            Recollections and Ramblings from AC 09
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As most of you know by now, ADAMCON 09 is a piece of the American 
history scene.   A small part, yes, but nevertheless, a part.  We 
started  this venture without the slightest clue of what to do or 
how  to  accomplish the feat,  but things have a way  of  working 
themselves out if we just take one small step at a  time.   Well, 
after a few missteps,  and more than a few baby steps, we arrived 
at  the  official  conventon  startup  time,  and  these  are  my 
recollections from that point on.

The  whole  event  began  with  the arrival  of  the  very  first 
delegate,  Mr Ron Mitchell.   

A rather uneventful arrival at Kent County  International  Airport 
were it not for the late  hour  of arrival - 11:45 PM on Wednesday 
the 13th.  After a very surprised and happy look, we found our way 
to the luggage carousel to await the  arrival of Ron's miscellan-
eous luggage,  MIDI keyboards  and all!   By now,  it was a half 
hour into the 14th of  August,  the first official day of ADAMCON 
09.   After retrieving the luggage, or was it a load of rocks....
..sure was heavy Ron, (you must have have  lots of parts and sup-
plies along,  eh?) ;  we took a  short drive  to the hotel to show 
Ron his new digs.   

         WRONG!!!   Murphy was working overtime already!   
"I'm sorry,  sir.  We rented your room  to someone else because 
you didn't show up by  6PM."   That was the long and short of the 
hotel visit that night.  Good thing we  had an extra bed!  Next 
morning the hotel had a little egg on their  face as they called 
and couldn't find Mr Mitchell....hmmm. NOT a good way to start 
things off.

Thursday.....after  Ron  entertained Judy for the morning,  we 
headed  to  the hotel after a quick lunch.  Funny how friendly 
they seemed then........must  have had something to do with 
losing Ron Mitchell.  A few of the delegates were already checked 
in and in their  rooms, and  more  arrived all afternoon.   When 
Faye Deere arrived  late afternoon,  they  "found" a room quite 
soon after an  irate  Judy headed to the front desk.....another 
strange coincidence.  During the course of the afternoon, Ron, 
myself and Jerry Vranks (hope I didn't  miss some other help) 
set up the hospitality suite with 9 computer setups of various 
configurations for use on sessions and just for fun use.The 
"official" start of ADAMCON 09 occurred that evening with  the 
reception  in  the hospitality suite and spilling over  into  
our connecting  hotel  room.   We had a nice sitting area with 
a  few chairs  and a sofa along with a counter from which flowed  
coffee and  some  goodies  while the counter in  the  hospitality  
suite offered  soft  drinks,   hard  drinks,  refrigerated  and  
cooler "beverages" as well as snacks.   The "family reunion" had 
begun!  

Friday began bright and early with breakfast - most made  it,  we 
only  lost  3 or 4 people.   Ron Mitchell opened after  breakfast 
with the address (you will find on this ANN disk as  Keynote.txt) 
of  the  day  in which he encouraged us to fight  for  our  ADAM. 
Frances  Clee  took us through some tricks and tips  on  ADAMCALC 
first;  then Gene Welch demonstrated the ADAMnet clock and how to 
build one for yourself as well as discussing how to set up a hard 
drive on the ADAM without spending a fortune.    Next up; LUNCH!!  
After  lunch  Ron Mitchell had us on the Internet with the  ADAM; 
not a simple project,  but nevertheless easy enough to do IF  you 
can  find  the right connections into the internet  world.   Next 
came  a session with Herman Mason and myself on  Harddrive  setup 
and  repair..........would have worked a lot better IF the zonker 
would have left his blankety,  blank HD home!  As it was, we blew 
the entire session trying to get Zonk's HD moving only to finally 
give it last rights, which you guessed it, took the time slot for 
the session.   Oh well,  nobody called us names or  anything,  so 
they must have liked the socializing.  REALLY!  it is fairly easy 
to set a HD up, just get a good HD!  (Don't buy from Zonk!)Friday  
evening was a free for all in the hospitality suite  with Dale  
showcasing  a new program of his,  an imprompto session  of ADAM 
BOMB 2 going on, Compuserve and Internet phone checks, etc.  


Saturday  morning brought all hungry conventioners  to  breakfast 
followed  by  Rich  Clee's  address on the  comparison's  of  the 
"dosbox" and the ADAM.  Saturday morning sessions were devoted  to 
Powerpaint  by PJ Herrington and Gene Welch.   After  lunch,  the 
Zonker (Bart Lynch) took us on a video journey thru the utilities 
to use when transferring TDOS to EOS (this year it worked!!!) and 
Gene  Welch  demonstrated and explained the MultiMedia  Utilities 
that Chris Braymen gave us.Saturday  evening found us glued to the 
computers once  again  to chat with a few ADAM friends on YAHOO 
chat on the  internet;  Bob Sebalist  and  Rich  Cassaboon among 
them.   Later,  we  had  the traditional chat on CompuServe, BUT 
seems like most everybody was at the convention and we chatted 
with ourselves!

Sunday brought a quieter morning with a continental breakfast  
in the  hospitality  suite  followed by Ron Mitchell  and  the  
MIDI interface  for the ADAM.   Sunday brunch......what can I say
..... the experience was mind blowing!   The entire bar, dance-
floor and all,  was devoted to food!  Every item on the menu for 
and entire day  was available,  plus every cute and fancy little 
desert  you could imagine,  right in front of your eyes to  eat!    
Alas,  we should  have  had the banquet Sunday noon right then  
and  there.  Sunday  afternoon  (on  full stomachs I might add)  
we  had  Rich Drushel  show  us  some  of his ADAM trivia  
including  his  LEGO university project with the ADAM influence 
and Dale Wick  showing a new compiler for Basic albeit in the 
TDOS arena at present.  Sunday  evening  started with a cocktail 
hour in the  hospitality suite followed by the banquet and 
accompanying doorprizes, banner passing  ritual,  etc.   Some  
of the  doorprizes  included  Jean Stone's afghan (handmade) 
won by Kathi Vrancks, Gene Welch's demo ADAMNET  clock,  various 
subscriptions to newsletters,  and  ADAM memorabilia  including 
autographed copies of instructions for JKL Utilities  and Splat 
provided by Rich Drushel via the  developers of the utilities
.We finally passed the banner to the Herrington's for passage 
back to   Florida  for  ADAMCON  10  (or  however  you  spell  
10   in computerese),  then headed back to the hospitality 
suite to outdo ourselves  on  the ADAM one last time.   Mr Bob  
Bair  was  quite involved, shall we say, in the ADAM BOMB 2 
game; he basically had to  be asked to leave every night.    
Finally the night "died" at about 12:30 PM (or AM?) and he 
headed to bed.

Monday morning found many stopping in for last goodbye's for  
the year  and plans to meet again in Florida next year  
(October???).  We  do  hope  that you can ALL plan to be there.   
We  offer SPECIAL THANKS to those who helpe