Have YOU seen the price of gas lately?  I don't know where you are, but in the South (KY, TN, AL) I can get it for $2.29.  Sadly, I drive a Diesel, so I would still pay out the wazoo, with the gas/Diesel spread as wide as I have EVER seen it, a fantistic 40 to 50 cents a gallon in this area (!!!)  Another "conservation" effort of mine that has now blown up in my face, as that works out to an $8.00 penelty for every 20 gallon fill up! :-(  :-(  :-(  Astounding.

I could afford the fuel, though, to go to Boston.  However, as most of these conferences always seem to, this one falls right in the busiest season where I work, and I will be demanded to not only work regular hours, but much overtime  (ahhhh, how I must envy those with free schedules to go to these events in these "hard, hard" economic times!  (irony intended!)

The other deal breaker would be the cost of registristration, a fantastic $240 bucks for the public.  I went to an energy conference in the late 1970's in Louisville, Kentucky, displaying the wares of solar manufacturers, wind turbine designers, a hydrogen car and promotion for the "syn fuel plant" that was to be built on the Ohio River in Kentucky, intended to convert KY coal to a liquid fuel (gee does all this sould familiar?).  Even the Governor of the state, at that time John Y. Brown Jr., helicoptered in to speak....it made all the press.  The cost of admission was $15 dollars, (it was a lot to me then!), but a very educational experience for me then, I still treasure many of the ideas it opened up to me.  

Sadly, many of the companies displaying there that day, and the young technicians and adventerous business people showing their products would soon be out of business, as the oil price began to fall and then collapse, destroying the alternative energy industry, and losing much of the ground they had made.

Oh, one more minor point.  If you look at the cost of these type of "Conferences" from then to now, you will see that the price of conferences has inflated at easily several times the inflation of crude oil and gasoline, despite the so called "catastrophic" and economy threatening rise in fuel prices   (!!!!!!)   Kind of makes you think......, he said with furrowed brow?.:-)

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout