NAID--The Insanity Trip

This report was started APRIL 12th (a couple days before NAID) and
completed on APRIL 23rd, one week after NAID. [This was submitted to
and appeared in IMPHOBIA 10.]

First off, if you do not like long stories then skip this article.  If
you are looking for a fact filled NAID report then maybe you should
skip this as well.  This article/report only contains my opinions of
said party.  Many thanks to Jeff for actually printing this drivel
which may actually be quite entertaining to some.  Lets begin...

NAID APRAXIA--also known as the North American International PC DEMO
Festival was the first ever North American PC demo part.  It was held
over Easter weekend (April 15-16) in Longueuil (a suburb of Montreal)
Quebec, Canada.

It was about a month or so before NAID that I got this crazy idea of
actually attending.  I figured "What the hell, I'll drive up."  What's
sixteen hundred miles (2600 Km) anyways.  I posted my idea on the DEMOS
USENET group but did not receive any takers.  The closest I got was
someone wanting to organize a convoy which started near Washington D.C.-
-1000 miles from where I live.  As the days grew closer my interest
grew even though I still had no one to help me with the ONE WAY journey
to Canada.  I called it the "insanity car trip" because you'd have to
be almost insane to attempt such a drive (30 hours)--especially for a
two day demo party.

A week before my trip I was able to obtain a car that needed taken to
Montreal.  An "auto driveaway" company does the paperwork and you, the
driver, get to drive from City A to City B and gas is paid for by the
company.  My arrangement was $100 for gas money upon delivery of the
automobile and the company would reserve me a plane ticket for my
flight back to Fort Lauderdale.

The day of my departure was closing in and I had yet to obtain a
passenger to help with the drive.  One friend was close to going but
backed out within a day--his fiancee convinced him the trip WAS really
insane and that a $100 plane ticket I was likely to obtain was
impossible.  I called around and found the latter to be more or less
true and I did not attempt to convince my friend other than saying
"It's an adventure, a trip of a lifetime."  But nothing worked so solo
I was.

Friends, coworkers, and family thought I was NUTS!  Especially doing it
alone.  This sure was going to be the "insanity" car trip.  In fact,
the longest I had driven a car at one time was 3 hours.  "How will you
make it?"  Seemed to be the question of choice.  Thing is I'm not
normal so this seemed to fit quite well into my puzzle of life.  Summed
up everyone else's doubts and trying to talk me out of "it" started to
make me doubt myself.  "Could I make it?  What if...?" and so on.  It
is not something other people have to understand; this trip or anything
I do--only I need to understand what I want and what it means to me.
If the outcome is great, then all is well and if the outcome is bad
then I'll probably get a lot of...I told you so...  Funny how things
work this way.  And when you do succeed all those people who said shit
about your ideas/plans seem to amazingly change their minds.

Thursday April 13th at 4:30am I departed my living quarters in Fort
Lauderdale (Plantation, actually), Florida for Montreal (Longueuil),
Quebec.  My transportation, a 1991 Ford Taurus with 84K Km on it.
Packed were my inline skates, sleeping bag, CD player (for car), some
Escape CD's, and a few other odds and ends--enough to survive but not
too much to bog me down.  Hey, of course the trip would be tough but
who said life was easy.  Sometimes the most interesting stuff in life
is also the most difficult.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

I cruised along the highway at a decent speed (70mph) and was able to
make it out of the state before 10am--Florida's a pretty long state.
Jacksonville, the last major city before the Georgia boarder, smelt of
industry.  It reminded me a northern Steel town like Pittsburgh or
Youngstown.  The sky was overcast, rush hour was over and my mind was
racing almost wishing for a break so I would jot down all my thoughts
and write story after story about my journey, old towns, loneliness,
and such.  I could not stop to smell the roses so I passed the city,
reset the cruise and popped another CD in the player.

I made my first stop after 5 1/2 hours in Georgia for GAS and toilet--
Gas was $1.05, ten cents cheaper then where I live.  My trip through
Georgia took about 2 hours.  There was not much to see or write about,
especially at 70mph with no stops.  My next break came at 1:30pm for
lunch at the golden arches.  It had been 8 hours after I started out
and I was not growing tired but my neck was stiffing up a little.  My
thoughts often wondered back to work and I keep thinking "what would I
being doing now?"  Bad thoughts, I know...good thing I got away for a
few days.  A lot of other cars on the road passing me had Quebec
license plates.

