Pete's Log: Vegas, Paul, Springfield

Entry #1381, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 26 years old.)

I spent June 19 through 24 in Las Vegas, NV for the Cisco Networkers tradeshow. Concord, Spectrum, and netViz went in on a booth together, so Concord was a silver sponsor of the show. Computer Associates was a gold sponsor. This had all been set up before the acquisition, so we basically ended up with two CA booths at Networkers.

The result of this was a bit of confusion from attendees. The booth had Concord in big letters all over. The netViz station had netViz in smaller letters. We added the CA logo with stickers. And we all wore CA shirts. The strangest thing was that many people assumed that since everybody working the booth was wearing CA shirts, we must all be CA people, not Concord people. So we had to explain several times that no, CA had not come in and taken over, we were all still the same Concord people we had always been...

But despite the confusion, we had a good show. It was my first show working a booth, and I had a great time. I gave a lot of demos. I found a reliable conversation starter: just ask what sort of documentation strategy they have. Most people look guilty or embarrased and then admit they don't have one. From that point, netViz sells itself.

Beyond the show, I had a good time hanging out with the Concord and netViz people working the show. I ate some good food, rode a roller coaster, saw some casinos and did a little bit of gambling. I'm not really into the gambling thing, but I had to play craps once, just to say I had. Predictably, I lost the twenty dollars I put down, but compared to some people I was there with, I got off easy. I also made sure to keep my pockets empty of all the pesky spare change I kept getting, so I probably lost another ten dollars in the slots.

Paul Schermerhorn came to DC! He was giving a talk at a conference, and of course I've forgotten the name of said conference. But that's beside the point. After making more than a full revolution of Dupont Circle, we decided to have Ethiopian and went to Zed's in Georgetown. Then we hit a couple Georgetown bars. This was a Tuesday night. The first bar had a sign advertising live jazz, so we wandered in as the band was setting up. There were maybe half a dozen patrons when we entered. The band soon started playing, much to our delight. It consisted of three members: a drummer, a guitarist/singer, and a bassist/keyboard player. Now, the definition of jazz these guys were using was pop hits of the 40s/50s/60s. And they were using the keyboard (synthesizer, I guess) as their horn section. And they had a recorded applause track that they used after most songs.

Needless to say, Paul and I left that place after our first beer. We then found a piano bar with better music and better atmosphere. So we had a good night. Thanks for getting published in a conference in Washington, Paul!

Meg and I spent the holiday weekend at her parents in Springfield. We visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum (brand new!), saw Star Wars Episode 3 at a drive-in (I now understand why drive-ins died out), and spent a lot of time in the pool.