I was sitting in the middle of a last-minute gathering of video professionals at the Stardust Terrace Bar, waiting to see who else would show up, when it occurred to me why I've been to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas three years in a row. It was more fun than opening a six-pack of Cracker Jacks to get to meet people in person that I know so well only through email. It's like a blind date without the blindness... a myopic date. Over the internet these people make me laugh, they help me out with technical questions, we joke about Monty Python and share our lives. And once a year I get to spend my evenings in Las Vegas casino lounges exchanging more of the same wonderful chat, only faster and better. I am always delightfully surprised every time I meet someone in person.

This year my official mission was to find a DV deck at the Sony booth. I need an official mission each year to remind myself that I'm there as a video professional or something like it. My unofficial mission was a vague urge to get to know as many people as I could. On Saturday I had put a last-minute note on the Media 100 list server that I'd be at the Stardust Terrace Bar at midnight. But first I had the better part of a day to kill, and a dinner to attend.

Sunday morning - Irrelevant Cruising in the Land of the Irrelevant.

I had arrived in the morning Sunday and rented a car. I made a first cruise down Las Vegas Boulevard and noticed not much had changed except a couple monstrously huge new casino resorts, the nearly-completed Venetian, the Bellagio and the Paris, which has a replica Eiffel Tower straddling some lower Franco-Vegas structure. Oddly, huge absurd structures filling in the dusty desert gaps along the Strip just don't register as change. However, at eye level there was a forest of colorful lighted teevee-like billboards, and my favorite shimmered cobalt blue with silvery letters, announcing that an MD would come to your hotel room and prescribe Viagra at any time of the day or night. Ah, Vegas.

Sunday evening - The Guys from Down Under and I Get Shot From a Cannon.

Sunday evening was a dinner for the group of people who were organizing the big Media 100 user's group party Monday night. It was a wonderful kick-off to the convention madness, and I was glad to meet the people I was to work with the next day. I was also happy to see my old friend Carey Dissmore who was hosting the dinner. We took pictures, we chatted, we raved about each other's work, we swapped videos. Finally, most of the group left to see the new Cirque du Soleil show, leaving me staring at Australian wild man Philip Hodgetts and his friend Greg Clarke, a man with the face of an angel and the heart of a slightly naughtier angel. I dunno. What do YOU want to do?

Philip, who claims he's afraid of heights, decided that we should combat our fears, do something heroic, and run over to the Stratosphere to ride the Big Shot. Sounds like fun, I said. I'm game. Big Shot? I had no idea what this ride was but it couldn't be fatal. We bought our tickets and took an elevator, then walked past a bunch of odd little shops (one selling mostly refrigerator magnets and rubber eyeballs), then took another elevator... we stepped out onto the observation deck high atop the Stratosphere tower and admired the night view. Then we climbed to the Big Shot's platform. People sat down in seats around a thick structural shaft, their feet dangling, a rigid harness was pulled over them. There was a giant hiss and the people vanished upward as though shot from a cannon. I stared in horror, wondering how they avoided whiplash, the bends, and static cling. No one screamed on the upswing, maybe because they were experiencing all those things at once. Philip and Greg were in hysterics at the look of horror on my face, an expression Philip described to anyone who would listen for the next three days. Greg gently pried my fingers off the guard rail because we were next.

What kind of chump pays ten bucks for a 20 second ride? I sat down. People told me to smile. Yeah, sure. I'm about to have my brain shoved into my shoes at 4 Gs and you want me to smile like an idiot. The bright lights of Las Vegas spread out like a carpet before me. You know, I could be happy just looking at all the beauti -

WHOOOOSH! Son of a bitch. Open your eyes. You're paying for this. No one ever died on this ride. Maybe they did but no one told us. Oooh.... the lights. Higher and higher. Are those my dead relatives? CLACK. Our four second liftoff ends at the top, not with a gentle deceleration but with what feels like a magnetic brake jarring us to a stop. Then we drop like freakin' rocks. This part I hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. I hear the following little Australian-accented plea to no one in particular: "I want to get off this thing now I want to get off this thing now I want to get off this thing now I want to get off this thing now." We slow down near the bottom, and are shot back up in the air. Now I'm a veteran and also not dead. I look at the city, the lights, the line of airplanes approaching the airport delivering more idiots to ride on monstrosities like this. It is the longest 20 seconds of my life, longer than the time I crashed my bike into a barbed wire fence in Dillon, Montana.

