LugRadio Live 2006 Day 1

I wandered down to the venue with fellow geeks to be greeted by the (very professional looking) banner letting the world know what was taking place inside. Actually I’d had a sneak preview of the banners and venue yesterday, but everyone else was suitably impressed.

I snuck inside to drop off my video camera, and got roped into helping by Jono. My task? Keeping out non-exhibitors. My reward? A bright (and I mean bright yellow t-shirt with word CREW emblazoned across the back of it). This also meant I was to provide assistance throughout the rest of the day, but in practice I wasn’t really needed.

The venue was seriously impressive with large flatscreens everywhere (a feature of the venue) displaying what was happening now & next, and a stream of photos taken by people throughout the day – I believe sebpayne may have been the biggest contributor of shots. There was also a 12’ screen on the main stage.

First port of call was the introduction by the four large gents, and then onto the show itself.

1. Ruby on Rails BOF

After have a quick wander round, I joined the Ruby on Rails BOF run by Elliot Smith. It was an interesting session and it was nice to find that much of experience and feelings about RoR was mirrored by the other attendees. Elliot mentioned setting up a UK RoR user group, or rather mailing list. There are already a couple of UK groups, but they don’t seem to have that much activity. We also spent a bit of time trying to convince Kat & Dave Goodwin why they should switch from PHP.

1. An hour of nothing

The #lugradio Meet & Greet BOF was postponed until lunchtime, so I wandered round for a bit more talking to various people and having a better nose around the exhibition (props to John on the Ubuntu stand who’d saved me a t-shirt). I then realised I’d missed Mirco Mueller’s (aka MacSlow) talk on Lowfat which I’d wanted to see.

1. #lugradio Lunch

Lunchtime saw a mass exodus of the #lugradio people to the Varsity round the corner. Since I’d experienced the (lack of) service the day before I was sneaky and ordered my food as I walked in, then wandered round looking for a table. I sat for a while with mrben, sebpayne and neuro, but seeing as I’d spent the night before in the pub with them I hopped onto another table with Xalior and lejt, Phated, Resiak, Essk (although I didn’t actually realise who she was until later) and her boyfriend, Aquarion and Cillian. The service was appalling slow which meant we missed The Mass Debate, but the conversation more than made up for it.

Cillian on the left and Phated on the right.

1. Pitivi

Post-lunch saw another 30 minutes of walking and talking, then I went and watched Edward Hervey’s talk on Fluendo with kNo’. Having spent quite a lot of time working with video in Microsoft Windows, Open Source video editors are of quite an interest to me. Pitivi, although relatively immature and basic, looks an impressive project and something I’m certainly going try and maybe even hack on. Tomorrow I’m going to try and catch the Diva talk to see how it compares.

1. Open Document Fellowship

Having nothing to do for (another) 30 minutes, and seeing fellow Cumbria LUGger Russ in there I watched the Open Document Fellowship talk. Not too interesting, but the ODF viewer they’re working on looks caught my attention. A good way to lower the ‘cost’ of switching to ODF.

1. This Talk May Contain Swearing

The talk by kNo’ on swearing in LugRadio episodes proved to be the absolute highlight of the show so far. The room was filled to capacity, and the talk was extremely well received. For those who couldn’t attend… Jono swears the most (no surprise there then).

1. LugRadio Live and Unleashed

The day culminated (if you ignore the party later on) in the recording of the last episode of the current season of LugRadio. An excellent show, although the pass the parcel idea maybe didn’t work as well as intended. Various awards were handed out with Dave getting “Best Crew Member”, Phated getting “Furthest Travelled To Be Here”, kNo’ getting “Coolest Talk”, neuro getting “Almost Community Hero” and Xalior receiving the mantle “Community Hero” from mrben. The show finished with both Jono and Aq. shaving their beards off for Amnesty International.

1. LugRadio Live Party

With time to kill between the end of day 1 and the LRL party I walked back to the hotel with various people in the pouring rain to get a shower. I then grabbed a sandwich (as the service in KFC was awful) and walked back to the venue by myself. Spent a while chatting with davee. Watched davee almost lose a game of pool to Phated. Drank strawberrys and champagne (Xalior’s idea) with various #lugradio inhabitents. Talked to Alex Hudson (ODF and Hula hacker). Spent the remainder of the night alternately drinking Smirnoff Ice (they had no cider left) and playing on the MAME cabinet – I have so got to get me one of those! Feeling the effects of two very long days, and very little sleep I retired to the hotel before midnight, wrote this and now I’m going to bed.

Onward to day 2…