Atlanta on $263.78 a Day

Okay, I made that number up, but it's not far off. I'm in town for a training developers' conference. Before you get excited, that's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Oh sure, Bob Pike is going to be there, and you could do worse if you're in the market for handfuls of cheap promotional pens, but at the end of the day it's just nine thousand-something nerds wandering around talking about how best to pass along nerd-knowledge in a digital age.

I'm here because my employer thinks there is value in having someone attend these things. Ostensibly the notion is that I'll attend a bunch of sessions where I'll learn tons of stuff about where the training field is going, what's out there on that virtual whiteboard horizon, how to capture the learner's attention and keep it when you know deep down that your subject matter is slightly less interesting than the interior of a toilet paper roll (if you're over five)... you know; nerd stuff.

I may not have mentioned before, but I am a nerd. Not old school or anything; I have no tape on my glasses, no pocket protector, no speech impediment, and I don't drool unless it is appropriate to the setting. I'm what you'd call a neo-nerd (if you were nerdy enough to use words like "neo"). I dress fairly innocuously, have interests outside the conventional nerd-sphere, and can pass for normal in most settings.

"What makes someone a nerd?" you ask. Scientists, philosophers, and podiatrists have been trying to answer that question since... okay, they haven't actually, but I'll give it a go. A nerd is someone who is passionate to the point of obsession about things other people find boring, confusing, or of no real interest. It doesn't really matter if your thing is Star Trek, Star Wars, or painting those tiny civil war replicas; nerd is nerd. (I'll be selling "Nerd is Nerd" t-shirts soon; watch this space!)

Anyhow, this nerd walked into a bar... The nerd was me, and the bar was the Vortex Bar & Grill in Atlanta. Cool. I liked the place even before I walked the two miles distance from my hotel room. I had Googled restaurants in the neighborhood, and hit on the Vortex as the place I'd have dinner because their Website, or more to the point, their attitude hooked me. The Vortex is a place where you can go and have a burger and a beer and have it their way. Don't smoke and don't want to be around smoke? Their Website suggests you go someplace else. Like to complain when things aren't to your liking? Take a hike. They advertise their two locations as being both "whine-" and "idiot-" free zones. They even had an explicit "86" policy, which stated that the lines between places open to the public and public places had been blurred for too long; that the Vortex was privately owned, and the management reserved the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time. Like I said; cool.

Their beer selection was so vast that I suspect they may have actually traveled forward in time, bringing back beers that have no actually been invented yet. (By comparison the selection at most places here in Raleigh is only half-vast.) You could get an "In Heat Wheat" from Flying Dog or a "Peg Leg Stout" from Heavy Seas or a zillion other strange or staid brews from their wall-to-wall coolers. (I had a St. Pauli N.A.. Nerd, remember?) The food menu was actually more substantial than I'd expected, but since they'd won best burger in Atlanta for some number of years I failed to commit to memory, I decided to have a burger. I ordered their "black and spicy," which featured a half-pound patty blackened with Cajun seasonings and topped with jalapeno jack cheese, red onion, lettuce and tomato. The only thing I had to add to it was my teeth. It was hands down one of the best burgers I've ever eaten.

So, that's my brief travelogue of three days and nights in Atlanta. The conference? If you're really, really, really into training and the exciting new technologies for delivering learning on-demand to a global audience, then it would still boor you to tears. Sure, I learned a couple of things; yes, it was time well-spent if you do what I do for a paycheck. But since you probably don't, nothing at all is more than enough to say about that.