Tim's ILDA Cruise Experience

9/7/08  Arrival in Miami the Night Before

The Hampton Inn was a great hotel, but strangely located - only a Steak 'n Ale next door.  I joined Dirk, Peter Mayer, Juergen Koerner, Bjorn Gerber, Craig and Lori Nelson, at Pier 25 a taxi ride down the street for upscale Italian food.  Craig surprised everyone by picking up the tab!

9/8/08

We all took the bus arranged by ILDA to the port.  Boarding was simple, and we all got on early because of the scheduled onboard wedding of Lasernet's Glenn Wright and Theresa Finn.  When we got on board there was nothing to do (too early to check into cabins) so we had lunch, and wandered back to the Dynasty Lounge for the wedding. 

I was pressed into service as a "laser sword" holder for the couple to pass under on their way to and from the stage.  Turns out the captain married them!  although we did not know it at the time. It was awesome!  It was maybe a little strange because no one really had met before.  But we knew that everyone present were ILDA members!

The safety meeting of the the ship was the first event, it was great.  We all had to have our life preservers and go to our appointed "Muster Station", where we would be directed to board lifeboats in case of an emergency.  Keep in mind, there are hundreds of people on the ship, no one really knew where anything was, and it was chaos for a few minutes as everyone sorted it out.

After that the ship began moving out of the port slowly.  Everyone was on deck watching Miami go by!

It was nice to be able to have a face to face ILDA Board meeting.  Christine Jenkin came by because she is so intimately involved in the new "ILDA Professional" initiative.

The "ILDA Welcome Cocktail Reception" was outstanding, it was where I realized that this was going to be a special conference.  There was an exquisite assortment of appetizers, so artistically done that you hardly wanted to bite into them.  But you did!  The waitresses circulated with free exotic drinks, and the bar was open for all.  So everyone helped themselves, and mingled and met.  We had personalized "goody bags" prepared by LaserNet, and Blisslights and cool grating projectors from Aixiz everywhere!  The bags even included a free laser pointer and batteries!

Dinner was outstanding; there was great service and great food, and no rush to leave.  I sat at my assigned table with Dirk, Patrick, Christine and daughter Katelyn, Alex Hennig, and Craig and Lori Nelson. 

After dinner I attended the introductory stage show in the Dynasty Lounge.  They have a great and "in tune" orchestra with trumpet, sax, and trombone, and 10 female and 5 male dancers, and a lead male singer and a lead female singer.  Jorge, the cruise director, entertained, and picked on people, giving them free tix and champagne for their discomfort!  It was quite the elaborate show!

9/9/08 ILDA Day

Today was a day of ILDA meetings and seminars.  We passed out the new Laserist magazine!

At the business meeting, Dirk and Peter Mayer were re-elected to the board, and Christine Jenkin and Paul Berthot were elected for the first time.   We went over the activities of the different committees, and answered questions about different actions being deliberated.

At the "ILDA Professional" workshop, it was explained to the members what work had been done on the point system method of qualifying to be labelled "ILDA Professional".  It is planned to first set up a way to qualify show-production companies, then to qualify equipment manufacturers, and to set up some kind of certification for an ILDA Standard Projector.

We concluded the second business meeting early.   I accepted to be President once again.  (no one had to vote for president, it was just me who volunteered!)

When I woke from a nap, somehow I was late for the Advanced Technical Workshop!  So I missed the OPSL, and the Diode Protection presentations.  When I came in, Chris Stuart was presenting an great power point about his company, Necsel, and their work with miniature and other laser display devices for the commercial market.  He had a blue laser beam shining down the aisle;  although it had high divergence, clearly it was a laser and could be further collimated!  He seemed to have an endless array of display oriented products being developed.   I am so glad that he took my suggestion earlier in the day to present something, because he was obviously prepared! 

At the "Safety Workshop", Greg Makhov presented details of audience scanning MPE calcu lations, and demonstrated through them that speed of scanning was not the answer, but increasing divergence of the beam provided a way to get significantly more safety and keep brightness up.

At the "Artistic Workshop", Alex Hennig presented details of LOBO's creation of their show "Amaceon"at the Holiday Park in Hassloch.  It is quite the multi-million dollar production!  Alex Timofeyev of Orion Art presented photos and details of some of their large outdoor shows, and I presented photos and videos of my new Lumia/Grating display at the LBJ Library in Austin, TX.

Tonight was "Elegant Dining" night, so I put on my linen suit, and went up to the "Captain's Reception" in the Dynasty Lounge.  Everyone on the ship was decked to the nines!  I sat with Glenn and Theresa's moms, and Christine and Katelyn.  Free Drinks!

At dinner I sat with Alex T. and Dmitri and their wives Maria and K.  And also Manick Sorcar and wife Shika.  After dinner Manick, Shika, and I watched the stage show "Living in America" - it was 75 minutes of non-stop singing and dancing, very high energy.

9/10/08  First Port of Call;  Awards Day

Today we docked in Freeport, Bahamas;  our original port was demolished by hurricane IKE, so this was the substitution.  I am staying onboard to relax and then rehearse awards at 2:30 PM.  I called my wife, Helen;  she said Hurricane Ike might hit our home in Texas, she was preparing to evacuate with our horses if necessary.

