Thursday - The trip

I drove down to the happy store to meet Thomas, I got there a little early so I went to my parents house first to get some water, Atlanta was 95 degrees and I was hurting because of it. I met Thomas and we headed back to my parents, hung out for a while. He gave me 300 stickers with atlanta con and our barcode on them. I go to the airport and chakecd in, I would switch planes and have a about an hour layover in Washington DC. The first leg was good. The girl I sat next to would constantly ask me questions about how the plane worked. I had to explain to her the theroy of lift along with thrust (airplane) and how the controls worked different parts of the plane. the flight was on a boing 737. The girl was loud and obnoxous.

The secound leg took me into Vegas. The crew had not revieved the type of plane they expected. it was an Airbus (didn't remember the model). The new plane was much smaller (~18 rows smaller) so many people hgot bumped (8 from first class) The food was great!! especially for airline food, Delta needs to take a hint (delta food is bad). I sat next to someone who was head of a construction company. We talked about electrical work and I gave him some advice on which palm pilot he should buy. My headphone outlet had a short in it. but I got a free set of headphones that I took home with me ;-) as we passed over the desert the scenery was beautiful. I need to go camping out there sometime. I even got a good overhead view of the grand canyon. I had never seen it before.

I got in at about 7:30 and took a shuttle to the hotel. After I was dropped off I made my way to the main pool (where we were supposed to meet) Rokit and monster were waiting. I talked to them a little and then went to get my badge. Monster brought his 2 way radio so we set up on 12-2 unencrypted (part of the fun of defcon was listening to the other channels that people were using) I left mine on scan for most of the weekend. Rockit was in the Marriott and I was supposed to stay with him but it was so much easier to to stay with Monster as he had a 2 bedroom at the Alexis. I dropped off my big bag in Monsters room and then we went to Rockit's. Most of the evening was spent meeting old friends and talking shop.

Friday July 13 -- start the con

I got up and took a shower, Monster and I synced our radio's, Monster wanted to get up at 8:00, I told him he was nuts and talked him into 9:00. My first panel was at 10, the opening cerimonies. Priest spoke and every time he opened his mouth I realized more and more of what an asshole he is. he talked about not dehydrating and the camera rule. then he brought up a speaker who was talking about Mitnik and other hackers and crackers who have been arested. All three of us looked at each other and with a WTF and then promptly left. I had a little time before my next panel so I went to check out the dealers room. it was really crowded! ass to elbow. I couldn't check out much, I will tomorrow. Some of the T-shirts were neat but most of them were pretty lame. From there I worndered into the 'newbie' room., there was someone talking about how to do a DOS attack.Why the hell would you want to have a panel on that?!? I walked out and headed to the 'hberhaxor' room. The panel was silly, I left and headed to the dealers room. Anges was there and I talked to him for a while before I went to the pink taco inside the hard rock hotel with rockit monster and a couple of other guys. we talked about girls and computer ;-)

I got back from lunch and was late for Nomad's panel. damn, at least I got to see the last part of it. He is a really good speaker; However he was put in the 'general' room. Stupid Defcon thing #1 - A tent on a roof in 112 degree weather is a REALLY BAD FUCKING idea. His speach was goood , he used some strange pictures for his speach - very Gigerish. I attempted a couple more panel, nothing good. I went to the dealers room again and checked out the merchendice a little. For dinner Rockit and I too Angus and hacksec to dinner. we went to a nice restraunt and had 8 waiters, there was a pimp and is girls at the next table. he tried the entire meal to get us to take them home. I harrassed the staff a lot (as usual). At the end of the meal the waiter asked why we were in Las Vegas, to which I replied "to attend a hacker convention" and he responded "Isn't that illegal?" We did some explaining and he was guienly interested (or so he led us to believe) I had a wonderful meal of filitte Minion. at the end I was completely stuffed.

