This week when I wasn’t spending time with Michael or working, I had myself buried in Ubuntu-PA LoCo stuff. First task was getting our planet running: Planet.MeetLinux.com. That took longer than it should have, but at least it’s running now.
The next big thing was getting prepared for a PACS meeting on Saturday. PACS is a big group of people learning about computers, and Joe Terranova from the NJ LoCo Team was giving a presentation on “What is Ubuntu?” According to the PACS site “Members from the PA Local Community Team (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam) will be answering any questions people may have.” I didn’t even know I was going for sure until Friday evening. A bunch of people burned CDs, I created and printed out some Ubuntu-Women fliers and about 25 little slips with all the loco team info on them for people to grab. I didn’t quite know what to expect.
Jim Fisher who blogged about the event here was really a driving force in this. He brought a bunch of computers with several ubuntu flavors installed on them and came early. He was quite excited about the whole thing, as you can tell from his blog entry about it. I showed up around 11:30, shortly after Alex. Joe brought a bunch of ubuntu *stuff* – including t-shirts (I grabbed one!), stickers, a big ole ubuntu banner, official ubuntu pamphlets. Alex and I ended up setting all this stuff up on a table near the entrance to the cafeteria, while Jim and some others from the loco handled the demonstration table. The talk by Joe went well, and afterward there was a HUGE flood of people coming out of the auditorium – and we were prepared! I tossed my camera to another fellow in the group and told him to take pictures while I manned the stuff table and helped people with questions and gave out CDs. The rush lasted for about 20 minutes and was somewhat exhausting, we must have given out about 100 cds!
The rest of the afternoon was spent much quieter, talking to each other (Alex was the one one in the loco I had previously met) and sitting down with people one-on-one to show them ubuntu and sign them up for our installfest. I had a fun time, and am really excited about how successful it was.
Now pictures!
I’m used to dealing with a college-age people when discussing linux, but this crowd was almost complete made up of people older than that who were eager to learn about it. What a delight!
I’m explaining something Ubuntu-y. I think I talk with my hands more when I’m nervous, and talking to a whole flood of people I don’t know will do that. But I didn’t let nervousness show I don’t think… woo progress in my nervous craziness!
A G3 that was brought along to show Ubuntu could run well on older hardware
Our stuff table – stripped bare by the end of the day! Woohoo!
The demo table after things had calmed down.