VLUG Linux Lunacy Cruise Special Event: 2003-09-19

The September 19th Linux Lunacy Cruise03 VLUG event was a huge success. We have collected photos of the event here. We had about 20 cruisers and 70 or so locals turn out for the event at the University of Victoria. Having a group of Linux luminaries, including Linus (quite a coup for VLUG to have him attend), in our midst for a one-hour question and answer session was truly inspiring.

All the planning paid off and everything went perfectly. The ship arrived 4-hours early which enabled the cruisers to get a quick tour of Victoria from VLUG members in the daylight rather than darkness. The cloudy, rainy weather we had all week suddenly turned into blue skies and sunshine. Linus got a taste of Canadian beer at Spinnaker's Pub courtesy of Mark Ritchie, who won the "who gets to drive Linus" raffle and Anthony Howe, who went along for the ride and helped out as a tour guide. Once again the gods were smiling -- a table on a busy Friday night magically opened up overlooking Victoria Harbour.

The crowd size was just right, the question and answer format was ideal, and the questions were high caliber. There were questions on Perl, X, security, Mysql, the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). At the end of the meeting each panelist was asked what their first Linux distro was, which elicited interesting responses! It was a nice, Canadian crowd -- very respectful, with not all attention focussed on Linus. Linus was asked when the 2.6 kernel would be released -- maybe in two months -- said with the typical Linus shrug.

Linus has previously been asked virtually every question under the sun about Linux, but the crowd was pleased to surprise him with two new questions that stumped him completely; what is Tux's gender and could Linus demonstrate his voice? There was no answer on the first one except "keep that guy away from me!" and Linus said "I'd need a few more beers" before he would attempt to answer the second.

Carl Constantine, our intrepid Captain Meeting, ran a good, tight meeting, allowing enough time at the end for the autograph seekers. Barbara Irwin, Publicity Coordinator, had the honour of presenting Linus with a lifetime VLUG membership card, with an invitation to come back to Victoria and take advantage of member discounts in local computer stores. Thomas McVeigh, our Treasurer and resident geek jeweler presented Linus with a hand-crafted Tux lapel and tie pin.

We couldn't have pulled this off without all the help from many VLUG volunteers especially the drivers who gave our guests tours of Victoria before bringing them to the meeting. Thank you all! Special thanks to Mark Ritchie and Anthony Howe for entertaining Linus at Spinnakers -- a great choice :-); Carl Constantine for running the meeting; Daniel German for arranging an excellent venue; Terri Constantine for entertaining Tove Torvalds and family and Neil Bauman, of GeekCruises, who advertised our event and organized things from his end. Thanks also to our audience whose lively participation made for a special evening and to those who contributed pictures of this wonderful event.