Anthony Chu

Another long day at the conference… we went to four sessions and did some hands-on labs.

The breakfasts remained a shameful exercise in frugality, although Matt noticed that those who requested “special” meals were given fruit and hot breakfasts. I guess fruit is “special” here in America. The lunches, on the other hand, are slowly getting better… yesterday we had some decent pulled pork sandwiches, and today there was a rather delectable crawfish pasta salad. I actually went for seconds!

Not as much fun stuff going on today as it was the first full day of sessions and we made sure we took full advantage by attending all five timeslots from 8am till 6:15pm. The content and presenters were quite good; I feel much smarter now.

There were marginal improvements to the breakfast and lunch but they remained quite unimpressive.

The first day of the conference got off to a rough start when I missed my alarm and got up late. Then we were greeted at the conference centre with the weakest breakfast in the history of weak conference breakfasts. This is literally all they had to offer...

It turns out Bourbon Street is only really crazy on Saturday nights, so there's not a whole lot do in New Orleans today. But fear not, as there's a lot of food waiting to be eaten, and that's what we did.

We started the day with breakfast at Cafe du Monde. We had their world famous beignets. They are French donuts smothered in icing sugar and they were really good...

The lineup at Cafe du Monde

We checked in at the hotel and headed out to Bourbon Street. It was still daylight and it was already starting to get rowdy. We had dinner and then walked up and down the street again. By that time it was getting pretty crowded. It's a pretty crazy place.

The big question (maybe the only question) before we got here was "do people flash for beads on Bourbon St when it's not Mardi Gras?"... and I am here to report that the answer is YES! And no we didn't get any photos of that; but here are some others...