Day 1 of the conference proper was a great success. Initial teething dramas with chairs were quickly resolved and keynote went smoothly. With the exception of:

a) One fire alarm
b) One broken A/V system
c) One nearly missing taxi

... the rest of the day also went smoothly. Again only caught snippets of talks but what I did see looked good. The day was even sufficiently smooth that our esteemed conference director even managed to leave the premises for a few hours.

The day finished with the Penguin Dinner at the Night Market - which quite frankly rocked. Pete and I got there late - rolling up the line of volunteers who guided the delegates from the Uni to the Vic Market - but still managed food and drinks. The meal/drink tickets proved a good idea with little overhead required.

The night itself was interesting - very informal with people moving around and mingling - something that I think is really critical at a function like this. I think set-piece sit down dinners just don't suit this sort of event. Everyone gets a little trapped at their table and never feels entirely free to wander. Will strongly recommend '09 make the event something similar.

Got to shoot the breeze with a few people, chatted/gossiped with Alli, listened to a long discussion about file system development that convinced me that the less I know about FS work the better. I quickly banged my head against the table until all knowledge of VFS vanished. Yammered on with Martin Krafft and some other Debian peoples about Debian package management, and security until they kicked us out. Most satisfying discussion and now tempted to go to a Debian conference for a look-see.

Night ended relatively early and I declined an offer to sip tequila and another to consume copious cocktails.