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My Trip to the A.L.A. Convention 2007
By Herb Kinney
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My A.L.A. convention adventure started Friday morning April 29th at about 7:30 A.M. when I started catching and bagging fish to take along.
By 4:00 P. M. Dave Hackenberg arrived to pick my son, Ryan, and I up. For us, it was a short drive (about two hours) with plenty of fish talk. We arrived shortly after 6:00 P.M., checked in, unloaded, and then set up the fish we brought for the show. Unfortunately, I missed the first guest speaker. I was in my room selling and trading fish. I got a nice group of Limia vattata.
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Saturday morning I was up early without much sleep. It seems my wrist-watch was intent on setting off it’s alarm several times from 1:30 until 2:00 A.M.; then it went to spend the night in the hallway. Saturday morning I enjoyed a breakfast in the hotel restaurant with Maury Phillips, who is a friend that also came up from Erie. Over the course of the weekend I enjoyed the talks and the question and answer sessions. There were a lot of interesting speakers including: A.L.A. president Rit Forcier, and his talk about his fall trip to Mexico with Ivan Dibble, Dr. Felix Breden speaking on the Cumana guppy/Endlers livebearer topic,and Mike Hellweg’s discussion on various livebearers. Dr. Gil Rosenthal gave a very detailed talk on the hybridization of Xiphophorus, Dr. Arcadio Veldes Gonzalez from Mexico discussed the work being done to try and save the Desert pupfish.
Saturday lunch was a particular treat, as Dave Hackenberg and I had the chance to dine with Jim Langhammer. We had great conversation and I learned a lot from Jim, who has done some much work with our beloved Goodeids. The dinner banquet was Saturday and was splendid. Good food, but also good conversation with Dr. Arcadio Valdes Gonzalez. Bob Cashin presented this years awards. I got my A.L.A. Merit breeder award. Banquet speaker Charley Grimes was great entertainment and had everyone laughing.
Some of the other special happenings for me where: Meeting and swapping fish with our own Goodeids.com Dustin Stonebraker. (I can’t wait to see the photos Dustin took with his excellent Nikon) and Meeting long-time email friend, and fellow Allotoca keeper, Joel Healy.
I was also glad to meet other “livebearer people” like: Bill Allen, Bill Kohler, Stan Domanowski, Greg Sage (Who I owe a big thank to for getting me the male Tiger Limia I needed) and many more. The people at the convention where friendly and outgoing. I really felt at home around this huge group of kindred spirits. I also got to spend time with our hometown group: Bob Cashin, Dave Hackenberg, Maury Phillips and my son Ryan (All from the Erie, Pa. area). I also had a visit with Ray “Kingfish” Lucas whom I had met a couple months ago.
I really got along well with Dr. Arcadio Valdes Gonzalez. We exchanged email and skype contact information and posed for pictures together. Arcadio is a very interesting person and it will be great to hear about his future research. I hope I can make it to Mexico for a visit with him sometime. Sunday came too soon but we had a good breakfast with
David Boruchowitz, Ted Coletti, Bob Cashin, and Dave Hackenberg.
I got to distribute over 60 Allotoca goslinei fry and a lot of Xenatoca eiseni (Rio Compostela)fry. This is very important as it is essential to their existence as a species. The auction was huge. It started at noon and was still going strong when we headed home at about 5:10 P.M. so I couldn’t tell you what time it ended.
My only real complaint is that the convention went by so quickly. So much to do and so little time!
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