And so it Begins: LCA 2007

After trying to get out here for an LCA over the last three years I finally made it for Sydney 2007, and so far so good.

The venue is huge, the University of New South Wales is full of big, open airy spaces between buildings and it’s lovely to walk around. The rooms themselves were a little hard to find at first (the LCA team put a lot of signs up in the first break which really helped) but they’re functional and have people presenting in them so what more can I ask for? The attendees are really friendly and easy to talk to, I get the impression that some people have been looking forward to this since the last one, I’ve also bumped in to half-a-dozen people I know from London, which is cool and occasionally surprising. I’m feeling very sunburnt (ironically I got sunburn looking for a chemist that sold decent sun screen) so I slipped off early and I’ve been a little quiet and anti-social, which I’m hoping will fade with the bright redness.

The opening session was great, Jeff Waugh’s a great presenter and he had a well chosen selection of jokes, including the great Debian couch, “It has no support but if you all lean back a bit you can support each other.”

Fortunately I had a local nearby to explain some of the less obvious terms used and some of the previous LCA referencing jokes. It’s also the first opening speech I’ve heard that included mentions of “slip, slop slap” (not as bad as it sounds), a slide on sexual health, the LCA gods of fertility, advice to not be creepy and a mention of the confs “Aura of sexual potency."; and to check your badge has the right number of fishes. Which lead to some seriously confused expressions.