Comdex
For over nineteen years now, on Friday morning in the second week of November, around 6:00 a.m., I get into my car and drive to Las Vegas for Comdex. I go there at other times for things like InterOp or Nascar, and I fly in and rent a car. However, during Comdex week, I drive my own car because rentals cost a fortune. As a matter of fact, even the hotels double their normal rates during that week. Some hotel chains are working on that and for the first time this year, prices have come down a little, but not much.
To avoid boredom, I take the mountain route and as long as the weather is okay, it's quicker if you know the shortcuts. The object is to get over the Sierras and on to highway 395. I like to go up to Kit Carson Pass taking highway 88, then over Monitor Pass and on down to highway 395. If there's a storm, I might take highway 50 to Lake Tahoe and then over to 395 from Gardnerville. It all depends on the weather. Most of the time, Iron Mountain Road is already closed.
There are several other ways to get to Highway 95 in Nevada leading to Las Vegas. One way is to go straight to Death Valley, then over to HWY 95. However, I like to take 168 just out of Bishop, then on to 266 connecting to 95. This stretch of road is quite fun. First of all, there are no major cities anywhere and at one part, the road is only one car width wide. You might ask, "Wow, why would you take such a rural route?" Well, instead of going all the way down I-5 to Barstow then back up to Las Vegas, I can get there faster and with more scenery.
Once there, I check in and go right away to a Brazilian steak house with Rolland Cole. Rollie and I have been palling up since 1990. He is a lawyer and lives in Kansas. He used to belong to the Seattle PC Users Group and was a director of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG).
The day after I arrive, Saturday, we start with roundtables for user groups, and that goes on all weekend. These roundtables are put on by user group people to swap tips and tricks that other user groups find useful in running their own groups. Finally, Sunday night, all the people who are registered for APCUG events get invited to a sort of mini-Comdex. All the vendors who choose to, pay a preset amount and set up venues so the APCUG participants can roam through the tables and find out a little more about the companies that are there that night, without fighting the crowds at the main Comdex event.
Then the Main Event happens. Monday morning, over 220,000 people line up to start the show. There are over 35 miles of aisle-ways. It takes a full week to walk the entire show, and Rollie and I have been doing it for years. By the end of the week, we have enough information to last us the entire year. The most important factor—and why I go there each and every year—is the contacts I get. If I can walk away with a business card or a name of someone to call in case I need help with some product, or if we need a speaker for the User Group, then it makes it all worth it.
This year I will be going again and Ken Hopkins will be there as well. Tom Anderson will be hosting the meeting and I'm sure will do a fine job. Who knows, maybe he will like it so much that someday he might run for President and go to Comdex himself.
