston's Chinatown, where I accompanied Robert for a dinner with some folks from the Knight Foundation. Family style dining and a spirited discussion about effective engagement when funding community Open Source projects ensued. In addition to good food and good conversation, I was surrounded by really great company, including the lovely Lisa Williams and Benjamin Melançon. The former, a Boston native, graciously organized a tour of her city for us visitors, though I wasn't able to accompany them; the latter generously lent me his jacket, as I'd underdressed for the walk back to the convention center after dark. Drupal, apparently, is also proof that chivalry is not yet dead. I spent a few minutes at the Monday evening conference party chatting with Lisa, but it was a bit loud so I knocked off to get some sleep.

Drupal Makes Pizza Happen!
So knowing that Drupal makes pancakes and sandwiches happen, it may come as no suprise to you that it also makes pizza happen. The Tuesday evening Acquia party venue wasn't conducive to the under-21s hanging out and hacking, so someone was kind enough to organize a GHOP BoF/Games night. We discovered that catering wouldn't be able to deliver food and the pre-arranged space at MIT was a long and cold walk away. Contingency plan one: find nearby pizza place, walk there, eat pizza, return to convention center.

One slight problem - the nearest pizza place, 1/3 of a mile away, couldn't seat ten people. I also suspect we had more than ten people, but people were happily wandering in and out so a firm head count was not forthcoming. Well, they could seat ten people, but really they had seating for eight people and we could squeeze in a few extra chairs. I hesitantly made a reservation. Short walk notwithstanding, it seemed suboptimal to wander out into the dark and snowy night to an uncomfortably small space. Hrm.

Contingency plan two: get food delivered. We'd heard this was a no-no, but apparently security didn't have a problem with it. Yay to Mr. of Chaos on that one, btw. I phoned Salvatore's again to cancel our reservation and ask about delivery. They didn't deliver. I mentioned that we had seven hungry genius kids desperate for food and asked if they had suggestions for other pizza places near the convention center that would deliver. A short on-hold moment later, the manager let me know that he'd go ahead and bring over our food order, no problem. Awesome. Bliss. Pizza, salad and pasta occurred an hour later. Life was good. If you are ever in Boston, patronize these people. They really made our night.

Satisfied that everyone was well fed and well entertained, I headed out for the Acquia party. With three floors of music on tap, clearly a good time was had by all. The best part, though, was hanging out with Bevan, stalwart GHOP mentor, Season of Usability student, and Open Source Kiwi. Open Source Kiwis ++.

The rest of the week is a bit of a blur to be honest, but memory leaks being what they are and the fact that it's been more than seven days.... Somewhere in there I gave my first keynote with Chris, and I think it went rather well. Many thanks to Adrian for the many good times out in the cold, to Sooz for being she who must get it done, to Rok for giving me juice right when my blood sugar had utterly depleted and to Kàroly for being a stalwart mentor and generally being awesome. Many thanks to everyone for making me feel welcome and a part of the wider goodness that is Drupal.

On Friday, I ended up at the MIT Stata Center, where I got to write on a real MIT chalkboard. Several actually. Somehow writing on them makes you feel like your IQ has increased by no less than 30 points. It was lovely. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'm no doubt leaving out a bunch of wonderful people from this narrative, like Addi and Geoff, but it's late and this is the second time I'm writing this novel. Chicago later. New Orleans, later, if ever. I still need a cafè au lait. Cafè du Monde, here I come.