Here in West Michigan I had been itching to get to a LAN for quite some time. There's a forum similar to WIYB's at
http://www.theboxheads.net/ with lots of chatter recently about an upcoming LAN called 'Wintereenmas' hosted by 'The Geek Group' in Kalamazoo (home to Western Michigan U) about 50 miles away so I figured I'd give it a shot.
Well, nothing quite prepared me for what I saw. Imagine something out of Mythbusters - a cavernous indoor science and tech warehouse filled with robots, lightning generators, workbenches, testing equipment, oscilliscopes, computers, etc. In fact I've never seen so much 'stuff' under one roof in my life! Absolutely the perfect venue to hold a LAN!
About 45(!) made it, mostly a pretty hardcore group of UT 2K4 and COD4 gamers plus a little Starcraft thrown in. Some hard core music tilting to the metal side, lots of case modding and the usual assortment of ghetto mods plus sponsor prizes. One guy had 3 power supplies in his box ... 2 modular, the third a 1.5 gigawatt. Vapochill rig. He pretty much sucked when it came to gaming and he readily admitted it
I've found most of case modding people tend to be hardware focused with gaming pretty much an afterthought.
Scored a good deal on a vid card a guy was selling ... used Radeon 4870 1 gig for $95. They're shooting for a LAN every quarter.
During a lull in the action my mind drifted to you guys back in Tucson. Here I was 2000 miles away, a full moon illuminating half a foot of snow on the ground, bare trees with the temperature hovering around 10, yet I suspect you would of been just as happy here as there. You were with me in spirit and would of found the competition and comradery a great tonic.
Here's the links plus an interesting story of how this non-profit tech center got started.
http://appliedintel.net/wordpress/lan-parties/lan-party-media/http://appliedintel.net/wordpress/lan-parties/http://appliedintel.net/wordpress/about/When I got ready to leave one guy came up to me and said 'You know, when I'm as old as you I hope to be in your place'. My evening was complete.
