[TheForge] ABANA 2010 conference

[rfertner at cox.net]

Hi All,
I had a good time at the ABANA conference in Memphis overall. There was good luck and bad luck with the trip.
The bad luck was when we were a mile from the I-40 exit that would lead us to the conference, the water pump and radiator decided to self destruct. Long story short, we got it towed to a local dealer and they replaced all the broken stuff for $1400. Of course, I charged it. I'll be paying that off for a while. What a kick in the teeth. We did get a free rental for the day our truck was in the shop. 
The good luck was that I won the BAM box in the iron-in-the-hat drawing Saturday evening. Those BAM guys do an awsome job when they create the BAM box. A lot of nice tools and a beautiful box made by Pat McCarty. I've been trying to win one for years. My wife wants the box for herself and I can have the tools. :-)
Speaking of BAM, this year's ABANA conference was similar in format to the BAM conferences. My wife and I tent camped on the grounds for $20/night. There was power hook-up and I brought  an extention cord with a RV plug which we powered a fan.
Thank God for that. It was hot (90's) and very humid. It rained Thursday evening. We're spending Sunday evening in a Memphis motel before we head back to Kansas Monday morning. Something about wanting to get civilized before getting back. :-) 
I liked this conference. Lot of good demonstrators. Someone told me that 600 attended but, I really don't know for sure. Hopefully, ABANA will give the official numbers after the final auditing. Tailgating numbers were less than the 2004 Richmond Conference which was the previous ABANA conference I attended. I managed a few deals on tools. Number of dealers was also down compared with 2004. The one's there were great. I bought something from most of them. I planned on one large ticket item but, that got scratched after the truck troubles. In fact, we were going to spend Monday seeing the sights and doing the tourist thing. Now, we're going to head home first thing Monday morning. 
The motel has a slow connection, so I'll wrap this up. I'll post more later.

Rob