By Bill Needle
When news first broke that CorelWorld '99 was being hosted in Orlando, Florida and Tom Anzai would once again be a presenter, we had visions of palm trees, Flamingos, and leather-skinned Quebec'ers on the beach. Well, we were right on the mark except for one ingredient. The sun! Where, oh where, could one find sun in the week of October 3-8th, 1999? Blame it on Tropical “disturbance” #44 coming off the Gulf of Mexico, they said. “Typical Florida weather”, said another. Well, more reason to move CorelWorld back to San Diego, I say. Mark September 10-14, 2000 on your calendar if you plan to attend CorelWorld '00. You heard it here first!
Now we know lots of people cringe at the mere mention of CorelWorld. Not the fact that its host, Rick Altman, and his committed gang of volunteers do a bang-up job, but rather the throngs of people who have trouble convincing their employers and pocket books in the merits of the conference. So, this article will attempt to give you a bird's eye view of one attendee's experience. Tom gave us the photos of his trip and we're doing the script. Silly man!
One thing about flying anywhere. Things may
look grand up 30,000 feet, but you never know what the weather is like under those fluffy
clouds. Granted, we religiously checked on the Internet for the up-to-date weather
forecasts in Orlando
before we headed down. On Friday, the day we left, our heart sank as we saw thunderstorms forecast for the entire
week. Naw, it doesn't rain that much in Florida, right?! I mean, look at the fluffy
cumulus clouds in this picture as we descend down to the Orlando airport. You can even see
the sunshine reflect off the plane's wing at the bottom right. Pristine. Serene. Sunshine
all the way, right?!
Think of a blanket. Now think of a dark, cloudy blanket covering Orlando and environs. That was the weather when we touched down. Humid, yes. Sunny, no. Overcast and rainy. No problems, we'll be here an entire week. Hello Florida! Hello CorelWorld '99! Let's get busy!
Well, just not yet. Let's jump in the rental car and buzz down the Bee-Line highway to Cocoa Beach. Can't go to Florida without some body surfing. Water is dirty looking. Kind of expected a bluish tinge. Oh well, salt tastes real. Quick! Jump back in the car and shop for trinkets for the kids at Ron Jon's. A surf shop open 24 hours? This must be America!
It's Sunday night and time for roll-call. The
captain, Rick Altman, takes the helm and assembles the presenters and volunteers for a
brief briefing (can a briefing ever be other than brief?). We're expecting the highest
number of attendees since 1993, and over 200 are first-timers. Why is this? Could it be
the draw of Disney
World? Could it be new converts to Draw 9 and Ventura 8? Could it be sun-worshipers
like us?!
Sitting (left to right): Rick, Ruth, Beverly, Marion
Standing front (left to right): Chris, Mona, Sue, and Jill from Corel. Karin, Franca, Carol, Debbie, Sue, etc.
Standing back (left to right): Foster (half his head), Gary, Jim, Bob, Doug, Wayne, etc.
Now, why are all these people smiling? Well picture (pun intended) this. A brightly labeled cardboard box/disposable camera. They're laughing at my camera. I'll take it as long as they're all smiling. Even Jim Hart managed a smirk. He's till peeved at the absence of width tables in Ventura 8.
(Note to myself: bring cheap, embarrassing disposable camera to next function and get them all laughing...)
Day One
OK, so our fearless leader
is a keener. He's sitting in the first row before the start of the first keynote speaker.
The guy beside him is trying to decide whether to attend Tom's Favorite Fills and Outlines
or match point on the tennis court. He even manages to hide most of his face with his hand
when he saw the cheap, disposable camera come out. Worthy mentions are the two attendees
from Brazil at the far right; CorelWorld '99 design winner, Doug Downey, in the white
shirt (can't miss him, he's 6' 7"); and Tran the attendee who has attended the most
CorelWorld's (every 10 of them!). Wow, what a power crowd.
The host, Rick Altman, introduces the crowd to the conference
while doing his Saturday
Night Fever impersonation. Actually, Rick likes to comment on how his team is not
professional conference organizers, but I'd debate that. Given the organization to move
all the equipment is tantamount to a Rock group doing a cross-country tour, I'd say he's
got the experience.
