[Grassroots-l] greetings from Squeakfest Brasil!

[Timothy Falconer]

Greetings from Porto Alegre, Brasil!

As I write this from breakfast, the sun is coming up over the city.  
I'll soon be joined by the ten of us who have traveled here to  
represent Squeakland Foundation and our respective Etoys  
organizations. Most of us flew in yesterday, then met last night for a  
wonderful dinner hosted by Intel, one of the conference sponsors.

It was very nice seeing everyone last night. While we speak frequently  
together through Skype and Qwaq, there's nothing quite like meeting in  
person. At dinner we had time to discuss ours lives outside Etoys,  
getting to know each other in a way that's much harder to do through  
the Internet.

Today should be quite a day. At this point, more than 280 people have  
registered for the conference. Given that the main conference room  
seats 250, it might be standing room only.

We plan to chat throughout the conference on Etoys chat channel (http://chat.squeakland.org 
), which you can read later at the chat log (http://squeakland.org/sm/storybot 
). Stop by and say hello so you can be part of the event, from  
wherever you happen to be now. Have a look at the schedule (http://squeakland.org/squeakfest/brasil/schedule/ 
)  to follow along. We'll be getting the English translation of the  
schedule up soon.

And remember, we're following up this conference in a few weeks with  
another at UCLA in Los Angeles. Please come join us there. You can  
register (http://squeakland.org/squeakfest/usa/register/) on the  
Squeakfest USA website.

Special thanks to Marta Voelcker and the rest of her team for  
organizing this event. Their hard work really shows.