Sign up thread for Casey Stack's Laser Safey Seminar (Monday after SELEM 2010)

[buffo]

Ok, it's official: Casey Stack is booking his trip, and we are 'go' for his 1-day laser safety presentation. The cost to attend in person is $70. It will be held in the conference room at the Holiday Inn Express in Conover, NC, at exit 132 off I-40.

The presentation will start on Monday, August 23rd, at 9 AM and will run until 5 PM. We'll take breaks as needed, and probably have lunch brought in to save time. (Thinking about ordering out for pizza or something.) You will receive a stack of paper hand-outs (basically copies of the slides he uses), so you won't need to take a lot of notes.

If you can't attend in person, there will be limited access to the seminar via a WebEx live internet broadcast. The fee to view the Webex broadcast is $25. If you also want copies of the hand-outs, I can send them to you if you pay the shipping. (Electronic copies are discouraged for copyright reasons.) You will require a log-in ID and a password to access the Webex feed. You will be able to ask questions either via the chat window or via your own webcam, if you have one set up. (Not sure how easy this will be to manage; we may need to pause every 30 min or so to answer web questions, depending on how it goes.)

Details about the meat of Casey's presentation can be found in this thread, but to summarize, the first half will be about general laser safety, while the second part will deal with the specifics of laser projector compliance and how to obtain a variance.

If you plan to attend, please send your paypal payment of $70 to me at adburns@sc.rr.com. (Webex viewers $25.)

Here is a list of people who are registered (paid) for the seminar so far:

Allthatwhichis (in person)
Araugh (in person)
Blowfly (in person)
Bradfo69 (in person)
Buffo (in person)
Displaser (in person)
Emory (in person)
Flecom (in person)
Gottaluvlasers (in person)
Hakzaw1 (in person)
Ireedz (in person)
-=Jim=- (WebEx)
Loopee (WebEx)
Massivesound (in person)
Mgould (WebEx)
MisterWilling & guest (in person)
Mophead (in person)
RGB-gas (in person)
Stuka (in person)
Taggalucci (WebEx)
Whitcher 88 (WebEx)
X-laser (in person)

Folks, this is just 6 weeks away, so don't delay! Sign up now.

Adam

[buffo]

Ok - according to my records, this list is up to date. If anyone has paid and they are not on the list, either as attending in person or via the WebEx broadcast over the Internet, please contact me ASAP!

Adam

[mophead]

It seems you deleted me from the list...........



/me mopes away.....sniff....sniff.......

[buffo]

AW CRAP!

How in the hell did I screw that up? You were on there before.

Edit: Looks like when I added Mgould to the WebEx list, I accidentally deleted yours at the same time.

Shit. Sorry dude... I'll fix it right now. You are back on the list! (Actually, you were always on the master spreadsheet that I maintain, so you were never in any real danger!)

Adam

[gottaluvlasers]

pm sent-

i dont see my name.

[buffo]

Sorry about that Marc. I don't know how you got dropped off the list. But I've fixed it now.

Adam

[gottaluvlasers]

its cuz im too sexy

[buffo]

its cuz im too sexy

According to Right Said Fred :

"I'm too sexy for my lasersafetyseminar"... No, wait - it was his shirt, wasn't it?

Adam

[Stuka]

NOW I know why Marc looked familiar the first time I met him!

Crap, now that video is stuck in my head, and from now on it will always be associated with Marc...

[flecom]

oh no thats not good! lol

[Stuka]

OK, now that everyone is ready to file their variance paperwork ()...

How was it?

[flecom]

It was excellent, was definately worth it... We bombarded Casey with questions and I think everyone has a better understanding of the fun and excitement that is the CDRH

[taggalucci]

I am soooo gutted!

I managed to catch the first 3 hours or so before the lack of sleep and tiredness from my snowboarding weekend, which included driving to and from the mountains, caught up with me! Not even the very interesting subject matter could keep me from basically passing out in front of my laptop last night (well technically this morning)! Had it not been for Casey's engaging and fascinating talk, I probably wouldn't have lasted more than 10 minutes!!

Regardless of my disappointment, I wanted to thank Adam for organising the whole thing and Jim for setting up the WebEx session which was really successful (well the few hours I managed to stay awake for anyway)!

Although we don't have the same level of regulation here in Australia, we do have the same standards. So much of what was covered was very relevant and my opinion is that even though we may not (yet) have the regulation, there are good reasons to employ the working practices that would comply with such regulation. It's common sense and demonstrates a duty of care to your fellow crew and audience.

