As it sit writing this daily account through the fog of rum perpetrated upon me by my Compaq captors, most of the memories of earlier in the day are quite dim. Please bear with me as I recount as best I can the day’s activities.

The day started off with a fine breakfast buffet at the lovely Hotel Royal York. However morning came way too early for me. I had a hard time falling asleep the night before due to the time zone change. I finally fell asleep around 2:30am. Not so bad, except for the fact that the alarm clock went off at 6:30am! After a small breakfast and nineteen cups of coffee, I was ready to face the day.

The bulk of the conference is being held in the Toronto Metro Conference center, which is part of the same complex as the SkyDome and the CN tower. One large conference area was set up for the keynote address. There were over 3,000 seats setup for this. During the opening movie sequence, a transformer blew and the whole address had to be improvised after that point. However, Compaq’s new CEO, Michael Cappellas gave a good speech, as did Compaq’s VP of North America, whose name escapes me at the time. There was supposed to be a twenty minute break after those two talked, to try and get the electronics working again, but the electronics never came back, so that was pretty much the end of the keynote address.

We wandered down to the ASE hospitality suite and got some more free goodies. We were given Master ASE polo shirts, and all week long free ice cream will be available here. I have a feeling this is going to be a popular spot for us this week.

Lunch was provided in another conference room approximately 12 miles and 1900 escalator rides away. At least it seemed that far! Lunch was another buffet, and the food was pretty good. At least they didn’t put the lunch area out all by itself. The Living Lab/Cyber Café was next door. The living lab is more impressive this year than last. There is a wider array of technology, and more of it! Not any non-disclosure stuff this year, so I’m able to show pictures this time. The Cyber Café is a spot to relax during the conference. They have a lot of video games, and networked computer games to go along with Virtual Reality demos and TVs to catch up with what is going on in the world.

After lunch it was time for the conference sessions to begin. The two we went to were Compaq and Citrix MetaFrame, and Compaq Clusters and the Directions they are Heading. The presenters were very good. Probably one of the best things about this conference is that the people giving the presentations are the ones who design and develop the products! As they say in Ontario, "Straight from the horses moo-th".

After the sessions, we had a small break to get ready for the evening festivities at Black Creek Village, which is an old west style historical area. Here people are dressed in period clothing and do show and demonstrations of how things were back in the 1800s. In true Compaq fashion, there were copious amounts of food and spirits to go around. There were numerous buffets featuring grilled chicken, steaks, ribs, chili, and other fine foods. Also at every turn were fully stocked wet bars that had all kinds of liquids, both fermented and distilled. No one left hungry or sober.

To see a visual account, please click on the links below to see pictures: