The Junket Redux: or SPIE's Like Us
Like any good company, Faceless Corporation will occasionally send it's drones to a convention to bone up on the latest and greatest of what is happening elsewhere. For us, that convention is in San Jose , requiring a 15 minute drive down the freeway - just close enough to be able to drive back to work for meetings. I've chronicled my exploits at this convention from years past here and there.
This year I decided not to do the conference, instead actually getting work done while everyone was away and out of my hair. I did decide to take one class (more on that later) and went to one after-conference evening for a free dinner and all the shrimp I could eat. As usual, the dinner was more junket than anything else, allowing our vendor to ply us with fine foods and lots of alcohol so that in the heat of all the bonhommie we'd commit to buying a $400,000 piece of equipment (or four). Still, it's free foood and I can hardly turn that down. After all I'm not that far away from grad school.
I did get bored though, and eventually wandered off to other parts of the hotel which were laden with all manner of enticements and tempations. On any given night there are many 'hospitality suites' open for the perusal of the assembled engineers and scientists. There, large corporations ply us with alcohol and prime rib, in dimly lit rooms that imply some sort of clumsy seduction - which in a way it is of course.
I ran into a colleague there for Faceless Corporation's large colony in New Mexico. He's an odd duck and after a few drinks he's even odder, but I find myself feeling for him. We ended up hanging out and harrassing the folks manning the demos that lined the walls of the room. I myself was curious as to what they actually had to offer, and managed to get a few questions in edgewise, though just barely. I knew things were going south when my companion began to loudly sing Irish folk songs in a strained tremolo. The exhibitor we were speaking to had the look of a man who had just been informed that an impromptu rectal examination was about to take place and shot me a look that said, "please tell me he's joking". I smiled brightly (having been ignored by this fellow for 20 minutes earlier) and chose that moment to take my leave. The better part of valor is discretion and the better part of junkets is knowing when to leave, so I found my carpool buddy and we headed to the city in the darkness like spies slinking away from a burning city.