We were able to do much more than that, we got to juke, jive, and wail with none other than the king of swing himself, Brian Setzer and the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Setzer, spotlighted in Figure B, was indeed the highlight of an otherwise middle-of-the-road Wednesday night party.

FIGURE B


Brian Seltzer does his best to liven up an otherwise middle-of-the-road party. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The band played for over an hour and touched on all the favorites including some old Stray Cats tunes. It was indeed a fun time. For more photographic evidence of the event, you can check out my online photo album at http://www.zing.com/album/?id=4293055695.

Thanks, John, for those preceding paragraphs and his pictures. The photos that follow and the rest of what you're about to read is by your favorite editor-in-chief.

Beauty and the beast
I can't resist sharing with you this next picture, shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C


Richard's not a beast, but you gotta admit, it's a pretty neat section heading. Roll over picture for a larger image.

In it, you'll see the our own fabulous DominoPower team, including the lovely Denise Amrich, our Managing Editor and the equally lovely Heather McDaniel, our Sales Manager. Sandwiched in between is Richard Echeandia, our handsome and debonair Senior Technical Editor.

Getting some haze
Travel throughout the events at Lotusphere was done on spiffed-up busses like that shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D


Do you think the people of Orlando knew it was Lotusphere time again? Roll over picture for a larger image.

When I first arrived at the show on Monday morning, pre-coffee, I didn't know, remember, or care about the busses. All I wanted to do was take a picture of the tacky dolphins on the top of the Dolphin Hotel. So, in my trusty rental car, I came zipping into the Dolphin's parking lot at a mere forty miles an hour. The thing was, unless you were a guest at the Dolphin, you had to take a shuttle bus to Lotusphere. There was no way that the Dolphin's lot could accommodate all the cars. But I wasn't just a guest, I was press. I wanted a picture. And I hadn't had coffee.

The result was that I zipped past the checkpoint guards at what, to them at least, must have seemed like warp speed. By the time I'd determined that there wasn't a good enough vantage point for photos inside the lot, I'd gathered a wake of about 15 security personnel all madly chasing after me. They seemed most disappointed when I told them that my highest priority was finding caffeine and my second was a picture of the silly blue goldfish they called the dolphin. Once again, I'm sure I'm on some sort of Disney watch list.

In case you're curious, I decided to find coffee before I parked the car (at an approved lot) and got on the bus.

Once you get to the Dolphin, there are lots of goodies and lots of lines, like those shown in Figure E.

FIGURE E


It's worth standing in line when you're going to get free Lotus software. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Of course, what impressed me most that first day is that you could walk between the hotel and the food tents without coats or jackets, as shown in Figure F.