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Our First HOPE Conference - 2004 flashback

Posted on 10/15/12

We had done different hacker conferences, but they had generally been close to home. None of us had been to HOPE conference before but was familiar with the name as it's a hacker con thrown by 2600 magazine - the hacker quarterly.  We took to New York City to attend our first HOPE conference back in July 2004.

We were small, the idea of shipping things never even entered our minds and back then each person could fly with 2 bags on the airline we flew so we packed a personal bag each and the rest of the luggage was the swag to setup shop with.

We got to NYC and headed straight to the taxi line, we told the driver that we may not all fit due to the weight of our luggage but he was certain he wanted us and he loaded up his mini van with our 10 suitcases and we piled in. A few miles on the freeway with a lot of bumps we heard the taxicab start to fall apart -- and then suddenly something was dragging on the ground.

The cabs suspension was shot and the axel was dragging on the freeway. We pulled over on the side of the road, the driver was upset his cab was broken, and we were upset his car broke. Without any delay one of the guys in our crew went to his luggage and grabbed supplies to tie his car back together. Within minutes we were ready to go again -- the MacGyver style move wouldn't be a permanent fix but we made it to the hotel.

Once we got checked in we went to the conference area and setup our booth. We had a warm welcome from the east coast hackers and got to showcase our wares. Throughout the weekend we heard some great talks and met a lot of great people -- many we still see at events on the west coast!  We've returned since 2004 and look forward to the next show!