The dealers room this year sucked!! the hardware was WAY over priced there were few good t-shirts. There was a group there with large breasted females who all had what looked like COC on their shirts, I thought it was 'chicks on computers', no, the girls had been hired to wear the shirts and they were advertising for dis.org (the first letter wasn't a backwards C it was a D without the line) a group who does horrible things to the hacking community. I was not at all pleased with that and I think that pretty much the entire convention was mad at them. for fun I would pretend to flirt with them when in fact I was insulting the hell out of them. If only they were bright enough to know that we wern't laughing 'with' them. I made friends with several people. Some of the new Moloc crew and a phreaker and her husband. she gave me a free shirt :-) I hung out in the lobby for a while and met a lot of new people, handing out atlantacon stickers the entire time. met a girl with beautiful farie tattoo's all over her back. she gave ma a postcard with her picture on it, unfortunatly it didn't show the tats. Met up with the phone girl who said she had put her daughter to bed and wanted to go out doing stuff. So we went and hung out on the strip then went downtown to the lights show. it looked as if it would be pretty neat if we would have made the show; However by the time we got there it was 3:30 in the morning and the show ends at 12. We made it back to the hotel in time to join the "sunrise and run on the roof" crew. Watched most of the sun rise over the mountians, when it got to the point where we could feel it we all went back to our rooms. I got to bed at about 6:30. Had to wake Monster up to get in.

Earlier today I tried to join the CTF network, hop on the internet and play some CTF, The network would be up for 2-3 minuites then would go down for 30 minuites or so. it was worthless to try and do anything!!!

Friday July 13 -- start of the con

I got up and took a shower, Monster and I synced our radio's, Monster wanted to get up at 8:00, I told him he was nuts and talked him into 9:00. My first panel was at 10, the opening cerimonies. Priest spoke and every time he opened his mouth I realized more and more of what an asshole he is. he talked about not dehydrating and the camera rule. then he brought up a speaker who was talking about Mitnik and other hackers and crackers who have been arested. All three of us looked at each other and with a WTF and then promptly left. I had a little time before my next panel so I went to check out the dealers room. it was really crowded! ass to elbow. I couldn't check out much, I will tomorrow. Some of the T-shirts were neat but most of them were pretty lame. From there I worndered into the 'newbie' room., there was someone talking about how to do a DOS attack.Why the hell would you want to have a panel on that?!? I walked out and headed to the 'hberhaxor' room. The panel was silly, I left and headed to the dealers room. Anges was there and I talked to him for a while before I went to the pink taco inside the hard rock hotel with rockit monster anda couple of other guys. we talked about girls and computer ;-)

I got back from lunch and was late for Nomad's panel. damn, at least I got to see the last part of it. He is a really good speaker; However he was put in the 'general' room. Stupid Defcon thing #1 - A tent on a roof in 112 degree weather is a REALLY BAD FUCKING idea. His speach was goood , he used some strange pictures for his speech - very Gigerish. I attempted a couple more panel, nothing good. I went to the dealers room again and checked out the merchendice a little. For dinner Rockit and I too Angus and hacksec to dinner. we went to a nice restraunt and had 8 waiters, there was a pimp and is girls at the next table. he tried the entire meal to get us to take them home. I harrassed the staff a lot (as usual). At the end of the meal the waiter asked why we were in Las Vegas, to which I replied "to attend a hacker convention" and he responded "Isn't that illegal?" We did some explaining and he was guienly interested (or so he led us to believe) I had a wonderful meal of filitte Minion. at the end I was completely stuffed.

