On board "Costa Meditteranea", early morning.

We joined the ship at Venice last night, an embarkation procedure that had us waiting 2 hours in a dockside warehouse to have our hand baggage security screened and to wave our passports and tickets at staff, but soon forgotten as we got on board, found our cabin, explored parts of this 10 deck floating "palace". I looked hard for a better word than palace, but couldn't find one. I wanted something that's over-the-top, new, people at your beck-and-call but with 900 staff and 2400 passengers, we don't have the exclusivity of a palace.

Sailed at 6, out between the islands and past St. Mark's, then on to a group meetup in the Rodeo bar. That's really why I'm here - a Geek Cruises styles as the Perl Whirl / Linux Lunacy / MySQL Swell, and so are perhaps 120 others. Surreal at the meetup to have Neil (in charge of the group) introduce a number of people from the Perl world. The guy a couple over from me turns out to be Rasmus Lerdorf, the originator of the PHP language that powers much of this website, and later I'm tongue-tied as we brush past each other. A little further over is Larry Wall, author of Perl which is the language in which this very application I'm writing in is written. Plenty more chances to meet, and I must remember I'm paying to see him and others speak, to ask questions of them, etc.

We're seated at tables of 8 in the restaurant, and Neil has placed many of the "Brits" together. Three eminent names at our table and a fascinating evening had by all. Notable that our table was the last to clear in the entire dining room, which must be significant of something though I know not what. And so to sleep, as the ship slides South down the Right Hand Side of Italy. MySQL sessions this morning and afternoon, and the port of Bari sandwiched in between. I had better post, wash, shower, and breakfast.
(written 2004-10-11 05:46:24)

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