The last day consisted of a steady morning of TurboGears activity followed by lunch, a great hike, and wrapping up with a podcast that summarized our experiences in the different areas. I’ll add a link as that becomes available. I didn’t get into the testing capabilities bundled with TurboGears to the degree I had wanted, so I’ll have to do that later and blog about it.

We also rented bikes for hitting the Lower Loop at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow; I eneded up with a Gary Fisher Piranha from The Alpineer. It’s not quite my Hoo Koo E Koo, but at least it has the same Genesis geometry; that Specialized bike I rode on Monday was a dog, though that was mostly due to it being horribly unmaintained. The geometry on it was really awkward for me as well.

I was too sick to go on the day trip for DebConf, but staying at the conference location had its benefits. After visiting the doctor and getting a prescription, I headed in to town to get the medicine. I ended up discovering the building known as Ex-Convento, a former Catholic convent next to our conference center. It has a quaint little museum and the local public library. I recommend taking a visit if you’re here for DebConf6; it can be a welcome break for the proceedings. A walkthrough of my visit can be found in my flickr set titled Wednesday in Oaxtepec.

I ran into Micah, Matt, and the rest of the HP posse on their way to the market. We had a most enjoyable lunch together, plus a little bit of discussion about the thread on debian-devel in response to the announcement message yesterday.

Today I spent some time hanging with my friends Tom and Adam over in Decatur. Lunch at The Brick Store Pub followed by a long talk in the park and coffee at Java Monkey. It’s great to unwind, but I am so behind in my Debian work. I needed to be around some of my non-software-development friends for a while after my much-enjoyed immersion in last week’s conference.

I say immersion, but it was actually the most balanced conference experience I have ever had. Skiing in between sessions really cleared my head and made me feel fresh for the afternoon sessions; something I can’t say for any conference in which I have participated. I miss those guys.

Today I finally pulled out of my loss-of-expensive-phone stupor, and Laura and I went skiing. We actually took lessons; I am a beginner, but Laura skiied lots years ago. Instead of a beginner class I took a Turning Skills workshop. It was amazing; the biomechanics of skiing are nothing like I imagined. My instructor Tom was great; he really pushed me to get into the zen of turning. Supposedly getting that right will make my advancement much greater down the road. It really felt good to get out into the mountains, moving through those snow-covered runs, surrounded by evergreens.

So it was a great weekend of doing some Debian work, getting out and riding my mountain bike, and slogging through some intense yardwork. I was looking forward to writing about that in a witty and concise fashion. However, the ongoing saga of trying to have a normal experience in selling our house has required that I spend that writing time on another task. In light of that, I decided to post that writing task as a subtitute, with a picture included. For those who know about the saga of our real estate sign, this is the latest update.

Guys,
Hi, wanted to drop you a line regarding the last sign installation.
Since this sign has only been up for ~1 week or so, I thought you guys
might not have had a chance to see it yet. I have included a picture of
each side of the sign for you guys to check out. I have a couple of
questions about this sign once you have had a chance to look at the
pictures:

1.) Did this sign have a bad experience at a past assignment? It seems
to have been smeared with a great deal of mud.

2.) Did you guys know that the sign reads “Excusively Marketed” instead
of “Exclusively Marketed”?

3.) Do you guys feel satisfied with the appearance of this sign? From a
distance it looks like maybe it has some exquisite antique finish, but
then you get a bit closer and can tell it’s just smeared with mud.

The saga of the sign has become the stuff of legend. Also, by now
my neighbor’s grass is pretty damaged from the installation, removal,
and resintallation, as you can probably see at the bottom of the
pictures. Please don’t attempt to remediate this with any swift action;
each successive step has shown me that things can indeed get worse. Get
back to me on your impressions from the pictures and my questions above,
and we will figure out what will hopefully be the last thing we do with
the sign before hanging an “Under Contract” shingle on it.
Late for work, gotta run. During the 9:00 - 5:00 period, my desk
phone 555-555-5555 generally works better than my mobile number.

Sincerely,
–
Barry Hawkins