One onOne with Mike Wong

No posts from Day 2 of my Atlanta stay, but it was a good day at the Epson Print Academy. They had a good turn out and I got to talk to a lot of really great people during the breaks. For those of you who stopped by and bought one of our products, thank you very much! Be sure to check out our online tutorials to help you get up to speed with your new purchase.

I had a day to myself today, which is rare on these types of trips, so I took advantage and went to the Georgia Aquarium with Jim DiVitale. Thanks again for taking me Jim! The highlight of the day was seeing the enormous tank (6.2 million gallons held back by 2 feet of acryllic that spans 63 feet in width and about 40 feet or more in height) where there are 4, count ‘em 4, whale sharks! These are incredible animals and to see one up close was something amazing. Here’s a picture of the largest one whose name is Norton. The other male is named Ralph and the two females are named, Alice & Trixie.

Next stop on my trip is Tampa to visit our good friends over at NAPP.

I’m now in Atlanta. First time ever. Everyone always calls it Hotlanta, but I gotta tell you, it’s more like Chillylanta or Windylanta today. It’s brisk and windy outside. Nothing hot about it. I’m on a quest to see if I can find a place that serves Pepsi. I don’t give myself very good odds seeing how I am in the land of Coke. In fact, it appears that the Coca-Cola headquarters are just behind me past the Georgia Tech campus.

Here’s a shot from my hotel room balcony. You can see the Georgia Tech football stadium in the background.

The traffic here looks horrendous. It’s only gotten worse since I’ve been here. But with a population approaching 5 million, what would you expect.

I went out looking for a place to eat, and I didn’t get very far from my hotel when I smelled what could only be that unmistakable combination of deep fried oil and french fries. It was like there was a forest fire and you could smell the smoke for miles. Well it turns out, I was approaching an Atlanta institution known as The Varsity. Apparently, the downtown Atlanta location is responsible for more retail sales of Coca-Cola on an annual basis than any other single location in the world, a record which has stood for many years running. If you look towards the bottom center of the picture above, you can see The Varsity. It’s huge. The parking lot, including the drive in area, was completely full. Maybe I’ll have to stop in before I leave town.

I couldn’t bring myself to stay in there tough. I just got rid of that BBQ smell from Mobile and didn’t want to replace it with the unmistakable, if not somewhat appetizing, smell of french fries.

Off to dinner soon with Jim DiVitale. He lives here in Atlanta ya know. I’m looking forward to catching up with him.

Image copyright Mike Wong

En route to Atlanta for the Epson Print Academy this Saturday, I stopped in Mobile, AL for a couple of meetings with a reseller. For lunch yesterday, we went to this great BBQ joint. Damn it was good food. I still smell like a mixture of BBQ and smoke – and I don’t mean BBQ smoke. I mean cigarette smoke. Coming from Oregon where you can’t smoke inside any public building, it was a bit of a shock to walk into two different restaurants where smoking is allowed. When you don’t smoke, walking into it hits you like a brick wall. At least it does to me.

Anyway, I escaped the cold weather of Oregon this week – or so I thought. When I left Portland, it was about 33 degrees F and wet. Landing in Mobile, it was 75 and HUMID. This morning on the way to Mobile Regional Airport, it’s a bit brisk. 39 degrees F by all of the electronic bank billboards on Airport Blvd.

Here’s some Mobile, AL trivia for you. Did you know…to the delight of children everywhere, Lonnie Johnson of Mobile, AL invented the Super Soaker.

More later when I get to Atlanta.

Just before Thanksgiving, I headed down to Ojai, CA for a few days to the Lynda.com Development Center to record several hours worth of training for Mask Pro. There’s nothing quite like sitting in a recording booth for 2 days straight.

The weather was great though for the time that I was outside.

All images copyright Mike Wong