There’s still time to register for Southeast LinuxFest. Space at the Comfort Inn, the offical SELF hotel, is running low but there are still rooms in the SELF block available.
The list of speakers includes notable names from Zenoss, Google, Redhat, Fedora, Digium and others. There will also be breakout sessions that will cover topics of interest to anybody involved in using open source. Whether you’re a hardcore Linux/Opensource geek or new to the whole opensource world, SELF will have something for you. Check out the exhibitors to find out more about them or meet other like-minded users and see what they’re doing with Linux/OSS.
SELF is free to attend, but if you register as a paid supporter, you’ll also get the spiffy SELF shirt.
Plans to meet at Harbor Grille prior to tonight’s showing of Star Trek at the Hippodrome got me thinking about the first Lowcountry blogger meetup, which was held there (it was Toucan Reef back then). Delving in to my blog archives, I discovered that tonight’s meetup almost coincides with the third anniversary of the very first Lowcountry Bloggers meetup.
If anybody’s interested, I propose that to celebrate the third anniversary of blogger meetups (you Tweeters can come too) we all return to the scene of the crime for an anniversary meetup.
I have exciting news to share! Recent findings of DeBordieu, 320-pound adult female loggerhead of the Aquarium’s Turtle Hospital since October 2007, have caused us to make some quick decisions concerning her release. DeBordieu is currently producing follicles (yolks) in preparation for the nesting season that is just around the corner. Just in the last week, she has gone into migratory mode with almost constant swimming. She is also completely refusing food. I have just learned that adult female loggerheads have a very small window of mating receptivity. Before and after the small window, the females actually repulse the males. In light of this information, it is very important that DeBordieu get released as soon as possible so that she does not miss that mating window. Mating will allow her to fertilize the follicles and ultimately lead to a productive nesting season. Current water temperatures are in a safe range, especially for an adult animal of Deb’s size.
DeBordieu will be released on Saturday, May 2nd at the Isle of Palms (IOP) County Park at 10am. I hope that you will be able to join us for this release, even with the short notice. The IOP County Park parking lot opens at 9am and parking fees will apply. An extra day will be added to the hospital tour schedule this week so folks can get a chance to see Deb before the Saturday morning release (Wednesday, Thursday or Friday at 1pm). Including Deb, there are currently 9 patients in the Turtle Hospital. Tour information can be found on the Aquariums website at www.scaquarium.org.
The release will be wonderfully timed with the start of sea turtle season in South Carolina. The majority of SC barrier island light’s out ordinances start May 1 and loggerhead nesting begins soon after.
Had a great time at CREATESouth today. There were some excellent keynote talks given by Tiffany Trent on creativity and writing, and Tee Morris on the “social” in social media.
The keynotes were followed by a delicious BBQ lunch prepared by Andre Pope
Andre Pope chopping up BBQ porkBBQ lunch
Following lunch were the breakout sessions, organised into 4 different tracks: Community, Writing, Media and Art. I started off with the Writing track and Marsha Guerard’s talk on editing, which I quite enjoyed.
Then popped over to the Community track to catch Chuck‘s talk about organizing groups using Meetup.com and Jared‘s meme talk.
Caught part of Kreg Steppe’s presentation on digital photography where he talked about what’s ok and not ok to photograph, and Creative Commons licensing. A very informative session. Wish I had made it in earlier to catch the first part of his talk.
The final session of the day was the discussion panel in the Community track about geographic communities. There was a pretty good discussion about how the media was starting to use Twitter and some of the benefits and challenges in getting meetups going so that people participating in social media can get together and meet in person.
Community track discussion panel
Overall I had a great time at CREATESouth, meeting and putting faces/voices to more people, and came back a little more refreshed and energized than when I went.
