
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
by Dave Bealer

Reeling after two years of continuous writing and electronic
publishing, I intended to spend my two months off working on the
first draft of my first novel.  Clever, huh?  Although I have a few
more pages of notes and some photos for background material, the
summer was basically a washout on that score.

The first mistake I made was the decision to lapse back into couch
potato mode, just "for a week or two" to rest up from two years of
constant deadlines.  The next thing I knew Wimbledon was over, and so
was half of my vacation.  Note that this was only a vacation from
RAH.  My boss still expected me to show up for work five nights a
week. 

The second mistake I made was to refinance my house.  This sounds
innocent enough, but everyone who has actually gone through this
process is grinding their teeth right now (without benefit of a
dentist or an anesthetic).  The whole refinancing process was
designed by lawyers and accountants, with the help of politicians. 
This means that no sane human being could ever possibly understand
it.  Unfortunately I couldn't manage it either.

My third mistake was deciding to upgrade my BBS software and hardware
this year.  I spent a ludicrous amount of time poring over incompre-
hesible feature lists.  The basic decision on whether to go with a
multinode or multiline software platform can turn a grown human being
into a gibbering heap of twitching flesh.  Or is that alcoholism?
The two conditions are nearly indistinguishable from one another.

These kinds of essays always have to feature the "trip to some
strange and different place" since that is the only interesting thing
that happens to most people during a summer off from school, work, or
whatever.  My summer was no different.  The trip in question was a
driving tour of Georgia and Florida.  The two major destinations were
Atlanta, where I attended the Third ONE BBSCON, and Jacksonville,
Florida, where I did some research for the erstwhile novel.  Armed
with a reconditioned notebook computer, I kept a trip log during this
excursion.

>> 1994 ONE BBSCON Trip Log <<
 (a.k.a. Touring The South On Three Tornadoes A Day)

Tuesday, August 16, 1994

 - left Pasadena, Maryland at approx 1300

 - ran into rain North of Washington, DC.

 - rain off and on all the way down the green, roofless tunnel of
    I-85 through southern Virginia and North Carolina.  Rain is
    extremely heavy at times.

   (A thought while I'm driving: so now several thousand sysops, who
    usually sit around alone typing at each other, are all converging
    (mostly one by one) on Atlanta to bond with one another.  A scary
    thought if ever there was one.)

 - 2115 check into motel off I-85 in Charlotte, NC.

 - find out from Weather Channel that I have been driving through
    the remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl all day.  Rain continues to
    pour during the two hours I spent watching _Last Action Hero_ on
    HBO. 

 - As I type this, the Weather Channel is listing streets in
    Charlotte that are already flooded.  Tornado watch, flash flood
    warning.  The Emergency Broadcast System has been activated in
    Charlotte.  This is exciting.  I begin to regret my decision to
    stay in a single story motel.

 - All in all, a charming day.  This is the second time in five
    years that a tropical storm has rained on my vacation.  I'd
    like to vacation in Europe someday, just to see what a tropical
    storm looks like there.

Wednesday, August 17, 1994

-  TS Beryl finally showed its heels to Charlotte, and a strange,
    bright orb lit up the sky when I emerged from my room.  The
    storm anchors held, so my car hadn't floated away overnight.

-  After popping out for a fast food breakfast (first time I ever saw
    a croissant made from cornmeal) I puttered around the room for a
    while trying to learn how to read a map.

-  Refueled Dave and the car in Greenville, SC.  Lunched at an
    Olive Garden Restaurant.  While not on a par with the best
    Italian restaurants in most places, the Olive Garden chain
    provides a refreshing change from the usual burger/waffle
    fare available when travelling the southern interstate highways.
    (It seems like there's a Waffle House and one or more well
    known burger joints at every exit on I-85.)  Even if you're
    not into pasta, the Olive Garden's breadsticks and salad are
    delightful.

-  Discovered that the rolling hills of South Carolina are a
    lousy place to use cruise control.  The big trucks charge
    past you on the downgrade, change to your lane on the flats,
    then slow down (involuntarily, of course) on the upslope,
    allowing the cruise control to attempt to merge your car with
    the rear end of a forty foot trailer.  This gets old real fast.

-  Arrived in Atlanta just after 1500.  The Inforum, where the vendor
    expo and most of the seminars will be held, is three blocks from
    the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, the official hotel.  There are
    several hotels closer to the conference site.  What were the
    organizers thinking?  Worse yet, the "skywalk" that is supposed
    to allow conventioneers to move about above streetlevel is
    missing a segment.  Some of us had to fall off the end into the
    street several times before realizing this. 

