Franz Keferböck

When the coming days will be just to some extent as successful as today, we really hit it. There’s already been way more people than expected, a whole lot of locals (as in local to the US in fact) proved the world wrong when it says that the KDE community in the US is virtually dead: it’s as vital and energetic as it might have never been before!

Tomorrow will be the day of talks, presentations and – of course – partying. I can only advise everyone close to one of the organised release parties worldwide to go there! Despite having the chance to exchange yourself with people just as cool as you (c) (that must be a KDE thing i guess), there’s a little surprise for you – given that bandwith and processing speed will work it out:

We promised to have Aaron’s keynote upped to YouTube right after the it’s finished, however these parties will exclusively show Aaron’s keynote live from here, Mountain View, CA! Unfortunately exclusively, as we cannot come up with the bandwith for an uncertain amount of clients. Yet fortunately, as you’ll have one more reason to go to one of these parties…

Let’s hope for the best that bandwith will work fair for these few clients we intend to serve (i cannot quite test here from within my hotel room, as the WiFi connection is just too slow to even allow YouTube download only – not speaking of simultaneous up- and download of a higher-quality video…).

So, final scripting needs some work, ToDo for tomorrow is done, setup sketch is drawn… now time for me to catch up with sleep, to be able to help Aaron to make this keynote Rock!

An exciting day came to its end. After preparation work at Google to sort the final bits, tomorrow’s day 1 for KDE’s first conference of that size outside Europe. Lot’s of people came in today, reminding me why i not just like what i do here, no i love it: it’s the laughing with friends, talking tech – and non-tech – stuff, … there’s certainly some concentration of power (manpower, social power, brain power, whatever) that gives the hotel and the Google venue tomorrow a special mojo (see, i knew when i wrote the first draft for the event website!)

Another indicator for the get-together of KDE’s “Don”s: no emails fill up my mailbox anymore; all people writing those are either on planes or already on site and can speak in person!

Yet there’s a lot to be done tomorrow, so – schläfrig as i am – i really need to hit the bed now.

Been a while me blogging, but as for facing the very last days before the KDE 4.0 Release Event and me already on site in California i think it well makes sense to give some more input on that – and correct some people’s inferior view on Austrian’s knowledge on beer…

For one, most people know by now that the actual address of the event has changed to 1400 Crittenden Lane, Mountain View, CA 94043 – Wade already blogged about it and we’d sent emails out to ensure people show up at the right place.

Unfortunately also the Schedule for the 18th had to be changed a bit, i’m afraid Chris DiBano couldn’t quite make it on time, but mighty “Ade” Adriaan De Groot stepped up to give an introduction to Aaron’s keynote, and Sebastian Kügler took over Wade Olson’s talk on the Marketing Working Group – thanks!

While writing the Caterer for the social on Thursday evening stopped by to check details with me and Wade, and BOY this guy was well prepared – wish i had this in my job back in Austria that way… Folks, look forward to some really great evening with plenty of food – including a variety of vegetarian choices – and alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic drinks.

Now /me in the US: i was rather scared of the immigration process, which turned out to be less intimidating that some of my flights to the UK. This being my first time in the US, i have to admit i did not think that things would be that different here – and i actually like it! I try to put all my pictures here for my friends at home – and whoever else might be interested…

Finally: Beer. Big issue for an Austrian (you know, They Think They Know Beer®). I was warned by pretty much everybody i’d spoken to – Europeans as well as Americans – not to have any of the mass produced US beers for obvious reasons, however as my travel policy usually is “live as local as possible” i was kinda forced to do so. So i got myself a canny of “Bush” last night to prove all them people right (the picture on Wade’s blog is actually right after just smelling it, i haven’t even had a sip of it then!). So to make sure that we Austrians don’t just think we know beer, but we actually do, convince yourself by getting a Stiegl at BevMo (oh, and get the “Goldbräu”).

Oh, and there’s more reason for this title other than it a great song by Kate Nash (you guessed that i’m sure), but also that’s what i needed after my Bush-experience: some German beer (i couldn’t get Austrian on at Safeways) to get rid of the odd taste in my mouth…

Right, so now back to work and let’s streamline that last bits and pieces of our Release Event, yay!