Edit: The original post that precipitated this response has been deleted.
Len,
I have to agree with Adam here.
I appreciate your enthusiam and your efforts to help encourage more people to come to SELEM. Things like offers of blow up beds and various hints and tips at how to curb expenses, etc. If people read the forum regularly, they know how much of a supporter I am as well, and champion the cause of getting people to attend. Whether you're a 20 year veteran or just found the forum 3 months ago and are curious.
You like to be helpful and that's a great thing. You put a lot of effort into trying to secure nice doorprizes for everyone. But sometimes, the posts can be perceived as being a little overzealous. This is, and always has been basically Adam's baby. He may not want to take all the credit as it IS a collective effort but, in the end, if Adam says drop the food because it's becoming a distraction, then we need to drop the food - or at least the making of "rules" about it. It should never have gotten to the point of being such a big discussion point publicly in this thread. To me, and I'm speaking only for me here, bringing along some food for the group was my own personal way of contributing something worthwhile to the event. I'm really not knowledgeable enough (honestly) about lasers to contribute much more. It was an easy way of blending together two things I enjoy. Nobody needs to do KP duty. Nobody should be "forced" to contribute monetarily. If they felt compelled to throw a few buck in a can, so be it.
As far as me working 80 hours a week, and choosing to bring a lot of gear to SELEM, that's really my choice and my business. (But I appreciate the concern.) Just as Mario bringing a fortune in audio equipment is his choice and expense or, rgbgas bringing all the scaffolding and high voltage electrical stuff is his choice. I'm not looking for special consideration so I'm not certain why you randomly chose to go off on that tangent. Your idea is akin to saying that any newbie should be required to be there Thursday at noon to help unload the EAW subwoofers because, poor Mario has to truck all that gear there. Policy making isn't really your call on this. Save that for TEXLEM 2 when that day comes.
I'm not going to bring up food again publicly and apologize to those who deem this as "drama" interwoven into the SELEM thread. It's not intended to offend - and especially not Len. You know you're my friend and I'm not trying to 'dis" you or curb your enthusiasm about SELEM or helpful nature at all, dude. I just felt the need to respond.
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