-  Attended the Welcome Reception that evening in the Inforum atrium.
    Quickly realized I didn't know anyone there and left.  Resting up
    for the days to come turned out to be a real good idea.

Thursday, August 18, 1994

 - ONE BBSCON Opening Session in the main ballroom of the Marriott.
    I arrived just before the 0900 start time, so I ended up seated
    near the back.  The speakers looked like puppets off in the
    distance.  Fortunately the speakers were projected on huge
    display screens placed around the room (which were showing some
    kind of weird Transformers videos before the show).

 - First discovery of the show: I had been mispronouncing Jack
    Rickard's name all these years.  I had been pronouncing it like
    Captain Picard's last name, only with a "R".  It turns out the
    accent is on the first syllable.

 - Stan Hirschman, a V.P. with Software, Etc. still uses a 1200 baud
    modem.  You'd think the man would qualify for some sort of
    employee discount.

 - Scott Brinker, the boy genius of Galacticomm, spoke next.  He was
    very excited and talks with his hands (we're not talking ASL
    here, either).  You can tell he's a genius because he used the
    word "paradigm" in his speech.

 - Lance Rose was the next speaker.  An attorney, Lance spoke at
    length while saying relatively little.  He's probably bucking for
    politician.

 - Colonel Dave Hughes: a genuine American character.  That pretty
    much says it all about this man, except that he still believes in
    NAPLPS.

 - Phil Becker, the president of eSoft, stole the program with a
    laser light show.  He has a book in print were he stated
    categorically that 19200 bps was the maximum modem speed possible
    on a regular phone line.  I bet he'll never say "never" again.

 - Dennis Hayes was the keynote speaker this year.  He took a quick
    poll of the attendees (around 3600 people) and found that almost
    everyone was running at least 14.4 modems.  About 25% already had
    28.8 modems on their boards.  Dennis predicted that combined
    voice/data is the big future technology for online services.
    Great, just great...we'll be able to *hear* the whining of the
    twits.  He correctly identified the major limitation for the
    online future as the lack of ISDN.  Has anyone figured out why 
    most of the Baby Bells are fighting widespread ISDN implementa- 
    tion tooth and nail? 

 - Lunch presented the first opportunity to actually meet some
    people.  Talked with a couple of sysops from Hawaii.  If you
    think you have trouble getting a low cost Internet feed, try
    getting one in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

 - Thursday afternoon brought several Electronic Publishing related
    seminars.  Suffice it to say there are some very exciting things
    in store for electronic publications in general, and just maybe
    for RAH in particular.

 - I crashed early Thursday night and slept for about 10 hours.  It
    might have been more convenient if I'd made it back to my room 
    before crashing.

Friday, August 19, 1994

My second morning in the hotel I finally noticed that in hotel
bathroom, the hair dryer has a tag on it reading: 

   DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG!
   WARN CHILDREN OF THE RISK OF DEATH BY ELECTRIC SHOCK!

This message appealed to my repressed evangelistic tendencies.
There being no children available in my room, I rushed to the 
lobby to carry out my programming.  "You run the risk of death by
electric shock!" I screamed at the first child to cross my path.
Unfortunately I had not dressed for the day's activities before
reading the hair dryer tag.  The hotel security people were
reasonably polite, given the circumstances.

Perhaps I should point out how forgetful I am.  At one point during
this ONE BBSCON I purchased a $600 software package (Wildcat! V4 BBS
Suite) from a vendor booth.  I then walked the whole 100 feet
straight down an aisle to the exit, heading for my next seminar.  The
watchful security people asked to see my receipt.  Darned if could
find it on me anywhere.  Eventually I walked back to the vendor
booth, only to find that they had placed it in a drawer to wait for
my inevitable return.  I had left the receipt sitting on a counter at
the booth.

Friday night several major vendors sponsored "Hostility Suites" on
the tenth floor of the Marriott Marquis.  Alright, officially they
were called "Hospitality Suites," but the presence of cash bars
rather that open bars showed a certain amount of hostility, or at
least stinginess.

Saturday, August 20, 1994

Spend, spend, spend.  My credit card was smoking by the end of the
vendor expo.  A classic example of spending *way* too much money
because of all the money I was "saving" on show specials.   It's a
good thing I'm not married, because I would've been divorced
immediately after this trip anyway.

I discovered that the atrium of the Marriott Marquis appears, from
the Garden Level looking straight up (not recommended for those who
suffer from vertigo), like the guts of V-ger, the alien machine in
_Star Trek: The Motionless Picture_.

