[asterisk-users] Your comments: Astricon 2008 Balloon Trip?

[John Todd]

As you may know, Astricon (http://www.astricon.net) this year is in 
Phoenix, AZ - have you signed up yet?  Often there are internal 
Digium discussions about portions of Astricon and what we should do 
about some portion of the show.  We're often not the best people to 
answer those questions - you are!  So hopefully the community can 
give some feedback on the activity question below:

There have been discussions about what, if anything, might be a fun 
pre-conference activity for people who show up a bit early to 
Astricon.  I had initially thought of going out to an open-air rifle 
range, and allowing participants to bring their old legacy PBX gear 
with them to do a bit of high-caliber equipment reconfiguration. 
However, no suitable ranges could be found and there are those pesky 
lawyers with their "liability" clauses...

A more serene (but just as loud) option would be for a balloon trip 
on Tuesday morning.  Phoenix is well-known for it's clear skies and 
amazing views of the Sonoran desert and surrounding mountains, and a 
balloon trip would also be a way to get to spend some time talking 
with the other attendees.

Most of the packages we're looking at include a ~5:00A pickup from 
the hotel, balloon ride, and then a champagne breakfast, followed by 
a return to the hotel around ~10:00A.  This would chew into the 
session time a bit for those of you who were coming to the 
"pre-conference" sessions, but hopefully not more than an hour.  The 
price would be ~$200, of which ~$185 is for the trip itself and then 
typically there is a $15 tip for the balloonist and/or the shuttle 
driver.  We haven't worked out if Digium will collect that from you 
in advance (as an option on your registration?) or if that would be 
paid to the balloon company directly.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU:  If you are attending Astricon and you think 
this is a trip you might be interested in, please let me know with a 
"Yes!".  If we get enough people who think it's a worthwhile 
adventure, we'll set it up.  Otherwise, it will gracefully fade from 
the radar as a nice, but uninteresting sidebar.

JT

-- 
--
John Todd
jtodd at digium.com        +1-256-428-6083
Asterisk Open Source Community Director