Re: KFest 2007 Report

[Kirk Mitchell <kmitchel@nyx.net>]

Day 2, first official day of KFest...

We stayed up to a little after 3 AM, and woke up at 7:30 AM to shower and 
get ready for breakfast.  Same fare as last year.

Nothing much happened until I started the charcoal at 11:15 AM to start 
the KFest Kookout.  The Rockhurst staff had even brought the grill over to 
the dorm, and set up tables and chairs, but most folks decided to eat with 
air conditioning.

Everything went well, and I only suffered a few 1st degree burns, and the 
loss of some hair on my fingers.  B-{)  No one has reported to the nurse 
for food poisoning either, so it was a success!

Dave Szetela gave a great Keynote address where he regaled us with his 
Apple II experiences, including stories from inside Apple Inc.  Also his 
experienced while with Nibble and many other stories that are familiar to 
anyone else who's ever fallen in love with the Apple II.  Good times!

Ed Eastman gave a session on Soldering 101, but I was already nursing 
minor burns and didn't want to press my luck.  B-{)

Instead, Ryan Suenaga, my roomie, needed a ride to Radio Shack, so off we 
went.  The first one we went to didn't have his item in stock, so they 
called another store that did have it, so off we went to explore North 
Kansas City.  

I hadn't been to that area, so it was an adventure.  The prostitutes 
weren't that bad looking, and the gang colors appeared to be mostly 
yellow, but we were on a mission and didn't stop until we'd got his 
frigging mixer.  Only took us an hour and a half.  B-{P

We got back with 15 mins to spare for dinner.  Food was good, but I'll 
spare you the menu.

After dinner, Ken Gagne showed some of the "BBS: The Documentary".  I'd 
already seen this so I didn't go to it, but I do recommend this to anyone 
who remembers the squack of a modem, and the thrill of accessing your 
first BBS.

Instead, I hung out in a2central's chat room, where you'll find many 
current KFesters saying absolutely nothing because they're busy running 
around.  Still, you can also find them chatting away during sessions, 
since nearly everyone is taking advantage of the college wifi, and 
chatting with someone across the room from them, or even across the table.  
B-{)

If you're using Firefox or a Mozilla browser, get Chatzilla.  Then by 
clicking on:
irc://a2central.com/a2c.chat

you can join us vicariously while things are happening.  You'll probably 
end up bored though, because we're running around though.  B-{)

The last activity of the evening was the pizza party put on by the 
publishers of Juiced.GS.  Thanks, Sheppy!

Wandering around the rooms lets you discover really neat things, too.  
Across the hall in James Littlejohn and Matt Jenkin's room, Jamie Steffins 
was demonstrating a VGA converter that does a great job of upscaling a 
GS's video signal to VGA!  Sorta steep at $300 though.

The Wii continues to impress the geeks here, tying up the bigscreen TV 
most of the time, so there's been no movies shown, or karaoke sung...  
B-{(

Oh... Carrington Vanston finally puttered into town on his Vespa, but a 
bit late for Kookout.  Fun guy!

Well, that's it for the official day.  I'll wait before posting this, at 
least until it's a bit later.  Google Groups appears to be having 
problems.  I posted yesterdays report from there, and it never showed on 
Google, but did on other news servers.  I'll paste this on to yesterdays 
news to see if both show up on Google. 

Still going strong, but I'm posting it anyway....

Kirk


Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com> wrote:
: Hey, all...

: Your intrepid reporter here with yet another running commentary on the
: current KFest.

: I'll try not to talk about food so much this year.  B-{)

: I left the small town of Moscow, KS to drive to KFest and 7 hours
: later, pulled into the parking lot of XL, the dorm we're at.  I really
: need to take more pitstops on trips like this.  I'm old enough that my
: joint's lock up.  Duh!

: Registration was fast, and I had lots of help from folks already here
: to help me unload my treasures.  Ryan Suenaga needed my GS for his
: session, so it got out of the house for the first time in a few years.

: Got here around 2:00 pm, and by 3:00 pm, a bunch of us decided to go
: out for lunch.  Geoff Weiss suggested Sonic.  I'm never going to
: listen to Geoff's suggestions again.  Waiting for food in a hot car is
: just no fun.  That and they shorted us an order of fries. The
: B@stards..

: Shortly afterwards, more folks started arriving, and we met folks we
: haven't seen in 5-12 years, like Max Jones, Cindy Adam, and Tim
: Kellers...  Also, KFest newbies, Jamie, Anthony, and Henry.  All much
: younger looking than I'd anticipated.  Sweet!  The Apple II kept alive
: by the younger generation.  B-{)

: Dinner time finally came around, and we raced to Sweet Tomatoes, a
: soup and salad joint that's become a tradition. I won.  I don't think
: the others were aware that we were racing, or that'd the excuse
: they're using.   I ate plenty of rabbit food, but made sure to finish
: off with lots of soft serve ice cream on hot fudge brownies.  My Dr.
: would be so proud.  B-{)

: Oh.  Food.  Sorry.  Sheesh, I'm obsessed!

: After Dinner, Ryan and I drove to Costco to buy supplies for the
: KookOut tomorrow.  It's a lot for 40+ folks.  Since I have to bake
: outside grilling this stuff, I made sure to get a case of my favorite
: barley beverage.  B-{)

: You can't buy small quantities of anything at Costco though, so we had
: to search for a Price Choppers to get the rest of the stuff we
: needed.  Sheesh...  I live in the boonies.  I have to drive 35 miles
: to get to a WalMart...  One way.  Seems like you have to do the same
: in a big city, but you have to do it at 35 mph, and mess with
: stoplights.  We got everything, and.... had absolutely no help hauling
: it to our room.  I'm a bit miffed at that.

: Now we have folks settling into their rooms, playing a Wii on the big
: screen TV in the lobby, coding, visiting, and generally introducing
: themselves to each other.  Matt Jenkins was in here earlier, and we
: had a nice relaxed conversation about Australia, and IT, and a range
: of other stuff.  Meeting new cool people is what this is all about.  B-
: {)

: I brought an external USB Hard drive with all 11 seasons of MST3K to
: share with Ken and any other Misties here.  Since it takes 3 hours to
: copy over, it could keep him busy.  B-{)

: Oh, it took a while before Rockhurst IT got their act together, and
: activated the account we were to use.  They gave us the username and
: password, but the service wasn't activated.  We've working on getting
: certain ports opened now.

: I'm going to do a walkabout to see if anything else is happening...

: Talked to Andrew Roughan a bit...  The lobby full of folks playiing
: Wii Bowling...  Or just sitting there with laptops on laps engrossed
: in geeky stuff.  This is truely a summer camp for geeks.  B-{)

: I got a few folks to sample my homemade wine, but they must be
: frightened of Jesuits, since this is supposed to be a dry school.  I
: haven't seen security yet, and I'm discrete.  B-{)

: I'm sure more will happen, but I'm off to visit some more.  I hope
: other participants feel free to add to the thread with their takes on
: what happens here.   We have a lot of new folks, and their viewpoints
: can always open fossilized eyes.  B-{)

: Kirk


-- 
Kirk