While "Two Conferences and a Wedding" is fewer events than "Four Weddings and a Funeral", and involves less death, if you try to pack them all into 12 days then it's still pretty full-on. The description below is long, and probably only of interest to me.

Linux.Conf.Au, in Wellington

First off was, Linux.Conf.Au 2010, which was held in Wellington this year, and organised by several people I've know for years (and a few other keen volunteers). In part due to the wedding meaning that I couldn't be at the full conference, I decided that I'd go as a "hobbiest" (the cheaper rate -- all other previous conferences I'd paid the full "professional" rate, even though I was paying it myself), and salve my conscience by volunteering to do various things to assist the conference organisers.

I spent three days during the week before the conference helping prepare things for the conference. Amongst other things our band of merry volunteers wrapped around 140 bottles of wine to give as gifts to speakers and organisers, packed over 600 "goodie bags" to be given to conference attendees and did a bunch of shopping for essentials and various "just in case" items ("two loud whistles" obtained from a hiking store). I also accepted delivery of a (metric) tonne of beer to be used at various events during the conference. The only directly IT related thing I did was upgrade and set up a bunch of VoIP phones to go at various strategic points for within-conference communication -- which gave me my first hands on look at the Snom 300 and 320 phones (as it happens I've actually configured them by hand before, even though I'd never touched one, since one of my overseas clients had them and I set them up through the network interface; this time the automated provisioning for them worked quite well when it was prodded along a bit, given a helpful start from the Catalyst IT folk).

Then on the Sunday before the conference all the organisers and volunteers converged on the conference venue to finish setting up. I'd offered to help out with setting up the network, so spent much of the day with the group fretting over the network link between the two buildings (Michael Fowler Centre and Town Hall). And running various network cables for temporary feeds of different sorts. It gave me a much better view of how the IT infrastructure in both buildings work (including the two main patch panels). The link between the two buildings eventually worked late in the afternoon thanks to a second loan of equipment from one of the sponsors (Citylink) allowing us to bring up the single mode fibre link that'd been run between the two buildings (across the covered walkway; it appears the network infrastructure in the two buildings is separate, hence the need to run our own link).

Monday was the start of the conference proper, and the first chance to catch up with both various LCA regulars who'd turned up, and a bunch of Wellingtonians who were getting to go to their first Linux Conference (all of whom seemed to thoroughly enjoy it). I shuffled back and forth between various miniconsfs, mainly the programming and distro summit ones -- I did try to pop in on a talk in the Ardiuno miniconf, but they didn't seem to be running to anything particularly close to their original schedule. (Some of the talks in the Distro Summit also suffered from the seasonal calm induced fog meaning that the speakers hadn't made it to the conference.)

On Tuesday Simon Lyall and I ran the Sysadmin Miniconf (James Turnbull who helped organise it ended up flying in on Friday due to work constraints). The talk from Paul Gunn, of Weta Digital, about building data centres was informative and an excellent start to the day -- well worth the effort that went into arranging it in the first place (anything associated with the movie industry is understandably paranoid about talking about things they're doing). It wasn't recorded (one of the conditions of getting the talk at all) so I hope everyone who was hoping to see it managed to get there (it seemed to be well received). The rest of the day also went quite smoothly particularly as we got more used to the AV system in the auditorium (if you're going to use headset mics then it helps to tape them in place on the speaker's face so they don't have to worry about them falling off; it helps to wave the floating mics at the AV guy before handing them to the person asking the question so they know which one to unmute). I think everything else should have been recorded and should be worth checking out. I ran across OpenVZ again today (as the basis of Parallels Virtuozzo) so do mean to look more closely at it (for what I'm doing I don't really need Xen -- which I've been using for a few years --and it seems increasingly likely to not be supported long term). Andrew Bartlett's talk on Samba4 also prompted enough questions to more than fill his time, even if Andrew Tridgall's cunning plan to move his flight to an earlier time and be there for the Samba talk ended up being defeated by flight cancellations.

Tuesday evening brought the speaker's dinner, to which I got invited as a thanks for my volunteering efforts. It was held at Te Papa, on the Marae, complete with a traditional welcome. I think it went well, and about half the speakers got up on stage to join in learning a haka. Naturally this got videoed and played at the welcome the next morning!

