I’m in Los Angeles after a long trip back. The power was out in the Sydney airport, which made my flight two hours late.

I just spent thirty minutes writing about it before my Boingo session timed out and ate my post. Dammit!

I get to Raleigh about 11PM tonight. That’s 22 hours straight of travel, thirty hours with little sleep.

More details after I smack Boingo around.

I’m down to my last 24 hours in Australia. I’m spending it bored out of my wits at this dreadfully slow trade show. Instead I’d rather be outside sailing this beautiful harbour. When I walked in after lunch a few minutes ago it looked like it was going to rain. Rain isn’t appropriate for my last 24 hours in the Land Down Undah.

Once I’m on my plane tomorrow I’ll have about 21 hours of travel to get back to North Carolina. It will take about 14 hours to hop the Pacific. The rest of the time will be spent waiting to get to Phoenix, then waiting to get to Raleigh. Joy. Australia is one reason I’m looking forward to Delta‘s nonstop service to Los Angeles, which begins in June.

More before I go. Cheers, mate!

It’s been a boring day and an eventful evening.

The Linuxworld trade show was only marginally busier today than yesterday. It didn’t have the thrill of doing a keynote speech. To top it off, the free wireless Internet we enjoyed yesterday was unavailable more of the day. Thus it was a long, boring day.

After the show, Gehan, Clinton and I walked over to a Darling Harbour pub and enjoyed a beer out on the pier. After hearing Gehan’s fascinating stories from his time in the Middle East, we parted ways. I hopped onto the tram for a ride back to the hotel.

I relaxed at the hotel until 8, at which time I was feeling pretty hungry. I wasn’t out for fancy food, but I wanted some scenery. I thought I’d head to The Rocks for the scenery and if there happened to be a fish-and-chips place I’d take care of the food part, too.

I hopped a train and was soon at The Rocks. Tempting as the sight of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House was, I kept my lens cap on and headed towards the restaurants and pubs.

I followed a couple into a bistro called Claude’s Kitchen, right inside the Observer Hotel. The huge plate of fish and chips I got for $16 AUD may well have been the best meal I’ve had in Australia. I had to order my dinner drink at the bar, so I walked up the mostly-empty bar and picked up a Killarney’s on draft. It instantly became the best beer I’ve had in Australia.

After I devoured my dinner, I heard music coming from the bar area. Wandering back I heard a guitarist playing in the corner. A crowd of voices began to sing along with whatever forgettable pop song he was playing. I turned the corner to see the bar now filled wall to wall with college-age students wearing lab coats scribbled with risque grafitti.

“Aha,” I thought. “These are the kids I saw wandering around outside when I walked in.” The flock had apparently chosen the bar I was in to roost.

“Uh, what’s the occasion?” I asked a nearby girl.

“It’s a university pub crawl,” she answered as she turned back to her friends.

I considered this a for a moment. I had pictures to take, so I thought of working my way through to the door. Then I got caught up in the revelre in the bar and settled onto a nearby bar stool.

A man was sitting across the barrel table obviously drunk out of his mind. He smiled crookedly and leaned over to my ear.

“Habarasheuhuni Amhahdigehhtal,” he slurred above the din.

I blinked. “Uh sorry, mate. Can you say that again?”

With a look of intent on his face, he slurred his words once again. The guy was falling-down drunk. After repeated attempts to decipher him, I figured out he was asking if my camera was digital. I told him yes, at which point he began to pose for a picture. Humoring the drunken fool, I snapped a picture.

He leaned over again. More slurring gibberish. The word hammered doesn’t do him justice. I shook my head until he began to gesture.

Ah! He wants a copy of the picture!

“Do you have an email address?” I shouted to him. A blitzed, blank look was the reply.

Sorry, dude. No picture for you.

I took a few more pictures of the crowd before deciding to head over to the Sydney landmarks on the water. Standing in my way was a hundred college students crowding around the bar. I was five feet from the door with no chance of getting there. I turned around and found my way out a side door.

As the crowd milled around the front of the bar, I again pulled out my camera and took a shot of the festive crowd. As I snapped the picture, I heard a voice beside me.

“Why are you taking pictures?” came the not-exactly-friendly voice. Had I known what was to follow I would’ve answered “I’m shooting pictures for Girls Gone Wild In Full-Length Lab Coats!” Alas, I did not.

“Because you just don’t see this kind of thing in the States,” I answered, looking up. Next to me were too mall-security types. One had a walkie-talkie microphone on his shoulder. I looked for badges but didn’t see any.

“Why,” I asked, sizing up the situation. “Is there something wrong?”

“Are you with them?”

“Uh, no. I’m an American tourist,” I answered. “I just wanted to capture this on film.”

“You can’t take pictures here,” one of them motioned. “Its to protect their privacy.”

I considered the privacy of a crowd of rowdy people on a public street, but gamely played along.

Then the other one leaned in. “There are females over there,” he said. I almost expected him to do the Monty Python “wink-wink-nudge-nudge” bit.

Oh my god!! He was right! There really were females over there, outnumberd by guys two-to-one in the crowd thirty feet away from me. If you squinted really hard, you could even tell!

This was ridiculous. Time to wind it up.

I feigned surrender. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know there some kind of law against taking pictures.”

“You can’t take pictures of the people,” the other one said. “But since you’re a tourist its probably okay.”

Whew. Nothing more embarassing than getting busted for a phony infraction by a pair of rent-a-cops.

They began to move on. “If a copper sees you,” said one, “he might question you. You can take pictures of the buildings, though.”

