This January, God willing and KDE E.V. paying, I'll be in Jamaica for the 1st (hopefully) annual Camp KDE conference. Camp KDE spun out of the KDE 4.0 release event which took place in Mountain View, Cali at Google's place. Legend has it the organizers of the event realized that there were a lot of people who weren't going to the akademies in Europe because they a) couldn't afford it b) had other engangements at that time. I can relate to both points as I was always either in school whenever they had akademy (scheduled too close to end of semester/exam season) or couldn't afford to go. There was also that one time I had a conflict with another conference, that happened for Ireland conference, which I'd planned on going to the year before.

It seems the stars have aligned and everything is in place for me to finally go to one of these shindigs though. It's in Jamaica. I was born in Jamaica. It's from the 17-23. My birthday's during that 17-23. The talk portion is on the weekend and the following Monday is a US holiday. That means even if I can't get the Tuesday -> Friday off, I'll still be there for the important bits (it's not like I'd be doing anything during the Hacking sessions anyway).

It will be interesting to see just how much things have changed in the two years that I've been gone. I tried to locate my home a few months ago in Google earth and Microsoft virtual earth. I failed. So much development (housing, new roads) had gone on I could only get in the general area. Hopefully I'll get to go see my grandmother, or rather see if she's still there. There's been no answer on the phone for a few months now. A bit unsettling but I'm just not thinking about it until I get confirmation of something bad happening.