As I stood pondering how fast this 100Mhz Scenix chip could spit
out sine waves I hear in the back ground a question slightly tainted
with a bit of sarcasm, "Do you have ANY data sheets yet?" I turned
to find a curious but cautious Eric Smith.
"Are you Eric Smith of the PIC list?"
"Yes."
I whipped out my business card and introduced myself to my first
encounter. Our brief casual conversation was interrupted by Eric's
cellular. Since it was a quarter after, I decided to negotiate
the maze of booths to PIC list mecca: Byte Craft.

There must have been 1,000,000 (base 2) booths, each packed with
all kinds of goodies. Engineers with these damned goofy Wince-logoed
dog collars for name tags, eagerly stuffed thier shopping bags with
data sheets, pamplets, pins, key chains, chocolate, or my favorite,
Microchip screwdrivers. I wonder though, if the Harley's in the
booth next to Microsoft's Ampitheater were really necessary.

I knew I was at the right place when I looked down and saw green.
I grew up in Texas, but never witnessed such a bright pair of shit-
kickers. Mr. Piclist (aka Andrew Warren) was there, in the flesh,
casually explaining something to Andre Abelian.

Just as I arrived, an ethusiastic but certainly overworked Walter
Banks was collecting business cards. I gave him mine and then proceeded
to learn about Byte Craft Tip #4 - a really, really cool way to do
A/D and D/A conversion with just 2 I/O lines, 2 resistors, a capacitor
and some clever code. By the time Walter could explain it to the
level I could understand it, a crowd of 10 or 15 or so had accumulated.

Andy Errington (aka Andy #2) and I were joined by Andy Warren and
Andre to dicuss stuff people only on the Pic list would discuss. I
wonder what happened to all of the Mikes?

Our casual conversations were interrupted when the really cool
propeller clock dude, aka Bob Blick, decided to catch the Microsoft
Moment with his digital camera. An obliging volunteer pixellated
0.1% of the PIC list members for what I imagine will soon be a new
twist to the propeller page.

The limit to the Motorla bash was 1400 people. Since it was
rapidly approaching 7:00, we decided we better beat the bus loads
of geeks. To my disappointment though, most of our group had
decided not to continue with the revelry. And so a small group of
us navigated the poorly lit streets just outside of down town
San Jose to the "Saddle Rack".

Eight years ago I said I would never go to the Saddle Rack again.
But free food overwhelms the morals of any perpetually hungry
penny pinching engineer. Andy and I were incredulous when the
bean counters at the front door expected us to be wearing our
wince dog tags. But after a few shadowy looks at Andy's boots
and my sandals, the confused counter compromisingly accepted my
business card - the one I gave to Andy. Hmmmm.

The 100000dB blaring country musuck provided little opportunity
for us to talk. So a nicotine starved Andy snuck out the back
door and was immediately followed by the remaining 4 of us. (Which
probably explains why you were unable to find us, Walter). There,
Andy Warren, Andy Errington, Gary Skinner, myself, and a PIC list
lurker who works a stone's throw away from me but for the life
of Bill Gates I can't remember his name (sorry), shot the shit for an
hour and a half. We were interrupted once by the spitting image of Fred
Flinstone bellowing to the caterers, "Whew baby! Ya'll know where I
can get some more bar-b-q sauce?"

Discussions ranged from "do you think Dmitry is real person - or
is he an experiment in artificial intelligent - or perhaps an alter
ego of John Payson", to AVR, to PIC's are really cool. It was really
great to talk face to face with some people from the list and would
recommend that others do the same if ever given the opportunity.

Scott