The dealers room this year sucked!! the hardware was WAY over priced there were few good t-shirts. There was a group there with large breasted females who all had what looked like COC on their shirts, I thought it was 'chicks on computers', no, they were advertising for dis.org (the first letter wasn't a backwards C it was a D without the line) and most of the girls I talked to from the group were there as eye candy, not to actually take part in the convention. Ya know, it's kind of insulting to the rest of us when groups do that. I think I lot of the con was pissed about it (heard many horrible things about their group) I made friends with several people. Some of the new Moloc crew and a phreaker and her husband. she gave me a free shirt :-) I hung out in the lobby for a while and met a lot of new people, handing out atlantacon stickers the entire time. met a girl with beautiful farie tattoo's all over her back. she gave ma a postcard with her picture on it, unfortunatly it didn't show the tats. Met up with the phone girl who said she had put her daughter to bed and wanted to go out doing stuff. So we went and hung out on the strip then went downtown to the lights show. it looked as if it would be pretty neat if we would have made the show; However by the time we got there it was 3:30 in the morning and the show ends at 12. We made it back to the hotel in time to join the "sunrise and run on the roof" crew. Watched most of the sun rise over the mountians, when it got to the point where we could feel it we all went back to our rooms. I got to bed at about 6:30. Had to wake Monster up to get in.

Earlier today I tried to join the CTF network, hop on the internet and play some CTF, The network would be up for 2-3 minuites then would go down for 30 minuites or so. it was worthless to try and do anything!!!

Saturday July 14 - KISes

Optyx's panel was awesome!! he would give a paragraph then get an applause, give a paragraph, get another applause, everyone loved KIS (kernel intrusion system) - his new software. At the end as he was answering questions. he called on one of his friends who started yelling about how what he was doing was wrong and said "You may be laughing, but you know who isn't laughing? Richard Stallman isn't laughing, he is mad" at this point one another friend who looks like Stallman jumps up and sys "I'm mad!!" They started coming up the isle and Optyx got out of his seat and started walking down the isle, they met in the middle of the floor and wrestled on the floor. it was hilarious!!! They got up laughing and Optyx said "Thank you" Everyone stood up and clapped. he then threw disks out to the audience who were started diving into the isles for them.

I tried again to join the CTF network, same result. The hardware panel I went to was BAD. I did go however to the 8-bit 8-pin pane, it was great, I got lots of good notes. I even entered the hardware contest. you had to draw a design for a piece of hardware that could be built with the starter unit. I turned min in but didn't win. :-( I went to a panel about wireless networking, it was STUPID. The entire panel was some random chick talking about wireless networks that have been set up in strange places. the panel went something like this: "So this one time at Burning man, this friend of mine set up an Internet connection in the middle of the desert. yea that was really cool, and so this other time in Texas we set up this other wireless network, yea that was really cool too." This was the entire panel. I left.

The Quantum Cryptology panel was lame, The guy only talked about 1 type of quantum computer where Melon discussed 5, he gave the theory with no explanations. he mentioned them like there would only be one use for them ever. "so quantum computers will be able to crack encrypted messages much faster" was pretty much all he said in about 50 different ways. well DUH!! It's a faster computer.he showed slides that looked neat but he nor anyone else could explain what was in them, it was very sad. then after the panel nobody had any questions (I think they just wanted him off of the stage) after melons panel we had to cut it off because of all the questions she was being asked.

We told Optyx and Dystic that we would take them out to dinner, Dystic had other things to attend to so Rocket, monster, Colleen (the preaker grrl) Optyx, his friend and I went out. We discussed the con and came up with some great idea's for next year. I took notes. I then hung out with Colleen, her husband and their 5 year old for a while. that night Th group of us tried to go to the fish show but again we showed up too late. So we went to go check out the coaster. too later again. they had just closed. So we played video games (at least that was still open) Then went back to the hotel and hung out. I went to bed early but didn't get much sleep, you would thing I would have slept like a baby but I couldn't.

The dealers room was not that great, for one thing the dealers got screwed when they found out about the fee they had to pay for their table. Angus was not happy. For this reason all of the dealers charged more. The hardware was incredibly expensive, I got a couple of T-shirts but not the one I wanted. The one I was after said "My other computer is your workstation" but I was too late for that one. I did pick up some "Owned by CDC" stickers for my work mates and a couple of T-shirts for grrl.

