Category: Government

So, I get to LCA, that I’ve been looking forward to for a year now, and I get Influenza A. The problem is that when you turn up at a hospital with flu symptoms having come from China the day before, you tend to get thrown in a ambulance and sent to quarintine. So I missed most of LCA being in hospital 🙁 I did get a rocking card with signatures from all the Penguin dinner attendees! Thanks everyone! It rocked way hard!!!

Also, Jeff has finally tasted his own vicious medicine. Check out Jeffs’ new look. Throw me a bucket.

Rock on! Many nominations already up. Only a few days to go and already such a great range of people. Lots of talent, lots of enthusiasm, next year is going to rock for LA!

Personally, I think the approach of transparency and openness works much better, and the response from the community reflects that. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved, and am looking forward to seeing what LA can do with the community fully behind. The issues are sorted (almost) and now it can storm ahead! Rock on Linux Australia!

The group. From left (yes your left! not theirs!):

Matteo (Beijing LUG, from Italy, now lives in Beijing), Daniel (New Day Creations), John (New Day Pastor), Richard (Rabid Beijing LUG dude, great guy), Me, Natalie, Jenny (Richards Girlfriend, beautiful girl), Eilene (Daniels Wife), Amy (Beijing LUG, also works for the UN).

We didn’t know when we went there that it was a religious setup, which was interesting, but they are doing great things for the community around them. We are helping them set up an IT community centre which will also be used for training. We don’t have much to work with 🙂 but we’ll get there. The kids were gorgeous and wonderful. Matteo was a favourite but Richard just made them cry. Natalie didn’t have much more success.

Found a place that did blood pudding as we walked through the nearby village. Found a dude practicing gung fu, with the sword who (with a little Pia promting) gave us a little demo. A beautiful sunset and it was all over.

Went with the Beijing LUG to meet an orphanage with IT issues. We toured the place, played with the kids (who were absolutely cute), and then set to work checking out their resources and trying to convince them of the business case for Open Source. We left feeling pretty confident, however need to help organise donors. Will be posting pictures tomorrow, but it is certainly a good opportunity for open source to get some attention in China.

China is still behind in IT. I am very keen on returning at some point to help create a standard for security, education, and ways it can help the people. Need to further define my goals but I think I/we can do a lot of good here 🙂

New years day was wonderful. Up early (who needs sleep anyway) and off to the forbidden City for the day. Gris and I were holding Mao up before Li Li and I did the obligatory wanky photo shots with our shiney new flags. Hot Pot for lunch. Then inside. Wonderful place. I’ve been once before but not all the way through. Check out http://pipka.org/photos/china/20040102/ for all the forbidden city photos. We ran out of time, but left the place feeling quite in awe. I had a similar experience in Pompei with Jeff. Just imagining and feeling the history. It kind of hangs in the air, like humidity, calling out to you, and whispering stories of ancient (or at least old) civilisations).

Have decided to scan and put up all photos from when I was last in China.

Saw the lowering of the flag ceremony. Wasn’t there in time to beat the throngs of people. Next time we’ll bring our own milk crates.

Apparently not many people are nominating. This made me a bit worried until I realised that people are waiting on the confirmation of membership details. CRAP! Got to get moving. Only 4 days of nominations left! Then the required 7 days before the AGM. I truly wish I had more time to make this run smoothly, delegation is supposed to be much easier than this 😉

It was Gris’ b’day on New years eve, so we took her for a surprise Peking Duck Dinner. She enjoyed herself, and the cake. Lotsa fun 🙂

For New years, we found a funky club with good music (except for the occasional AC/DC song) and hung out with Shannon and his girlfriend Helen with Helens family and friends, although they were a bit silly at times. We also met Cindy who was very kewl, and interesting to speak to. I had a great night. Was home by 4:30.

Fisticuffs? and then maybe not. WEIRD! Natalie has many endearing attributes

Linux Australia has been quite a focus for me this year, and I find myself getting more excited about the sweet things LA could do. Being in China ATM has been enormously frustrating as I have so much I want to get done for LA before the conference, and communication is sparodic at best when limited to internet cafes. I will definitely be trying for the committee again, and am keen to keep on as President. There is still so much to be done to ensure the organisation is what the community wants and needs. Communication is obviously a big part of that, and something Linux Australia is getting better at 🙂 So much to do! So little time in a day, and I keep having to tell myself I am over here studying and need to make sure I pass my exams 🙂

Gris, Li li and I decided we’d go to some markets and check out some Beijing night life. On the train into town there was an extremely tired gentleman who was luckily oblivious to our silliness. We grabbed dinner with Shannon at a great Beijing Noodles place, and then proceeded to an excellent bar. I’ve always been a fan of games, and this place had everything! A pool table, a 4-person foozball table, a huge mother connect 4 game, and a huge mother jenga game. A few skillful moves and then JENGA!

Li Li and I lit some candles for Hanukkah, and had a wonderful Peking Duck lunch for Christmas with about 35 other students and our wonderful teacher.. I got a present. It wasn’t a real Peking duck feast but it was fun 🙂

Gris arrived last night 🙂 While Li Li and I were waiting we tried a new place to eat. I ordered as part of my meal some hot milk. Big mistake. Got something that wasn’t very milk-like and during one mouthful, we found that it had lamb placenta in it. Wonderful…

We went to the Summer Palace today which was great! Especially the frozen lake which was solid and fun to stand on. Some people found it more scary than others. I’ve always had a love affair with temple dogs and chinese architecture so it was good fun.

I found the local IT hub and bought some kewl hardware. On the way back, we were approached by a woman asking if we wanted software. I want to get some of the local Linux distros so we went with her. After 1 minutes of walking, and going into a dodgy area that was like a dump in the middle of the city, she took us to a mud house, and ushered us inside, suitcases and boxes of cd’s were put in front of us, and of course we weren’t going to buy pirated software 😉 but it was a very strange experience.

The Chinese government has cracked down on piracy and the IT in Beijing is really going well. Looking forward to working here.

Met up with a lovely man named Simon, and one of his friends Shannon to go to an IT networking session. Ended up bumping into the Beijing LUG President and a few other great people. We mosied over to a place called Da Shan Zi which was an industrial area converted into a very groovy artists area. Had a lovely dinner, some drinks and great conversation. I certainly have a lot more respect for Beijing now, so it is just a matter of convinceing Jeff 😉

The gang all wandered home about 12ish, and I’ll hopefully be doing a talk for the Beijing LUG on FOSS and Education.

Looks like we’ll be going to Shanghai this weekend, depending on train times. Grisel gets here about 10ish on Friday night, so hopefully it’ll be Gris, Li Li (Natalie’s new nickname) and I running around having fun 🙂

Went to the Great Wall and met some of the locals 🙂

Still don’t have any mouth issues. Looks like the Chinese dentist did an exceptional job.