Lunch ended quickly and I was back on the road until 3:15pm at which
time I hit the South Carolina/North Carolina boarder (a.k.a. South of
the Boarder).  This South of the Boarder is an amazing tourist trap
with high priced everything.  I was stupid enough to buy some
outrageously overpriced gas.

The weather was very comfortable--even in my shorts--though it was
starting to get a little chillier.  Back in the car after a quick rest
I set my cruise back at 70mph and was ready for the last third (7-8
hours) of this days journey.  I recall North Carolina being extremely
long and Virginia is where the hilly country actually began.  I stopped
for diner around 7pm at Wendys.  I stepped out of the car and was hit
by 50 degree weather, burr.  Dinner was a much needed break, especially
for my neck.  I was even a little dizzy after this long drive yet a
couple more hours still remained.

I had made it to D.C. at 9pm.  Construction, traffic, hills, and my
neck made for one amazing hell drive.  I wanted to skate D.C. that
night so I turned off onto what I though was the correct road.  Low and
behold I got on a road that had no exit, took me away from the city and
took about 15 minutes to get off.  I figured I'd leave D.C. to the
morning and visit Ryan who organized the NAID Convey.  I arrived at
Ryan's house at 10:30pm, shortly after my 3rd Gas up that day.  I was
very dizzy/tired at this point so went to bed after a little bit of
talking.  Guess I got about 6 hours sleep.  Enough to keep me going for
the next several days.

I woke up early Friday morning (4/14) and was able to take off towards
D.C. by 9:30am--after rush hour traffic.  My goal being to skate the
"mall."  This was an HOUR backtrack but I only had 12 hours (600 miles)
worth of drive to do this day so I had to burn the time somewhere--I
had no place to stay Friday night.  It was HELL finding a parking space
in D.C.  The one I got cost me about $1 for only 1 hour.  I put on my
skates, found the mall and skated around for an hour.  By 1pm I was in
Baltimore, MD eating lunch.  D.C. was great and it definitely deserves
more than a 1 hour visit but that was all I could afford, good thing I
had my skates otherwise I wouldn't have seen half the "mall."  It was
cold but I had a jacket and pants on this day.

A little excerpt from my journal--4/14/95, Near Albany, NY.  Still
Friday...A little colder and a little darker.  It is 9pm and a good
time to write before driving/snoozing.  I'm tired like I was yesterday
night so maybe it is better to rest a little then drive.  As is--with
no sleep--I'd probably arrive into Montreal around 2am--ugh.  If there
were more people to help drive this wouldn't be too bad.  A lot
happened today and I'll try to recount most of it as I burn up an hour
or so of time and "freeze" at the same time.  Must be about 40 degrees
outside and about 55 in the car.  I have a jacket on and my sleeping
bag is covering me a little so I am okay for now.  Once I start the car
and turn the vent up to warm everything should be fine. [Lots of stuff
about D.C. and the morning left out.]  Youth Hostels--I looked at my
map and the closest one is not open until May.  None in Albany and the
Montreal one closes at 11pm.  So, I lost out on the comforts of a Youth
Hostel tonight so...alas, its sleep in the car time...which shouldn't
be so bad.  I figure I'll get anywhere from 2-5 hours of sleep.  It is
almost 9:30pm and I've got about 5 hours of Driving left to do.  I'll
hope to make it near Olympic Stadium and sleep a couple hours in a
parking lot before skating (maybe, if not too tired), eating and
getting to NAID around 9am.  Let that be the plan and let me get a few
minutes of sleep here...out.

Continuing from my journal...April 15, 1995--Saturday 8:30am.  Wow, I
made it.  Here at last.  Most of my goals have now been accomplished--I
made it safely to Montreal with the car intacked and was able to find
an ATM that worked.  Last night I rested for about 20 minutes after
writing.  Not much but I was restless and wanted to move on.  Guess I
drove for close to 2 hours and then I actually started getting
tired...that and the fact there was a slight snowstorm convinced me to
pull over.  A desolate place--a couple truckers and myself...Good news
is there were toilets so I used em to brush my teeth.  I wanted to
sleep about 5 hours but ended up only resting for about 2--leaving at
3am.  It was because even with my jacket and sleeping bag I was cold.
The shivers forced me to drive.  I fueled up just before the boarder
and was VERY cold pumping that gas at 3:30 in the morning.  I think I
arrived in Montreal around 4:30am, found a Dunkin Donuts and used the
bathroom.  A short drive later I discovered a little park and rested
some more from 5-6am.  Only about 3 hours of sleep if you can count
what I got as sleep.  I made it to the college where NAID was taking
place at 8am but they would not allow me to enter till 9am.  So, I'm
hear writing this at 8:45am...wondering who will be there and hoping to
change some of my clothes, brush my teeth, use deodorant, and put my
contacts back in.  Yep, its starting to get cold in this car
again..guess the SNOW outside doesn't help either.  The SNOW and
freezing weather will keep me off the blades (skates) for awhile--
likely the whole day cause it does not look like the sun will be out
anytime soon.  The park by Olympic Stadium was quite nice...they expect
money for parking too, but not at 6am in the morning.  Too cold for
skating though.

