Here comes the busiest conference time of the year - September. Apart from school starting, which probably merits its own posting (assuming I can ever get back into the swing of regular writing on this blog), there are any number of conferences to attend this month and next.

This month, I've got plane tickets to hit Columbus, Ohio for the Habari Party -- an event whose name I'm not fond of, but is good enough for the purposes of celebrating the third year of Habari development. It sure does not seem like it's been that long. While I'm there, I'll also be popping by the Columbus PHP Meetup chapter with skippy to pitch Habari in some fashion.

I've been trying to coordinate a few other plans. The weekend of Ohio Linux is pretty tight. Mom is going to be at the beach house that weekend, and I'm not sure if that's the weekend everyone will want to go down. Also, my coworkers are trying to coordinate some kind of canoeing event on that day in preparation for our race in October. So there is some contention for the date. If things go as they usually do, I'll end up sitting at home in front of the PC that weekend, paradox of choice and all.

October looks to be pretty busy, too. We're hopefully going to plan a Halloween party in lieu of this year's somewhat canceled birthday BBQ. BlogWorld is in October on the same day as CPOSC. CPOSC is cheaper and local, but of less overall interest to me, espcially since my proposal for presenting was turned down. Then again, going to Vegas alone again seems... questionable.

I suppose over the next five days I should think about what it would be useful to say to two groups of people about Habari. First, the group that doesn't know what it is but knows PHP, then second, a group that knows what it is but doesn't necessarily know PHP. Crazy.

The end of September is going to be an interesting time. I had been planning to go to Ohio again this year for Ohio LinuxFest since I went last year. It was at this event that Habari was born, when I first met Chris and Rich in person, and got to tour Columbus with veteran tour guide, Skippy. It's exciting to get together with these guys again after a year has passed to support Linux, Open Source, and Habari.

So I was looking online, remembering BlogPhiladelphia and the experience there. I remembered that BlogOrlando was happening very soon, and noticed that it's the day before LinuxFest. On a lark I created a trip itinerary in Expedia to fly out of Philly for Orlando, then go directly, from Orlando to Columbus, then come home. The price of the ticket (all legs of the journey with only one layover in DC on the way to Ohio) was a mere $243!! Considering that it would take me 9 hours to drive from here to Columbus, and then I'd do it again on the way back, I'd be spending a good percentage of that in gas alone. If I flew, I'd ditch the driving and get to spend that day in Florida with friends and bloggers. No brainer?

So I booked the trip. I'm not going to be around for Thursday dinner or Saturday EPCOT (!), but I'll be there for most of the unconference, handing out what bit of Habari swag I can reasonably stuff into my carry-on. And then on Saturday - the big day - we have a table at OLF for Habari where we'll be asking questions about what people want in their blog software and providing demos. It should be a grand time.

Skippy has generously offered to pick me up from the airport and lodge me for the Ohio trip, which is great. I'm looking forward to meeting Sean and Michael while I'm on the road, but if you're at either of these events, keep an eye out for me and say "hi"!