We step off the ride, collect our pocket change and shoes and wobble down the stairs to look at the view from the deck, which is pretty tame compared to the near-death experience we just had. A woman standing at a rolling cart offered to sell us another ticket for $3 to go again. God help us, we almost did.

The exhilaration lasted hours. We were funneled through the gift shop in our weakened state, where I bought a deck of cards, Greg bought a pencil for his sister, and Philip shook snow domes but held out for a plasma light he saw at the gift shop near the rubber eyeball place. We'd started the convention week off like we were shot from a cannon because, well... we were shot from a cannon.

We were heroes. We were gods. We few, we manly men. Well, not me.

Sunday Night - Stumble Into a Gin & Tonic First Thing

I dropped my stuff off at the motel and walked over to the Stardust at about 11:30. People were already there. Beth Corwin (with whom I had shared a cheap hotel room the year before) and her husband Tom Wolsky had already figured out the Happy Hour routine and were talking with four or five others. No one was wearing a convention name tag yet, which made it a real guessing game.

Sarah Hornbacher showed up and introduced herself... it was the first time I had met her, a tall striking woman in all black. I was to be sharing a hotel room with her. Everyone fell into conversation immediately when a new person was added to the group, since introductions weren't completely needed, just a name.

One person I had wanted to meet for two years was Paul Izbicki who had just arrived from Boston. He, like many of us, made the Stardust his first stop, with another friend. Tom Hergert, who seems to know everyone, called to them from our table. I was enjoying the opportunity to match the familiar personality with the new face in what is commonly known as "lurker" mode. I lurked for about 10 seconds, as Sarah and Beth mercifully introduced themselves to him. Paul did some quick math and determined who I was and walked around the table behind me, kissed me, and sat down to a waiting gin and tonic like we might have a hundred times if our cyber-meetings had been live. The man is adorable. Lurking is fun, I decided, but sitting in a nice Las Vegas bar in good company is far better.

Monday: Attack of 100,000 Geeks, Many of them "One Of Us."

The exhibits at NAB don't change from year to year. The products evolve slower than the hype would indicate. I was there mostly to see the digital cameras and decks, but the crowds were stifling... hordes of geek boys left no room to see anything so I made a cursory pass at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Monday was the International Media 100 Users Group bash, and so I went over to the Stardust ballroom to help set up for it. The live chat computer was being set up, the audio system and video screen were being de-bugged. Staff were setting the tables and preparing the buffet. There wasn't that much for me to do.

The event itself was pretty remarkable... two panel discussions went on in the front which I managed to avoid by getting on an on-line IRC chat in the back of the room and making up stuff like nude dancing and fistfights and inane quotations to share with hapless internet chatters. (I was desperate to avoid technology that week, an ironic goal considering where I was.) One thing I mentioned was a man in polar bear costume I'd seen at the convention. As we passed the guy, Paul's comment had been "There's my idea of the punishment you get when you die and go to hell." Someone reading the IRC knew the Polar Bear guy and said to say hi. It's a small and hellish world after all.

There were door prizes, awards given out, a nice dinner, and a video compilation of our members' best work. But the neatest thing, once again, was meeting the people behind the email identities. They were all wonderful, even the most annoying of them, who were at least interesting.

After the event, not everyone was willing to call it quits. A bunch of us cabbed to Fremont Street to see the 5-block-long light canopy programmed with music and graphics. I am always charmed by the sight of it. Leave it to a bunch of video producers to grouse about the waste of technology... Paul and a few others thought the show was a bit lame and wondered why they hadn't done something more imaginative with the whole thing. It's true, my own thoughts often wandered to what I could have done with it if someone had turned me loose on it... some fantasy of blue green underwater scenery, or a historical drama with the booming Voice of God. Then we went for $2 steaks at Binyon's. Like the light show, it may be lame but the price is right.

Tuesday - The Technogeeks Overdose.

Sarah and I met Beth at the Sony booth to see the newest DV equipment. Beth amazes me every time I spend time with her... I tell her what kind of thing I want equipment to do, and she leads me right to it. I tried out the new smallish DV Cam camcorders, and Beth gave me a quick lesson on how to carry a large Betacam without dropping it or looking like a dork.

Sony doesn't give out paper literature any more, they hand out CD ROMs. They also assume erroneously that everyone has PCs, so when I got the CD ROM home, my Mac wouldn't read it. I then called up Sony and asked them to mail me the literature on the camera I wanted. Very efficient method there, Sony. Fire the guys who came up with that idea.

