A conference to remember…
Posted by Michael Medin at 2013-10-28
Well, this is an odd post. I find it difficult to start to be honest. How do I write about my adventures without it sounding strange or bizarre? But perhaps it needs to sounds bizarre for that was how it felt to me. I know this is all a gag but it is interesting how well my mind failed to understand that at the time.
The conference I question is of course the Illustrious Open Source Monitoring Conference which I have visited for many years now but given that it is arranged by one of the coolest company in the Computing industry Netways is always a bit special… even more so this year.
Conferencing Netways Style!
I had actually been given some basic advance knowledge that there was something to expect on arriving in Nuremberg this year.
Last year we joked about it and a few weeks before the conference Bernd insisted on getting my arrival time.
But I was expecting a shabby cab driver with a badly typed sign and black cab not…. not this…
Upon arriving I pickup my luggage and head out through the exit and…and… there are people with video cameras all over the place!
I go like “ ** What the F*ck?**” while time seems to slow down I scan the area for something I can grab on to. But all I can see are the two pretty girls standing in front of a big rollup as well as Bernd standing off to the side and the cameras.
But unfortunately the girls and what presumably is their mind control rays are somehow blocking the content of the roll-up from registering with my mind. I can only see the pretty girls… cameras and Bernd off to the side.
My brain seems to freeze and I just sort of stand there not knowing what to do. Should I go for the unknown pretty girls or way off to the side to Bernd or somehow one of the camera guys?
I kept thinking… no one teaches you how to act such a
situation. There are no classes at university
for how to act when you’re at the very center of the stage. No books on
safari-books-online, not even
any of the self-help books from Pragmatic
Publishing prepares you for this.
And while standing there I can somehow remember thinking that I really should look cool because I am being videotaped… not so… Instead I stand there looking much like a dork.
Fortunately someone realizes my predicament and comes to my rescue me and apparently I was supposed to go for the girls. Once this mental block is released I can actually see that the roll-up is a big photo of me saying “Welcome”.
Ironically enough the sign is like I imagined it to be: misspelt (or more likely mistranslated by Google since it is in Swedish) so my vision of the cabby with a sign was not too far off really. Except the cabby was two pretty girls and the bad sign was a professionally done roll-up. Yes, and the car was about thrice as long…
A ride to remember
After taking some photos of the roll-up I pose for some
photographs and then head on out, escorted by the pretty girls, to the
awaiting limousine. Again I manage to snap some photos before entering
the dark limousine with the girls in tow. Inside they have some shady
LED lights and you can barely make out anything so I spend a few minutes
trying to navigate the myriad of buttons but none seem to turn on the
lights. And then off the limousine goes.
Once again I get this odd thoughts:
What you actually do in a dark limousinealone with two pretty girls?
Fortunately (for the sake of my sanity) the answer is not
much really, at least in my case, we just spend the next ten minutes or
so chatting about nothing.
After a while on of the girls offer to serve me some beverage. Naturally going for the champagne but after some quick math I realize that in 10 minutes I cannot really down a bottle of champagne so instead I opt for a beer. After getting a glass handed to me I attempt to return the courtesy but alas one of the girls is Muslim (and don’t drink) and the other is driving home which means I am the only one getting any beer tonight…
After arriving at the usual hotel there is some more video recording and photo-shoots and someone from the hotel manages to sneak up and grab my bags.
After getting a bit bored with posing and photo session I asked if the pretty girls were up for dinner but alas not, instead we said good bye and they head on home.
A night of Hellos
After I bid the pretty girls farewell I head off for my room (which is of course a suite) and dump my luggage after which I head down to the evening hall and have dinner.
The food is, as always, nice and tasty and I find some nice company and spend the dinner amiably chatting with my neighbors at the table having a great time.
One of the table neighbors is the illustrious Alan Robertson who promises to take over the world… before handing out stickers.
Even later that night I head over to the bar to rendezvous with all the usual suspects which now includes a new member: Pall from Iceland who I meet at the Nagios World Conference earlier this year as well as all the regular ones from conferences past.
The best thing about Open Source monitoring Conference is really that it is one big happy family.
We spent the reminder of the evening chatting, drinking beer and having a great time!
Look! I’m on TV!
As always I head back early since I have
presentation the following day.
The conference starts off with the regular introduction which Bernd does in English this year…and ends with a movie they put together about my adventures the night before…
No matter how hard I try I can never shake the weird feeling spending a brief few seconds midst giants like David Hasselhoff...
“Like David Hasselhoff;I have now been famous in Germany”.
Next up is the actual review of the Conference, but that will have to wait a bit…
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