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LinuxFest Northwest is Coming in April (Video)
Jakob Perry, today's interviewee, is a volunteer who helps make LinuxFest Northwest happen. This is an event produced by the Bellingham Linux Users Group that "has been a tradition in Bellingham, WA since 2000." Bellingham is a small town about a 1.5 hour drive away from Seattle, and a shorter distance from Vancouver, Canada. Last year they had 1200 people. They have a core group of about 10 year-round volunteers, with as many as 60 participating in the event itself, many of whom are students at Bellingham Technical College, which is where LinuxFest Northwest is held.
There is a room dedicated to installing and/or troubleshooting installs for the whole event. Of course there is the vendor area showing whatever wares they have. Mostly it is sessions covering a broad range of topics. I saw Monty Widenius talk about MySQL upcoming features and such a few years ago. There was a session about how red light cameras actually work from a software and hardware point of view last year. Developing for this or that, embedded platforms and such. Generally one session for either KDE or Gnome and why they are either good or bad. There is an electronics area where they are showing 3D printers, Lego Mindstorms and that sort of thing usually. A guy I know does a whole day session demonstrating the automated beer homebrewing system that he made which utilizes Linux. He also supplies the home made beer and soda for the after party. Jeopardy style game session that I think is called Alpha Nerd. Most of the sessions are someone showing something they created to "scratch their own itch," such as the git based backup system session I saw either last year or the year before. It seems like there are usually 20-30 different sessions at least scheduled throughout the day, and a raffle drawing at the end with some great prizes. Also, the culinary department of the school has a great lunch, usually salmon, steak sandwiches, or some vegetarian option I can't recall, for a very reasonable price.
Bring a towel.
While most of you think that's a cute HHGttG reference (OK, it is...), this is the Northwest...it rains. A lot. An umbrella wouldn't be a bad idea. Really.
If you're staying in a local motel, AVOID THOSE LOCATED ON SOUTH SAMISH BLVD. The local cops keep all the crack-heads, tweakers and other various riff-raff confined to the daily/weekly/monthly motels along this street--no need for you to go looking for trouble, it will find you if you stay there for long. The better motels are located north of Lakeway Blvd. (including the Quality Inn right on Lakeway. It's one of those fancy ones). The one exception to this rule is the Shamrock Motel in North Bellingham--I hear more call-outs on the police-dispatch frequencies referencing this motel then any other address in Bellingham. Avoid it.
Bring an UP TO DATE street map, especially if you're going to be driving anywhere besides the Technical College--Bellingham has the most ill-designed street layout of any city I've ever been to, including San Francisco. Not going to vouch for Google maps or TomTom like devices either...really, get a map.
Bellingham is notorious for having the highest fuel prices in the Northwest. If you're driving in from the south, gas up at the Skagit Valley Casino--lowest gas prices in the area as it is on native lands (Upper Skagit Indian Tribe). They also have cheap, decent buffets. They're located 15 mins south of Bellingham. If you're driving in from the North, the same can be found at the Silver Reef Casino just north of Bellingham, west on Slater Dr. from I-5 (Lummi Indian Tribe).
Hope that helps.