Linux.conf.au is an epic in conferences. I’ve tried doing a full wrapup, or just focussed on one part. I might have accidentally skipped a year (whoops).

But this time, I want to focus on just one day[1]: Thursday. The day that was very, very weird. Thursday.

Late Wednesday I was approached by one Mr Jack Skinner, who had a gleam in his eye, and I knew I was going to get asked very nicely if I wanted to volunteer for something.

That turned into being on a panel. A panel about Spectre/Meltdown. A panel with Jess Frazzelle.

To say that I didn’t absolutely geek out would be a lie. I did. It was wonderful.

Later that day I would find myself on zdnet, having been written about because Stilgherrian (yes, that Stilgherrian) was in the audience. (And I tell you what, if seeing this tweet didn’t remind me of being called to the Vice Prinicpal’s office…)

But my day wasn’t over yet. Pockets were to come.

LCAs are held in different cities every year. I live in Sydney, and LCA was in Sydney, and thus I had the honour of being a local. Which meant I could do things like not have to book a hotel room for the event, and bring in a sewing machine at a moments notice. Which I did. Twice.

Thus PocketBOF was held for the second time; a Birds of a Feather session in which we discussed the history of pockets and added pockets to items of clothing.

It was also a lovely opportunity for someone who knew how to sewing machine to give me a crash course on the sewing machine I had acquired from my mother’s garage but had not used yet.

And then that evening I got to have gin with the lovely Donna and Dr Garrett, a thing that I have wanted to do for quite some time, and now can finally tick off my bucket list. Which is also relevant because the gin venue we went to offered gin served in a bucket. None of us took up this option.

Thursday was an lovely day, and it’s just one of those days where apart from presenting a talk and watching the Keynote, I did not attend a single talk. This was pure, unadulterated hallway track, at it’s finest.

It’s these sorts of days that organisers want people to have. Where the forming of these communities and having stages for their annual migration to different parts of the world is more important than the tech flavour of the year.

This is what makes LCA great.

[1] Tuesday is covered in this article