Catfish Convention

[Julie]

It was just awesome! Each convention gets better and better. Excellent speakers of course, but a variety of topics, some were just wonderful samplings of different cats, other talks to make you think (and look at your cats in perhaps a new way, and other talks with tons of scientific information for the geeks(me!!) in the crowd.

Just wondering how I'll be able to wait two years for my next catfish *fix*. I truly would love to try and plan a trip for next year's L-day... maybe if I start collecting my pennies now.

[Dave Rinaldo]

Wow!!

What a total waste of time and money

[Jools]

Sadly I won't be able to make it this year. I really liked the speaker line up and it would be great to see everyone again. I would have loved to have gone collecting with Birger and all the feet up cold beer chat with everyone. If there is a next time, I suspect I would be there possibly with my F1s too!

Jools

[Bwhiskered]

I just got back from the convention last night. It is a good 10 hours of driving to get down to the Washington DC area from my house in Burlington Ontario Canada. I did find some Super Red Ancistrus that I was after. It was a great convention as usual and it was nice to mingle with old friends. There was not as many fish that I found interesting in the stores or with the room sellers as other times but that seems to be the trend all over. It could be because of the economic down turn world wide.

There is a whole bunch of different room sellers at the Ohio Cichlid Extravaganza next month and maybe a different variety of fish. It is a much lower cost convention and perhaps the biggest. I hpoe to see everyone there.

Charlie

[longstocking]

I had a great time seeing the people I only get to see at conventions! Barbie especially Hugs hun!

Of course my best fishy friend Julie!!

Also meeting new people! A lot of new faces!!

Still tired from not enough sleep... but I guess that is what happens when you are having too much fun!

See you all in two years

[Birger]

Sadly I won't be able to make it this year. I really liked the speaker line up and it would be great to see everyone again. I would have loved to have gone collecting with Birger and all the feet up cold beer chat with everyone. If there is a next time, I suspect I would be there possibly with my F1s too!

Jools

And what a collecting trip it was, great weather, literally every swipe of the net, still good company even with Jools missing, have pictures, I will see about putting them on the travel forum.

Catching up with old friends, making new friends, and especially for me, hearing some exciting African catfish news, and yes, I think I had time for a beer or two...

Birger

[Jools]

That's a great picture of Hans. New collecting site too.

Jools

[dconnors]

Wow!!

What a total waste of time and money

Too funny Dave! It was really great to meet all of you that attended. Can't wait 'til the next one.

[MatsP]

Isn't "wasting money" what a hobby is about?

--
Mats

[Julie]

From the demeanor of the people in Barbie's and my room, money wasn't what most people were wasting... more like getting wasted was the goal!! (at least after all the talks were over for the day)

[Viktor Jarikov]

So what are wasted plecoholics like? How many beers, wine coolers, etc. does it take for someone to start organizing on-the-spot a trip to SA just to prove their point about a certain pleco?

... or is this not how it usually ends?

Just poking...

[Barbie]

I think most everyone was drinking beer, apart from my rum. I didn't hear one single argument when plecos were being discussed. I think that might be why catfish people are my favorites. They are able to have differing levels of success with their methods and don't think everyone must do it just one specific way. Well that, and it's a big group of people that like to watch their fish by flashlight, hehe.

Barbie