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We were at the venue for 8 o’clock the following morning. In the UK, this is the busiest time of the event. The whole crew descend on the venue on the Saturday morning and put out chairs, tables, stuff nutsacks, set up video cameras, rig PAs and so on. For the USA event, it was already done. There were a few things to test and set up and the volunteer crew to train on the door procedures, but it was pretty straight forward.

One of my duties for the weekend was as volunteer crew head. I was really pleased to have had half a dozen or so volunteers, which I thought was good for a show without an established community. We even had a couple of people turn on the door and volunteer to help out. Some had helped set up the day before, but I met Bryce, Nicholas, Jordan and Ken that morning. We even had time to do a coffee run! Realistically we could have done with another three or four crew members to make sure everyone got some time off and to cover all the bases, but we did pretty well with the people we had. That was my perception anyway. I didn’t have time to supervise the volunteer crew very much, so I was pleased they were able to get on with what was needed of them.

I was running around most the weekend, although I did find time to have some of the free fruit and chocolates that Google were providing. Google were great hosts and kept the crew fed through the weekend too. Little things like that can make a big difference to how much you can enjoy an event, even when you’re working at it.

I didn’t get to see too many talks from start to finish, although I was recording the talks on the main stage so spent most of the time when I wasn’t interviewing, fixing problems elsewhere or talking to the crew hanging out there. I did get to speak to most of the exhibitors I wanted to though, especially the Trinity Audio Group. I did get to watch the Gong-a-thong because I was operating the sound desk and of course the live show.

The live show. Two hours before I think it’s fair to say we were bricking it. The day had been fairly busy but we thought that everyone might have come for the day-time speakers and clear off home before the live show. If anyone stayed would they get the show’s style and humour? Could Adam resist not swearing in front of the minors in the audience. (No.) We needn’t have worried. Over 100 people packed the main stage seating area, and more lounged around on the beanbags and the surrounding area. (OK, Dice giving out free beer might have encouraged people to stay too.) And they were obviously fans of the show, the ones who wanted to see the pasty Brits shamble their way through an hour of sub-par knob gags. It went down really well and it was cool to be in charge of the audio, playing in the stings and monitoring the recording. I don’t think Jono had quiet believed I could play the stings in on cue though. Of course, there were some things I could have done differently with the audio recording but with the pressure of time I think it’s a reasonable job.

Among my highlights of the two days: Frets on Fire stand, BSD stand and OLPC stand attracting lots of interest for very different reasons. Asking for a Diet Coke and getting a bucket of the stuff. Jono and Adam persuading security to let them take 4 stools from the ground floor for the live show. Emma’s voice on the Sunday, squeaking and doggedly making her point in both the Mass Debate and in small hours of Monday morning. Tyson and Kynan making a “dress” out of… god knows what. Erica barely making it through her lightbulb talk flanked by a skinny man in his taped up pants. And Aaron being a start for doing it. The bizarre irish shanty that won the gong-a-thong. Meeting the SCALE guys on the Saturday night. Having cheap chinese food in the diner opposite the hotel with Adam before heading off to the Saturday night bash. I interviewed Chris somewhere funny and smelly – sorry! The awkward two-way between Jeremy and Miquel which formed the bulk of the Mass Debate and the poor microphone which was pulled between the two of them. (Hey, the AV specification said four mics and that’s what we had. I didn’t know that the two people who seemed keen to share would spend the entire time arguing.) Waiting for Tedddd and his magical mystery ‘mobile in the loading dock with Shona, Tyson, Adam and Eddy and somehow managing to pack more stuff into the car than came out of it. Kynan not slowing down, even at 10pm on the Sunday night, and performing karaoke backup dances to Tyson. In fact, all the geek karaoke performers were so keen and many something of a revelation, I’m going to suggest “Geekeoke” as a brand new geek social event.

The event didn’t feel quite the same as a UK event. But that’s not a bad thing. It was always going to feel a bit different, not least because it’s in a different country. But it shared enough of the same vibe (there I go again, talking about the magic “vibe”) to be a proud and impressive part of LRL event history. One thing that impressed me was how many non-LUG Radio fans were in attendance. From the handful I spoke to, people were so impressed with the speaker line-up that they came for that reason. But all those who did seemed to get the idea and went away promising to download the entire show archive.

Over the course of the weekend I interviewed Jono and Chris for the video. (Aq I interviewed on Friday, Adam followed on Monday.) I’ve never done interviewing quite as formally as that before, so it was a good learning experience. But I felt I got mostly honest answers and sometimes some surprising ones. It helped I was able to take each gent off somewhere quiet for half an hour or so to record; none of them felt they were performing for an audience. At least, I hope not.

Thanks to Shona for some of the photos in this post.