I walked away, too, my mind buzzing with the irony of it all. Here is a country that shows American movies practially uncut on network television – stuff that America doesn’t show on TV. Here’s a city with adult bookstores seemingly on every block. Nearby are beaches where women frequently sunbathe topless. If that wasn’t enough, prostitution is legal here! There are brothels right out in the open!

In spite of all the hedonism, I take one picture on a public street of college students dressed like clowns and whooping it up, and I get hassled for it? Doesn’t it follow that if you act rowdy and dress in costumes with racy writing, you’re pretty much trying to attract attention?

Just when I thought I was starting to understand this country it throws me a curve ball. Unbelievable.

I made it to the landmarks. I even took some great pictures. But I did so in a huff. Australia has a lot of things going for it, but I wouldn’t trade America’s freedom of the press for anything! Australia’s approach to modesty is schizophrenic, indeed. It looks like they’ve got some issues to work out.

I just got word that Wesley Swanson is now here! He arrived at 12:25 early Wednesday morning, weighed 8 pounds, one ounce and measured 20 3/4 inches long. Mom, Dad and Baby are doing fine.

As if I didn’t have enough reasons, now I’ve got one more incentive to hurry home. Welcome, Wesley!

I understand that my new nephew, Wesley Neil Swanson, may be born any minute now. It’ll be nice being an uncle again.

Even though I’m on the other side of the planet, I still expect some pictures. Okay, folks? 🙂

No sooner had I written my post about the time zones than I proved the point. The displays on the tram I took to the trade show were all one hour behind, having set themselves back on the original standard time date.

What a mess!

Today was another working day for me: my first day at Linuxworld Australia. It’s the first time that Linuxworld has done a show in Australia, and it shows. There are about forty exhibitors here, tops. It makes the 1999 Linux Expo show in Raleigh seem huge by comparision. That’s not an easy thing.

Even so, there were more exhibitors walking around than attendees. I could probably count on one hand how many decent leads we had today. When I would see someone walking up, often it would be people who had visited before. It was really, really slow. Not the kind of thing I would’ve expected from Linuxworld.

The vendor across the aisle brought in his sixteen month old daughter for a visit. I couldn’t look at her without thinking of my wonderful family back home. Instantly I became homesick. Sure I’m having fun but boy do I miss my family!

I was a keynote speaker here, which is a first for me. The organizers fit me into the last slot for the day. I spent some time working on my presentation and was ready to go when the time rolled around. At 4:45 I took the stage. While my laptop was being set up for the projector, I took a step towards a table and stepped into space instead. The old show business saying “break a leg” almost applied to me. I wasn’t hurt, so I took it as a good omen.

The show misplaced my bio, so I didn’t get properly introduced. The regular emcee was nowhere to be found so Brian, another show organizer of about retirement age, was there instead. The guy ahead of me took longer than his time so I began early. By the time I was ready to go, I looked out on rows of empty seats. Five people were in my audience.

Bummer.

I sighed, smiled, and jumped into things anyway.

My talk was short but sweet. I made the most of my twenty minutes, putting in some observations about geeks with talk of product features. I burned through fourteen slides, most of which were just there to dress up the blank screen behind me as I initially didn’t plan for any slides. I’d initially planned to show the demo site next but the lack of audience and the late hour made me end things first.

I got some applause. Then the meager audience dispersed and I was alone with Brian.

“No worries, mate,” Brian said to me. “We’ll get you a spot tomorrow or the next day. People often cancel.”

I smiled and wandered back to the booth, pleased with my presentation but depressed at the audience. The guys in the booth told me “nice job,” but it was little comfort.

Eventually I cheered up. The size of the audience was completely out of my control. You’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt, and I did the best I could with what I had. Perhaps I’ll get a better timeslot should another chance arise.

We all went upstairs to enjoy drinks and h’or deurves while Linuxworld presented their “best of show” awards to vendors. Gehan, Clinton, and I spent most of our time on the patio, where they smoked cigarettes and I took in the skyline.

Brian saw me wandering around looking for a beer. “No worries, mate,” he said again. “I’ll take care of ya.” Later I looked up from taking pictures of the city to see Brian making his way through the crowd, looking for me. Each hand held a beer, which he shoved into my hands.

“I told ya I’d take care of ya,” he said with a wink. I thanked him and grinned all the way back to the patio. That was just what I needed.

Gehan and Clinton didn’t feel like going out, so we then went our separate ways. I took the tram back to the hotel, where I spent two hours fighting the broken Internet service there. Finally throwing in the towel, I packed up my laptop (called a “notebook” here) and headed over to an Internet cafe owned by the marketing partner of my company. Now I’ve got a comfy couch to write on and a high-speed connection from which to upload pictures. Check out the gallery for the Linuxworld pictures.

The ubiquitous Jon “Maddog” Hall was there, as he usually is for each and every Linux trade show. I got my picture taken with him, just for fun.

In another interesting coincidence, a gentleman walked up to me at the party and introduced himself. His name was Mark Turner. Remember how I kept meeting Marks and the last trade show I attended? Now its the last name, too. I took a picture of the other Mark Turner and enjoyed chatting with him. You can’t help but like Mark Turners.

Tomorrow should be better at the show. I suppose people are beginning to notice, as I’m told over 2,000 online registrations were received today to attend the show. Hopefully there will be some good leads there. Just a couple of sales can make it all worthwhile.

Now its off to bed. Check in again in the morning, mate. Good on ya. Fair dinkum. Cheers, etc…