Viewing posts from 2007
The last talk for this year, only seven people in the audience, but very interested ones. And that's much better than 70 bored listeners. The rest of the day, booth duty in the technology experts, and tonight: meet the experts. It was quite interesting to talk to various customers from all over the world. In the informal environment we got valuable feedback on our products we wouldn't get otherwise. And today they even had very good wine (additionally to the micro brew and that dreaded dishwater Americans call beer.)
No tutorials for me today, instead eight straight hours of booth duty. I did this voluntary, though. I get paid to work there, so I do. And in fact, it is quite interesting to talk to customers and partners about technology and their opinion about our products.
I held two tutorials today: the second session of the basic Linux troubleshooting tutorial, which went much better than the first one. Despite the early time (8:30, welcome to the midnight lecture!) about 80 people actually showed up, very few walking out, and I've got at least some questions in between. One participant "complained" that I put into one hour what took him two years to find out...
My first tutorial didn't go too bad, but it wasn't a roaring success, either. Not even half of the people who registered were showing up, some folks left during the presentation (which is quite normal, though.) I've never had such a silent audience, there was no reaction on the few jokes. Not even bad reaction. But I had a couple of listeners coming up to the table afterwards, asking some questions. The second session of this talk will be tomorrow at 8:30, and I'll have another tutorial on IPv6 tomorrow and on Thursday.
Officially, it is the first day, but it is mostly check-in and finishing setup. I went to the NTS dinner at the Skybox, but didn't feel like chatting, and it was mostly field organization folks there, of which I only knew the few Europeans. They had beer (yes, real beer,) but I went there by car and didn't drink any. And the soda pops tasted like chlorine. At least I found two paperback novels and a CD at the Gateway plaza...
Got up a bit later today, packed my things, drove to the gas station -- those bastards almost ripped me off. Usually, when you go to a gas station in the US which takes credit cards but requires you to see the cashier, you just authorize a certain amount of money and they'll invoice only the amount you've actually spent. However, this one invoiced the whole "deposit" and gave me back the rest of the money in cash only after I asked. Luckily, I always request a receipt of the actual amount.
Hooray, I found a Krispy Kream in Orem! I was tempted to buy half a dozen box of doughnuts, but as I'm already too fat, I only took three. Which was a good decision, as I ate them all yesterday evening. Their doughnuts are excellent!