The FreeBSD Diary

As promised, I drove down from Concord to Monterey today. In a convertible. With a blonde. And nobody told her husband. The trip down was great. The traffic flowed smoothly, and it was great to be driven down with good company. We had a talk about some recent events in New Zealand regarding a police shooting. One of the points I made was that the number of NZ Police killed by civilians is more than the number of civilians killed by NZ Police. From memory, both numbers are about 20. And that's not 20 deaths in a year. Nor the past ten years. That's since NZ Police was established, which was over 100 years ago. That single point alone is worth considering when you try comparing two different nations. Mind you, NZ is only about the size of California with a population of about 3.6 million (people, not sheep).

I like this convention location better than FreeBSDCon 1999. It seems much more rural, despite being not that far from the main highway. And there will not be any fog horns keeping us awake at night. Lots of trees, a fairly la rge complex.

I've already met Odinn, one of the ops from the Undernet #FreeBSD IRC channel. I've just got back from the bar after having a drink with Bill, Len, Kelleye, and Alan Clegg. I'm now waiting for the rest of them to turn up, here at the terminal room. Bill Swingle and Jim Mock have been here since Friday night. They've done another fine job setting up the boxes.

Mike Smith appears to have lost some sort of bet. Although he lives in California, he, like me, is YADF (Yet Another Damn Foreigner). I have no doubt that being Australian, his blonde hair and frequent rudeness are not his fault. However, the dark blue, almost black, colour his which his locks now sport are, without doubt, of his own doing. During the rest of the Con (which actually starts on Wednesday), I'll try to find out what the bet was and what the other person was betting. I sure hope it was worth it.

Just back from dinner. Mike's nick name, and of course he wasn't involved in the choice, is SmurfBoy. This is related to his new tru-blu hairstyle. A definite trend setter, our Mike.