FLEM is on for April 3rd and 4th, 2015!

[buffo]

I get the feeling someone else needs a new manager in his life... ;-)

Dude, if you would have seen what this gal looked like in her black "Guess" t-shirt last night, you would have understood!

Let's just say that if she ever wants to start a new career as a divemaster in Utila, she will fit right in.

As Brad said - great night. Had an awesome crowd, and the show was fantastic. Got a picture of the bartender from the VIP lounge - what a character! And of course, Brad and I both got pictures with one of the Blue Men. Then we jammed to old hits from the 80's and 90's while driving back in the car. (Brad has a thumb-drive with 32 gigs of music on it!)

As for the high-speed antics, yeah, when we were driving (flying?) through the forest on hwy 19 I did push the jeep a little faster than I normally would. Who knew such a heavy vehicle (that was absolutely loaded to the gills this time) could still get up to 90 MPH so quickly!?! That being said, Brad's little silver rocket (with a 2.0 liter turbocharged 4-banger and a 6-speed auto-manual transmission with paddle-shifters) had absolutely no problems keeping up. Great fun, even if my gas mileage did suffer a bit.

Got up around 6:30 this morning, but ended up laying in bed until 8 because my back hurt from all the lifting yesterday. (I loaded most of the jeep myself, and the big speakers really kicked my ass.) Going to take care of a few items around my Mom's house this morning and then head to the venue around 10 AM to open it up and start setting up.

It's going to be a great time, folks! T-minus 80 minutes and counting.

Adam

[telmnstr]

In southern Georgia, heading that way soon!

Glad you liked the Blue Man Group! Saw them once in Vegas when I was out there for defcon, then once in Norfolk. Good gap between them, and they changed the show up pretty good so it wasn't a repeat. Will discuss IRL, don't want to give away spoilers!

[flecom]

have fun guys

[Bradfo69]

We failed. She didn't show up.

Unofficially day two, officially day one... aka "setup". Started promptly at 10 am and throughout the day more and more managed to arrive. The bulk of the set up was done by 1 pm and much of the remainder of the afternoon was typical tweak, fix and repair on various projects. Laserjock (Chris) arrived mid afternoon sporting a new quad that is first person view with a twist... goggles. And two sets so the pilot can fly seeing what the bird sees and another can "tag along" and watch the flight. Pretty amazing stuff! But of course, "you won't spend more than like $200" on this quadcopter stuff. (Maybe that's "per week"???) Pretty fascinating though watching Chris (and Adam) just sitting there unable to actually see and how well they manage to fly this thing. Dinner followed at Angelo's for about 10 of us while ekeefe and DZ stayed back to prepare for their demonstration tomorrow of a new product - the second generation splitter that has been in development for nearly a year but is going to be a revolutionary device for running multi projector shows that you WILL want to invest in.

Following dinner was the running of a number of shows that clearly outclassed anything done at FLEM previously. There is something to be said for using all matched commercial projectors. And powerful ones. We didn't even bother blocking the windows today during the day as there was plenty of power even with sunlight streaming in. 6 Pluto's and 1- 6 watt. Shows looked amazing. The evening wrapped up with more trouble shooting of various pieces of equipment and the saint that is DZ, bouncing from bewildered enthusiast to bewildered enthusiast and working his tireless amazing magic. We wrapped about 2:30 am for a few brief hours of sleep before a marathon day tomorrow. FLEM may be proposed to go three days in the very near future!

[Pangolin]

Great to see everybody at FLEM! I stopped in only briefly, as my son came down to see us from UF as an Easter Surprise, and will be going back up tomorrow.

Although I was there only briefly, I was able to see a few noteworthy things.

It was cool to see this new switching matrix being manufactured and distributed by DZ and designed by Ed Keefe (sorry I don't know his nickname)...

It was also cool to see Chris Tate's quad copter with video camera and wearable stereo headsets. Star Wars is here! (well, at least without the "wars" part...)

Most of all it was great to re-connect with the old friends and even meet some new ones!

Thanks to those who tirelessly organize and then manage these events! I think this was the most organized of these to date.

