OSCon Quick Notes Review

Just some quick notes on things that happened @ oscon 2008. 1) Synopsis of news stories for me looks something like Dave->Selena->Peter->Josh->Jonah->Bernier->Certification->Drizzle->Monty->Portland->Selena. (Hmm, I wonder if all of these are public) 2) Keynotes are back. A lot of people have been skipping keynote talks lately, this years crop was one of the best. 3) It’s important to get something out of a talk. This year there were three talk where what I got was big red warning lights and signs to stay away. Honors go to CouchDB, LucidDB, and Damian Conway’s “you can’t do that in perl” talk. 4) Best meal? Honor goes to The Doug Fir again. Last year I thought that there steak might have been the best I ever had, so this year it was almost by definition not as good. Guess that means I can try the Fish next time. 5) Swag index? I think I got 4 of 6 free shirts from the conference floor, but ended up with 7 or 8 total, with some coming from after parties and similar. I’d rank this as a down year again, but given the economy, I guess it makes sense. Note I still didn’t manage to nab an Ingres shirt. 6) Items I forgot to pack? Only one…pants! Don’t worry, I wasn’t running around the convention floor in my underoos; It’s just that I packed all shorts and no jeans, which proved to be a little optimistic as the weather was a bit chilly. 7) Items accomplished from life list? I touched-down in Minnesota for the first time, though since that’s essentially federal territory, I’m not sure what item that would count for. Good thing I got to see Terry Chay’s talk; that’s a bona-fide entry. I always have a good time at OSCon, but this year was even better than last. Outside of PGCon, OSCon is probably the best conference for a Postgres user to go to. If you couldn’t make it this year, I recommend you start planning for next.