The battery died on my notebook computer.  It was two weeks old.

Dvorak/Hayes Awards Dinner:

About 1000 people sitting around eating overpriced food, which was
surprisingly good.  It struck me that these people really *are* the
pioneers of a new industry.  You can tell it's a young industry,
since we spent a good bit of the last hour throwing green nerf balls
with the word "Wonk" emblazoned on them around the room.  Our table
specialized in trying to nail Nick Anis and Ward Christiansen, who 
were going around throwing prizes at people.  Since some of these
prizes were complete packages of Paradox for Windows (which weight
about 48 pounds each), it's lucky more people weren't injured.

Overall Impressions:

A wonderful, raucous, tiring experience.  But one I wouldn't have 
missed for anything.  I didn't attend last year's convention in 
Colorado Springs because I couldn't afford it.  While it's debatable,
from a purely financial standpoint, whether I could afford it this
year, the simple truth is that nobody seriously involved in the
online industry can afford to miss this show.  I plan to be there in
Tampa next year.

>> Vacation Mode <<

Sunday, August 21, 1994

All that said, I was so tired of seminars and gala banquets that I
blew off the final half-day and left Atlanta.  Making use of my
exceptional navigation skills, my first day of return driving took
me to Jacksonville Beach, FL.  Making the best of a weird situation,
I checked into the Days Inn Oceanfront Resort on the beach.  At least
I had the waterfront part right.

On the way through southern Georgia and Florida I crossed an amazing
number of rivers with "oochee" in the name.  Obviously some ancestor 
of Charo was the first to explore this region.

Took a moonlight walk in the surf.  This was the first time in nearly
five years that my feet had touched the Atlantic Ocean, or any other
water.  The Atlantic whimpered.

Monday, August 22, 1994

Found out this morning why the beaches here look nearly deserted.
It's the first day of the school year for public school kids in
Florida.  A rainy day in Florida to boot.  Yuck (suffering from
sympathetic flashbacks)!

Ate lunch at a little place in Jacksonville Beach called the Hungry
Iguana  (319 S. 23rd Ave. corner of 3rd St. (A1A)).  These folks
serve a strange version of California/Mexican food.  Strange but
excellent.  I had the Grilled Shrimp Chimichanga: a fried burrito
stuffed with diced shrimp, black beans, cheese and served with
guacamole and sour cream.  An $11 lunch (including a couple of
beers), but worth every penny.  Definitely the best Cal/Mex meal I've
ever had (and I've actually had some in California).

The rest of the day was spent roaming around the Jacksonville area
doing background research for a novel I may or may not ever get
around to writing.

Tuesday, August 23, 1994

Looked around Jacksonville some more.  Ventured down the coast to St.
Augustine in the afternoon.  Wandered around the "Spanish shoppes"
area downtown.  Ate lunch at a pub that was more English than
Spanish, then bought a couple of t-shirts and some postcards.  St. 
Augustine must draw more tourists than the Jacksonville Beaches.  The
historic district was pretty well packed with rugrats and their
parental units.

Wednesday, August 24, 1994

Left Jacksonville Beach, FL. at 1015.  Arrived in Pasadena, MD. at
0015 on 8/25/94.  An 800 mile trip in 12 hours of driving.  Stopped
twice for half hour meal breaks and at Greg Borek's place in Virginia
for an hour.  Home at last.  Now all I have to do is get a magazine
out in the next week.

Friday, August 26, 1994

Went to settlement on refinancing my house.  Found out I had to wait
nearly a week to get my money.  The Maryland State Legislature, in
its considerably less than infinite wisdom, decided to protect
Marylanders from themselves (again).  They have a new law that gives
the customer the right to cancel any sales contract within three
business days and get all their money back.

In the case of a vacuum cleaner this isn't a big deal.  You give the
vacuum cleaner back to the company, and they give you your money
back.  In the case of a six figure real estate transaction, the bank
is not going to hand you the money, then hope you won't cancel the
deal a couple days later, effectively voiding their mortgage.  Oh,
no.  The money goes into a lawyer's escrow account until the three
days have passed.  Then you get the money.  Of course, the lawyer is
collecting interest on the money during this time.  Gee, I wonder who
lobbied for that law?                                           {RAH}
--------------
Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer who
works with CICS, MVS and all manner of nasty acronyms at one of the
largest heavy metal shops on the East Coast.  He shares a waterfront
townhome in Pasadena, MD. with two cats who annoy him endlessly as he
writes and electronically publishes RAH.    FidoNet> 1:261/1129
Internet: dave.bealer@rah.clark.net

