So this is the first view I got when I started getting settled into the hotel room for the evening. What a view! These are just some apartments and condos with a football/soccer stadium in the near distance, but it’s just a very pretty view. Lots of colors in the trees and pants, and those apartment buildings just look fantastic. I thought it was interesting that even the units above the second floor still have bars on the windows. I bet this place gets pretty rowdy after a match.

So these are the gardens outside the hotel. It’s a shame that I still never got to walk in them. They did a fantastic job of putting these gardens together, I really missed out there. The back gardens by the pool and the pool-house bar weren’t half-bad either. This hotel was well and truly impressive.

So after I got settled in the hotel, I was introduced to the two greatest fellas in all of Ubuntudom: John Riddel and Anthony Mercatante. We went about walking with a really nice South African guy by the name of Will (sorry, can’t remember the full name). We walked through the public square, around a river, and about some other parts of Sevilla. This was the only way I could think of to fight the jet lag. Well, as a midwesterner, this painter really surprised me. I can’t tell you how many films I’ve seen this scene in where there’s some random person painting out in a public square, but it was a real trip to see someone doing it for real.

To the left is the Cathedral outside the Royal Palace, and to the right is the entrance to the Royal Palace of the Spanish Royal Family. I’ve never seen a royal palace or anything like it before. I’ve seen quarters for British soldiers during the American Revolutionary War, but never a palace. This really was a treat.

So I’m going to just show you a bunch of photos from the conference now.
  

So later on I may put up more photos, but this is it for now. Enjoy.

I’ve also seen some of the completely awesome progress made with Free Software Flash players. I’ve seen both gnash and swfdec, and both of them seem rather good. We watched Tickle-Me Elmo on Fire on YouTube on Gnash, and I’ve seen Tonio_ watch some videos with swfdec. It all looks really cool and it seems like a rather high priority. We really need Free Software Flash players, so this is a really nice development.

I’ve been busy as well working on some stuff as well. The two things I’ll likely be doing for 7.10/Gutsy are some improvements to Adept (possibly looking at merging in version 2.1), and a KDE4 port of kde-systemsettings. This is all very cool stuff.

For those of you reading this from Illinois, I would just like to remind you that all of this, and more, will be discussed at manchicken’s house of hack on May 19th. Don’t forget to email ubuntu-illinois-rsvpATnotsosoftDOTnet to get the address and phone number. I hope to see you all there.

I arrived in Spain around 13:00 (UTC+2) on the 5th of May, and it’s kinda been insane since then. On the 5th me and three other folks walked all about Sevilla for about four hours.

I’ve seen some neat sites, such as this Cathedral (left) and the royal palace of the Spanish royal family. I’ve drank more beer in the last 48 hours than I normally drink in a month. Sevilla, Spain is full of some exceedingly neat people, and I highly recommend it as a tourist destination for those who dig neat history.

I’ve also met some very neat people, such as John “Riddell” Riddell (left) and Anthony “Tonio_” Mercatante (right).  These are the folks that really helped and encouraged as I got involved in Kubuntu in the first place, what a trip to actually meet them.  Riddell is from Scotsman and Tonio_ is from France, so with me being from Chicago I wasn’t certain if our paths would ever be crossed.

So far we’ve got what looks to be a very busy road-map including improvements for adept as well as systemsettings.  We’ve also been talking quite a bit about KDE4.  Nothing has been 100% decided on what we’re doing for Gutsy just yet, but I think folks will be quite pleasantly surprised with what’s going to be there.

I’ll try to get some more up here about the summit, but it’s difficult since the connection that is supposed to be in my hotel room is dropping packets left and right, preventing a DHCP lease.

Okay, I’m going to get back to trying to build Adept 2.1 now.  Check you all later.

By the way, while I love Willard Airport because they’re not crowded, comfortable, and smooth to get through, the University of Illinois has crappy wifi in the airport. I’d rather pay $2-4 for unlimited access rather than having to forward ports because UIUC blocks them.

Anyway, I make no promises, but I’m going to try to report a little bit from UDS-Sevilla with photos. This should be fun!