The remainder of the conference -- for me, Wednesday and Thursday -- mostly went by in a blur. The highlight of Wednesday was the HackOff, which was a team event answering various logic and data maniuplation puzzles with the use of (one or more) computer(s). Our team got through four of the six questions (as did several of the other teams), but got a bit stuck searching for a way to solve the fifth question -- it was fairly obvious when the answer was explained, and we were actually through most of the difficult steps when we ran out of time. Another team won due to answering the first four questions faster, but "a good time was had by all". Most of us retired to Mac's Brewery for dinner and a drink, which was my only "informal" social gathering of the conference (having it in your own town is rather different from when you're away from home and less inclined to just go off and do your own thing since you're away from your routine). (I'd intended to see "Code Rush", but by the time it came around, food took precedence. I guess I'll see it some other time.)

I also took some time to see the Killacycle which was at Te Papa for the weekend (the owner had been at one of the talks on the Wednesday) -- it's the fastest electric vehicle in the world, an electric drag bike. As a drag bike it's competitive, but not the fastest (there was also the fastest NZ drag bike there for comparision, which had been taking various Australian records) -- but it is much cheaper to run (around 20 cents of electricity, versus several hundred dollars of fancy fuel, per run).

Due to the next event, I missed the last day of the conference (Friday), and the Open Day that followed on the Saturday. Friday morning was instead spent packing, and then grabbing a taxi to the airport. Hopefully I can catch up on the interesting sessions from the recordings which should be up in the next month or so.

The Top of the South

Late Friday morning I flew to Blenheim (about a 35 minute flight) to attend a friend's wedding that afternoon. I rented a car from Apex Car Rentals (who I'd used before). It turns out that they service the Blenheim Airport out of Picton (about 20 minutes drive away) so their staff member arrived in a hurry, and it turned out they'd not brought a GPS unit with them -- so I couldn't rent one of those. The touring map of New Zealand I was given as a substitute was helpful for general guide to the Island, but not very helpful for finding my motel quickly. After a few false starts, and resorting to Google Maps on my phone to reorient myself, I did find the motel. Fortunately they did allow me the early check in that I requested in advance. So I was able to rush out and find somewhere for lunch (Sagai Japanese Restaurant), rush back to the motel and get dressed up for the wedding.

The actual wedding festivities began with a short ride on The River Queen, styled as a paddle steamer, down the river to the wedding venue -- Green Gables. The wedding was held outside in the gardens which made for a very nice venue (and it looks like it'd be a nice Bed'n'Breakfast to stay at). Fortunately the weather held for the afternoon so the outdoor wedding worked well (the heavens finally opened up around 7pm as we were sitting down for dinner inside). The reception was at the Montana Brancott Winery (warning: website has age check), with a local Jazz band, and was very pleasant. They even did a good job of catering to my food allergies, with additional special menus for those with food allergies. From what the driver and some of our party said, the Montana restaurant has been doing well at matching good food and wine so should be well worth a visit when in the area again.

There was a post-wedding BBQ on the Saturday at another winery, which gave a more relaxed chance to talk to more people (it turned out I already knew several of the people attending the wedding).

From there I drove to Nelson where I'd booked to stay two nights at a motel near the city. On the first evening I wandered around the city looking for somewhere to have dinner, and had a random group of young men drive by and offer fashion advice ("you should loosen your belt a notch or two"). Presumably they're taking the fact that WOW is based in Nelson to heart.

On Sunday I went to the WOW Museum, which is a curious combination of a fashion museum and a car museum. The two work together better than one might think at first glance, since both are about the "art" in something more often considered functional. The car collection is nearly as big as any other on display in New Zealand (eg, Southwards Car Museum), and has additional WOW costumes displayed in amongst it where they suit the theme. From there I went to Stoke and found somewhere to have lunch (what appeared to the the fancier of the two restaurant/bars there). My "sea run" salmon was definitely more flavourful than the typical salmon one gets in New Zealand, so I now understand why snottygrrl was complaining about salmon in New Zealand not being "like home" (which is primarily sea run rather than farmed salmon).

Since it was my only full day in Nelson I continued driving west, stopping in Richmond for a while to look around, and then carrying on to Motueka (wikipedia) simply to see more of Tasman Bay. It turned out to be an excellent choice, not only because of getting to see the "hippie" vibe of Motueka, but also because I found The Gothic (on dineout), which is a restaurant in a former church. Not only is it a dramatic venue, the menu indicated both Gluten Free and Dairy Free items. So I had to eat there. I filled in a couple of hours, and then had dinner. The food was as good as I'd expect in any big city, and well worth the trip.

On Monday, I went to "Possibilities: The Shop", because of the name (it was closed on Saturday by the time I arrived, and closed on Sunday). It has a wide range of items, from crystals through pagan supplies through a large range of books. I bought a couple of food books (a Raw Food recipe book, and an additive decoder). Which I followed with an early lunch at Mango, an "Indian Fusion" restaurant, because it bills itself as fast and healthy and seems a good concept.

