Howdy Fellow Commodore Users!

Our C=4 Expo #2 is now history! I am sleepy-eyed as I'm typing this on Sunday evening, which was the final day of the expo. I'm determined to get a small report out to you folks in this newsletter. If you didn't manage to get out to visit us at the Drawbridge Inn, you missed a wonderful time.

As some of you are aware, in April, one of our club members passed away. Clyde Tucker was a Commodore collector probably like several other members in our club. His passing was indeed a shock for many of us. Roger Hoyer and myself went to Clyde's residence to retrieve some of the Commodore items Clyde had collected over the years. When we were presented to "some of the collection" in the garage, that alone took several hours to migrate to Roger's van. Eventually Roger's van could not hold any more items. So my car, just a small Plymouth Neon was drafted as vehicle number two. Many curious items were in the collection. A Commodore calculator brought a lot of interest at the expo. It helped a lot with our raffle we had at the expo to help bring in additional funds.

Going forward from that collection, we suddenly realized that the items we could now offer for sale at the expo would no longer be able to be held in one vehicle, let alone two vehicles. A decision was made to get a Uhaul truck to get it all there in one massive trip. Thanks to the volunteers that helped to load and unload the truck. My back definitely was aching, as I am sure was Roger's. It could have been aching even more if that help had not arrived in a timely fashion. Thanks to Jim Oaks, who helped Roger and I load the Uhaul on Friday. Thanks to Mark Gladson, Dave Fisher, Chuck Kern, Oliver Viebrooks, and even an expo attendee not a member of our club, Stephan, these folks helped unload the Uhaul on Friday afternoon at the Hotel.

Since the hotel did not have our room rented the nite before our expo, they graciously allowed us to start setup at 3pm on Friday afternoon. This turned out to be a wonderful turn of events, as we needed that extra time to get everything into the room before the other expo dealers and demo folks started to arrive that nite. Nearly halfway thru our setup, the dealers started showing up and bringing in their stuff into the expo room. That room was one hubbub of activity, and the social gathering before the "official expo time". As the social activity continued past midnight, we were supposed to be out of the expo room by 11pm. Nobody came around to enforce it, so it stayed open for a couple hours beyond that time. At that point I had to remind the few attendees that were there that we were beyond the allotted time we were supposed to be there, and wrap everything up...for in less than 7 hours the doors would officially open for the expo to the dealers and demo-folks. The few reluctant folks went to their respective hotel rooms in anticipation for an exciting Saturday at the Drawbridge Inn.

Saturday was the focal point of activity. All the demos were presented during the afternoon, which allowed the vendors to sell their wares all morning. Our lunchtime was a do it whenever you wanted to leave, but many attendees decided to patronize a catered venue just up the stairs for the other major event in the hotel, the Boxer dog show. I briefly chatted with the server of the food that was being catered for the other event. He mentioned our group seemed to be patronizing better than the dog show!

When the afternoon demos were over, the raffle prizes were drawn. Anticipation was high as the numbers were called off. Eventually the ultimate, coveted item was picked, and our Mark Gladson won the Commodore Calculator. Congrats Mark!

We returned to the Golden Corral, restaurant of choice from last year's expo, to have our evening dinner. Approximately a couple dozen followed us there. I was surprised to find out the manager remembered us from last year and tried his best to get us seated in an area where we all could be together. It was accomplished and many of us enjoyed the meal that was offered there. Many chowed down their food and quickly returned back to the hotel to continue with other activities.

I decided to take a few minutes nap after dinner, since I didn't sleep long the nite (or should I say that morning) before. I wound up sleeping until 9pm, sleeping thru my 3 alarms I had set so I wouldn't over sleep more than a 1/2 hour.

When I got back to the expo room, folks were broken up into many little groups doing their own thing. Some were coding away on programs, others playing games on the machines that were scattered thru the room, some were shopping, and that continued all the way into 3am Sunday morning. Everyone started flowing out and at 3:45 I locked the doors to the expo room in preparation for later that day when we could continue after some of us got some sleep.

At 9AM I opened the doors again to the expo attendees. Sunday morning, K. Dale Sidebottom indicated he now had several tables of sale items which were now free items for the taking. A shark feeding frenzy, as I call it, instantly encircled LUCKI's tables. The attendees consumed the majority of items Dale had brought to the show in just a matter of minutes! No one wanted to do any demos Sunday afternoon, so a number of dealers decided to finish up their sales and start packing. The room was nearly empty at 3PM.

Thanks to Mark, Dave, Chuck, Oliver, Roger and myself, we managed to get the Uhaul packed up again. At 4pm we decided to go over to Montgomery Inn just a few doors away from Drawbridge Inn to have our final community dinner. There we reflected on the weekend, and summarized how much we enjoyed it.

I'd like to thank some of the other volunteers who helped out like Charles Needam, and a few other folks that were not members of our club, but stepped up and helped along the way when some help was needed. I also want to thank the folks that did demos...and the folks that supplied items for sale. I am sure I missed a few names, I apologize if I missed your name. As I said at the top of this report, I'm sleepy-eyed as I write this.

If you wish to view some of the items acquired from Mr Tucker's collection, some of it will make it to this month's meeting. One of which I haven't mentioned yet will be sure to bring some curious folks to check it out. A Commodore C-65. That's right, in the collection from Charles Tucker was a prototype C-65. It was tempting to try to sell it, or raffle it off at our expo, but it was decided that some of our membership might like to view this piece of obscure Commodore hardware before that would happen. If you desire to own this piece of hardware, please speak up. I'm sure some of the membership would like to have the club keep this piece of hardware for it's obscurity alone. If you are one of those, speak up. The club will hold it for the next couple months at least until it is decided what should ultimately happen to the machine. I am sure a lot of money could be gained for the club if we sell it. Make your voice heard and come to the meeting this month.

Also don't forget the election of officers is coming up. Put your hat in the ring and run for office! That way our club can....

Keep on Commodoring!