gits at hamfest 2001

03/30/2001 -- uh-oh. we've gone to stx to get their hardware, and they have even more to give us than the last time i was there.

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the agape house van is in the shop, so we can't use it. we've packed the agape station wagon to the brim. (no, i was not at all worried when we made a turn and heard enough machines slide across the compartment that i was sure they were going through a window.)

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and we've filled kevin's car, too.

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but there's still more! eeek!

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and more! and... well, anyway...

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peter arrives! on foot? wasn't he supposed to bring...

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ah, there it is.

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so we were able to hit the road and get up to the fairgrounds. this looks like a secret photograph of some x-files midnight operation, but it's just the back entrance to the building where we had our table (with traffic directed by the world's cutest security guard).

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and here's inside.

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and our spot! starting to fill up already.

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but more is coming.

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oh, yeah. we got the junk.

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it's all unloaded! off to macaroni grill for dinner.

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well, ok, i lied. it's not all unloaded; a lot of the stuff from stx was too good to sell, so it made the trip back to kathleen's basement. poor kathleen -- she thought she was getting rid of stuff, not welcoming more.

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03/31/2001 -- and we're open for business. unfortunately, it was way too cramped for the amount of stuff we had. people asked if we had this or that, and we turned them away, only to find what they wanted when we got deeper into the pile. other people bought parts of funky old systems, and were gone with them before we found the rest of the parts.

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but good news! the folks with the booth next door never showed up, so we took over their space. with the two tables, we were able to get everything out into view.

we didn't do too badly the first day. we made $440, and a lot of big bulky stuff went away. there are still way too many systems sitting around for my comfort, and i'm especially sorry that not a single monitor was taken. why does no one want a 15-inch monitor for $15? it's a puzzlement. we'll hope that tomorrow does better.

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04/01/2001 -- time to get tough. "you will take the hardware."

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we did some selling the second day (made $145 in sales and $39.50 in donations), but slowly got closer and closer to the horrific realization that we would still have about a ton of stuff to carry away, and just kathleen, steve, and i were left.

we made several contacts over the course of the day, and found people who could use computers in their churches, schools, etc. we traded business cards and loaded them down with all they could carry, but there were still mountains left.

we wandered around shouting that all our stuff was now free, but eventually got desperate, found one of the show volunteers, and asked whether they would make an announcement for us. the guy said, "it's over, dude; everybody's gone home", but passed the word along anyway.

they made the announcement over the pa system, and by the time i walked around to the booth (about 20 seconds), a stream of people was starting to come around the end of the hallway. and more. and more. and more.

i thought maybe two or three people would show up, but there were 20-30 there within two minutes of the announcement. all we could do was stare and giggle.

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and more arrive. the guy in the blue shirt is from "computer accessories" (who had the booth across from us) and sold me the barebones system that will be the basis of my new workstation. it was the first time i bought from a vendor that uses a yahoo.com email address. very frightening.

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wow. so many people were there by this point that i had to back up to get them all in the shot. i didn't notice that the focus had switched to closeup; sorry about the blur.

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WE HAVE TWINAX!

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the height of the frenzy. i had to go to the end of the hall to fit everyone in the shot.

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the luggables are going! the luggables are going!!

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we had the only booth that was so exciting that people came through a time warp to see us.

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and there it is, the experiment completed. this stuff can be officially proclaimed to be that which is not even worth carrying away.

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time to take a break while waiting our turn to pull up our cars for loading.

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kathleen does the "happy happy poi poi the stuff's all gone" dance.

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pull 'er up, and let's go do the fun part.

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the final stop. we would have preferred that this stuff find a better home, but if you tossed it high enough, it made very satisfying crunching noises on impact.

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she makes the approach...

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she shoots, she scores!

and that was it. thanks to everyone who lended a hand/hoof! see you all next year, when companies are giving us pentium 3s and we're selling our stock of p200s for $0.50.

nothing like a hamfest to make you realize that nothing is really worth anything.

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