Sunday July 15th - last con day

I got up early to go to panels, received an offer to go to circus-circus bit declined because of all the things I needed to do. Optyx's panel ended up being the best one by far. I went to the dealers room to see if any prices had dripped. Hac-Sec sold all of their T-shirts. This was good. I picked up some books 3 to be exact, met up with Cheshire Catilist and we went to lunch at the Pink taco.. He was flying out that day. I talked to him about speaking at Atlantacon, I think he will. I got back and everyone was cleaning up. I helped colleen Clean up her booth and carry the T-shirts back to her room.We hung out for a while talking about random things. 3D rendering, phones.. odds and ends. I was tired, I headed out to the pool and talked to Rockit and Monster, they were leaving. Elonka was there and told me I could crash with her so I moved my stiff from monsters room to hers. she had little goth boy as a roommate. I hung out on the couch with him and his friend 1/2 sleeping.

I was invited to go out to a restraunt, it was pretty neat, there was a belly dancer, we had a 7 course meal and acted pretty obnoxiously the entire time. I took lots of pictures, one of the guys had a hooker named Kelly he claimed followed him in and she sat with us. we sat pretty much on the floor. the seats were only about 8" high. kelly kept offering 'services' for a con badge... I believe a couple of the guys took her back to their room..... ick

When I got back to the hotel I hadn't taken many pictures of Las Vegas so I walked down to the strip and got as many as I could. I didn't thing they turned out that great. I spent a while there and my feet were REALLY sore when I got back. I got on one of the pool side lounge chairs and found that something had just happened. There was a group of non-defcon people who had checked in. From what I herd they had been picking on the defcon people and making racial slur's (they were all black). Apparently a guy and girl from this group got into a fight by the pool, the guy had gotten his ass kicked. While I was there he was walking around saying he would get his gun and kill all you white guys. He then left. About 3 minutes later there was a commotion behind the bool house. everyone went over to the area. My friend Dave was
being held down aby 3 Huge guys while 4 guys were talking turns kicking him in the face. Optyx and I grabbed Dave and the 4 guys jumped me. I was held down by my hair while being hit and kicked in the face. It was enough however for Optyx to free Daniel. As soon as I saw this I freed myself, grabbed Daniel and made for the closest open door I could find. this dispersed the group. I sat Daniel down on the couch and got him Ice packs. checked his pupils. his entire right frontal lobe was black, he couldn't see out of his right eye anything but rainbows. and he front teeth were chipped up pretty badly. I packed his head in ice and got some tissue for me. My nose had been broken and I was bleeding badly. My eye had swollen to baseball size, I herd the helicopter and ran outside. The police then showed up. They called an ambulance and I escorted Daniel there where they took him to the hospital. Most of the rest of the night was filling out police reports , hotel reports and security reports.

I couldn't sleep so I walked around a bit and caught up with Optyx, Dystic and crew. We sat around and talked for a while. I joined the sunrise goup again, Daniel was back he looked MUCH better. I went to bed

Monday July 16 - Going home

I don't feel so bad today, I got up and left before anyone else got up. I sat in the lobby for a while talking to some of the few def-con folks left. Laughing boy was leaving. I took a taxi to the airport. My first left left at 12:05. I got a good view of the city and the strip. Took a couple of pictures. The trip was pretty quet. The first words out of my neighbors mouth were "so, did you win?" She had been there playing slots. The guy next to her had lost $6K his first day but says he won most of it back. People are strange. The scenery on the way back was amazing, the desert is alive with color, mountains pop up out of nowhere and rivers carve beautiful ridges out of the land below.I had a 2 hour stop in Denver Colorado and got a raspberry sherbet. They loaded the plane early (30 min) During the decent my face will hurt due to the change in pressure on my broken nose :-( It's actually doing much better today. The first leg I couldn't get an exit row. However I did get a window seat. The next flight I get both(2ed leg) The pressure has caused my nose to bleed again grrr. First leg was a Boeing 737 The wings are strange on these planes, the lift panels are on the back instead of the front. Second leg is a 727 hmmm reminds me of working at BAX.