NAID--From the inside.

The "HORNET" crew weren't too hard to find.  Posted there on a table
was a sign that said HORNET.  I don't recall seeing any banners like
the ASM'93 I visited, there were a few printouts and notices of who
people were but not like Assembly.  Within the first 15 minutes of my
arrival I had met the whole Hornet Crew:  Snowman, Trixter, Grave
Digger, and White Noise.  Them and my ESCAPE T-shirt led me to meet
many other "well knowns" at NAID--Daredevil, C.C. Catch, Krystall, many
Kosmic members including Dan N., the organizers, Snibble, Humanoid, Man
Hunter, Miss Siagon, and a bunch of others.  Sad to say there were a
few people whom I never did meet.

Monitors throughout the school broadcast all events and contained a
schedule of the competitions.  Much of the day, when compos were not
taking place, PC and Amiga demos were shown on the big screen--
including the winner of the Gathering, Dope which blew everyone away.
There was very little trash and hecklers, could there be a correlation?
Because of the lack of entries in the Intro Compo the deadline was
extended.  Word got out pretty well about the lack of intros and sure
enough everyone that could was doing a last minute intro.

With the intro deadline extended due to lack of intros the organizers
decided to play ALL the music entries.  Can you imagine a 7 hour music
compo?  We had it at NAID.  I missed about 1/2 of it cause I had to
deliver the car I drove from Ft. Lauderdale and pick up my plane
ticket.  I did hear about 20 tunes though.  Some were really good and
some should not have been played.  Should things have been done so no
one knew the composer?  I can't be the judge of that.

That night there was a live band--Public Enema--and a Techno-Rave
dance.  This lasted the whole night and I slept through most of it.  I
like music but my body would have hated me had I not gotten some sleep.

I was delighted the organizers chose me to be a judge for the INTRO
competition.  Unfortunately I missed the competition at 10am the next
morning (which it was rescheduled for) due to higher obligations--
Easter Mass.  When I came back the graphics were being shown.  When I
did eventually see the intros I was a bit disappointed by the quality.
It was tough deciding the best of the nine and what surprised me most
was the fact that the public chose an intro that did not even place
with us.  Many of the intros crashed on the various computers I watched
them on.  Hopefully they will be improved before release.

The demo compo went very smoothly and contained a great deal of quality
productions.  Originality abound in the winning production by Craw
Productions.  Da Cheeze Brigade, and Kosmic placed second and third
with amazing productions.  The Psychic Monks had what I would consider
the best "message" demo.  Not many demos attempt to deliver a message
or get a point across but theirs did with a 1984ish (book) feel.  I
recommend checking out all the NAID demos with an explanation point on
the above four.  You will be amazed at what people on this sided of the
ocean can produce.

Closing comments were spoken by Christopher (Snowman).  He did a very
good job--maybe if we are lucky someone will transcribe his speech and
post it on the USENET.  Awards/winners, are probably listed somewhere
in this great diskmag so I will not reiterate them here.  Suffice to
say everything went fairly smoothly--at least from my POV.  The
organizers were satisfied as was I and probably the 700 other people.
NAID truly did kick ass.

I said my good-byes early at NAID and found someone to take me to the
airport at 10:30pm that night. The party was over and I sure as hell
wasn't going to drive home.  Especially not when I was able to get a
$95 plane ticket home.  I got to the airport at 11:30pm Sunday night
and my plane left at 6:55am the next morning.  So, I spent the night in
the airport and got very little sleep again.  I figured better this
then having to get up at 4am and hail a taxi.  Funny, I thought, what
the hell were all these people doing in the airport at 1am?  Guess
there were quite a few of us spending the night here.  Surprisingly I
did not see any homeless people in the airport.

After very little sleep I grabbed my ticket, boarded the plane and--
instead of sleeping--watched the movie Junior. By noon on April 17th
1995 I was back home.  My trip was over.  Total cost, after selling a
few Escape CD's was under $100.  Was it worth it?  Hell yeah.

