YAPC NA 2008 - Day 0

The trip began awfully since I had to wake up early in the morning and I haven't packed yet (I fell asleep right after I got home last night around 11 PM). Southwest tested me again, for being late, but I made use of the flight delay to catch some serious sleep, I knew that I wouldn't get any good sleep in the airplane.

And ... a fidgety she elephant planted her arse next to me ... oh bother.

Midway was busy as a zoo when I arrived around 3PM, but I managed to navigate my way through, bought a ticket, get to the CTA's platform. The walk was pretty arduous since the weather was hot and muggy, plus the strap was digging into my shoulder, note to self: no more bringing beers and a bottle of wine when traveling with the duffel bag.

The travel to IIT was good, I was supposed to transfer from Orange line to Green line at Roosevelt, but I didn't know which direction to go, the people of Chicago were friendly enough to let me know which car I should hop on.

I was drenched in sweat when I arrived in the dorm YAPC check in area since I had to walk a quarter mile from the 35th station. The dorm check in and YAPC registration process was fast - Thanks McAdams!

... opening my bag - I realized that the defender of our safety riffled through my checked in baggage. thank god they didn't steal my beers and wine ...

After getting myself situated, I decided to go and visit the Parrot hackathon happening downstairs.

Rolsky's plane was late, so we (the anti pre-conference gathering/vegan/vegetarian crowd) were waiting for him. Mark from Summersault bussed us to Soul Vegetarian, we went ahead first but arrived last since we took the local street. The food and the companies were good and I went to sleep as soon as I uploaded some pictures to flickr.