This past week I finally had the opportunity to speak at OSCON 2011. My friend, Amber Graner, had submitted a talk on volunteers & contributors in communities. The talk was accepted and Amber was all set to speak. Unfortunately due to an injury Amber was unable to attend OSCON and asked me if I could fill in for her.

Amber did most of the leg work for the talk, putting together the slides and researching talking points for the talk. Which was all very helpful and left me in a hopeful position to simply be the mouth piece to give the talk. Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy.

Giving a talk at a conference is a very personal thing. Coming up with the idea, planning out the content & take away message and then eventually building the slides. The speaker is imprinted on the talk and talk imprinted on the speaker. A strong connection between the two is formed. It wasn’t my talk I was giving but Amber’s talk, I had failed to make it my own.

As with most people, I tend to be harder on myself with these things, but after the talk I felt as though it could have been better. Definitely a strong lesson learned.

Having been in our house for just over a year, I always felt that something was lacking (besides the obvious mentioned amenities above). This morning was the first morning that I truly felt like a real home owner as our house was finally visited by door-to-door sales people. These particular sales people were not selling freeze dried meat, aluminum siding, or windows. It was not the tiny, green uniformed mafia pushing their overpriced baked goods, these peddlers were pushing religion. Its not important what particular faith franchise these merchants were from, what is important is that they wanted very much to enter my home to show off their figurative wares. I got the feeling that these retailers were professional, they had been doing this kind of work before. There was no hesitation following the obviously rhetorical question of “Do you mind if I read you a passage from my $sales_catalog?” As the salesman began, I was forced to interrupt him, explaining to him politely that I wasn’t interested. He recoiled with a horrified expression on his face, gasping (almost). “You’re not interested in the catalog?”, he gasped (almost). “I am not”, I explained while slowly closing the door. He made one more effort with a different pitch, but I had already closed the door.

After they had left, I began thinking about several different things related to the mornings events. There are many places around the world where unfortunately people do not have the freedom to practice their religion of choice. One of the greatest gifts that this and other like minded countries offer its residents is the freedom to practice or not practice any religion they wish. How I see it however, it does not give someone the right or the responsibility to “show me the light” fixtures of page 42. Religious beliefs should be left up to an individual and should not be a contest with the other franchises. I haven’t completely made up my mind about what happens to us after death or if there will be an Armageddon. but I’m fairly certain that having the most sales doesn’t make your franchise the winner. Maybe I’m wrong and the top sellers get hideous yellow wool blazers, to wear for all eternity.

I also started thinking about religious matters in current events, one particular event stuck out in my mind. Because of the recent news of the possibility of a new mosque being built in New York city the First Amendment, the very amendment that gives people the freedom of religion, has also been in the news a lot. A lot of people are up in arms, begging the question, is everyone entitled to freedom of religion…so long as that religion is your religion?

In the end the manager had given each person a 20% discount on their bill regardless of whether they had suffered damages due to the depletion of the asiago sauce (incidentally each person had a separate check, that would be roughly 15 separate checks). This was met with varying reactions from the group, a few commented that the discount should have been higher still thinking they get more of a discount, while a few noticed that gratuity had been added in automatically (it was a large group with separate checks), and one person saying that they planned to call the corporate office to register a formal complaint over the matter. One can only assume they’ll send her a lifetime supply of asiago sauce.

After begrudgingly paying their bills, the group filed out. The atmosphere of the restaurant returned to a pleasant environment. While Jenn finished her dessert & I sipped a cappuccino, I noticed the plates that remained on the large group’s table. Each entree had been polished off, luckily the tragic events of the evening had not affected the group’s appetite. We then paid our bill, making sure to give the waitress a generous tip to make up for groups such as this other one. She ended up running after us into the parking lot to thank us.

I’m left wondering, what compels people to act like this in public? Is it a point of personal pride? Does giving someone else grief at their job, some how give them a boost? Is there some underground group that travels the country, competing with others to try and get the more discounts out of a restaurant due to complaints? No doubt, constantly seeking the holy grail…the ultimate achievement…the free meal!

1. Finally learn to play the guitar.
2. Exercise more.
3. Blog more.
4. Get new project finished and out the door.
5. Smile more.
6. Play with my cats more.
7. Organize more FOSS related shows.

SCALE is also still accepting proposals from free & open source projects who may be interested in exhibiting at the show. If your project is interested in showing off the amazing work their doing, definitely apply for a complementary booth!