In 8 days (next Tuesday) I'll be heading to Portland for OSCON 2008. Several days later I'll be heading up to Canada for the Firefox Summit.

This is simultaneously awesome and scary. Awesome parts:

- Meeting my colleagues and board members from Mozdev for the first time - Being able to attend sessions and meet/brainstorm with so many people from the open source community, and more specifically, the Mozilla community

Some of the scary parts:

- I haven't flown in a long time. I have no idea what to expect from the experience, and have some gaps in some basic logistical processes (How do I get from the airport to the hotel? Taxi? How's do I get a taxi? What's the typical interaction between taxi driver and drivee (never taken a taxi, either))? What do I do for 7 hours in the air? Are my neighbors in coach going to call me a terrorist for playing with my laptop and GPS? Will I be able to use my GPS? Am I carrying too much/little gear/clothes/etc?). - I'm an introvert, and thus don't really talk unless being spoken too; even then, if it's a topic I'm not familiar and/or interested in with I don't do a great job at "chit-chat" - I don't have a very, um, "cultured palate". I plan on trying to broaden that a bit. - I have no idea what I'm doing at either event - oh, in general I know I'm going to help grow the Mozdev/Mozilla community (they're very symbiotic) and learn what I can from the sessions being offered at both, but there's a lot of "unknowns" about what I should be doing.

So most of the "scary" parts are probably just personality quirks and I really think I'll be fine, even if I don't have all my minutiae in order. It'll definitely be an big experience for me.