Arrived home from OSCON last night, only to get up early this morning to head off to BlogHer. The gender contrast between the two events could not be more different: OSCON is 95% male, Blogher is 90% female. Or, another way to put it: OSCON is 90% antisocial, Blogher is 90% social. Although I had, and continued to have, zero problem walking up to anyone at an OSCON-like event and just start talking to him, many people don't have the ability or inclination. As a result, events like OSCON can be lonely affairs.

At Blogher, the situation could not be more different. From what I observed, an event participant has to be actively sending the "f*** off and die vibes to be left alone. I personally started conversation with a half dozen women I didn't know, and I was there only half a day (yeah, that "get up early this morning" lasted as long as my trip to the toliet and back to the bed).

The part I find most interesting about events like OSCON and Blogher is that you can't prejudge people by looking at them. Prejudge is the wrong word. You can't form an opinion about anyone without talking to him/her first. The blind guy sleeping in the corner? He's probably one of the biggest contributors to the software you use daily, blind or not. The quiet shy woman across the table, unable to meet your eye? She's a damn fine writer, and a lion with her words: listen to her roar.

No, the era of opinions in the first 30 seconds are over for these events, and I love it. Meritocrity is finally winning.

So, yeah, that sleeping thing. At Blogher, I missed the opening discussion and break, but arrived for lunch (great timing me!). As I arrived, I hoped to see a familiar face, and wasn't disappointed. I sat next to Sean from LPFI (Mini will be around tomorrow), even if I couldn't remember how to spell his name correctly (yeargh). Eventually, I'd catch up with Skye, who is always absolutely wonderful to talk to. I missed her talk in the morning (boo!), but we had the same style shoes on (yay!).

I went to four workshops, three and a half of them being worthwhile for me (I was not the target audience for the two half-workshops I attended).

10 Types of Web Writing by Lisa Stone and Lynne Johnson, who discussed various types of writing, from conversational to link blogs + commentary to long form essay.

Audience Building by Elise Bauer, who discussed various ways to increase web traffic, search engine placement, etc. Lisa and Lynne couldn't speak highly enough of Elise, so I had to go to it. Both of these workshops were well organized and well presented.

During the next set of workshops, I went into the one titled "Design/Style/Customization", but it was 3 minutes of should you get a designer, if you do expect to pay and watch out for communication issues, followed by a long tutorial on basic CSS. Skye and I walked out of that one, and into the one named "Tagging, tracking & structured blogging" It was much close to my level, both in skills and interests.

The last one I went to was about monetizing your blog, by Jen Stagg, and was interesting. It was material I look forward to using, though don't need quite yet.

Yes, the energy of this conference is amazing. I'll be signing up again for next year, and bringing my mom along, too.

Hey, Heather, I added some pages that you may miss because they were backdated to when I wrote them on my computer, not when I posted them. Here they are:

Different world
Stuart Foreman
We roll twenty strong

Hope the tournament was fun. Welcome home, roomie.

Taking public transportation has the distinct advantage of exposing me to areas of the American culture I'm not completely in tune with. The train ride to the airport, although similar to the train ride out with the mix of people frome bums to young people, scrawny to beyond obese, gorgeous to butt-ugly, was interestingly more pleasant than the ride out from the airport.

Instead of catching the red train from the convention center, I caught the blue, and took it to where the two line separated. Near the exchange point, a black man came by and asked for my change. His request was different from most change requests I normally get: his eyes were missing the usual "deranged" (in quotes, because that's not quite the right word) look, his manner wasn't desperate, and he was softspoken. When I gently shook my head no, he nodded thanks and moved on.

I watched him for a moment, and did something I rarely ever do: I dug the change out of my backpack and handed it to him as he walked back to the back of the car. He nodded thanks again.

The change wasn't much: maybe fifty cents. Money I would most likely never miss. At least I sincerely hope I would never miss.

The change started me thinking: I had one hundred dollars in my backpack from a trip to the ATM yesterday. It was my lunch and spending money for the week. Would I miss twenty of it? Handing it to a beggar wouldn't be the best use of it, but losing twenty dollars isn't any better.

I dug the twenty out of the back of my pack, folded it into eighths, and handed it to the man as he was eying a woman's three bags of recycling.

He didn't realize it was a twenty, but saw that it was paper, and thanked me. A minute later, recyclables in hand, he came up to me to thank me again.

Would he spend that money on drugs? Would he buy alcohol or cigarettes? Would he buy something I generally disapproval of, or something he needed.

I decided I didn't care.

If he needed that cigarette to get him through the day, then that's what he needed to spend his money on. Because it was his money now to spend.

I needed water.

It wasn't that big of a deal, but the first cooler was empty. Then the second one. And the next one and the next one. These tech people sure could drink their water.

One of the coolers had a full bottle of water next to it. It was only five gallons. I've lifted these things before. No big deal.

I warned the guy next to me that if I missed, I'd spill water on his electrical cord, he was forewarned.

He looked at me like I was crazy.

I flipped the bottle over, hefted it up, and let it drop into the waiting neck cup.

I didn't move my fingers out fast enough.

I dropped the bottle on my finger caught in the cup edge and crushed it. The lip of the cup is about a sixteenth of an inch wide, and set right at the end of the bed of my middle finger.

It hurt an unbelievably large amount. It bled for about forty-five minutes after the crushing.

About an hour after the incident, my mom IM'd me to chat. I was typing oddly, so she asked about it. I explained I was missing my left middle finger, and why.

"Never a dull moment with you, kiddo."

Kris told me I should just give people the finger and tell them, I crushed my finger, and "IT'S THIS ONE!"

I like his suggestion.

My first tutorial of OSCON 2006. I wander into the conference room, look around, find a seat, plunk my computer down and notice the smell.

The room is musty, humid, and smells like Bella's butt.

And I'm in here for another 3 hours.

Ugh.