Destination Desktop 2009

The 10th anniversary of Destination Desktop happened at Olds College last week in conjunction with the 25^th anniversary of Autodraft. (It disturbs me somewhat that I can remember when AutoCAD was released, and I wasn’t a kid!) The event went very smoothly from my perspective, and it was due to many hours of hard work from many people. Kelly and his team started to organize right after last year’s DD; Claire and her husband were wonderful hosts; and between Autodraft IT and Olds College IT, the labs ran very smoothly! My job was to put out fires, so I had it pretty easy this year. Thanks!

I always look forward to the evening design-and-build event. Last year, Murray and I organized it. Without going into details that may get me fired, it involved flames, smoke, high speed, breaking things and blowing out tiki torches. The event went off without incident. This year Kelly toned things down a little and opted for an event involving soft tennis balls and bungee cord. It turns out that a tennis ball traveling at high speed can do a fair bit of damage. A good time was had by all—even the injured. Thanks Kelly!

I always enjoy the corporate goody bag you receive at most conventions. I remember from many years ago a mint tin with a pop lid. I don’t know how else to describe it: you pop the top of the lid in, and the tabs release around the edges. To close it, you squeeze the edges and the top pops back up. Very cool for my twisted mind, and I continued to pop the lid long after the mints were gone. I got another one this year!

Better than that, though, was the coolest little flashlight I’ve ever seen. It is hand cranked and LED powered. When I saw it in the swag bag, my very first thought was, “that would be perfect for finding your way to the outhouse and checking for elephants.” This might seem like an odd thought as few of us have an outhouse or need to worry about elephants in the backyard, however I have many friends who do need to worry about such things. This would be the perfect little light to show them the value of LED lighting while also being very portable and very inexpensive. I think of it as a technology lost leader: get them hooked on the idea first, then they can sell a sheep to get larger, better quality lighting. I approached Claire Botkin, the owner of Autodraft, to find out where she got the lights, and she gave me 100 to take abroad! From party favour to life saver! You got to love it! Thanks, Claire!

I do love being around the tech-y crowd, and I will miss it next year as I will soon leave the College for a 14 month holiday. Thanks to Autodraft, I-Design and Olds College for organizing this event to feed my mind and the minds of about 150 other people, too!