I would like to say more about the mayhem and madness that ensued after the awards were over, but I said I would not discuss "the power floor-waxer riding episode" and I shall not.

Suffice it to say that the Lotus executives were very fun-loving, down to earth, and easy to get along with. DominoPower Senior Technical Editor Richard Echeandia also commented that he doesn't know of any other product with such a huge user base whose programmers are so accessible and helpful.

Wednesday, January 20
Wednesday 's most memorable work-related event was a private press briefing with Blair Hankins and Annette Zawacki of Lotus. It was nifty-neato to see the new R5 Client in action and get the inside scoop. See Richard Echeandia's article entitled "Lotusphere'99 technical review" in this issue of DominoPower for some of the fun facts we learned.

But the true over-the-top fun of Wednesday was the SeaWorld Adventure Park Party. This was a real blast. Ironically enough, I recruited many new DominoPower authors at the event. Who says you can't work and have fun at the same time? I wish it could always be like this.

There was a lot of attention to detail present in this party, including an elaborate sand-sculpture which included the names of all Lotus' corporate sponsors in painted sand.

There were caricature artists at several locations in the park. Figure D shows a picture of me posing for my caricature.

FIGURE D

The lovely Denise Amrich poses for her caricature. Click picture for a larger image.

Figure E shows my finished caricature. I think it looks just like me.

FIGURE E

Here I am, a caricature! Click picture for a larger image.

Figure F shows DominoPower Senior Technical Editor Richard Echeandia posing for his caricature.

FIGURE F

The handsome Richard Echeandia poses for his caricature. Click picture for a larger image.

Figure G shows Richard's caricature. Richard doesn't think it looks just like him.

FIGURE G

Check it out! Here's Richard's caricature. Click picture for a larger image.

The entertainment at the party was top-notch. The Pointer Sisters played, and sounded wonderful. I didn't realize just how many hits they had. Speaking of the attention to detail I mentioned earlier, the shows at SeaWorld all had Lotusphere-related jokes interspersed throughout them, and audiences seemed to laugh loudest at the jokes that had Microsoft as their brunt.

The "I AM" signs were rampant at the show, but Tony Montoya of Tesseract (at http://www.tesseractec.com) was the first person to go down the log floom holding one, as shown in Figure H.

FIGURE H

Tony Montoya says I AM!!!!!!! Click picture for a larger image.

Later on that evening Tony Montoya and his buddy Rob Breault helped me win a stuffed alligator at the frog pond, as shown in Figure I.

FIGURE I

I won this alligator, but if you think this one's big, you should have seen the one Tony won! Click picture for a larger image.