I agree with Ilene about the APT conference; networking
is the best part.  There should be a conference some day
that is just time set aside for people to assemble in a
giant room, introduce themselves, and talk.  Forget the
presentations and q&a;  just give the people a place to
get together and talk to each other.  And find a way for
employers to allow attendance at such a thing!

I heard some interesting information presented, but
nothing really knocked my socks off.  I haven't been
able to look yet, but I'm hoping that the papers were
better than the presentation.  I generally attended the
more broad "what's significant about these 20th-century
structures?" sessions.

One of my old classmates was sitting next to Ed Bacon
during Venturi's talk.  He gave us the skinny on the
expletives uttered.

It seemed that the most impressive thing people were
talking about was David DeLong's presentation, and I'm
not just saying that as a Penn grad.  Unfortunately I
was unable to attend, but those I spoke with were
impressed.

There was an attempt at an exposition, but I think there
were only about 10 booths.  The Vitrolite guy was cool,
though.  Apparently he's got 9 tons of the stuff, just
waiting for a storefront near you...


As a lurker, I will also take this opportunity to pipe
in on that topic.  For myself, even though I may not
have responded to some (ok, 99%) of the information or
messages, I have certainly forwarded things (like the
vinyl awards, slate roof quarterly, IPTW updates) and
archived others.  While I agree that there is some
"noise" here, I feel that benefit of the useful
information and excellent feedback and support that
people receive for questions asked and points pondered
far outweighs the extra static.

And I must say, I looked through the entire list of pre-
registered attendees at APT to see if there was an
opportunity to bump into any BP-ers.  Conversely, I
barely know who's on Preserve-L.

- Johnette