Back from ALCON

For those of you who are in a cave ALCON 2003 was this week from Wednesday
to Saturday in Nashville TN (go vols land). Let me tell you what an awesome
event. All of the people were nice and helpful and the speakers were great.

I arrived Friday morning and went into the conference room and sat down. A
minute later a good friend of mine Mike Benson the chairman of ALCON came in
and was all excited to see me and my friend John Sparks. Mike and I go a
long way. We have known each other for 11 years. In fact Mike and I have
gone camping together. We have even cooked hamburgers while listening to the
Grateful Dead. Those of us in this forum who belongs to the AL should give
Mike a hand for his job well done.

Little later that morning I saw our friend Rod Mollise. I approached him and
said hi Rod and he didn't recognize me. I told everyone I would be easy to
spot because I would be the best looking person there. He had to read my
name tag to figure out who I was. What a shame. Oh well Rod was very nice
and didn't hit me.

The venders at ALCON were great. I bought an awesome pair of 15 X 70
binoculars from Bill Burgess. He even made sure they were perfectly
collimated before I purchased them. I took them home later that evening and
I could see craters on the moon. They would be great for observing dark
nebula. BTW dark nebula are not part of the Messier catalog so most of you
have never seen one or even know what they are because everyone at SAA are
Messier slaves.

The Meade vice president of sales Scott somebody was there showing off Meade
telescopes. Being who I am I had to tell him that goto is immoral. Well
being the salesman that Scott is he explained to me the benefits of goto. I
am sad to say I am a fence sitter now. Plus the goto has an off button which
makes it alright. I then told Scott he should get a bumper sticker on his
car that says my other job is with Celestron. Since Scott is a normal person
and doesn't get offended like all of you do he thought that was funny.

There was a lot of humor at ALCON. One fun thing to do is when you are
taking a dump in the bathroom and there are other people in the rest room
you yell out AAAHHHHGGG IT WON"T COME OUT!!!!!!!! I did that while Richard
Berry was in there. He looked towards the stall, washed his hands at
lightening speed and bolted out of there. That was funny.

Another thing I did is hide my name tag and go to the registration booth and
ask for my information packet. They would search and search and wouldn't
come up with anything. After awhile I would show them my name tag. They are
normal as well and thought it was funny.

How many of you have been to an ALCON banquet drunk. Well I have always
dreamed of that. About 40 minutes before the banquet started I went to the
bar. I know I wanted to get drunk fast so I have to order something that
tasted good and went down easy. Vodka and cranberry juice was the answer. I
knocked several of those down, more then enough to be intoxicated.

I managed to make it to the banquet hall with my head spinning. I sat down
at a table next to Pedro from Starry Night software and Michael Bakich an
editor at Astronomy magazine. I warned everyone I was drunk but I am not
going to strip naked and run around like I usually do while I am drunk. You
know while drunk you get smarter. I had an awesome suggestion for Pedro for
Starry Night. I told him for the movies the background music should be Rocky
Top. Imagine David Levy talking about comets with Flatt & Scrugs Rocky Top
playing. I also complained that I couldn't import any of my porno movies
into Starry Night.

All in all ALCON was great. It went off smooth and everyone had fun and
learned. Oh and congratulations to all those who earned their awards.

The venders at ALCON were great. I bought an awesome pair of 15 X 70
binoculars from Bill Burgess.

Hi Shawn:

I bought a pair of these from Bill, too. Yes, _awesome_ is the word. Actually
_amazing_ is the word for the price Bill charged. Don't know how he does it!

As Shawn says, Mr. B. checked the binocs he sold to ensure that they were in
collimation. But not only that: he ran impromptu collimation clinics, showing
those of us who were interested how to collimate binoculars ourselves. Bill is
knowledgeable and enthusiastic, as is his lovely wife, Tammy. I predict great
things for them in this biz if they continue on in this fashion.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

elivened

Hi:

I meant "enlivened"...though knowing Shawn, anything is possible! :-)

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html