I have erased that night from my memory...but yes, I was, along with the Ladies from the Revlon Convention who were stuck at the Hotel that night.

I just found alot of the photos from that weekend.  Our big flyin with the controller desk setup with 20 laptops or more.  That was a challenge to setup.  Using one old WRT54G router and everyone on wireless, it worked out pretty good I thought.

I hope that title does not make it sound like I'm ego-maniacal; that would be far from my intention.

I know a lot of the old-timers here know my name and many of you have met me in person at one or both of the conventions we held (Vatsim Dulles-DC, 2005; VATUSA O'Hare Hilton 2006).

A little background.  I got started in this hobby WAY back in the old SATCO days (some of you remember this; during dial-up?).  I believe it was 1997 or 1998.  There was no voice (all text), barely 20 controllers and maybe 50 pilots on a busy evening.  While with SATCO, I was the very first ATM (back then we were just called "Chiefs") for Kansas City ARTCC.  Randy Whistler got me trained by some of the best guys in the sim world at the time.  This was all during ProController days.

Prior to the SATCO/VATSIM transition, I had some personal issues that took me away from the hobby for about 2 years (I was both a pilot and ATC; loved doing both but would go through spates of either).  I re-registered right before the transition from SATCO to VATSIM, and got back on initially as the ZKC AC, then the CI, then the ATM once again.  I was on and off yet again, but never long enough to let my membership lapse.  Once I became chief at ZKC, I spun up a website and got and trained good people to work there.  I kept myself fairly busy especially while out of work for an extended period from early 2002 until mid 2003.  Once I started working full time again, I couldn't keep up with the pace of being a webmaster AND ATM AND helping Mark Zameda set up the Chicago VATUSA event (that was incredibly stressful, more so on Mark than me) so I rescinded my position around the end of 2006 after some health issues.  I returned to the network to pilot quite a bit in 2007, but once again left in September.

So here I sit, nearly four years later with a re-activated account, feeling like I need to start back up again.  But this time, no administrative work I think.  I think I will just control, and hope to be able to put back in at the sector I worked so hard on in the early years, ZKC.

Thanks for the ear, and I hope to see many of you in the skies or on the scope.

Mark Brummett
CID 812002