Tag Archives: Brazil

The Twitter Diaries: 2009-06-28: Brazil

  • Lynn & I are in Montevideo, transiting to Porto Alegre. Guy took our passports to print boarding passes, hopefully will return with them! #
  • in Montevideo airport, soon to board for Porto Alegre. We already know that our luggage is not with us. Slim chance it got there before us. #
  • @debworks yup, had a change in my carryon, but a few key items are in the still-missing suitcases in reply to debworks #
  • sitting in hotel lobby with wifi, I can get email and use Twitter, but can’t get a browser to work. ??? #
  • @ben so I’d need to get the proxy address? in reply to ben #
  • Twitter is what you do when you can’t get to your blog… First, food. Dinner was strawberry caipirinha, liver salad, carrot/apricot soup… #
  • breakfast was slices of very good mango and papaya, fresh crusty bread. Our bus for the campus tour is late, so we’ll just go on eating… #
  • before dinner, we had to shop for clothing in case our suitcases don’t show up today. 2 luxe malls look much like malls anywhere. #
  • Porto Alegre, at least the parts I’ve seen so far, is cleaner and more elegant than most Italian cities. Architecture mostly concrete. #
  • everyone disclaiming responsibility for getting our suitcases to us. American Airlines #fail Let’s hope American Express can make it happen. #
  • hotel rebooted their router, that has fixed the problem #
  • @alecmuffett sorry to hear it. in reply to alecmuffett #
  • moving 2000 mini soccer balls (with Sun, Glassfish, etc. logos) from bus to Mauricio’s hotel room. Silly photos to follow. #
  • it’s 2:43 am in Porto Alegre, I’ve been awake since 5:30 this morning, trying to trace the bags myself because everyone else is NOT helpful #
  • remind me never to fly American Airlines again. They seem to be far more anxious to avoid responsibility than to help their passengers. #
  • NB i wasn’t tracing bags all day, we were doing an OpenSolaris conference at the University of Santa Cruz do Sul. #
  • hallelujah for good customer service! our corp travel department got an answer out of AA, now we know the bags went to Sao Paolo #
  • lesson: the free AmEx assist svc you get because you’re a cardholder? Not very useful. “We’ll call once a day to try to trace your bags.” #
  • !#$%^#$%^$%^ Clear ceases operations. That’s going to make my traveling life that much more difficult. #
  • Cut off from Twitter yesterday – the uni wifi blocks Twt, YouTube, and Passpack (?!). Show went well, including my extempore talk on video. #
  • hotel offers wifi in lobby, only wired in rooms, but USB/Ethernet for my Air is in the missing luggage. Leeching off a neighbor’s Linksys #
  • @jowyang I don’t always need Clear, but it’s saved me a few times, well worth the price I would have paid to renew it in reply to jowyang #
  • I can has baggage! #
  • @ckoontz Clear was actually a very useful service, at certain times and from certain airports. I had just made up my mind to renew, damnit! in reply to ckoontz #
  • 3 suitcases of expensive equipt, all opened (by customs in Sao Paolo – TSA locks not broken). Amazingly, only casualty 1 iPod. #
  • @willsnow did they get to tell the great story to the right peOple? I really want the world to know what a fantastic job they’ve done. #
  • RT @fschupp: @BigAdmn …. “Will some1 of your crew be @ OSCON?” Some others of us will be glad to represent for our Big friends at OSCON #
  • still figuring out this public speaking gig, but I’m getting a lot of practice this month! #
  • BTW, what sadist came up with the 2-5-2 seating on Boeing 777s? #
  • @SteveEdiger how does that confuse the police? in reply to SteveEdiger #
  • interesting to see how my Italian does and doesn’t help with understanding Portugese. Can understand a lot in writing, less in conversation. #
  • RT @Britopian RT @bobduffy: CIsco says employees own their own brand and followers on Twitter… Also true for Sun. Hard to see it elsewise #
  • turns out I wasn’t supposed to drink the tap water here… Then why did they provide glasses in the bathroom? Oh, well, lose some weight… #
  • had dinner with Aaron and Eduardo. Meat is awfully good here in gaucho country (home of churrasca) – good thing I’m not vegetarian! #
  • up early for the first day of FISL. We’ll all go together in a bus. This is like being on a school trip, but for grownups. With alcohol. #

