Author: Darcy Casselman

I went to the first [Ignite Waterloo](http://ignitewaterloo.ca) event last night. Ignite events have been around for a while, but this was the first time we had one in Waterloo. And it was amazing. The premise is you get smart, talented speakers and give them 5 minutes each. They have to prepare 20 slides and they automatically change after 15 seconds.

For the speaker, it’s both a great challenge and a lot of fun (or possibly terrifying, but they *seemed* to be having fun). For the audience, it’s illuminating and never dull. Speakers covered a whole range of diverse topics, from solving Rubic’s Cubes to dealing with economic development in Africa.

Oh, and there was a cupcake decorating contest, too.

What I found amazing is how many people I recognized there from all sorts of different things. Kwartzlab, of course, Communitech P2Ps, Devhouse Waterloo, BarCamp, DemoCamp, etc., the Royal Medieval Faire, work, online… Normally those lines don’t cross very much. It’s really gratifying to see some of these groups come together.

A whole bunch of other bloggers have already posted their rave reviews of the event. Here’s just a few:

* [Fellow Kwartzlabber, DW](http://kwartzlab.ca/blog/dw/2009-11-26/ignitewaterloo-was-fantastic) (You might recognize one of the photos).
* [The Ignite Waterloo blog](http://www.ignitewaterloo.ca/2009/11/that-certainly-worked-out-well/)
* [rQ](http://readqatalyst.blogspot.com/2009/11/ignite-waterloo.html) (with [a follow-up about cupcakes](http://readqatalyst.blogspot.com/2009/11/cupcake-camp-my-personal-favs.html))
* [b.p.’s awesome sketchy notes](http://picasaweb.google.com/bpfotos/IgniteWaterloo09#)
* [wendyhoo](http://wendyhoo.posterous.com/ignite-waterloo-was-a-sweet-affair-ignitewate)
* [cutegecko](http://www.cutegecko.ca/blog/3090-we-attended-ignite-waterloo-and-all-i-wrote-was-this-lousy-blog)
* [a bunch of photos](http://www.brightlightsphotography.ca/galleries/ignite/)
* And, of course, [the twitter stream](http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ignitewaterloo).

I hear a rumour there will be another one in the spring. In the meantime, the amazingness of Ignite gives me great hope for [TEDxWaterloo](http://www.tedxwaterloo.com/) in February.

[Kwartzlab](http://kwartzlab.ca) is a club, a collective, a shared idea, and a place. The idea sprang up when [Mike Hiemstra put out the call on his blog](http://mghiemstra.com/our-area-needs-a-hackerspace) back in March. Since then, folks got together, had lots and lots of meetings, incorporated, leased some space and have been spending the last few weeks turning a little bit of the old Boehmer Box Factory into a place where people can go, commune with like-minded folks and make stuff.

Tonight’s the [Grand Opening](http://kwartzlab.ca/events/2009-10-01/kwartzlab-grand-opening).

I’ve been sort-of involved since the beginning. I’m a member, ‘cuz I really want this thing to take off. Just being around these folks is really inspiring, and I’m hoping I can contribute something to the group.

Come check out the space tonight. They’ve put a lot of work into it and it’s night and day from the way they found it. See some cool projects, and chat with some great people. It’ll be a lot of fun.

Let’s clear out some links and ideas and things with a bullet post.

