The it's been ramping up into being for a couple hours now.

4:30ish: pick up Chris Tyler from the airport. Actually, by the time he comes out to the car, I'm running circles around my automobile in glee - but that's a different subject and a different story that's someone else's to tell. Since Paul (Frields) is out and we're the only other out-of-towners here early, we grab dinner and spend most of it talking about open source and education (predictably - I mean, it's me and Chris).

I'm trying to figure out the different skillsets - and mindsets - that make someone a good engineer, a good open source engineer in a community, and a good teacher of open source engineers - there's technical skill, there's the grokking of the culture of collaboration (and the tools we use to do it), and then there's the ability to convey all of the above to people with no prior context to it via the making of introductions, the assigning of projects so big and complex and difficult they can not be done without community. It's... trying to draw clean boxes and lines around something that's inherently fuzzy and messy and ever-shifting, though. Doesn't quite work. I have some stuff to ponder now.

8-something: Chris and I meet Paul in the parking lot of our hotel. There may be snow tomorrow, Paul says. Perhaps multiple inches!!! according to the news. Chris (from Toronto) and I (from Boston) look at each other and crack up.

10:30ish: Dennis Gilmore and Jon Stanley touch down at the airport; we grab (my second) dinner and head to the hotel. Shortly thereafter people begin to pile into #fedora-fad, and shortly thereafter we're all in Paul and Clint's room with our laptops out. Paul tunes my guitar and demonstrates his mad skillz, Clint points me at some gstreamer tutorials, I start reading through one while listening to the guys talk about the way the freeseer code is written, alternating between that, emails, and guitar.

Midnight-something: Mass exodus to Waffle House, walking out of the hotel exactly as David Nalley pulls up. I have now had my first Waffle House waffle; it is tasty. 3.5 hours later, I've whittled down my inbox backlog to 91 messages, and proceed to sleep (in just a couple minutes now). Hacking begins tomorrow.

(well, strictly speaking, continues - freeseer tinkering has already begun.)