[Texas] PyTexas

[Brad Allen]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 5:36 PM, Mike Driscoll <mike at pythonlibrary.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was just wondering what you thought were the highlights of the PyTexas
> event. So far, I've only had one other person give me feedback. Thanks,
>
> --
> -----------------
> Mike Driscoll
>
> Blog:   http://blog.pythonlibrary.org

Thanks for taking an interest, Mike. I hope you won't mind that I cc'd
the Texas Python mailing list in order to stimulate discussion.
Hopefully some of the folks here will reminisce.

For me the highlight of the event was the lack of disasters. :-)
Since I was running the show I didn't get to see many presentations or
join the open space talks. I'm looking forward to watching the videos
which are just now starting to show up at
http://nextdayvideo.pytexas.org. Soon hopefully they will appear on
http://python.mirocommunity.org

Disasters which did not occur:

* None of the seven loaner laptops were lost or stolen. These were
loaned out to attendees who did not have laptops. We retained their
driver's licenses or id cards until they returned the laptops.
* We were able to put back everything they way we found it, including
the correct number of chairs in rooms, as well as A/V wiring. TAMU had
no complaints!
* No caffeine or snack shortages! Well, I did hear once that we ran
out of coffee but most of the time it seemed like we had enough.
* At night all the gear, sponsor setups, etc were safely locked in the
rooms without incident.
* We had more than enough lightning talks to fill the allotted time,
thereby averting the promised threat of Perl 6 lightning talks.
* All speakers showed up on time and finished their talks on time! The
cancellations which occurred in the final week before the event were
able to be replaced by other volunteers stepping forward to give talks
at the last minute (thanks Jon Nials and Tyler Hobbs)
* The A/V crew inbound flight was not delayed significantly and they
were able to arrive on Friday night. We had a scare due to a
miscommunication via email and a failure to exchange phone numbers
beforehand.
* There was no invocation of the secret code of conduct policy, and
the Spanish Inquisition was not unleashed. Civility reigned, and the
comfy chairs...remained merely comfy. (The comfy chairs were
innocently provided by Snoball.com)

I'm sure there were plenty of other disasters averted (no injuries,
lawsuits, etc), but lest I dwell too much on the positive, it's worth
mentioning that some things did go wrong. (Raw memory of feverishly
scrambling to tenkey raffle ticket numbers into a spreadsheet from a
hand scrawled registration page, thinking "how did I get myself into
this...?" while in the next room the audience gathered and grew
restive.)

Anyway, hopefully others here can say something about the highlights
of PyTexas 2011, such as the excellent presentations, fun social
encounters, and awesome t-shirts and swag bags with original art by
Dave Birch...