This May I spent four consecutive weeks abroad, visiting
first Debconf6 (including the Debcamp that preceded it),
and then Los Angeles afterwards. I won't write a detailed
report of everything that happened; nobody likes to read
pages after pages of descriptions of meals and such.
Instead, I'll jot down a few memories of moments. It's
still long, sorry about that.
May 6, about 3 AM, at home. Waiting outside for a taxi.
Pretty tired already: spent the night frantically weighing
all my clothes to optimize my packing. It is warm enough to
wait outside without a jacket. The night is calm and
beautiful. Mankind is so much nicer when it sleeps.
May 6, about 4 AM, the Helsinki airport. I bump into
Tuukka and Tulitar, who are on the same plane. Kaol
also joins us, but that I knew beforehand. I'm suddenly
much less apprehensive about the long flight.
May 6, Mexico City airport. We meet more Debian people.
The first taxi driver we're assigned seems to be suspect
somehow. The other taxi drivers rebel and our luggage is
put into another car, with another driver. I have no
idea what is actually going on, but that develops into
a theme for the Mexican part of the trip.
May 6, Oaxtepec. We're finally here, but it seems very
difficult for us to get rooms. While we wait, we and
some of the people who arrived earlier go to a
restaurant. The Germans want to order the same thing for
everyone, but fail to agree on what, so eventually we
order all the steaks on the menu. The food is good, but
the restaurant staff would probably have preferred to go
home at closing time. We eventually get rooms and I
collapse into bed.
Debcamp week, Oaxtepec. We have network. We don't have
network. We have network. We don't have network. We have
network. We don't have network. We're frustrated all the
time. I was supposed to do billable work (related to
Debian, even), and can't. Should've prepared for this
possiblity. I'm too dependent on a good Internet
connection, need to figure out to reduce this dependency.
To have something else to do, I start the
Mugshots
project: take a photo of everyone together with a paper
with their name, or IRC nick, or anything else they want
to say about themselves.
Debconf, late one evening. Everyone is partying one way
or another, drinking, dancing, discussing. Lots of
people around already. Nice people. Still I withdraw into
myself. I'm physically present, but not interacting.
Never know what to say; exhausted by having to remember
who everyone is. I'm introverted, and deal better with
smaller gatherings. My life's ambition is to become a
multi-millionaire recluse.
Debconf, late another evening, Oaxtepec. Everyone else
is getting drunk, and it affects me. I make the silly
bet about Debian releasing on time: if we do, I'll get
a Debian tattoo. Not to worry, I win either way.
Debconf, some evening or another. I participate in a
game of Mao. It is an unpleasant game, for me. I
suspected this beforehand, but now I've verified it. It
is best for everyone if I never play again, now that I
know enough to at least try to reach my personal,
alternative goals in the game, which make the game less
fun for everyone else. (Better for me too, since I make
fewer enemies.)
Debconf, day after formal dinner. I learn that Jonathan
(Ted) Walther is gone. Good riddance. I suprise myself
with the amount of glee I feel when removing him from the
Mugshots gallery. (That, incidentally, was something I
decided all by myself. It's my gallery, after all.)
Debconf. The sponsored food is quite acceptable, but
eventually becomes boring and bland. Mass-kitchen food
can't but help to be like that, I guess, unless it gets
expensive. I don't want to see another chicken leg ever.
Debconf, early in the week. Droidy (Leena) and Burger
(Ville) arrive. Very nice. Helps massively with my
withdrawnness to have real life friends around. I still
go early to bed, though, instead of participating in
the partying.
Debconf, late in the week. I get Ville and Frans Pop to
talk and Ville agrees to have look at the installation
manual. He's an actual (former) professional tech writer,
so hopefully will be able to improve it a lot.
May 22, Oaxtepec. Last day. I spend all morning packing,
checking out, and waiting for a taxi. Strangely
relaxing. Debconf is finally over, and although I did
enjoy parts of it, and don't regret coming, I'm not sad
it's over.
