"The 2nd Annual Home Server Show Meetup" in Indianapolis Indiana October 20th 2012
The original article announcing my plans to attend this tech-fest weekend found here, with group photo and Google Hangout recording at the end of this article. This article was extensively revised on Oct. 22: please consider reading it again, since a lot has been fixed and added.
Friday October 19th 08:26am
Delta Robot Lady:
Thanks to some weather related changes, the Delta automated system called my Ooma landline, informing me of my new flight to Atlanta, which was to land 5 minutes after the flight to Indianapolis that I was trying to connect to. Hmm. Also strange that the CallerID on my phone showed United.
Next update to the itinerary arrived less than an hour later, completely new route, the longer way to Indianapolis, seen pictured above. But hey, still landing only 2 hours late, not a big deal, although I'll probably be missing the opportunity for a ride from the airport from friendly fellow homeservershow.com/forums enthusiast Joe_Miner, aka, John Stutsman.
Delta iOS App:
The Fly Delta iPhone App seemed to work well enough to also keep me up to date. Curious, if I hadn't printed a boarding pass from the kiosk when arriving at the airport, how would TSA handle that? In other words, I could show the Delta apps electronic ticket on my iPhone, but they usually check the driver's license, and scribble stuff on the paper boarding pass. And no Passbook support yet from Delta
Internet Speeds, while traveling:
Good speed on the tethered connection (USB to Lightning connector on iPhone 5) sitting at BDL airport terminal, 2 bars of LTE signal
on Verizon, using my laptop for the test:
Here's the "real 4G" speed on the iPhone 5, while on the ground, in the plane, 3 bars of LTE signal, in the pouring rain:
And finally, from right up here on the Delta flight, using Gogo in flight WiFi, my laptop again:
In Flight Internet:
Glad to be enroute right now, blogging from 36,000 feet over Canada:
flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL5545
and certainly looking forward to meeting a bunch of people I've only met via Google Hangouts, such as this one I did at 36,000 feet:
TinkerTry.com/hangoutfrom36000feet
As soon as I fired up the browser and went to anything Google-ish, saw this:
Went and confirmed indeed that was me from that IP (or my plane anyway), then my Google is happy again:
Got some food in MSP, and enjoyed a hangout from my next plane, while we waited around for 40 minutes for a replacement pilot to get to Indianapolis. Was interesting to join a Hangout by Jim Collison, who was literally still on the road, while I sat on the runway aboard the plane. Yeah, I used lots of LTE, and about 15% of my battery in about 15 minutes, not bad at all really. You can see my battery go down in the sequence of photos below, actually, as I fumbled to find my earbuds so I could actually hear, and be heard.
Finally landed, what an impressive, huge, and very clean new airport, wow!
John Stutsman very kindly made a separate trip from the hotel just to pick me up, ~45 minutes each way. Very shortly after check-in, it's off to a brief Fry's visit, right before closing, a mini-meet-up:
Saturday October 20th 10:00am
The Home Server Show Second Annual Meet-up, Hotel Indigo, Indianapolis, Indiana
Verizon LTE looking good here in here, even with just 2 bars signal:
In addition to David McCabe Windows Server discussion and Synology DS211+ presentation, and Jim Collison's presentation on TonidoPlug, we were also treated to John Stutsman as a special guest presenter as well, talking about his remarkable Colossus build described here:
homeservershow.com/a-server-build-with-a-ga-z77x-ud5h-in-a-lian-li-pc-k9wx.html
His casual mention that Colossus was using Hyper-V to run over 2 dozen VMs live during the demo garnered a round of well-deserved applause, and praise throughout the Home Server-land.
We enjoyed a tasty lunch with Dave and his family, who helped set up the impressive spread. This lunch was sponsored by Drobo. Awesome barbecue, thank you McCabe family and Drobo!
As the afternoon sped by, the bits kept flying over the Google+ Hangout.
So as we wrapped up at 4pm, the discussion about using the Fry's $5 discount cards that every attendee got became reality, as we headed across the parking lot, getting there by foot, in a nerd herd.
Then off to the local Fashion Mall at Keystone, where the new Microsoft Pop-up Store was spotted. Having nothing in stock doesn't phase us.
We then topped off this fine evening at the local Steak & Shake, with, what else, shakes, and very good conversation.
Sunday October 21th 10:00am
John Stutsman drives me the 50 minutes to the airport, at least this time, it was on his way home. Thanks again, John!
Waiting online at security, with all the signs about the new TSA App, figured I'd try it out:
Back in the air, easy to get back online with Gogo Inflight WiFi, since I prepaid for the WiFi for just this journey, back when I booked this trip weeks ago.
Noticing the contrails of the many flights got me curious, ran the FlightAware App, really very nice, love it:
Couldn't help but photograph this bit of legacy stuff at ATL, before racing to find fast food.
All flights were on time, got from door to door in just 8 hours, connecting via Atlanta. Sure beats the 11 hours it took to get there.
I like to visit new states, and meet new and old people. That came out wrong, but you know what I mean. Having been to about 30 of these 50 states, mostly for my day job, I found Indiana to be quite hospitable. Admittedly, my impression may be a bit skewed, given how nice the particular group of people I were with truly are.
Another good thing about travel is returning to my home. And what a magnificent flight back in, fall foliage vividly illuminated by the golden setting sun, actually flying about 2 miles over my house and loved ones. Just really cool, and a great way to cap-off a terrific weekend.
Don't forget to also join The Home Server Show on Wednesdays at 8:30 Central Time, for a live recording with open chat:
homeservershow.com/live
