12-X-2003.
Jake somehow agreed to send me to whilfest in Milwaukee. I got the feeling he'd also like to go, but just couldn't, too busy. So this morning I got into the Corolla and left it at ORF.
There's no trace of my plane tickets, they were probably handled by S.W., the catch-all girl at Orion. This is why I don't know where I first switched planes, probably at DC. The 2nd stop was at Detroit, which was quite a sight. The plane had to make a few circles while queued to land, so I had my fill of watching the former industry. Rust, rust and greenery between.
The airport itself is incredible. A city falling apart has such a neat and spruced up building, what with a maglev tram which goes like a shuttle (i.e. back and forth, no curves), and upstairs at that. Also has this fountain with programmed valves, so it casts chopped jets of water, which I mostly got on the shot, but with the busy background they don't look as impressive. That was the first one of the kind that I ever saw; later they made them in many places. It's a neat trick and sells well.
When I got to the hotel (on 11th in the evening, as that's the Exif date on the shots - Agfa wrote that info, while some later cameras didn't), before I even finished filling my registration form, there comes Cathy Pountney to drag me to her laptop, a must see, the „fox is magic“ two minute video, where two dozen people each sing a part of the song. Everybody was there - Trish and Peter (who were absent here this time), Craig, Michael Levy, Barbara P., both of the vfe, MTV, Doug Hennig, Paul McNett, and Kristin (also absent) and, of course, Whil Hentzen, the host and organizer of the convention, himself. Everybody's there, and it is hilarious, yet all of them feel they were tricked into it and want to get out. Had to see that one, for sure.
Turns out I had a room to myself, somewhere on third floor, while most of the folks were on fifth. The hotel is a hollow square cube, with huge empty space in the middle, with glass cage elevators overseeing the abyss. Once I screwed up, when there were too many of us for one elevator, I tried to get down by staircase, and did, rather quickly, but some local Ilija Čvorović locked the last door, so I couldn't exit into the foyer, had to climb back up a floor or two until I found an open door and... caught the next elevator down.
The grand opening was in a larger conference room. Host's representative spoke (perhaps Whil himself), then Calvin Hsia (or Xia/Sya, depending how deaf is the person you ask) for m$, namely the fox team, and then this guy Eric from the original team which originally wrote the fox, in a few room above a grocery somewhere in Ohio, advertising the book he wrote about those heroic years. I bought one, while Cathy Pountney got one for free. Someone tipped the hosts that it was her birthday so she go one on the house. I was sitting just next to her when she was summoned. What a fit of shyness she had then, with of two hundred people turning back to look at her.
When we weren't attending the classes (held, as usual, by colleagues... I was asked, several times, why am I not there, holding a class... can't possibly explain how much I hate preparing for classes), in the breaks around lunch and dinner, we'd mostly sit around those big dining tables, in twos and threes, staring at laptop's screen, combing over some problem or showing each other what they did.
The dining hall was the big inner terrace above the ground floor, and around it were conference rooms of varying sizes and one longer where the exhibits were - anyone who paid some could have a stand there and many did. There was Rob McBleam of A-burg with his framework (his wife is jet plane class, I never understood how a shmuck of that caliber gets one like that), the cross-eyed Ritch Simpson with his incredible reporting engine... got to stop here. He explained what his engine does, how it can make a report out of practically anything. I made a few shots around the exhibits, gave him the memory card from the Agfa, he copied the freshest dozen, and within a couple of minutes I saw these shots in a pdf version of a report, on the screen. Not just monitor, but also the projection. The shot above is the first in the 2nd row of the displayed page. I just collectey my jaw from the floor and moved on... What other miracles may I yet see?
And vfe were there, both of them, collecting business cards in a big jar, with the promise that whoever gets pulled out in the end, gets one free disk with their framework, registrable.
After dinner, on 12th, we didn't go anywhere, just sat in the bar under that inner terrace and peeled the beers. Luckily, they had at least Heineken, give what you give. Some interspersed it with Jägermeister, which is another bread brandy with fancy plants, for which just about every other alp village has a special recipe. Had such by Zwack in Hungary, tasted the same, and later had some from Holland, likewise. Interspersing - one Jëger, one beer - was a cheap way to lay cobblestones in the belly and get more drunk for the same buck. We did such stuff with vinjak and beer when we were college students.
Around the bar there were mugs with free roast peanuts, unshelled but salted. I guess they treat it with salt water, then roast them in hot air. There were no trashcans, the whole bar was one. Cracking on the empty shells at each step was kind of fun, and actually easier on the bar staff - even if they had trashcans, half the shells would end on the floor anyway, so why clean both. And it was free because it was salty. Every bar knows how salty food relates to beer sales.
I had a beer with Tina. She remembered how she held that interview with me, and then went on to tell me the guy who ordered it is some scum. He did pay her for me, but not for the next two guys, still owes her. Didn't ask to elaborate, I don't really give much of a damn for your inter-jewish business and how often you screw each other. To me, it quite sufficed that I recognized the talent in him, saw he was as murky as Begej, and gladly avoided any combinations with him. Some fifteen years later he became a regular on the UA for a while, seemed to have become unable to catch fresh workforce to do his bidding, so he had to do it by himself. The story of Mujo's bordello...
Mentions: Agfa, Annenburg (A-burg), fox, Jake Bauer, Kristin Peiser, Majkrosoft (m$), MTV, Orionware (Orion), Peter Branow, Tina Diamond, Tricia Deakin (Trish), UbiquAgora (UA), VFE, vinjak, whilfest, in serbian