Last month I attended The Last HOPE with my friend Mike from New Jersey. It was a really fun weekend during which I took no pictures – so I sorted through Mike’s photos and am posting them to pass them off as my own.
In spite of waiting years to go (Mike’s bugged me last time around to go), one of the most exciting things about the weekend was meeting people I’d known online but had never met in real life. Shortly after arriving I met up with Dan Christensen, who I know through some of the Linode guys, we’ve chatted on IRC some. Soon after Mackenzie Morgan and I found each other through txt-o-location, I’ve known her for quite some time through work with Ubuntu. After the first panel I attended was “attacked” in the hallway by Leigh Honeywell and invited to a party Saturday evening, unfortunately that was the only time we bumped into each other that weekend, I’ve worked with her a lot in Ubuntu Women and it would have been cool to talk more off-IRC.
The AMD Project was pretty cool, people who pre-registered had the option of getting badges with RFID transmitters that would track you through the conference. The released the metadata last week, so I was able to snag info about where I was from I arrived Saturday afternoon through closing ceremonies Sunday. They also synced up the locations with some of the talks, so you can also see talks I attended. Neat… except for when my cellphone turns into a transmitter …or maybe that’ll be the twitter of web 3.0.
Friday night a bunch of us got together for a sort of LinuxChix dinner at Ninja New York that Katie organized. The restaurant was more than a little campy, but the sushi was fresh and the place was a real treat. I got to meet Jennifer and her husband for the first time as we navigated through the subways of NYC, and was also able to see Laura (and her talk at HOPE!) and meet her new husband. Surprisingly I also got to finally meet Simon Law as well. We’ve known each other through Ubuntu stuff for a couple years (he used to work for Canonical) but never crossed paths until that night. It was a pleasure to meet, we got to thank each other for our Ubuntu work ;)
Sunday was all talks for me. I got up early and lurked in the 18th floor hallway with my laptop until the talks started, when I migrated into the Hopper room and camped out all day.
Things wrapped up Sunday evening. So I stole Mike’s camera and took his picture, he returned the favor by snapping a lousy picture of me, hah!
Then we needed some dinner so Dan, Mike and I met up with Mike’s friend dedsysop who lived in the area and I’d only known vaguely through IRC and stories until then. He’s a New York local and took us to a good nearby pizzeria before we took the 10:30PM train back to New Jersey, and then from there I drove back to Philly, not getting home until past 1AM. Long weekend, but loads of fun – I’m certainly planning on going to The Next HOPE.