Content-Type: text/shitpost

There was a strange sort of confluence of events, that might have left me feeling awful, but somehow didn't.

I.

I fully intended to attend !!Con again this year, and since tickets are scarce, and the best way to get a ticket is to get a talk accepted, I planned to get a talk accepted. This may seem overconfident but so far I have had five talks accepted, although in only three different years, so I have only been able to give three of them. Still I think my optimism is justified.

Last year, about three days after the !!Con submission deadline I thought of a marvelous idea for a ten-minute talk and I was confident that it was as likely as anything to be accepted. Then I had to wait twelve months before the next call for submissions. Eventually the dates were announced for !!Con 2018.

II.

Last year I decided I needed to be more conversant with Python, and as part of that I asked my employer to send me to PyCon this year. But then I checked on my calendar to make sure there were no conflicts

PyCon conflicted with !!Con. Oh, crap. What to do?

If I had foreseen that, I might have chosen to become conversant in some language other than Python, maybe Visual PL/I or Object Cobol or ECMA-Flow-matic or something. But it was too late.

I really didn't want to skip PyCon, and I had already told my job I wanted to go. But skipping !!Con seemed unthinkable, and I knew that while I was at PyCon I would be pining away, thinking of !!Con and how I wasn't there and I wasn't giving my marvelous talk.

III.

But then I discovered that I had missed the !!Con submission deadline! It had been earlier this year than in the past and I totally blew it. If this had happened the previous years I would have been crushed. But this year it solved my problem very neatly. I was going to PyCon anyway! I didn't have to feel bad about blowing the submission deadline, because I was planning to attend PyCon. And I didn't have to feel bad about not getting to give my marvelous talk, because I had failed to propose it in time.

I'm not sure this makes sense. Two things, either of which would have left me sad and disappointed, have added up together to make me fairly happy. But feelings don't always make sense.

Anyway, I hope the rest of you folks will be having a great time at !!Con without me (and Sumana). See you next year!