Convention sites/Banff

[Joseph Garrett]

The Pacific Northwest Regional Conference has met at Banff. The facilities
are nice, BUT: I don't think their facility is large enough for 1000 techs
and families. It is not easy to get to, IMO.
During a class I was giving, on computer scaling, the entire facility lost
power! Yikes! If it weren't for the fact that Del and several other
knowledgable techs were in attendance, my class would have been a total
bust! The reason for the power outage: a squirrel fried himself in a main
transformer! Yes, there are copius quantities of wild animals that roam,
untethered, so to speak, throughout the campus. Deer, Elk, etc. are ever
present. For those of us who are savvy to the wild animal thing, you leave
them alone! For the "city folks", this might be a problem, especially with
the little members of the family.
Just my thoughts on the subject. I agree that the Big Box Hotels are a bit
of a pain and damned expensive. But, they do offer variable types of
accomodations to fit most of our needs.
Good Education can never be cheap. However, when you take all things into
consideration, most would agree that our Annual Convention is very
inexpensive, for what is gained in education for us. (Consider what the
equivilent in a formal education costs!)
One final thing: McGavern is right, this discussion should be on the other
"list".
Best Regards,
Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)