Sue Findlay, Director of Field Marketing at
Corel and instigator of the Corel
Road Show Tour (ever been to one?), was the Keynote address speaker. She gave a
run-down on the past 10 years of Corel. Her humorous anecdotes and memories of what Corel
had been through was complimented by a fashion show of Corel Gear from the balloon logo to
the SCSI T-shirts to the current staid corporate look. Her Supermodels, Chris, Mona, and
Jill, took turns showing the fashions of yesteryear. If you look closely at the picture on
the left you can see the Corel balloons and Ottawa skyline artwork (á la DRAW boxes for
version 4, 5, and 6) on Sue's Corel tie. Gawd, good thing she's wearing it and not Tom!
After the one-hour keynote is was a small break before the start of the seminars. There were three tracks: one for novice users in the “Corel Campus: First Looks” room, one in the “Power Room: Advanced Topics”, and another in the “Studio: Projects for the Experts”. If that wasn't enough, new this year was the Corner Pub where informal gatherings of interested parties took place such as Certification Beta Testing, Ventura demos, and Ken Fermoyle's Media Workshop.
Oh, and today it rained.
Day Two
Day Two began with a keynote speak from Rus
Miller, Manager of Graphics Core Technologies (whoa, nice title!) who knows the ins and
outs of Postscript but is not too familiar with advancing slide shows (Rus is a casual
presenter, so casual that he was talking about slide number 12 while slide number 2 was
still on display). He promises version 10 to be the best DRAW version
ever. Hey, wait a minute. Didn't version 9 just come out?! Did I hear him say version 10?!
Yep, due out at the end of next year will be DRAW 10!!
Left to right: C_TECHs Michael Cervantes, Debbie Cook along with Foster Coburn, Pete McCormick (Unleashed) and Tom Anzai
After the keynote, everyone rushed over to Tom and Pete McCormick's Mastering Objects and Layers session. Well, OK, not everyone but the room was packed. So packed that Tom only presented for 15 minutes instead of the allotted 30 minutes! At least he remembered to turn off his remote microphone when he went to the bathroom...
At night, a bus load of us went to Church Street Station in downtown Orlando to check out the nighttime dining, shopping, and entertainment complexes. Our group went to the Western restaurant and ate what looked like a whole side of beef (the wrong place to go if you're a vegan). After our meal, we went to check out the live band in an architecturally amazing complex that had three floor overlooking the band who played on the ground floor. We especially liked the drummer, Tex, who was from Arkansas. He looked country! A small, grinning, wiry fellow who looked at home under his Stetson. The lead singer could belt out the country wail too.
Attempting to get our money's worth (tickets cost $15 to get into the theme bars), we went to a 70's bar and listened to Billy Joel, Céline Dion, Aretha Franklin, and Beatles tunes. Again, an interesting complex with several floors overlooking the band. The secondary dancefloor was located on the second floor above the band. Next was the Dixieland Band where Mae West was struttin' her stuff and fondling bald-headed men in the audience. Luckily, our table all had a full head of hair so we were spared from the spotlight. Then came Louis Armstrong who had us singing in harmony to “When the Saint's Go Marching” and the grande finale, “What a Beautiful World”. We all loved this last place and agreed it alone was worth the price. After the set, we high-tailed it in order to catch the 11:00 p.m. bus back to the DoubleTree, Kissimmee hotel. Fun was had by all!
Oh, did I mention that it rained again today?
For the continuation of this story, go to Venturing Forth.
.
Sue Chastain's “A Peek Inside CorelWorld '99”
Bobbe Singer's Photo CD Shoot of CorelWorld '99
Bill Blinn's Photos of CorelWorld '99
For related articles and step-by-step tutorials, please visit Articles & Tutorials.
| This article in based on the way the author saw it at the time. He
intended to publish a masterful piece, but when he got down to it he realized that the
result ended up as a "enquiring minds want to know" column. After all, the
quality of this article matches the quality of the pictures at $9.99 processing included.
Talking about disposable cameras, everyone knows when you're advancing the film when it
makes that creech, creech, creech sound. They do that on purpose. It tells everyone,
“Hey look at me, I can only afford a camera in a cardboard box.” Then, no one
takes you seriously and that's why they are all smiling in your pictures. |
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