Use food.

Maureen Lyons gave a talk on how to convert a mock up to a Drupal theme. To lure people to her talk, she baked us all vegan, chocolate cupcakes, then frosted them with blue frosting, as close to Drupal blue as she could manage.

She spent 11 hours baking yesterday.

She's risking a $500 fine with the bribe.

She didn't really need to bake the bribe. We would have come to her talk anyway. The presentation was good validation of the theme development process that Doyle led me through. The steps were pretty much as he does.

I'm not sure what it is with seats on this trip, but I've found my self leaning away from peoplein pretty much every sesat I've sat in since I left the San Jose airport yesterday.

On the flight out, I was the small woman sitting next to a large man. This meant, for all you non-small woman folk out there, I had about 75% of my seat, and the guy next to me had 25% of my seat. He didn't seem to notice that his elbows frequently nudged my side, or that I had splayed my elbows when he returned from the lavatory. I'm not sure why large people seem to miss their space issues around smaller people - maybe they think the smaller pesron doesn't need the space?

So, today, at the conference, I was sitting in a presentation, happliy placed between two empty seats, when another participant showed up and asked if the seat next to me was taken. No, it wasn't, so he sat down in the chair.

Except he nearly sat in my lap.

He then proceeded to pull out his computer (naturally, and expected, as I already have my computer out), and started typing on it. Except he shot his elbows out when he started typing, like a little chicken wing. Eh, I'm not sure, but there seems to be something non-ergodynamic about programming with your eblows near your ears.

So, I leaned away from this guy, too.

As near as I can tell with trip, I'm going to have to start throwing elbows, too. If I don't, my back is going to be way torqued at the end.

Okay, so, last night's taxi ride from the airport wasn't too bad. It was a $30 taxi ride, which is about $20 more than I really wanted to pay, but well, whatever. The driver was from Haiti, had been driving in Boston for 20 years, and was happy to talk. I was happy to listen. I figure, if something bad is going to happen to me in cars, it's less likely to happen if there's some sort of emotional attachment to the victim (i.e. me), so I converse, too.

When I hopped into the van, I let the driver know I was going to the Constitution Inn. He heard Residence Inn, despite my telling him where I was going, the address of the hotel and asking him if he knew where he was going.

We arrived at the Residence Inn. I stated this was not where I wanted to go. I said the Constitution Inn. Oh, he heard Residence Inn. I'm not sure how he heard that since I specifically said Constitution Inn three or four times.

Fortunately, the Constitution Inn is just down the street from the Residence Inn. Had it been any farther away, or not along the way to my hotel, I would have been annoyed.

Probably not as annoyed as this morning's taxi ride though.

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really should have realized that the smoke billowing out of the car did not portend well for a good ride to the convention center.

The lack of working seatbelt should have told me to get out of the car immediately.

In retrospect, I should have asked the driver to stop, left the taxi, and walked down to the next corner and flagged down the next taxi. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and hoped we weren't in an accident.

I didn't tip that guy much. I wonder if I should have tipped him at all.

"Kitt!"

It was one of the last things I expected to hear when I walked into the baggage claim area at Boston's airport. For having never been in Boston before last year, I keep coming back here enough.

Maybe I should apply to M.I.T. for graduate school. Now THAT would probably please all of my M.I.T. friends.

I turned to the sound of my name, expecting to see some person I'd met at the various Drupal events recently. I did not expect to see Vinny.

He was on his way home, having spent the weekend in Boston with his mom.

We have good timing.

So, I'm in here Boston now, for the 2008 North American Drupal Conference (I'm sure most Drupal people would go "Huh?" with that description, and just call it Drupal Con Boston, but historically there have been two Drupal Con conferences a year: one in North America and one in Europe, so I'm using that name).

This is the first conference I've gone to where I have a list of people I want to meet and a list of questions I want to ask various developers. I happy to be excited about a conference, even though it feels odd to be so.

If meeting Vinny is any sign, it's a good one. This should be a good conference.

I left my laptop at the X-ray screening area. I cannot believe I did that. I was so busy counting the number of TSA people, and contrasting that number to the number of actual travelers, and scheming on how I'm going to manage to take a picture of this madness, that I walked away from the security area with my bag and my backpack and my shoes, no laptop.

I managed to take the picture, shove everything into my backpack, put my backpack on my back, and tie my shoes before I realized my backpack was light and, holy crap, my laptop isn't in it!

I rushed back to the X-ray screening station, going in through the DO NOT ENTER exit, looking daggers at the woman who briefly thought about intercepting me, and dashed to the screening station. Oh, thank goodness, my laptop, complete with its little green star, was still sitting there on the counter, waiting for me to rescue it, possibly also looking daggers back at me for leaving it.

So, yeah, what is it with all the TSA people here? I mean, do we really need at 2:1 ratio of agents to travelers.