Thanks again guys, hopefully I'll get another chance to catch Casey.

[loopee]

Many thanks to Adam and Jim for getting this arranged and setup

and a big thanks goes out to Casey for agreeing to do it


Troy

[blowfly]

HUGE THANKS to Casey and Buffo for the Safety Seminar. I learned a ton, definitily worth the cost of the trip. We sucked Casey's brain on a 12-hour information transfer marathon, not counting the midnight to 1:30am impromtu pre-seminar the night before. Casey was super cool about it and kept up the energy longer than any of us. It was obvious that he really enjoys his job and knows his material. His viewport is a somewhat conservative intereptation of the law, which is what I was hoping for. I wouldn't hestitate to take a training seminar from him again.

For anyone who attended personally or online, I have some very rough notes i can share. Send me a PM if you are interested. Like the slides, I don't think he would want the notes shared broadly.

My big take away from the day can be summed up with a single word: liability. This is my observation not anything Casey said explicitly. Yes the variance process is about public safety and following it will minimize risk to the audience. The reason the process is so convoluted and beaurocratic is because at the end of the day, no one wants to be liable for accidents, not the government, not the insurance companies, not the venues, not the LSO's, not the safety instructors, not the hardware makers, not the software vendors, and not us . Following the variance process to the best of your ability, along with other precautions, is the safest way to prevent accidents and ensure that you are not wrongfully found negligent.

If you get a chance to take one of Casey's classes, do it!

Mike

[MisterWilling]

Definentaly a very informative meeting, glad I attended.


Was there anything major about the variance filing process that I missed since I left early?

I would like to propose that anyone who attended the meeting and starts a variance process maybe share the information with others in the meeting. I'm very hesitant to start my own without having some other examples to look at and I'm sure many others are too. If we could collaborate together and maybe get a template to follow along that would help everyone out.

[JohnYayas]

Someone should create a "TurboTax" type variance filing program.

[-=Jim=-]

Someone should create a "TurboTax" type variance filing program.

They have it.... eSub

[mophead]

I found Casey's talk to be very informative. Knowing what I know now, I'm not scared to file the paperwork. Surely it won't be easy but not near as difficult as I had imagined.

I hate it that had to leave early and miss some things, but things came up and we had to go early. Didn't want to interrupt the meeting to say bye.

Had a great time.

[buffo]

Gotta agree with everyone here. Casey is awesome! And even when he wasn't teaching us in the seminar, he was still teaching us at the "fireside chats" in the lobby of the hotel. (Damn... We have *got* to get this guy back for SELEM 2011, no matter the cost!)

I think the best measure of the success of the safety seminar was the overflow-capacity crowd that showed up. We had 21 people! (Plus several more live via Webex.)

I have copies of the slides that I will be sending out to the folks who tuned in for the Webex broadcast. But my schedule is rather crazy right now (I'm actually on the road again and won't be home 'til next week), so it will be a while before I can mail them.

Mike;

With regard to people sharing their experience once they get a variance approved... That has always been my intention. I don't know how long it will take me, but once I'm done, I *will* share my knowledge with the group. In time, I'd like to see this become a routine task, instead of the daunting one we now believe it to be. (Well, maybe not so daunting after all, now that we've seen Casey's presentation, right? )

Adam

[allthatwhichis]

Casey!!!

[ireedz]

Casey did an incredible job of taking what seemed to be a daunting task and making it achievable. I can not thank him enough for everything. Even if he doesn't come back to do another seminar, it would be great for him to come and have some beer with us and talk lasers. What a great guy!

[buffo]

A quick reminder for those who tuned in for the Webex broadcast. I will be mailing your notes to you. I won't be able to do it until I get back home though. (I'm in Illinois now - business trip.)

Adam

[whitcher88]

I would also like to thank every one who participated in this event.

Jim for hosting, I had never done anything like this before and the Webex stuff worked great.
Adam for all the work getting this around,and thepeople involved in tests.
All the people who were there live and asked great questions,I had a few questions but they were all asked by someone there..

Thanks to Casey for sharing his many years of expertise, I especially enjoyed the history in the beginning.
One thing he repeated several times was COMMON SENSE. Years ago I went through a safety program in my apprenticeship program, the main idea was,accidents don't just happen, there is a cause for every accident. If you think about what you are doing ahead of time you will avoid most accidents.

Thanks again to everyone
Bill

[djmatt]

I just want to say thanks to Adam, and thanks to Casey!!!
I know know what I need to do, and then just maybe it all the paperwork done!!!

DJ Matt