Thermidor 2007, Part 3

NEST

So, I got back after one awesome week, didn't like the atmosphere at home at all and decided that I need to get far away, preferably as soon as possible. The first such opportunity was the following weekend: NEST, slo-tech's traditional LAN party at the seaside, this year in a school not far from where I've just spent a week. Though I was a regular visitor, I haven't been to the past two NESTs - primarily because of World of Warcraft. It 's almost surreal remembering that I ever felt this way but I actually ruled out going there because it was senseless and time consuming to me. Of course, why bother with anything else when you have WoW? - it really was almost the same as taking the blue pill in Matrix.

That's why I was seriously determined to go this year. Luckily, OrkAA and volkec were going as well and even more luckily, they had a car for transporting our not exactly light metal-and-plastic-based computers. Pretty soon a plan was made, it turned out that we were actually going with two cars, along with Frenk and OmegaBlue, all being slo-tech veterans. We played a little Friday afternoon car race on the road, used GPS to dodge radar control points, mixed up the supposed meeting point, used GPS some more to locate the school where the event was taking place and then finally arrived at our destination.

During unpacking and registration I saw many familiar faces who quite surprisingly still remembered me from past years. As customary for myself, I didn't take any additional clothes or a sleeping bag along, despite the fact that the event lasted for three days... but a towel I did take, because the first thing when arriving just before the sunset was going to the beach for a swim by myself, which turned out to be a splendid choice.

Swimming after the sunset wasn't just an experience of pure serenity, floating on the calm surface in almost complete silence, the colorful light show added a special touch to the moment... sky's colors gradually changing from dark violet in the east to blue and orange, glowing red in the west with radiant ocher clouds stretching across like stripes of a tiger laying to rest. But the best part was seeing its reflection on calm water surface, breaking the image into a million pieces and covering the sea with a smooth layer of molten lava...

After this seance I hastened back to catch my dinner (we had regular meals in the school cafeteria), rushing through the dark back alleys where open back kitchen doors and windows of restaurants filled the air with scent of seafood and old fries, trying to let out the immense heat inside them. I most unfortunately lost my way back and wandered through narrow streets for a silly amount of time, but I did manage to finally get back after a well-thought U-turn. Fortunately I didn't miss much... and before I knew it, a small group of us geeks was formed for a dose of night swimming - only that this time the water wasn't all that wonderful... in fact, it smelled pretty bad, probably due to the multiple cooking oil stains around us. The whole thing was fun but I don't have to mention that we never went to that greasy location again.

After getting back I started of tinkering around my computer and leeching long into the night before the remaining few geeks standing decided to call it a day and went on a pilgrimage around the school to find a cozy floor to sleep. All available places were occupied by about 150 other participants so we crashed in the quiet air-conditioned main lecture room, which actually proved to be an oasis in the hell of noisy overheated circuit-scented air.

The first thing to do next morning (beside eating breakfast) was of course going for a refreshing swim with FlyMaChInE, a very positive modest guy whom I've acquainted with on previous day's night swimming with Looney and PCMark. As he gradually explained to me over talks in about three times we went swimming together that day, this LAN party was his only vacation for this year and a way to get a short relieve from his summer job at a sawmill with which he intended to earn enough money to pay for his driver's license lectures among other things. Therefore enjoying the sea for three days with delicious meals and a place to sleep to the fullest (while it lasts) was his main concern and a goal of us both, each having his own reasons. I thought to myself... how do my reasons for being here differ from his? Am I here enjoying the sea and sun (along with filling my hard drive with leeched files) because being at so-called home lacks the sun or water? I could swim and jump around in the sun there as well, even recreate the atmosphere to some extent, excluding the smell of salty air... so true reasons had to lay somewhere else.

It was a deliberate attempt to get away as possible from a place I don't even like, to try to vanish from everyone's sight and hopefully reappear somewhere far away where nobody would recognize me, where I wouldn't recognize any features of the environment I got away from. The second reason was giving myself up to the thrilling order of chaos and watching it develop, just like the first few Core2Duo cubes I put on my table in the LAN party hall, forming a small tower. It wasn't long before the stack started to grow completely spontaneously on its own, amassing to a joint venture to build a huge tower. I wasn't even there when it happened - I merely initiated the whole thing (after the tower fell I used the cubes to make a château out of my desk).

To sum the rest of NEST up, it was a mix of swimming, various tech lectures and spending time around my computer or talking to fellow computer geeks, with Saturday night being the most action-oriented if you can call it that - we first had a late evening swimming with massive attendance, then volkec, OrkAA and I stayed up all night, being witnesses to a pretty lame incident involving the police and a local saber-rattler on our parking lot. To go fast forward, I didn't go to sleep until about noon the next day (if you overlook about an hour of sleeping on my keyboard).
Sunday afternoon was time for giving awards to winners of various contests from previous days. To my surprise FlyMaChInE was among the winners, getting about three nifty awards, the most prestigious one being an expensive Core Quad processor) - I never realized that he found the time do other things beside sunbathing and splish-splashing in the sea with me - to be more precise, I think he never mentioned it due to his modesty.

Late Sunday afternoon was time to pack our things and slowly head back home, this time with only one car and Frenk the seriously disturbing joke-teller on board. But of course we couldn't just leave our seaside without taking a final swim, so we headed northward, seeking a suitable beach. We drove towards a health resort of some kind - the sea there looked repulsively dirty and we concluded that it was best to sneak into the nearby pool, which was probably only meant for children and recovering asthma patients. Moral issues and suspicious warmth of its water aside, it was one of those relaxing life-is-good moments. There was absolutely no rush to do anything so Frenk and I prolonged the inevitable reunion with the real world for as long as we could, floating in that pool for so long that it started to become absurd. At some point we finally did decide to move out and from there on it was just a few simple steps towards heading back to inland, effectively ending our well-spent weekend.


A notable thing to mention about NEST is also OrkAA's proposition for me to join him on an trip to visit his girlfriend vacationing somewhere at the seaside across the southern border...