My visitor map of Nelson indiciated the intriguingly named Centre of New Zealand, in a nearby park so I decided to take a look before I left Nelson. Unlike the name might imply (deep in the centre of the earth!), it turned out to be at the top of a hill -- which had been used as the starting trig point for surveying the South Island. The advantage of the climb up the hill was that it did give a good view across Tasman Bay and the surrounding area.

After that exercise, I then started my drive to Picton to catch the InterIslander back to Wellington. For a bit of variety just after Havlock I turned off the State Highway and took Queen Charlotte Drive (on newzealand.com). It was definitely a more scenic way to get to Picton, but substantial portions of the road are narrow, windy, and exposed (eg, little or no separation from the edge) so it needs to be driven in a concentrated fashion -- the 50km/h limit on what would otherwise be open road makes sense. I suspect driving from Picton towards Havelock would make for a more comfortable trip as it wouldn't be quite as exposed. I got into Picton in time to check in for the ferry, and return the rental car, but without much time to look around or stop for long to get something to eat. So I'll probably try to go back through Picton at some point and look around a little more (and also drive the Picton--Blenheim road, which I missed this time).

For a three day trip I did get to see a lot of the top of the South Island, most of which I'd not seen in about 20 years (family holidays used to involve the ferry and driving to Golden Bay and/or the West Coast, because that's where various grandparents lived -- but since I stopped going on those family holidays I'd only arrived into specific places in the South Island, by air).

The ferry trip back was extremely smooth (almost glass smooth), but rather cool since it was overcast most of the trip. I stayed outside on the front deck until we got through the Sounds, but it was cold enough that most people came out and went inside again pretty quickly -- including a group of four veteran motorcyclists who I'd assumed were dressed well enough for the weather. Despite intellectually knowing it, I was surprised just how far out through the sounds there were signs of settlement. Some of them are reachable via road from somewhere along the Havelock--Picton road (above), but others appear to be reachable only by boat. It's a little odd to think that 100 years or so ago, being reachable by boat was much preferable to reachable by land -- it was faster, more direct, and more comfortable -- because that really isn't the case now.

I did get some nice photos of Wellington as we came in through the heads and into the harbour, around the time the sun was setting. (I'd deliberately chosen that particular ferry trip in order to be coming into Wellington around sunset. Some of the photos in that directory are from earlier or later in the month -- the ones from the air are from the plane flight described below.) After a shuttle trip in the "roomiest shuttle in New Zealand" (a guy running a shuttle company with 7-seater van, rather than the normal 11 seater ones used) I got a chance to sleep in my own bed, and prepare for the final leg of the the journey.

NZNOG, in Hamilton

The third leg of the fortnight was NZNOG 2010, the "Network Operators" conference (for which read "ISPs" -- since anyone running an enterprise LAN would probably be a bit out of their depth and not find quite as much of use to them). This year for the first time in a few years I wasn't involved in running anything, so it was a more relaxing conference.

On Tuesday afternoon, after doing a couple of loads of washing and packing again, I drove to Wellington airport and parked in the long term carpark. Some calculation indicated that parking their for the duration of the conference would cost about the same as a one-way taxi trip from my house, making it a significantly cheaper option.

After watching the low fog over the airport anxiously, it turned out not to be an issue, and was starting to burn off by the time we took off. I wish I'd got some photos of it from the air though, as it looked very dramatic with cloud directly over the runway but the Southern Hills being above the cloud (alas, I'd left my camera in my overhead bag -- but I did see at least one other person taking photos out the windows).

The flight to Hamilton was uneventful, if somewhat long (over an hour in a turboprop plane, versus less than an hour Wellington to Auckland in a jet). After landing late afternoon I shared a taxi to the student accomodation, which all looked rather familiar even though I'd last been there about 5 years previously for an earlier NZNOG conference.

The social event of the Tuesday evening was a celebration of Australia Day sponsored by eIntelligo (run by Skeeve Stevens). They'd managed to luck into renting a huge apartment (3 bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, boardroom, large deck), and so threw a BBQ and invited everyone. It was an excellent venue, and they turned on some beautifully cooked food -- those Australian's do know their BBQ. My choice to walk there from the student accomodation did work out in the end, but took over an hour -- somewhat complicated by the fact that the bridge I'd intended on walking over turned out to be a road/rail bridge. But I think I still ended up with a quicker route than the taxi trip back, even if the taxi driver didn't agree. (Fortunately the rain held off in earnest until after I did get there walking, and then gave an impressive thunder and lightning display.)

