We awoke refreshed from the leisurely pace of Tuesday. Today we had a long day of conferences. The morning started out with the ASE Awards Breakfast. They got all of the ASEs in a large auditorium and went over what has happened in the ASE program over the last year, such as the formation of the Master ASE program, the inclusion of existing Digital engineers into the ASE program, and the number of new Windows NT and Novell ASEs. At the end of the breakfast, they gave away twenty of the Compaq Aero palmtops. Unlike last year, none of our group won one. After breakfast, we went to the living lab for a short time until the beginning of our morning conference session.

The morning conference session dealt with Compaq’s suite of software for Microsoft’s Exchange Server. They have a workflow product, a document archival product, a message expeditor products, and a message collaboration product. It is a promising technology for organizations that need to be able to store, retrieve and search emails on an as needed basis, such as government agencies, brokerage firms, and others.

It was about this time that I realized that I didn’t have my digital camera on me. Normally that wouldn’t be too big of a problem, except for the fact that I DID have it with me at breakfast. I had this sight of $1000 flying away. I retraced my steps and realized I never left breakfast with it. I ran back down to the site of the ASE breakfast and realized in horror that the room had already been torn down and new furniture rolled in. Luckily during the process one of the workers spotted the camera and turned it in to the event staff. That was a great relief to me.

The afternoon was taken up with two full sessions on Compaq’s StorageWorks product. The first session went over the products and how it relates to Windows NT and Novell, while the second session went over StorageWorks and how it relates to different flavors of UNIX, such as Tru64, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and Linux. Both were very insightful and many good questions were posed by those in the audience to help fill in areas not made clear during the lectures.

The evening was another fun filled event planned by Compaq. This event was different in that it was limited to Compaq ASEs only. They took us to a place called "The Docks", which is an adult entertainment complex. I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not it! There were video games and pool tables, and a live band inside while outside there were many activities, such as rock climbing, trapeze flying, sand volleyball, an Extreme Flyer, driving range, miniature golf, and carnival style midway games. Once again, Compaq footed the bill for everything! Oh and there was plenty of hamburgers, Italian Sausages, beer and margaritas to go around.

One of the bad things about this event was that is was for ASEs only. The problem being that 98% of the ASEs there were guys. This is a desperate plea for more females to become ASEs (that means you especially, Xochitl). We were there for about four hours, and it once again was a blast! On the way out, every one was given T-Shirts and regulation size soccer balls! I wonder how the Royal York is going to take this! I’ve always wondered why they were called ballrooms…

Click the links below to see pictures from "The Docks":