An adventure with Mike

I have previously written about my affinity to listen to podcasts. For the past year, one of my podcast subjects of choice has been Apple computers. A few of the podcasts espoused about the virtues of the Apple Users Group. This is a group of geeks that gets together about once a month to talk and learn about Apple computers. There will typically be a main presentation along with a couple of smaller presentations covering a variety of topics, but all tying into Apple computers. Well, I recently became the happy owner of an Apple MacBook Pro 15" laptop. I was curious about the local Apple Users Group. The name of the local group is the Houston Area Apple Users Group, HAAUG (pronounced HOG) for short. The main meetings are typically the third Saturday of the month at the Belliare Civic Center. I persuaded Mike, another Apple user, to attend the meeting with me.

The meeting was scheduled from 9 AM to 2 PM, with the main presentation to begin at 11:15 AM. The topic was Mastering Your Email. We arrived fashionably late, a little before 10 AM. We walked in the atrium of the civic center and were greeted by three people sitting behind a long table with a couple of laptops opened, Macs of course. They asked us if this was our first meeting and then asked us to sign in. We were handed a piece of paper with the meeting schedule and offered a donut. We looked at the schedule and a presentation about digital photography was about to begin in a side room. We are interested in digital photography, so we entered the assigned room and signed in again. So good, so far. We joined to other 2 people in the audience and took a seat. Four others walked in a little later. The presenter began and stated that the topic was night photography. He gave his Keynote presentation (the Apple version of Powerpoint), which consisted of about 20 slides, mostly sunset?? photographs. I thought this was night photography? He gave us a few tips for night photography as well, such as this gem, "keep the camera still". His presentation lasted about 10 minutes, and then he asked what topic we would like for next month's meeting. Someone mentioned HDR, a photography technique, and we had next month's topic. Then came some uncomfortable silence. Well, thankfully, a crazy cat lady was in attendance. She started to ask questions about her point-n-shoot. The highlight being her statement in regards to camera modes. It seems her camera has a dial on top that you turn depending on what type of photo you are trying to capture. Landscape, portrait, sports, night, auto, are a few examples. Cat lady stated that her camera's dial turned all by itself. If she was shooting a landscape, it turned to landscape. If she was shooting at night, it turned to night, by itself. When the presenter said the dial must be getting bumped accidentally, Cat lady adamantly said "No, I keep it in a case and am careful with it". To his credit, the presenter said, "ok". I would have said "does it turn to cat mode when you are shooting the special photos of your kids that eat meow mix?" I am glad that I encountered her at the HOG group and not at work. Otherwise I would have had to take to her to the Neuropsychiatric Center for evaluation and figure out something to do with her 30 cats.

At 11 we all went into the main assembly area for the email presentation. There were three presenters and all of them seemed to know their stuff. If they we allowed to actually stick to their presentations, it would have been been a useful time. However, the other 30 people in attendance had other ideas. Almost immediately, 5 hands were in the air with questions. As soon as one question was answered, 5 more were at the ready. Even better, the three presenters were not always allowed to answer. Others in the group felt more qualified to answer. Now, they might have been qualified. But, I imagine that the three presenters were presenting for a reason. Of course, Crazy Cat lady had a few questions as well as a few answers for others. At least the wifi signal was strong and free. Mike and I used the time to check out ESPN and see if Newegg had any hard drives on sale. After 45 minutes, Mike asked "when is lunch?" How about now? We packed up and left the auditorium. We were caught by the membership director on our way out. He asked if we learned anything. We politely avoided the question. He told us how to join and said I hope to see you next month. We left a little disappointed. I was definitely expecting more. If I am going to spend a few hours on a Saturday every month, the meeting needs to knock my socks off. Oh well, Mike and I made the best of it, as we normally do.

             

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