observations from a conference

So I'm at WEFtec (the Water Environment Federation conference), which this year is taking place in Chicago. And man alive, it is huge. It's crazy. This conference is an industry in and of itself. The cash that is spent here, I will go out on a limb and say, is a lot. Hell, maybe even A Lot. McCormick Place, the conference center itself, is huge; it's got to be the biggest building I've ever been inside. Then the flights for people to get here. Then the exhibitors, whatever they pay just for the privilege of exhibiting their stuff here. Then the sponsors. Then the food (crazy markups, $2.75 for a can of pop and $3.25 for a bottle of friggin water - at a water conference, yes, I see the irony (do they?)). Then the maintenance and clean up crew. Then et ceteras. Nuts.

It's interesting, though, to see something like this happening.

This morning I spent 3+ hours wandering, and I probably saw about 25% or less of the actual exhibitors' floor. There are three separate areas, A B and C, and each is the size of, I dunno, at least 4 football fields. Walking around. Carrying this damn laptop, which I should have realized can't pick up free wifi (though I could enjoy the internet for $9.95/day).

But it is good to be here, for sure. And I'm grateful to my boss for sending me. There are some interesting booths, products, technology, ideas to be seen. Now is it economically worth it? Well, that depends on what comes out of this - whether we find a product that improves our own product or our efficiency, or we find a product developer that we can work with to establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Or I make a contact that leads to a project. Or, on some off chance, I personally become $X thousand smarter in the next 2 days. The last one is, of course, a long shot. But I believe one of those things will happen, so probably yes.

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The food. I already mentioned the markup on soft drinks. For lunch I had a "spicy chicken sandwich". It was a small chicken breast, marinated and slow cooked until tender, served on a squishy white bun with some condiments (I chose pickled jalapenos and some sort of indistinguishable brown sauce) and a pile of kettle chips, for $12.50 plus tax. Paper plates of course. Eaten while sitting on a park bench that's been bolted to a concrete floor indoors (think Home Depot). It was okay. It was about $4 okay. (I did have a pleasant conversation with some R&D dude from Boulder Colorado, so that's cool.)

I could have had something else - a slice of cheese OR sausage pizza, maybe, for $5 - which would have been $0.50 bad. Or a Chicago dog, which looked okay (price unknown), but I wasn't so sure about all those raw onions mixing with business, you know? To offset the nasal discomfort of that, I'd have to have been Even More Smarter.

So, not unlike at home, I have mostly been living off coffee. In this case, Starbucks. A tall house blend, which at home would be... $1.75 CDN or so? is $2.20 US here. And the line is always like 15 minutes long. Man alive.

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Here's an interesting thing, though. Background: in the engineering world, about... 8%? of the population is female. I don't know the actual number. UBC grad classes in the mid 90's were setting records at 20%, but remember this must be offset by all previous grad classes from the past 30+ years, many of which were 0%. Anyway, attendees to this conference are more than 10% women. Maybe 15%. And, using Seinfeld's law of datable people in the world, which if you don't know is 5%, that means that if you are a heterosexual male, then 0.75% of the people here should be datable women. But it's actually, I dunno, about 2% give or take.

How to explain this statistical anomaly? Well, the main thing I would guess is that people like sending attractive women to man their exhibit booths. Also, many of the people here aren't engineers. By extension, therefore, not all of these women are engineers.

Things I will say to prevent hate comments:

1. I have dated and/or been interested in and/or generally known plenty of female engineers in my life. Why This statistical anomaly? 1a. I am in the profession, and therefore have been exposed to many female engineers. That sounds lewd when read aloud, but I'm sure you get my gist. 1b. I am married to a Forester. Which, although heated enemies on campus, is pretty damn similar to being an Engineer. It's a bunch of applied science; people, we are all the same. 1c. Seinfeld's law does not necessarily apply to engineering (or forestry for that matter). I think this can be explained by the partially conflicting principle that geeky girls are kind of hot. Yeah, it's true.

I guess that's all I have. Therefore, the defence rests.

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(Later, as the conference is winding down.)

I just drank a beer in less than 3 minutes. Literally. I know it was American beer, but dang I was thirsty.

Here's one awesome thing about conferences: starting at about 12:01 pm, some exhibitors start to set up bars at their booths. And while I only had one beer (I choose to be Respectable), it Was free. Nice. But yeah, it lived one short life. Goodbye, free beer, see you in a couple hours.