* Things have been a little hectic lately. Hence no posts. Sorry about that. Have to get back into the habit of posting regularly.
* Also, recent job searches have reinforced my inner critic. I’m settling in at Open Text, and people are really cool here, so I think I can relax a bit and get back to posting.
* Got back from [Liz and Chris’ wedding](http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=8429388892536875) last night. It was lovely, and I’m glad Ellen and I could be there. And it was awesome to get the gang back together.
* For reasons to complicated to go into here, Ellen and I stayed stayed over night in Montreal.
* All in all, I drove about 1800km this weekend. I think that’s a record. I’m still recovering.
* One nice thing is I’m now all caught up on [Big Finish Doctor Who audios](http://bigfinish.com).
* Went to TIFF the previous weekend (and briefly the one before that). Saw three movies: [The Trotsky](http://www.northernstars.ca/titles/2009/the_trotsky.html), [Bad Lietenant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Lieutenant_%282009_film%29) and [Ong Bak 2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong_Bak_2). All three were good in their own way. The Trotsky was wonderful.
* Helped out with the [Royal Medieval Faire](http://www.royalmedievalfaire.org/) again, just doing little volunteer jobs. May or may not do it again next year. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on right now. Speaking of…
* [Kwartzlab](http://kwartzlab.ca)! I’m a member, and haven’t been quite as involved in the initial build-out as I wanted to be. The grand opening is Thursday! And I can’t go. *insert frowny face*. But! I’ve got some cool project ideas I need to find time to work on.
* I’m working on [throwing together](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity/RunningReleaseParty) a [release party for Ubuntu 9.10](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicReleaseParties) in the ‘Lab.
* Tonight I’m debating whether I should help out at the ‘lab, go to [DevHouse](http://devhouse.postrank.com/) or get groceries. I think I have to get groceries. :/
* A bunch of other stuff happened since Worldcon (the subject of my last post), but you should probably just be following me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/flying_squirrel) for bullet-equivalents. Just check the sidebar!
* Anything you’d like me to write about?

Ellen and I had been planning the trip to [Worldcon in Montreal](http://anticipationsf.ca/English/Home) for two years, and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like a short bout of unemployment stop us. Fortunately, I got the offer for a job at [Open Text](http://www.opentext.com) the Thursday before we left for Montreal. Which was a huge relief, but led to some scrambling to deal with all that paperwork while I was trying to relax at a little bed and breakfast in the McGill ghetto. We managed to sort all that out fairly well, though. Thanks to Dawn and Dan and David who put up with my desperate requests to track down someone to witness contracts for me. Especially David, who was gracious enough to sign even though he’d just driven in from the Maritimes. I owe him lunch sometime.

Ellen went to Worldcon in Toronto in 2003 and loved every minute. She was really the driving force behind us going when it came to Montreal. A bunch of our friends initially made plans to go but ended up selling their tickets for one reason or another. I might have done the same, if it were just me. But I wanted to go to this thing with her, hang out, go to panels and readings and so forth and just share the experience.

Plus, I really needed a vacation. I hadn’t had an actual vacation since 2007, and I hadn’t taken two solid weeks off in… I can’t remember how long.

Two weeks in Montreal: time enough to settle in before the con and to give us time to recover afterwards. We stayed at [Castel Durocher](http://users.openface.ca/~durocher/), a lovely little place Ellen had stayed at before, when she was in Montreal for an EWB conference. They were very accommodating and brought me croissants and chocolate.

Worldcon itself was an experience. Unfortunately, we ended up missing out on a lot, since the building it was in didn’t agree with Ellen’s allergies. But we did get a pretty good taste of Worldcon, I think. Ellen bought lots of books, I got to go to a couple parties and see the Hugo awards. We went to readings and panels and got to sit at a table and chat with [[wiki:Mike Resnick]] and [Paul Cornell](http://www.paulcornell.com/). I greatly enjoyed it, and would happily do it again, particularly with Ellen along. I don’t think we can make it to [Australia](http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.php?pageNum=0&pageID=hom) next year, tho.

Upon reflection, Worldcon strikes me as being more or less like [Ad Astra](http://ad-astra.org/), except about ten times bigger and with more authors you’ve maybe heard of.

Anyway, the second week in Montreal was mostly spent looking for food, exploring the city and generally relaxing. I got to meet up with [Dan](http://clone-army.org), chat about what he’s been up to and check his place out. And then we had to go. I wish we had more time, and I’m now wondering why it took me so long to visit Montreal.