Re: KFest 2011 Report

[Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com>]

Sorry for the report delay... I crashed and burned last night before I
could get one off..  B-P

After breakfast, I had a few hours to rest before my "Day in the Sun",
but it passed very quickly, and soon I was hauling the Kookout grub
down to the lobby, and starting the charcoal going.  My plans went to
hell of course, I forgot my ice water in the room.  Not smart, as it
was already 98 F.  There was a wind, so that made the grilling more
tolerable.  An hour later, everyone was fed, although someone filched
some of the veggie burgers since I cooked them before the "real" food,
and our vegetarians had to make do with the veggie hotdogs instead.
Thanks to my roomie, Rob Kenyon for helping me haul the supplies in on
Tuesday, Jason Scott, Stavros Karatsoridis, and Jim O'Reilly for
hauling the finished products inside to the ravenous horde, and for
bringing me some ice water too...

Shortly after lunch, one of my earliest Apple II heroes gave the
Keynote address, an informal presentation with questions answered from
the audience.  Bob Bishop was best known to me from his program
"Applevision" on the DOS 3.3 System disk, but he shared the many other
accomplishments he'd done before I'd even become acquainted with the
Apple II in 1981.  Wow!  Video should be available of the Keynote at
some point in the near future.

Rob Walch, podcaster for "Today in iOS" joined us for the fifth year
running, letting us know the newest tricks, tips and speculations
after dinner.  Very entertaining and informative!  He's quite the
showman!

Around 9:00 pm, Ken Gagne held the Juiced.GS reception, where he blew
all the profits from his enterprise on pizza and refreshments for
everyone!  We are definitely well feed at KFest.  A good time was had
by all!

The younger and more limber members of the conference competed at
"Bite the Bag", but I quail at the sight of blood and rug burns, so I
skipped this.

The rest of the night involved walking the halls, poking our heads
into other folks rooms for quick looks at what others were showing,
longer conversations about our childhoods, or the future of Americas
Space Program with engineers and NASA personnel.  Yep, we've got them!

Before I finally crashed, I was watching Bob Bishop fiddling  with
programs on his SIMPLE programming language on the big screen TV in
the lobby.  How cool was THAT?!?

Now it's time to catch the first session of today, so I've got to
go...

Kirk