The grand Summer of Code Mentor Summit of 2009 concluded last week and I had the fantastic opportunity of being able to attend on behalf of Gentoo, Plan 9 and Mozilla. What follows is some indication of how awesome the summit was:

(Photo courtesy of warthog from Etherboot)

I met so many folks I’d only interacted with online so far (the classic nickname-to-face matching), but even better was the opportunity to meet folks powering open source projects from so many diverse backgrounds. I met many of my personal rockstars, and learned about a bunch of open source projects I’d never heard of

Also, one of the things that is only possible at an event like the summit was the ability to get a whole bunch of non-linux operating system groups in one room. We had a great discussion, and it resulted in the creation of the “rosetta-os” special interest group. Look for more activity on the common device drivers for non-linux operating systems front soon!

Other sessions worthy of special mention were Open Source Security, Recruiting and Retaining Awesome People, Advanced Trolling (yes, you read that right), and of course the always welcoming Casablanca where I spent most of my time. We discussed everything from our SoC experiences to the Afro Celt Sound System in that room, always full of creative energy and warmth.

After 4 years of participating in the Summer of Code, I am super happy to have finally met the faces behind the program. Every single person I met over the course of last weekend was friendly, intelligent and just generally awesome; that sort of thing doesn’t happen by chance. I feel warm and fuzzy inside to think that I’m actually a part of the revolution that is free and open source software, three cheers to everyone that made it possible!

Today, after roaming the earth for 21 years depending on someone else to cook my food for me, I made a giant leap: I cooked my own meal. Right from buying groceries to cleaning up the dishes afterward

Here’s a picture of the modest beginning:

It looks a lot more delicious than it really was: just boiled vegetables with garlic bread – dressed with salt, pepper and a dollop of butter – rather bland for an Indian tongue. But, oh well, it’s a start

Another meme has begun:

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair… just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

My Goa trip was simply fantabulous. Apart from the fact that Goa is a great place for a vacation, I was accompanied by 7 of my college friends which made the trip one that I will cherish for a long time to come.We left Bangalore by bus on the 15th. The journey was pleasant and the view next morning was absolutely stunning:

The bus dropped us off at the Panaji bus terminus, and we took a shuttle from there to Vasco – where Ameya (our host) lived. After a nice lunch and a nap, we took off to the beach closest to base camp – Bogmalo. The beach was a quiet and clean with relatively few people around, which made it possible for us to play a game of beach football. We returned home after jumping around in a sea for a while.

We hired a couple of Activa’s the next day (this seems to be the norm for transportation in Goa) and reached Old Goa in an hour or so. We visited the really old church, which was really impressive – it also contained the remains of St. Francis Xavier. The archaeological museum next door was fun too, very informative about the history of Goa. We proceeded to the capital city of Panaji next, and after booking tickets for a river cruise aboard the Princess de Goa for the night, had lunch at the QuarterDeck.

After lunch, we visited Donapaula, a popular Jetty, which was unfortunately under renovation or something. The view was great though, and we enjoyed a nice little ride on the water scooter. After hanging out in Cafe Coffee Day for a while (These places are *everywhere*, I think they’re trying to become the Indian Starbucks :)) we reached the Panaji river coast to board the Princess de Goa. These river cruises seem to be a popular attraction, they basically consist of a few dance shows, a dance floor and an amazing view. We got to see the (in?)famous floating casino on the way too.

My Summer of Code mentor, Matt Lawless, happened to be in Goa too, so we scheduled lunch for the next day. We met at the Calangute post office (which was somewhat close to Matt’s home) and proceeded to the Calangute beach after lunch. My friends, meanwhile, reached the Baga beach, which was just next door to the Calangute beach (the two most famous beaches in Goa). We splashed around in the water for a while, joined by Matt, and then a second lunch

Matt decided to leave, and we went on to try some of the water sports at the beach. We went for a banana ride, a water scooter trip, but the one that took the cake was the parasailing. Nothing like a gentle ride in the sky to rejuvenate you. Flying over water with the beach behind you and the sunset in front is an experience I can’t put in words

The third and last day began with a long ride to south Goa, where we first visited the Benauli beach. This beach was beautiful, the sand was different than the others, and the most fun part was when I was buried by the others:

The rest of the day was spent at GoaKart, which was apparently a national Karting track. Parasailing was great, but karting was really the most exhilarating, especially because we raced and went for 4 rounds

Flickr didn’t let me upload more than 100MB of photos at once, so I moved to Picasa Web Albums instead. I wrote a small script: backr.py that uses James Clarke’s flickr.py to back up all my photos and uploaded them to Picasa Web, which allows me to create as many albums as I want (unlike Flickr). UPDATE: I finally got myself a Flickr Pro account, so pictures are back there again. This time I just used iPhoto to migrate

So, I guess that’s a few more items off my “list of things to do before I die”!