Various meetings with a number of people at the COMDEX show. In particular. Betty Ann Yurchich who is Sheldon Adelsons private secretary. This meeting was with the intention of getting the attention of Mr. Adleson on our project. He is building the Venetian Way, a spectacular new hotel for Vegas. Adelson spearheaded the development of COMDEX in Vegas at the Sands Hotel which he also owned. My thinking is that because he understood the development of COMDEX, he will both understand what we are doing, and also the value that can be delivered through Comdex to our project and the likely spin-off value to his new hotel. Rob Garretson, the Editorial VP of IDG News Service. Its funny how you meet people at these events. Norman and I were at a stop light and I opened up a conversation with this guy next to me. I think I may have noticed that he had a media tag on, and he may have noticed the same on me. Either way we chatted for a minute or two and before you knew it we were at his office in a nearby hotel telling our story. IDG has 280 publications and hopefully something may come from this. His main concern was that we were real.. We will follow this up later. Eddy Manos of Seagate. Eddy is an energetic outgoing techno-wizard. He is in charge of, and very proud of his association with two specific chips in the Seagate line of equipment. Seagate was founded by Al Shugart, and if one were to identify Bill Gates as one of the Gurus of Computer technology, certainly none of what Bill Gates accomplished would have been possible without the developments that Al Shugart accomplished. As Eddy Manos says - we have seen the price of storage of one megabyte of date go from $100 to $1 and it is currently down to .05. His goal is to get the cost down to .01 by the year 2000. When I heard this astounding revelation I gave to Eddy a Friendship Penny which he said he would keep as a reminder to himself of this objective. Pat Freira of Pat Freira Services. Pat is a very dynamic woman who organizes a special lunch for all media at one of the local restaurants. She profiles her clients and others who want to have a presence at Comdex. Practically speaking, I do not know what she charges her clients for this opportunity, but it certainly makes more sense than being any where else at the show if you want media attention. On the other side of the coin, most media are just there for the free lunch. If one has a good story that he wants to get out, her lunches are a must. Spending time at Comdex is most difficult. In the four days I must have seen 2-3% of what was to be seen. The most exciting thing I found at Comdex was a product called Feelit. This is a mouse, that enables the computer user to actual "feel" the connection to the screen. I asked if we could get a demo copy in order that we could develop some programs that would use this tool. It adds another sensory experience to the computer. There will be many applications of this technology developed in the future I am quite certain.

During the week we videoed the Treasure Island experience twice planning to edit it into one show later, , and also the Fremont Experience a number of times.

Interviewed a number of people at Comdex, and in particular David Vanden Hoek who is Manager of Competitive analysis. He apparently spends some time with Al Shugart, the founder and CEO of Seagate, and he committed himself to introducing Al Shugart to our website with the express purpose of having Mr. Shugart use our site to rid himself of the smoking habit. This offers a large opportunity.

Friday the 21st Leaving Vegas Deciding whether or not to leave Vegas. I tried to get a meeting with Steven Wynn, and the Mayor of Vegas. To no avail. My computer has crashed and it made no sense to travel without it so I decided to get on a plane and go back to Toronto.

I went to the airport, driving through Las Vegas I noticed how much I had not seen. The MGM, the Aladdin, Luxor. It is amazing how grown up Vegas has become since I first visited in 1967. Truly amazing. I also noted how dirty the air is. It was actually affecting me as well. I think that people are starting to notice it as well, although the residents have been led to believe that the air quality is just because so much construction is going on. I guess it may be so, but the air actually looks as bad as the valley in LA. Once at the airport, I learned that the cheapest flight was $650. I could not afford that. I asked if I could speak to a supervisor, and at the American Airline/ Canadian Airlines I was given some accommodation. I was allowed to get the seven day rate which amounted to $341. Lucky!. enabled me to take a plane. My alternative would have been to take a bus home. It may have been fun, but I was carrying too much, and my computer was down.

Arrived in Toronto late at night and even though my body gained three hours, I was happy to get some sleep.