May 22, evening, Los Angeles. Julie and Kristian meet me
at the airport. Hugging happens. Happiness happens. I
get my first taste of LA traffic, which seems to mostly
consist of people complaining about how slow it is while
driving very fast.
May 23, the Promenade, Los Angeles. A three block long
walking street of shops, with three (count them: three)
bookstores. The two I have time for even smelled nice. I
am in hog heaven. Colossal credit card cringing.
May 24, Getty Center. A very nice, very impressive
place architecturally. The art is good too. As usual, the
impressionists make the strongest impression on me, but
there's lots of other good stuff, too.
Not everything, though: Robert Adams's photographs leave
me unimpressed, possibly I lack the cultural reference
points necessary to appreciate them. He has many photos
of shabby temporary shelter-like houses that in reality
seem to be nice south-western US houses from the 60s and
70s. My intuition just screams that the houses and their
inhabitants won't survive their first winter. But of
course, they don't have a cold winter there.
The rest of the exhibition (or what I have time to see)
has way too many portraits for one session. Portraits
get boring after the first dozen or so, I'm afraid,
unless there's something extraordinary about them.
They are several rooms rebuilt from 18th century French
aristocratic houses. Very nice, very pretty, but I would
not like to live that uncomfortably.
I have a small epiphany about nudity in art in one of
the rooms with statues. I've always known nudity could
be portrayed erotically, such as having two lovers
embrace passionately; or that it could be portrayed more
or less abstractly, using the human body, or parts of
it, just because it can be a very beautiful subject,
just like a flower, but without giving it a greater
significance. It's decoration, nothing more.
There are two statues in the Getty collection that show
me a third way. They are exquisitely sensual, evoking a
sense of form and texture that make me think of human
skin and flesh, a sense that if one were to touch the
statue, it would feel like touching a live human. Yet
none of this is erotic at all.
I'm not sure I can explain this, one may have to
experience it for oneself. Unfortunately, I was too
overwhelmed to write down the names of the statues.
May 23, Los Angeles. The food takes me by surprise. Julie
has always told me that food in LA is good, much better
than in Finland, but she hadn't prepared me for an all-out
assault on my palate. Dine well in LA and die happy.
(When I go back to Finland, I will have to learn again how
to cook, dammit.)
May 25, Los Angeles. Jesus reminds me via SMS about the
Towel
Day. I participate. My hosts think I'm a bit weird,
but in a funny way.
Many happy days in May, Los Angeles. I visit the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (exhibiting a weird Italian
designer, some boring Klimt paintings, and a very nice
general collection); the Natural history museum of LA
(dinosaurs! real skeletons! big ones! T.Rex! for the
first time in my life! they're huge!); the Museum of
Jurassic Technology (weird); had dinner with some local
Debian people, and visited the local Google office
afterwards; the Hollywood Boulevard at night (funny, for
a while). And other places I've forgotten already. LA is
not small.
I visit a political theater play that is brilliant.
I also visit my first American BBQ, and have my first
experience with the LA gay community at the same time.
I'm later told that these two are separable. I enjoy them
both a lot.
I visit more bookstores. My hosts keep finding new ones
they want to recommend to me.
Parking would be a pain in LA, except that it means that
people do actually walk a lot, since the nearest parking
space is always three blocks away, or five levels up
without an elevator.
May 28, Los Angeles. I innocently mention that LA is
such a nice place, with nice people and gorgeous food,
that I wouldn't mind living there. Julie's brother hears
this and immediately connects me with someone he knows
whose company is looking for new people. During the next
three days, we meet and talk and things seem favorable.
Even if I decide not to go (it may be too huge a change
for me now), it's nice to feel appreciated.
June 1, Los Angeles. Leaving for home. Not a sad thing,
but I'm definitely feeling wistful. I get hugged about
fourteen thousand times. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
I will definitely have to go back to LA, one day.