Blog

Walking into DrupalCon felt — for a die-hard fan like myself, at least — like walking into the cast of my favourite movie of all time. All these people whose avatar photos I've seen, whose blogs I've read, whose patches I've reviewed, whose criticism I've received, and whose IRC handles I've chatted with (all for the past 2 years) — all of them suddenly, in a very surreal way, came to life before my very eyes. So I finally have proof that this whole Drupal thing is not a great big online hoax: as I always believed, other Drupal people do actually exist in real life!

The first day of my first-ever DrupalCon was very full-on. Jam-packed with meeting famous people, having heated discussions, and attending a plethora of sessions. It felt absolutely gawddamn amazing to finally make it to one of these things. Read on for my shpiel on the various sessions that I attended today, and on what happened at them.

Got up at 6am this morning, in order to catch a bus, then a train, then a light-rail, to the OSCMS Summit 2007 down in Sunnyvale. The train was the biggest part of the trip (1 hour). the Bay Area's Caltrain is a pretty cool service: high-speed and cheap trains that go everywhere between San Francisco and San José, plus they have bike racks on the trains. The other two legs of my journey — the Muni cable-car bus in San Francisco, and the VTA Light Rail in Sunnyvale — were good fun as well.

When I say that I was in the park, it can only mean one thing. For today's bike ride, I completed part of yesterday's route — along the Embarcadero to the GG bridge — and then I continued on to Golden Gate Park. Despite my efforts in searching around, I was unable to find a grassy clearing big enough to land a Klingon Bird of Prey on. But I'm sure there's a suitable spot in there somewhere. Maybe it's cloaked?

Well, now I've mailed stuff from the post office in Mexico, and I've mailed stuff from the post office here in the USA. The verdict: USPS is cheaper, easier, and more efficient. I just mailed my Mexican hammock and my runners back home, from here in San Francisco. About double the weight of the package that I mailed from San Cristóbal, and about 80% of the price (yes, mail-by-ship is an option here). And none of the box-and-packing rubbish that I had to go through in Mexico, either. I take my hat off to you, USPS.

While I was in Kaplan's — the place where I got my Army raincoat — I also got myself a pair of serious boots. These fellas are Carhartt, a brand that specialises in workwear and military-use gear. I think they were pretty much the best pair of boots in the shop: thick-soled, hard-skinned, and waterproof; and yet reasonably flexible and comfortable as well. Orthotics fit in them just fine.

Went down to Market St in SF today, and at the cheaper end, I found an awesome army-surplus-slash-cheap-outdoor-gear store called Kaplan's. Got myself a really big, quite ugly, and definitely waterproof poncho, which can cover me and my massive backpack with its vomit-coloured Army-camo protection. For $10, I'm very happy with my purchase, which should keep me dry even in the wettest and most remote corners of South America.

Had a random reunion here at the Green Tortoise: bumped into Karl from London, who I last saw back in Mérida, in south-eastern Mexico. After Mérida, Karl continued on to Cancun (while I went to Valladolid, then Playa, then Tulum), where he was hoping to revel in the heat of Spring Break.

Tonight at the Green Tortoise, I played my first-ever game of Beer Pong. The aim of this game is simple: throw a ping-pong ball in one of the cups at the other end of the table from you. If your team gets a ball in one of the cups, then the other team has to drink the beer in that cup. If your team breaks any rules, then you have to drink the beer in one of your own cups. The first team to empty all the other team's cups wins. The better you do, the longer you go without getting completely drunk. My team (of 2) managed to get through the first round (knockout tournament), but we got beaten in the second.

The Green Tortoise is in the middle of Chinatown, and I've been taking advantage of the good food around here already. I had a nice Chinese lunch yesterday, and I grabbed another nice Chinese meal for dinner this evening. But on both occasions, all the Asian folk around me were given chopsticks, and I was given a spoon and fork. Apparently, unlike back home in Sydney — where everyone gets chopsticks, unless they request otherwise — here in America, non-Asians are assumed to be both chopstick-illiterate and chopstick-a-phobic, and are by default not given them. I guess that this is an interesting and a sad indication of the cultural differences between the United States and Australia.