Friday was the prep day. The entire troupe of Britons walked to the venue from the hotel, which was a reasonable walk. Not so far as to be impossible, but far enough not to be much fun with a load of equipment. Fortunately Google were providing breakfast for their staff, the AV contractors and us Brits. This meant a long table and lots of unhealthy food. Fortunately Dan or Eric (sorry gents, can’t remember who the phone belongs to) streamed it up to youtube where any idiot can see it.

The venue not opening until 10am, there followed a short hiatus. The Google people went off on a supplies run, Aq went off to find a printers and I think Adam went back to sleep. Laura, Chris and I wandered round the neighbourhood for a while to see what else was about.

Let me describe the Metreon. It’s pretty big. It covers an entire block, so it’s impossible to see it all at once. It contains a shopping centre (with book shops, coffee shops, book and coffee shops and the usual assortment of bars, a multi-screen cinema including an IMAX screen and the City View exhibition space. We took the lift to the fourth floor of the Metreon, where City View is located. It’s big. It’s easily the biggest space a LUG Radio Live event has ever occupied. Firstly the length of the venue hits you. (After a while you start to realise it’s not all that wide and you panic less.) Then the view hits you. The long side of the venue gives out onto a balcony which was probably the reason the words “sun” and “soaked” were first pushed together. It was unusually hot (record-breaking heat, yadda-yadda) and the balcony provided no shelter whatsoever. But from anywhere in the venue you looked out across a vista (j.p.c) of San Francisco. There was no denying it: LUG Radio had arrived in the U.S. of A.

Most of the “stuff” (a catch all word to describe AV equipment, beanbags, and exhibitors) were due to arrive from 2pm so we absorbed the ambiance for a while. Every so often someone new would turn up to gawp at the space, including Ted, Emma and Eddy. We used the time to fetch nutsack goodies from offices (sadly the sight of Adam, Laura and Ian “Gandalf” McKellar wheeling trolleys of shot glasses through the streets of San Francisco is undocumented) and I went off to buy a USB hard drive on to which to record the live show.

Friday was a day of lots of surprises, most pleasant. The venue crew rigged lights to show the fantastic gobos. Tables and chairs appeared. Google provided lunch too! Being at the back of the goods lift with Jono as Adam, Warren, Kynan, Shona, Emma and others loaded the branded beanbags until I could no longer see the far end of the lift. Then realising that the doors would open behind me and I would be holding back all said beanbags on my own. Jono and Adam being inordinately pleased to be given walkie-talkies and then spending half an hour swearing at each other over them. Having an A/V crew do all the major jobs of providing ‘net access and PAs and projectors. Seeing curtains surround the stages to cut down the ambient light (with mixed results). Watching Adam walking backwards and forwards counting and recounting tables. Interviewing Aq for the forthcoming video. Being shown how to use an 8-way firewire interface and logic to do a multi-track recording of the live show. Shona providing much needed acerbic witticisms. Tedddd arriving in his mad car full of stuff. Adam and I just looking at the car wondering how much AV kit can fit in one vehicle. Poor Chris spent several hours waiting in the loading bay for people to arrive. The rock’n'roll life of a LUG Radio presenter, eh? I bet they didn’t tell him about that when he signed up to join the show. Kynan worked as hard as… well, as hard as I used to before I grew old and cynical. (Long time LRL attendees may remember Kynan from LRL 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he told us all everyone in Neighbours had been killed with a shovel.) Seriously, there wasn’t anything that guy didn’t do: Stuff nutsacks, rig lights, carry boxes, load bean bags into the lift, unload Tedddd’s car and so much more. He was the first port of call if something went wrong too, which says a lot.

Any way, we sweated and taped and shifted things all afternoon and in to the early evening. Things were more ready on a Friday evening than they have been for any previous LRL event. The gents disappeared somewhat earlier to make the evening drinks event, yet we still managed to beat them to it. Rumour has it that Adam was doing his hair, hence the delay. Laura and I sneaked off for a bite to eat and then rejoined it for while before surrendering to the combined exhaustion of jetlag and the day’s labours.

LUG Radio Live USA 2008 was two weekends ago now and I’ve only just got around to posting about it, being kicked into action by Emma’s memories of the same event. It is I suppose appropriate to start at the beginning, which for me was at Heathrow Terminal 3 on the morning of Wednesday 9th. (This account omits the months of stressful preparation, e-mail and conference calls leading up to standing in Heathrow.)

Because I was going out to LRL as videographer (as well as crew head, AV & video liaison guy) I had quite a lot of kit with me. I usually travel as light as possible, but on this occasion we had what was described as a “girls amount” of luggage. We ended up being seated in different parts of the plane, but this was probably a good thing.