Awards setup went pretty well,  Bill Benner had to sort out his network connections and did so;  I had problems setting up my Lasergraph DSP, because Alexei from Orion-Art had it in his cabin.    Fortunately, the "Returning Cruisers" party that  the ship planned for 4:30 had no attendees - Carnival had apparently forgotten to send out the invitations!  They were all dressed up, passing out drinks, and had to cancel.  So, we reset for the Awards early, I found Alexei, and soon we were set.  Dirk rented a tux onboard to match mine, we ran through our scripts, and then we were really set.

The Awards started on time;  Dirk and I zipped through them in an organized way, including pausing for a toast to LOBO's 100th Award!  We finished early.  It was almost embarrassing.  No problems striking the lasers!

Then we went on to dinner dressed in our finery.  I sat with Patrick Dietzl and company, Charles Maricle and his dad, and Mark Bennett and his girl.

I went to see the stage show, it was mainly a big black lady singer who embarrassed a succession of audience members!

The Lido Deck party  - lasers from the raised stage, controlled by Boris and Aje on the Phoenix Live system - the three Infinity Projectors and a couple of haze machines - haze was spotty due to high wind.   Dance contests, a conga line snaking through the deck - what a night!  I hung out with Renato from Brazil, I had met him in LDI last Oct., he and friend Vitor want to bring an ILDA safety seminar to Brazil soon.  Ended up at the bar with many ILDA friends;  then went to the disco with Dirk and Peter Mayer., we found Paul Berthot there and watched the dancers for a while.

When the disco closed we went by the Dynasty Lounge.  Sure enough, Boris was there trying to add the many Cyberlights installed into his shows.  I hung out with him for quite a while, and spoke with Dave Clark the Carnival tech guy, about his life on the cruise ships.  He has had no land based home for 10 years, he lives and works on an unending succession of ships.

Finally to bed at some ungodly early hour.

9/11/08  Docked in Nassau, Lase Off!

Today we docked in Nassau, instead of Half Moon Cay - another place demolished by Hurricane Ike.  I hung out on the ship sleeping and relaxing.

2 PM Pangolin User Meeting - Bill Benner ran this, he spoke about his PASS system for audience scanning, and using a divergent beam for safety.  Greg Makhov brought some meniscus lenses that fit over the Infinity projector and diverged the beam.  It looked OK but not great to me.  Since the red diodes are parallel beams, the beam was way too distorted.  We need a lens system before the scanners.  We all viewed the Pangolin Award entries, and then voted.

5 PM Tabletop Trade Show - this was held in the Xanadu Lounge, where they have karaoke in the evening (which was wildly popular!).  We had Patrick Dietzl and Laserlight Showdesign's new RGB projector, Phoenix, Pangolin, and more!  Charles Maricle of Aixiz could not be there, he flew out from Nassau to his home in Houston today because of Hurricane Ike.  It was chilly in the lounge so I soon went to my cabin.

6 PM - Board of Directors meeting - our first meeting with new members Christine and Paul, an informal discussion about business and plans, and how we want to meet in the future.

Dinner, sat with Peter Mayer and co.

Saw the stage show tonight, it used the Lexel system that LaserNet has installed permanently on the ship.  It was a show of pop music through the decades, and the laser was on "Aquarius" with dance by the Russian adagio dance specialists.  This show was even more high energy and non stop than last night's!

Lase-Off - we met at 11:45 and proceed to lase-off!  Greg and Bill had a difficult time measuring the beams (maybe because the safety on the Infinity projectors would ot allow for single static beam output?), and I believed that Dirk insisted that no diverging lenses be used, so we started the show European style!  We had plenty of good Pangolin pieces, i ncluding the Pangolin Award winners.  The Lasergraph DSP work from Orion-Art was captivating!  I showed my crazy laser music piece "Sidewinder" created on the Lasergraph DSP, and played back from Pangolin.  Boris finally took over with his Phoenix software, and showed us how good the Infinity projectors can really look!  They had amazingly beautiful colors!  Thanks to Dirk Baur and MediaLas for sponsoring the projectors on the entire cruise, and forcing ILDA to see his projectors work over and over again;  we got the message!  They are wonderful!

9/12/08  In Nassau still;  leave for Miami.

Relaxing morning!

I went into Nassau with Peter Mayer and Juergen to visit the "Pirate Museum"!  What a blast.  We shopped, walked about, went in front of the Governer's Palace to look over the ocean, and shopped some more, then back on the ship to leave.  I had plenty of ILDA bar talk and hanging out as we left the port.

Dinner - I sat with my original table - young Katelyn chattered on about all of her great cruise experiences.   I had my final "Chocolate Melting Cake" for dessert - it is my favorite dessert ever!.  After dinner we took the group ILDA photo on the grand staircase.  There was more bar talk.  There were last minute good-byes and meetings.  Prepare to leave!

9/13/08 Disembarkation

It was controlled chaos as we left the ship!  I had an uneventful flight home, and Helen was able to meet me at the airport in San Antonio; she did not have to evacuate - the hurricane just missed our home area.