Penguicon 6.0 recap: day 2
Posted by wolfger on April 20, 2008
Dawn and Greg’s (Naked) Improv Workshop. Dawn is funny. Greg is funny. I am not so funny. Unfortunately, “workshop” means that I have to make with the funny, not Dawn or Greg. It’s possibly something I could do with more practice, but I’m not sure I can stand the embarrassment of being that bad in public again. 
Tom Smith in Concert. Just freaking amazing. Again. As usual. But better this time. We got to watch Tom Smith break Tommy Toon’s mind. The man was beet red, and literally fell out of his chair laughing. He eventually hid under the table, since the entire room was watching him and not Tom Smith. Two shows in one. Unfortunately, that sort of thing just can’t be reproduced. We need to find new people’s minds to break every time.
Into the Dayta-b’hase: A First-level Introductory Adventure. Another class that wasn’t what I thought… I was looking for instruction on how to set up tables, and in general how to “set up” a database. Instead it was select statements and stuff like that which I already know the basics of.
Stick Figures and Math. I’m seeing a trend here. Maybe I just didn’t read the panel descriptions very well? The title tells me what I need to know: “Randal Munroe is here”, but this turned out to be a Q&A session, which… was nice, but not what I wanted. If I’d know, I probably would have chosen to attend Rich Harding’s Packaging Jam the hour before (which was scheduled for 2 hours).
Dinner. Had a nice dinner at Charlie’s Crab. Chilean Sea Bass. Yum.
Ubuntu Bug Triage Basics. Otherwise known as Bug Jam. Started out poorly, with me having to race back to my room to grab a power supply for my laptop. Then I started out-of-breath and with my mind off-track. The presentation I prepared, which seemed laid out pretty logically before-hand, suddenly seemed very awkward to me. Didn’t help that the hotel wifi connection was snail-slow, so I loaded most of my links before hand, and then couldn’t find the right tab at the right time. Once I got going, though, I think things went much better. I was very happy with the large turnout, and though I saw a few people look like they were nodding off, I think overall it was a success.
Tesla Coil Concert. Scheduled for 8-8:15, started at around 8:40-ish. Worth the wait, but still… that was ridiculous. Best tesla coil song: Ghostbusters! Also fun to notice the cop who pulled up a couple minutes before the show. He drove closer for a better look once the show started, then parked the car and walked over. I’d really like to know what was going through his mind seeing all these geeks and all this high voltage.
Ars Until Dawn. Showed up closer to on-time this time. Lightning talks on a variety of topics. None of which, unfortunately, were of interest to me. Still fun to just hang with geeks. Afterwards a bunch of us went to the Ohio Linux Fest room party and drank their beer. 
Rick Harding said
Good stuff man, sounds like you had some fun. If you need some db refresher info let me know. I still have the db book I used in college which is actually pretty decent.
Oh, and it’s Rick (with a k)…not to be a pita, but it’s my name.
wolfger said
Right. RicK, like a KDE app…. how could I forget?
If you have a book that explains the how-to of table creation (when should something get its own table versus adding a new column to an existing table, that sort of thing), that’s what I really have trouble wrapping my head around. DB design. Using DBs is fairly simple.
jinxedgirl said
In regards to the Tesla Coil concert, they started late because they prefer it to be closer to dusk in order for the audience to get a better show.
As for the police officer, I guess he did not know it was Penguicon, he only saw the parking lot of the hotel was full and wondered what was going on. Someone who spoke to him explained to him about it and the Tesla Coils. He then asked if the sparks could go out past the caution tape, to which she assured him they would not.