That night was the annual Digital Cafe hosted by ProMax. This was unavoidable panel discussions followed by a nice buffet. Charles McConathy, who runs ProMax and hosted the party, went around handing out rolls of lifesavers with his company ad on the wrapper. Charles has a flair for marketing and does good work at conventions... his party is informative and fun, and the kind of gathering place where the best kind of networking happens. He also has great prize giveaways... usually something useful and expensive. Here we met up again with theAustralians, with Carey (who was finally recovered from the IMUG party), with some people we'd grown to know on line, and a few strangers.

Wednesday: The Night of the Crashing Boor

Wednesday night was the night we crashed several events. First, we walked into a vendor's presentation of some new Media 100 software thing called "Shake". As far as I could see, I didn't need Shake. I did, however need something to eat after wandering the desert. There were free drinks, chicken wings, I was hungry and there was a nice soft chair in a nice big Hilton suite. I didn't even have to feign interest in the presentation.

Next, Sarah, Paul and I ran across Tom, who was walking over to an industry roundtable at the Las Vegas Country Club. We insinuated ourselves along. My thought was that I could socialize a while, then get out of there before the techno-babble began. Everyone else seemed genuinely interested in the opportunity to express themselves at a high-profile discussion group.

The Las Vegas Country Club is simply beautiful. The building is flagstone and arced glue lam beams, and the patio overlooks a tree-lined golf course with big raucous long-tailed shrikes flying low. The sun was going down, the food and drinks were exquisite. I was sitting there in a happy daze in the midst of these most companionable people and said to Paul and Sarah, "This is a perfect moment, don't you think?" They agreed. I elaborated. "This beautiful place, the temperature is perfect, magic-hour light, that gorgeous green landscape and the birds - " "And...?" they said. "Um... and the food?" I offered. "And the company?" They said back. They're a little offended. "Oh, of course, the company couldn't be better, I can't think of anyone I'd rather be sitting here with - " Nice try, Too little too late. I actually thought my appreciation for them went without saying.

The host of the gathering came by the table. Brian McKernan of Videography magazine has that admirable knack of working a room and seeming genuinely appreciative of everyone there, including a bunch of gate-crashers - he praised us for bringing that rare end-user viewpoint to his discussion. He even accepted my business card for Get Lost Magazine with grace and said he was looking forward to reading it. It didn't matter if he was lying about that... he was the perfect host. I decided not to eat and run, because he was charming and I wanted to be of use to his gathering after all.

Eighty of us sat down in a round room and the discussion began. We introduced ourselves and then the moderator introduced the first topic: "...the most exciting thing at NAB 99: STORAGE SOLUTIONS!" My eyes rolled back into my skull and I struggled to stay conscious for the next two hours, as words turned quickly to acronyms then numbers, and it all went to hell from there.

Outside after the roundtable, Carey was stoked, shimmering with excitement. At this gathering of techno-geeks my favorite techno-geek Minnesota boy was exactly in his element. He asked: How did you like it? I've never been so bored in my entire life, I said. But these people, these movers and shakers of our industry are going to CHANGE YOUR WORLD! Not mine, pookie. Nothing in that room was going to change anything. A brain-trust it was not. They needed to have more than two topics and they needed to vanquish the rambling Specification Wonks before they rewired the world. They needed to find a human angle, and didn't really, except the Hollywood guy who questioned if hundreds of satellite tv channels were going to improve television if all they showed was Suddenly Susan, something we already knew. Though he started a discussion on content, things moved quickly back to technology. Perhaps Las Vegas wasn't the right venue to discuss the secondary importance of gadgetry.

We made a slow exit and headed to the Mirage where I further made a pest of myself with my boycott of the hotel properties that keep captive dolphins. I drank club soda and stole enough matchbooks and swizzle sticks to neutralize their profit. Someone pointed out that my boycott could be best served by occupying a seat and not drinking much. Good point, but I wanted to really drink, especially after that round table, and I couldn't do it there.

We finally moved on to Caesar's which, by the way, wasn't nearly as nice as the Mirage, and we ran into a few of the others there. I had more gins and tonics, and marveled at the patience and affection of these people who should have brained me three times over that day. Could it be they actually liked me in spite of all my boorish qualities? Or maybe it was the drinks and the heightened oxygen in the casino. Or... maybe the company. It went without saying.

