Re: KFest 2009 Report

[Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com>]

Damn...  This is a great KFest!  Jason Scott has so much insider
information... and is happy to tell it.  He's a fascinating guy and
I'm sorry to see him go tomorrow.  Poor Mike has to get up super early
to get him to the airport.

OK...  events.  Breakfast...  After getting to bed at 3 am, and up at
7:25 am, I was a bit crabby.  They had lots of bacon, so that helped.
Mostly chatted with folks until it was time to lay out the supplies
for the Kookout, and then get cookiing.  My "crew" came at the best
time to lower my stress level, and things went really well.  Guess
I'll do this again next year too.  B-{)=

Jason was already mesmerizing folks in the commons area while I was
working, so I missed most of his tales... (much like I missed the last
15 min. of Woz's Keynote in 2003.  I thank Sheppy for video taping it
and providing the DVD... caught up on what I missed then.  Get it,
it's worth it!)

Got folks fed, and then headed to the conference room to listen to the
Keynote.  It was very interesting, but perhaps the heat of the
grilling, or dehydration...  I nodded off.  I could still hear him
talking, but my eyes were resting.  I suck.

Ken Gagne gave the next session.  It compared a variety of current Mac
and iPhone games to their Apple II predecessors.  I stayed awake for
this.  I have to investigate this some more... I have lots of A2 favs
that I wouldn't mind playing again on my iPod Touch..

After wards, we went to dinner, then came back to Rob Walch's session
on the new iPhone 3.0...  Great guy, funny and informative.  He's done
sessions the last 3 years, and runs a podcast and website...  Which I
can't remember the URL's for... Also has his cat on Twitter with like
800,000 followers...  I just can't understand that...

Syndicomm and Juiced.GS brought in pizza and drinks at around 8:00
pm... Thanks Sheppy and Ken!  It went fast...

Then came the room roaming and *shush*  ethanol ingestion stage of the
night.  I broke out my homemade jalapeno wine, with a few brave souls
trying a sample...  I sampled a bit more than was wise.

There are lots of rumors... I heard a whisper of "Ultimate A2"...  Odd
wheeled A2 controlled cybernetics were observed as well.  Programmers
are celebrating the squashing of assorted software bugs.  We talked
politics, but were oddly mostly in agreement, so no fights escued.

Jason S.  kept many entertained even still, spilling his guts in the
commons area.  Fascinating guy!  Folks are scurrying around looking
for cables and parts and all kinds of stuff.  Things are brewing!

And we learned that they are going to cut the power in about 2 hours.
But they have also moved breakfast to 9 am, so I'll actually be able
to sleep in.

Keep in mind, these are just a fraction of what's going on here.  The
others are connecting with each other, sharing interests and taking
off on shopping trips that keep them away for hours.  Such a rich
environment!

Hey, I'm a teacher... (Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computers), so I
think I'm sorta smart... but I tell you, there are folks here that
blow my doors off.  And they are the nicest folks too.  I don't get to
meet folks like this in rural Kansas.  This is why I love coming to
KFest!

I'm not going to bed just yet.  I'm going to see if I can stir
something up.  B-{)=

Take care!