Having tucked into a cooked breakfast (how I managed to only put on a couple of pounds over the whole trip, I don’t know) we made our way through security. Well, most of us did. Adam had walked past the big signs and three bins full of the water bottles people had had to dispose of before going through security but must have thought this didn’t apply to the two he had stashed in his bag. Cue a full search of every crevice in Adam’s bag and a chemical swab of his laptop. Mr. O’Bacon, thinking such idiocy a comic moment worth preserving decided to whip out his camera and take a photo of the search in progress. As he pulled his camera from his pocket in one fluid move, the world became like The Matrix. In slow motion we hissed “Don’t take photos in security….” but before we could complete the sentence Jono’s flash had fired across Heathrow. Within five seconds of this, five people descended on our little troupe ensuring the photo was deleted and checking the contents of the camera for anything else nefarious. (I am assured that there is plenty of nefarious content on Jono’s camera, but not of the type in which security services are interested.) It was at this point that being seated away from the liability twins seemed like a good thing.

The flight itself was largely uneventful. Long and dull as these things are, the only highlights were the entertainment system with an impressive array of films but which kept crashing showing that it was running Linux and taking some potential publicity photos of the gents at the rear of the plane. After a minute or so we started to attract some interest from people who thought that a minor rock group was traveling economy. Right.

We checked into our hotel. The hotel. It was clean. That just about summarises the good points. There was one room on each floor which didn’t have wired ethernet. We were in one of them. The wireless didn’t reach the top floors either, and when I tried it from the lobby, it didn’t work. The advice on the key card was to lock and bolt the door when in the room, and not to answer the door to unknown people. But then the hotel was in an area of San Francisco described as a “marginal ‘hood” and referred to as Crack Town (by me at least). There were swan and seabird murals painted above the picture rail in the rooms. In the hallway was another mural painted directly on the wall, with a frame hung around it. I would have taken some photos of it, but I feared that brandishing something with as crack-resale-value in the halls of such a hotel would have been a bad move. (Mum, Dad stop panicking, I exaggerate for comic effect. A bit.)

The First Evening, which earns its capitals by being that significant evening when one tries not to fall asleep to kick one’s body clock into a new time zone as easily as possible, was spent in Biscuits & Blues, a rather nice club where we were outnumbered by a large crowd of basically French people. It was a surreal evening with everyone fighting the urge to fall asleep in their high-priced fishcakes. Much silliness was had.

The second day saw our trip to Alcatraz. What happened on the island is veiled in mystery but we all made if back out again. Some of us caught the sun. We did not get thrown off the island, contrary to rumour. The trip was followed by a very late lunch and rounds of drinks in the Hard Rock Cafe where we came up with some very funny and frankly ridiculous ideas for promoting LUG Radio. I suspect that one or more of these might actually happen, so watch out. We were joined by a couple who had come from Spain to attend the event. We spotted the guy as he was going in to the toilets wearing a Red Hat jacket and sent Adam in to ask if he’d heard about LRL. Adam seemed the natural choice for accosting men in public toilets. Don’t know why. A great, if pricey, afternoon. This was followed by the inevitable crash out as the weather was unseasonably hot (the hottest in 30 years for the time of year, apparently) and the jetlag demanding more sleep. Plus we had to be on fine form for the following day.

The anticipated fourth episode (yes, really, apparently) of the Ubuntu UK Podcast is out now. In this episode:

• Unix/Linux Malware & Security precautions,
• Interview with Ian Ozsvald from Showmedo,
• A short phone call from Mark Shuttleworth,
• Plus the sarcastic news,
• And a competition to get money off Ubuntu schwag.

Download it from:

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/04/23/s01e04-such-an-easy-question/

This episode started recording within two hours of touching down at Heathrow from San Francisco, so I was pretty jetlagged during the recording. Yet again I’ve tried something new with the sound, but unfortunately the raw recording was distorted in places. I’m blaming that on the jetlag. It was also our first phone interview, which I think went pretty well thanks to Daviey’s SIP phone. People who have moaned about the levels should be happier with this episode, but there’s still more to do to get things sounding even better of course.

The third episode of the Ubuntu UK podcast, “Help me”, is now out and available from:

http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2008/04/07/s01e03-help-me/

In this episode we talk about the command line versus GUI, Mythbuntu, podcast production (by popular request) and give our take on recent FLOSS-related news.

What was different about this episode? Well, we recorded it at a different location. We had a different cake. (Carrot, and very nice it was too.) Some of us forgot our microphone technique. The builders outside started a generator during the first segment. There was a problem with the signal levels onto the recorder, which means some peaks are bit distorted. I’ll pay more attention to this next time and hopefully provide a permanent fix soon. And one of the channels was inverted for some reason which caused a few extra hours hassle and brown trousers!

For those of you following my trials and tribulations with the audio, I’m not as happy with this one as episode 2. But where the audio is a bit dodgy it’s only as a consequence of trying to make it better. So that’s alright.