I went to the Security Tutorial on Wednesday, run by one of the members of Team Cymru who is now based in Auckland (he originally worked in the Netherlands, for the police force). It was a good introduction to worms and botnets on Windows and how they could be introduced and detected. For me the most useful part was a chance to play hands on (in virtual machines) with some of the Windows tools for reverse engineering and process monitoring. I've read about these tools for years, but never had an occasion to actually use them since I'm using Linux and OS X on a daily basis only very rarely even touch a machine running Windows.

Dinner on Wednesday was a "Thursday Night Curry" style meal at the Royale Indian restaurant near the campus (within walking distance). They coped remarkably well with a crowd of 50 taking over their restaurant, and the banquet meal had sufficient choice that I got plenty to eat without much concern about my food allergies. They even managed to pretty much keep up with the Kingfisher Strong demands, although were down to Just In Time chilling by the time we got to mains. The heavens opened up again, with thunder and lightning, around the time we were preparing to leave. Various people called taxis to go to hotels in the city, and then some of the NZNOG organisers generously ferried people back to the student accomodation.

Thursday and Friday were the conference proper, which was run as a single stream. The two main themes seemed to be "OMG we have no IPv4 addresses left" (an unsurprising theme given that the time for making an orderly migration to the larger address space of IPv6 is running short), and "routing on the cheap" especially including WANDs experiments with Linux routing at 10GigE using Intel cards (it can do bidirectional line rate pretty much out of the box now, given a reasonable quad core processor -- something that used to require special ASICs). The various discussions of migrating to IPv6 were of use, especially around address space planning -- a bidirectional slice seems the optimal approach to leave the largest possible adjacent blocks; eIntelligo also have a particularly cunning trick to simply encode IPv4 addresses in your own IPv6 prefix and thus achieve quick migration in a manner that is easily recognisable to staff only familiar with IPv4 (with the idea of then doing a more sensible numbering plan later).

The official conference dinner was a buffet at the Performing Arts Centre (on the Waikato University Campus) on the Thursday evening, which made for a nice change from the Station Cafe/Bar used for the previous two NZNOG dinners in Waikato. The catering seemed quite good too, and I went away well fed again. Many of the attendees then went off to the Hamilton Casino, courtesy of one of the sponsors arranging buses, for a bit of socialising and gambling. But I passed because I've no interest in casinos, and a need for a little more sleep.

The Friday evening dinner was a return to the Royale Indian restaurant, this time with a smaller group of about a dozen. It was worth the second visit to get a chance to try some of the dishes not on their banquet menu.

Then after a quiet night and morning, I flew back to Wellington late morning. Interestingly Hamilton Airport has a departure tax ($5) which needs to be paid even for domestic flights (most other New Zealand airports only have/had departure taxes for international flights) -- and isn't included in the ticket price. So the one shop there seemed to sell at least as many $5 departure tax stickers as anything else in the shop. I managed to get some photos nice from the air on the way back (the night time shots are from earlier in the month) on the way back into Wellington.

Unfortunately on arriving back in Wellington I encountered various disadvantages of the long term parking: while there is theoritically a shuttle, in practice they were no where to be seen and the phone that was supposedly available to call the magic number to be collected by the shuttle wasn't at all visible; eventually I gave up and just walked, which involved following the road since there was no pedestrian shortcut. I then discovered that the parking ticket, which needs to be paid before exiting, was printed with ink that fades rapidly in the sun (even after only 4 days the ink had faded enough that the sole payment station wouldn't read the ticket). After several minutes of searching and both shuttle drivers -- who were parked in the shade by the exit -- it was eventually possible to gain access to the exit booth, and have them print a new ticket, and then pay and leave. (I'm not sure what one is supposed to do if the shuttle drivers don't happen to be resting in the shade -- possibly just get a new ticket at the entrance and pay the single day amount, since there isn't even a second machine to try out.) I'd probably use the long term parking again, but only when it's clearly much more economic to do so as they appear to have gone out of their way to make it as inconvenient as possible. (At very least if they are going to use ink that disolves in the sun, they need big warnings to keep the tickets out of direct sunlight -- unlike the normal approach of parking where one must leave the ticket clearly visible, or risk being towed away.)

Eventually I was able to drive home, unpack again, and enjoy the stunning day that Wellington had turned on.

Postscript

Immediately following all of this, on the Sunday, was a significant birthday for my father, to close out the month. So there was one more BBQ this time amongst extended family and various friends of my parents.