I charged my travel laptop prior to heading off that morning so that I could take notes. But I found that it malfunctioned when I took it out at the fest, which is the kind of ironic thing that happens to all people but always feels like it happens more to me. Later, I diagnosed it, with some confirmation from a forum, as a hard drive failure on a very old hard drive. I picked up a new SSD for 20 dollars on Monday evening, so that will be an easy fix.
My favorite speaker was Thomas Cameron, a former Red Hat guy who recently started at Amazon web services. He gave a good talk about history and moving forward. I liked almost every talk I attended, including one on programs for children, Ell Marquez gave a good intro to containers. I also liked the talk about Fedora Silverlight, which sounds like it could someday be a way to have a cutting-edge and yet stable system. I liked when I used Fedora as my operating system, but the way that the non-free interface never played nicely at upgrade time moved me over to long-term-support Debian-based systems. But maybe someday Fedora Silverlight would be fun to try. I got two t-shirts and a few stickers.
I did not know anyone there,though I did introduce myself to Chris Fisher, who co-hosts two podcasts I like. He seemed like a pretty good guy.
I ate chicken soup at Gloria's for lunch, and took a walk around small Lake Carolyn. At 4, I headed over to McInnish Park in Carrollton to hike and watch birds. I got bit by a mosquito, a rare event where I live though common enough in my Arkansas boyhood.
Sunday I heard the Reverend Jessica Wright's effective sermon on the first chapter of the Book of Revelations. She used the colorful metaphor of "a fork in the road" to illustrate the difference between symbolic apochryphal language and literal story-telling. I walked in Allen Station Park, where I got good photos of a Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. Monday I got my SSD part, and walked in Glendover Park. I spent hours on the phone with my cell phone vendor, after I cam to suspect someone had hacked our account. I have had to spend too much time seeking better customer service from my cell phone vendor the past few weeks. The reps contradict themselves and make promises that do not come true. Today I got some things in the mail, and saw a modest credit on a water bill. We stayed up watching "woodstock", a curious movie that I enjoy. I always wonder what happened to all the kids they interviewed, all of whom would be, if living, in their late 60s, in their 70s and and perhaps even in their 80s.
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from Dreamwidth, because two posts of the same text are twice as nice