Thursday - Day of the Happy Tight-Asses

After I found the DV Cam I'd been looking for, Paul and Sara and I went cruising for DVD authoring software. (I didn't really care about DVD, being annoyed with anything that can't be described in whole words, but Paul and Sarah were like bloodhounds.) Spruce, like other big companies, had a booth with folding chairs and actors presenting the product... we found a few seats in front of a classic Booth Babe who was on a little stage doing a script. To her great credit, she delivered lines (which you can only pray she didn't write) with enthusiasm and pep. We were grateful to be seated, and dozed through the first part of her presentation which only made her work harder. The shtick was part of an effort to replicate a deadline situation in a studio:

"You have a deadline and a tight-ass producer sitting over your shoulder really putting on the pressure. We've all had sessions like this, am I right? [pause for that eager audience response that never comes.] Well, with Spruce, you can author, encode and master a DVD in one application! We know how to keep your tight-ass happy!"

Hm? Whaa?

She carried on without so much as a wink, blink, flinch or pause, except where scripted. The demo finished up, and off we ambled, still a bit dazed. We found our dialog taking a turn. "Shall we go over to the Flamingo for a drink?" "Flamingo it is. They know how to keep my tight ass happy." All over town, at seminars, in the casinos, out in the desert, we spread the convention legend, reciting the outrageous line with straight faces, then snorting and snickering. It's one of those things that gets repeated a hundred times, become A Saying and the origin of it gets lost.

Thursday - We Wander the Desert. Dave's Not Here.

Thursday afternoon four of us had had enough of the convention displays and drove out to the desert to hike around Red Rocks. I won't say who the other three were, but let's call them Larry, Moe and Curly. We piled into a rental car, stopped at a Starbucks, then head out of town.

Curly and I had our cameras and I fabricated photo ops to cover up the fact that I was out of breath. Oo! Look at the cactus! Hey, this rock is almost the shape of the state of North Carolina! You guys go on; I want to take a picture.

Rain was approaching and the air was cool. There were a few flowers on the cacti, the start of a desert bloom. I really did find the cactus plants interesting, each with its own little way of inflicting pain. Short with short spines, round with fuzzy spines, tall with spiky spines. It might make a good children's game: touch the plant without drawing blood.

Larry and Moe climbed up a dome-shaped rock and we all stood there enjoying the desert air. Someone offered us some weed he brought along with him... I said that the few times I tried it in college 25 years ago it was a waste of good weed, since it has no effect on me. I tried it anyway, just to prove my point. Feeling anything yet? We employ a Leatherman pliers as a roach clip and finish off three tiny rolled up things. How about now? Sorry. Nothing. Are you sure you're inhaling? I'm really inept at this. I told you it was a waste of dope.

We headed back to the car. Something caught my eye, and I called everyone over. A small bee was impaled on a longish cactus spine. How did that happen, do you think? Did it just fly into it, or did the wind throw in on the cactus? (McBee has a theory about the bee...) The three men are staring at me in amazement. Curly takes a picture of the bee on the cactus spine because no one will believe this. They are convinced no mortal would have found the only bee in all of Red Rocks to have impaled itself on a cactus spine without being at least a little altered in the sensory department, and so the tale was told over many a gin and tonic of my vision in the desert.

To cap my absurd day as Living Legend, I managed an even greater feat: I navigated us back to Las Vegas with a little compass and one of those less-than-detailed road maps the rental places give you. My usual sense of direction is so bad ordinarily that not a soul would believe this part of the story. We got Moe to the airport just in time for his flight.

Thursday night: Aloha Oy.

Our final staging area preflight was the Hard Rock Cafe. Carey had suggested it because it was near the airport, but then he forgot and went somewhere else and never did meet us there. The place was loud, with music piped into the restroom stalls. My head hadn't stopped ringing from the din of the casinos and the convention floors, and some video wonk with a backwards baseball hat had a Betacam taking pictures in the restaurant like the place was actually hip. We gathered at a far corner table for dinner, took some aspirin, and said our mushy goodbyes. As my week had started with a kiss from Paul, it ended with an endless hug from him, and then from all the others I had gotten to know. It was lovely and mawkish, it felt like a beer commercial.

Two years ago I came home with cactus in my luggage, and this year it was swizzle sticks and matchbooks, and $10 in nickels I won in slots. Oh, yeah, and wonderful new friends. That should go without saying.

Leslie Strom will probably return to Las Vegas next year by which time her new friends will have forgotten all about her annoying qualities.