Day two of the pre-conference program (yesterday) flew past for me. I gave a couple of talks at the Python mini-conference. The first one went fairly well (I have given it a couple of times now -- talking about using Python in business situations), the second one slightly less well, but that was entirely my fault; I could not think of enough practical Python tricks to talk about and it kind of meandered towards the end. Still, it seemed to be fairly well received and nobody threw fruit or anything. Wound up with a slightly impromptu talk at the GNOME mini-conference and then being roped into the question-and-answer session at the end.

Completed my speaking commitments today with a GNOME tutorial which attracted a reasonable audience who seemed to be interested enough to ask questions throughout. This is the kind of tutorial I think GNOME contributors should be trying to give at every single conference, so it was an interesting experience to see if I could talk about GNOME at a sufficiently high level to be interesting to "third-party" developers (Gstreamer guys: I pushed somebody in your direction who is interested in writing developer-level documentation. Don't frighten him away!)

I had a bit more time to talk to people today (and last night at the speakers' dinner). Much of my enjoyment at conferences like l.c.a comes from just catching with people I see once every year or two, so I am looking forward to just relaxing over the next three days, listening to talks and participating in the group discussions. I am completely blown away by the quality of organisation at this conference each year and the organisers this year have taken things to the next level again. Just little things like having areas set up under large tents so that we can sit out of the sun and talk makes the whole experience very enjoyable.