Introduction

This year, I decided that Chicago was close enough to home to make the trip to AU. To defray expenses, I offered to teach a course on "Sheet Metal Flat Development with AutoCAD" (MCH021).

My Diary

September 23, 1996
by Owen Wengerd
All Rights Reserved

Now that I'm back home after a week in Chicago at Autodesk University, I'd like to briefly share my experiences for those of you who didn't make the trip.

When I arrived in Chicago on Saturday (9/14), I checked into my cut-rate hotel and drove around Chicago long enough to become familiar with my surroundings. I scoped out the Navy Pier where I would be spending most of my time, then parked my truck, unpacked my equipment, and set out on foot to discover what secrets Chicago held in its guts. I basically accomplished nothing on Saturday except for getting a blister on my toe.

On Sunday, I slept in. I was rudely awakened when the maid banged on my door around 9 AM. However, I quickly got dressed, showered in the standing-room-only shower stall, and headed for Navy Pier. Since I had become at least slightly familiar with the streets on Saturday, I felt confident in taking a few chances on the way to Navy Pier. Once I discovered that I had missed my guess and ended up some 6 miles north of Navy Pier, things went smoothly. In fact I pulled into the East garage at Navy Pier and pulled my truck into a parking space directly in front of the door which led to the stairs that lead directly to the AU registration area. Things were going good.

Sunday's agenda included getting registered, preparing my computer and room for my class Monday forenoon, and attending Lynn Allen's "Tips for Speakers" class on Sunday afternoon. The only hitch was that my room was the one room which did not have a computer in it yet. Well, besides the Speaker Ready room, which didn't get one until Wednesday.

Lynn's class was good. I borrowed a computer from another room so I could make some changes to my presentation to reflect some of her suggestions. I listened to the first half of the keynote address where I watched an uncomfortable, fully suited, dave espinoza-aguilar address the crowd, and Carol Bartz introduce the CEO of Softdesk as "the president and CEO of Autodesk".

At 6 PM the exhibit floor opened and everyone, including me, made a mad dash for the free food and drink on the show floor. I think some people even looked at the exhibits. I still didn't have a computer in my room.

Stacie Dong of Miller-Freeman promised that there would be a machine in my room before 6 AM Monday. So there I was at 5:30 AM Monday morning, waiting for someone to unlock the doors. By 6:30, the doors were unlocked, and I got right to work getting all my stuff loaded, making my own AutoCAD configuration, and preparing my example drawings for use. Sure enough, I discovered a bug in one of the lisp routines that was included on the CDROM every AU attendee received.

Once the 8:00 speaker kicked me out of the room at 7:30, I headed for the Speaker Ready room to grab some doughnuts and orange juice. The ready room was devoid of munchies, so I peeked into the Show Management room and found that it was well-stocked. I then decided to go through my presentation one last time before I had to face my 70 students at 10 AM.

The class went great. I improvised a bit, and winged it a lot. One student contended that my AutoLISP routines used symbol names containing illegal characters. When I pointed out that even the built-in multiplication function contained an asterisk, he shook his head in disgust. Luckily, he stormed out minutes later.

I felt like I had the world by the tail. I had students telling me what a great class it was, and eagerly staying after the class to ask questions and discuss related topics. One late-comer turned out to be someone I knew from the ACAD forum on Compuserve, and as it turned out he picked up the $8.00 tab for my Versucci Cheeseburger lunch.

Heading into Monday afternoon began an entire week of coasting. Monday evening was NAAUG's "Birds of a Feather" session, where I ran into a handful of people I knew from Compuserve. I ended up at a table with fellow programmers, including Andrew Bichard.

Tuesday included the annual NAAUG meeting, where I met a few more Compuserve people, including NAAUG BOD members and SIG chairs. I helped hand out the new NAAUG T-Shirts; by the comments, I'm convinced that the T-Shirt was the only reason most of the NAAUG members showed up.

Tuesday evening was the Speakers' Reception at the Palmer Hilton's Crystal Room. A great time was had by all. I met Tom Stoeckel, and ended up giving him a ride back to his hotel. By Tuesday evening, the trade show was over and many of the Autodesk people were on their way back home. The technical seminar component of AU continued in earnest.

I think it was Tuesday evening when I discovered the underbelly of Chicago. Yes, there is a whole city of loading docks, maintenance facilities, and the city impound lot under the streets of downtown Chicago. I was fascinated by it all, until I realized that I could not find my way out. The Chicago maps I had made no mention of "Lower" Wacker and "Upper" Wacker, much less how to get from one to the other. It was a memorable experience.

I had signed up to assist in some of the lab classes in order to help pay for some of my expenses, so I had the opportunity to wander around the classes and observe a variety of speakers and their students' reactions. This was an illuminating experience, to say the least. Let's just say that not all speakers are created equal, and some of them really helped my self-esteem.

I'll end this ditty on a high note at the NAAUG beer bust on Thursday afternoon. Between Donnia Tabor-Hansen, Don Spencer, dave aguilar, and Greg Robinson, the crowd was well-fed, entertained, and after a few drinks didn't even mind the less than perfectly level floor. I won a CADalyst T-shirt by naming Art Liddle as the person behind "Hot-Tip Harry".

Who was Who

What follows will be a quick description of my impressions of well-known people I met at the show. If you hang around the ACAD forum on Compuserve and/or read the AutoCAD trade rags, you'll recognize most of these people (in alphabetical order, and my apologies if I missed anybody).