  • on the very busy #FISL show floor. Aaron & I were interviewed by Radio Software Livre about using video to communicate about open source #
  • installing Flash plugin on the Internet cafe machines #fisl so we can show our Portugese-subtitled videos #
  • 1st day of #fisl winding down. The Sun booth has been thronged with visitors most of the day #
  • #fisl is one of the most frenetic conferences I’ve ever attended, with 1000s of young people eager to learn. Or at least to score a free T. #
  • real Brazlian churrasca – that was probably the best meat I’ve eaten in my life. The caipirinhas didn’t hurt, either. #
  • @Britopian most played song? there are so many… Tonight’s theme song was “The Parting Glass” by the High Kings #soccrm in reply to Britopian #
  • frustrating when an organization which has NO idea how much is said about it in the rest of the world really screws up. (Not Sun) #
  • Charlaine Harris books apparently the same as Laurell Hamilton, only set in Shreveport (?!?) instead of St. Louis. The point being…? #
  • @glynnfoster I’m going to get to taste all this good stuff you keep braggging about, right? in reply to glynnfoster #
  • @glynnfoster I’ll take that as an invitation. ; ) in reply to glynnfoster #
  • @ethang thanks for streaming [our talk at FISL] – wish Id known in time to let people know. in reply to ethang #
  • talk went well, about 100 people, much more than expected since we were up against Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay #
  • very upset that our video subtitles are not working when we have a great opp to show them at FISL #
  • Sun booth thronged with people wanting t-shirts. Should I go help or stay out of the way? #
  • @nonstick for these students, we+re cool! in reply to nonstick #
  • @Crescenzo the getting famous plan requires the cooperation of at least one other person… in reply to Crescenzo #
  • @jowyang in the time and place I went to high school, even land lines were nearly non-existent http://bit.ly/kTJ9L in reply to jowyang #
  • #fisl done for the evening (not that the crowd is leaving…). tomorrow will be even bigger – President Lula will attend! #
  • another exhausting and exhilarating day #fisl. Looking forward to food and cachaça tasting tonight, thanks to our colleague Eduardo. #
  • lost my bit.ly login and their password reminder isn’t working. #$%#% #
  • last night saw O Teatro Mágico – http://bit.ly/A8IuM – wow! Get the music for free (they want you to) here: http://bit.ly/9GYOa #
  • #fisl security for the president’s visit is causing inconveniences #
  • #fisl we are not doing t-shirt madness today – the mob would freak out the security people #
  • #fisl – 4 Sun talks in a row in room 41A, starting with Brian Leonard on Virtual Box at 9. Simon Phipps and the Webmink show at 10. #
  • #fisl if you want t-shirts or soccer balls today, attend Sun talks! We’re not doing giveaways at the booth due to security issues #
  • Brazilians are very creative with names. Best I’ve seen so far #fisl are Chrisnamurth and Darvin #
  • #fisl Today people have to work for their OpenSolaris t-shirts, either installing the OS or attending a talk. Result: crowded booth! #
  • OMFG. I get to film the president. #fisl #
  • #fisl now past security to the vast emptiness of the rest of the show floor (mostly roped off – Sun booth got most of todays traffic) #
  • #fisl Sun has prime real estate today, right where the virtual red carpet turns. #
  • #fisl Running fullscreen Portugese subtitled videos on the Internet cafe machines right along the presidential path. Talk about eyeballs! #
  • #fisl Im one of about 300 people on the show floor, a select much fewer are in the conf room and will speak with him, including Simon Phipps #
  • #fisl a set of uniforms just walked down the ropeway- maybe the pres is on the way, finally #
  • #fisl asked not to get in the way of the press. Sweetie, I AM the press. I represent the non-maintstream media. #
  • #fisl today I wore my bright green I”m Blogging This for Sun t-shirt. didn-t know how appropriate it would be #
  • #fisl our Brazil team fucking ROCKS! Wait til you all see the footage! #
  • #fisl our rockin’ Brazil user group leaders with President Lula: http://bit.ly/eK6zK #
  • multiculturalism gone mad: a Brazilian soap opera set (mostly) in India: Caminho das Índias http://bit.ly/q22c #
  • RT @jimgris: OpenSolaris at FISL w/ Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva. Outrageous! http://bit.ly/19rIvh – yup, them #
  • RT @jimgris: OpenSolaris at FISL w/ Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva. Outrageous! http://bit.ly/19rIvh – yup, them’s our guys. They rock! #
  • have I mentioned that I love Brazil and especially Brazlians? Can I come live here? #
  • didn’t go to the #fisl speaker dinner with 400+ open source luminaries (sorry, Simon!). Too tired to speak coherently. #
  • instead had pizza, wine, and giggles and belly laughs with Lynn & Teresa. #
  • did talk earlier today with Elizabeth Garbee in the speakers’ lounge. What an amazing person. #
  • @DavidHowell very glad to hear that life is good for you! in reply to DavidHowell #
  • okay, need to wake up enough to run some useful Omniture stats for the boss. #
  • last day of #fisl, even longer than the others. <groan> All the activity in the Sun booth is great, but exhausting for the staff. #
  • @ceri what have you guys been doing with WOSUG? (I think you’re the right person to ask about this…) – page views through the roof! #
  • #fisl schwag score – very cute Firefox t-shirts! (it helps to have something to trade) #
  • Waiting for #fisl closing ceremony to end. Don’t understand it and I’m hungry! #

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Best Souvenir EVAH

I’m very proud of this: palestrante means speaker. FISL (this is the 10th edition) is one of the world’s largest open source conferences. The little orange button is important: PR stands for PRESIDENT. Which means I got to be one of the 300 people on the show floor when Brazil’s President Lula came to call, and was able to get pretty up close and personal among the mob. Video here.

Hurry Up!

Yesterday we were in Santa Cruz do Sul, RS, Brazil, for a student conference on OpenSolaris. We had some time in the afternoon to sight-see (then were working again from 6-10 pm), including a walk to the cathedral.

Along the way we were highly amused by this animated crossing signal, which Jogo told us was manufactured, along with some other experimental traffic control systems, in a nearby town.

The soundtrack was provided by a car cruising the neighborhood with a loudspeaker on top, advertising something.