Wayne D's Blog

Day 1 of the inaugural Nvision conference is done for me. I spend 5 hours in keynotes and boy am I sick of sitting. I saw lots of very cool and interesting demos. Nvidia spent the afternoon going over all the neat new stuff they had. I did have one brush with celebrity when Tricia Helfer did an autograph signing and meet and greet before the first keynote. I decided that I might as well stand in line since there was nothing else to do as the conference sessions hadn't started yet. The result is the picture at the top of this post. I missed my chance to see Leo Laporte, he showed his ultimate game machine while I was in of the aforementioned keynotes.

I won't comment on my opinion of the technology because my employer spent good money to send me here and you aren't getting it for free. One thing I will say is that I was disappointed to see Nvidia had hooked it's mobile horse to the Window's mobile bandwagon. I haven't heard anyone who is particularly happy with Windows mobile and to ignore Rim, Nokia and Android as possible platforms for Nvidia's mobile future is shortsighted. The speaker seemed to suggest that Windows Mobile was the only full service O/S available in the mobile space. Sorry, I'm not buying that. When speaking about the rich media experience on mobile devices he also glossed over the fact that the U.S. has no reliable high speed mobile data network. The guy sitting beside me at the keynote was so unhaopy with the 3G performance on his new iPhone that he had disabled 3G. Until the last kilometre problem is solved in the mobile space mobile computing is vapourware.

That's it, there is no more.

I'm home now and I thought I'd wrap up with some thoughts from the last night. Crowfoot good, David Roth very good, The McDades very, very good. I wouldn't classify the set they put on as classical folk music but it was great. It reminded me of improvisational jazz with a fiddle. Unfortunately their website uses a flash navigation bar which has confounded my Linux Flash 10 player so I can't see if they have any music samples to embed. update August 19th I was up too late and forgot to check reverbnation which has a handy tune widget for the McDades which is at the bottom of this post. Click play and see what you think. I am very happy with their CD which I am listening to as I write this.

My pictures from the weekend are here, not to many but some nice ones I think. I have went through the ones I took and tried to fix the brightness, contrast and rotation on the worst offenders. I have come to the realization that I need a more sophisticated camera and a zoom lens so I can more carefully control the exposure. The camera I have doesn't meter scenes the way I want it to and the viewfinder doesn't show the full image extent.

I forgot to mention the fire Poi spinners from Saturday night, they were very impressive.

Spectators also add colour to the site, both literally and figuratively. Men in kilts, there were at least two, perhaps three. These weren't you dress up tarten kilts but regular solid colour kilts. I also have to mention the young mother with dreads and the conical straw hat. As she pushed her carriage through the gap in the 2 metre high wild grasses heading down to the beach I received echoes of a composite screen of the stereotypical peasent in the Vietnam war movies. You can see the grass in the background of this picture.. There are always a few people in tie dyed pants or skirts and head scarfs. I added my own touch of colour with my sunburned cheekbones, I must remember to take a wide brimmed hat next year.

Another thing to remember for next year, pick up my CD's earlier in the weekend. By the time I went on Sunday afternoon at four two of the artists I wanted buy CD's by had already left, taking their CD's with them.

Two days of workshops and Saturday's evening concert is passed, the Summerfolk choir is performing on the main stage.

Highlights so far, David Amram, beat poet, composer and musicologist getting the hook after running way overtime on his unbelievable set. Sara Hickman, finshing out her set with a broken G string. She also joined David Amram's adhoc band for his mainstage show where she shone brightly. Michael Johnston's blues solo on a toy piano. The Cottars, they were everywhere except on the main stage.

I'm looking forward to the McDades main stage show coming up. I've heard various members of the band in different workshops over the weekend and already bought their CD so there is a lot riding on this show. Pictures still to come. David Gillis is up next, looks very promising.

I'm not going to list the artists because it's more than that, so much the richness of the event comes from the tapestry of experinces. The frantic drive to Macs to get cash because the phone line for the credit card authorization isn't installed yet.
Toby Walker played his classic steel guitar as we waited in line to enter the amphitheatre, the rain came and the tarps came out, Toby who just happened to be on stage puts down his guitar, removes his hat and leaves the protection of the stage for a few moments to join us in the downpour. The music continues, the rain stops and a rainbow appears. The sun sets and the dark cool night is still, filled with sound from the three stages. We shuttle between the main stage and the beer tent sampling the offered experiences and stories.

I've changed my mind about mentioning artists. The singers who I haven't heard before who particularly caught my ear were Mike Ford, Kim & Reggie Harris and the aformentioned Toby Walker.

This morning we rise before the sun to join the line. Now we wait as the sun rises over 6 foot wildflower and grass wall that grows beside the line area for the volunteers to distribute the line holder numbers. Two women cut the line in front of us, it isn't worth making a scene. I recognize them from previous years. It makes no difference to us, we will be in the first group of twenty into the amphitheatre to set up our chairs for tonight's performance when we will again overlap our experiences with the performers, fellow spectators and volunteers. Before that we have an afternoon of workshops to browse. What musical explorations and awakenings will we experience today?

Why all the talk about experience? The expansion of that thought will have to wait for another time those ideas can't be expressed with characters poked out one by one with my thumbs.

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