Bill

[Bradfo69]

FLEM is over. Well... kinda. A group is headed to Ocala in a few hours to explore a goldmine of ion gear that possibly be going to be had really cheap but, regrettably I have a 14+ hour drive ahead and probably won't stop.

Great day of course that started with rides in Laserjocks plane for dkumpula, telmnstr and myself. Second time up with him for me and while we had to stay in a pattern, we got to do a couple of touch and goes this time and a short approach landing. I had the opportunity to have the controls again for some of the time and did a bit more than last time.

Afternoon was some general geekery and presentations by both DZ and Pangolin. Lots of exciting new things on the very near horizon but I'll let others explain that. Ran a number of shows in the evening and still continued to have a number of projects going on. We finished loading out about 2 am but, as is tradition, we can take longer to say goodbye than any people I know. We finally shut 'er down about 3:15 am.

Fantastic time as usual with some of my most favorite people in the world to be with. The SELEM countdown begins tomorrow!

[flecom]

Great to see everybody at FLEM! I stopped in only briefly, as my son came down to see us from UF as an Easter Surprise, and will be going back up tomorrow.

Although I was there only briefly, I was able to see a few noteworthy things.

It was cool to see this new switching matrix being manufactured and distributed by DZ and designed by Ed Keefe (sorry I don't know his nickname)...

It was also cool to see Chris Tate's quad copter with video camera and wearable stereo headsets. Star Wars is here! (well, at least without the "wars" part...)

Most of all it was great to re-connect with the old friends and even meet some new ones!

Thanks to those who tirelessly organize and then manage these events! I think this was the most organized of these to date.

Bill

sorry I missed your presentation, they had the turnpike NB completely closed around Stuart

despite getting there late I had fun, nice seeing everyone again!

[Bradfo69]

Excuse the language but, note to self, driving 1000 miles after 3 hours (or more correctly about 8 hours in three days) of sleep fucking sucks. It wasn't too bad actually until I hit a traffic jam south of DC that made me end up about an hour and a half later than I was on target for.

[Lazerjock]

I had a great time. It's always great seeing everyone and catching up.
I had fun showing off my new quadcopters too. I get a kick out of the reactions when I take people for a ride using the video goggles. Usually the first words are "Wow!" then "This is Cool" then "How much?" I have to admit, I could have a really nice projector for the cost of the 2 quadcopters and ground equipment I brought with me to FLEM.
One has to make choices in life. Lol

I really enjoyed the opportunity to "steal some air time". In the early evening while most everyone was milling around talking I ran several spaghetti shows. I never get to see or hear these shows through such powerful equipment. What a treat.

I was also grateful to be able to tap into the knowledge of several learning more about Beyond and the APC 40.

One interesting point. My projector was the only home built set up and running. It seems that off the shelf is taking over. It was pointed out by Adam that "today you can buy an off the shelf system for the same or less than you can build it". Amazing what China can do!

I'm looking forward to SELEM.


Thank you Adam for all of the hard work you do to support this event.
Chris

[dkumpula]

Add me to the list of folks that had a great time at FLEM! I really appreciate the planning and effort it took to make this event happen, so THANK YOUs to Adam, DZ, Brad and the other key contributors of the facility, equipment and arrangements.

It looks like attendance was quite good! Off the top of my head we had Laserjock (Chris), Lasergrazy (Albert) and his guest (Rose?), Lumia (Aaron Bacs), Telemnstr (Ethan), Buffo (Adam), AllThatWhichIs (Aaron of Pangolin), EKeefe (Ed), DZ (David), Bradfo69 (Brad), Pangolin (Bill B), Kent (sorry I don't recall your screen name), Rns0504 (Ryan from Pangolin), CountFunkula (David), Felcom (Frank), Mark, Wayne, Alexi (from Pangolin), and myself (David). That's 18 unless I missed someone. A good crowd, especially for the diminutive size of the boat club.

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations, great conversations with everyone and especially the thrill of flying in Chris' Cessna. Anyone who gets the opportunity to spend some time with Chris in the 'wild blue yonder' should absolutely jump at the chance. Many thanks, Chris for taking the time to bring a few of us 'ground-dwellers' up!

Count me in for next year!

-David