They're not all day affairs, the actual AOS judging was probably 1:00-4:30
on Friday and 2:00-4:30 on Saturday. I skipped ribbon judging on Friday
morning. It's just the hassle of bringing the extra camera equipment,
setting up a background, actually being careful to try and take good
pictures instead of my usual quick snapshots. Between that and having
helped set up before the show I'm usually just a little burned out and just
spend the rest of my time there visiting with people. Since I've gotten
more involved and gotten to know the vendors better I've started trying to
go to dinner with one or more of them on Friday and Saturday, it's a great
way to get to know people. I also made most of the judges training this
year (got there at 8:30 which is good for me), two good talks by Norito
Hasegawa on judging paphs and Ron McHatton on the whole nomenclature mess
and how it affects the judging system.

Every year I intend not to buy much, and every year I get accosted by a
bunch of plants that make me take them home:
Dendrochilum cootesii
Gongora aromatica
Macodes petola
Onc. Jiuhbao Gold 'Tainan' AM/AOS
Onc. Twinkle 'Fragrance Fantasy'
Pleurothallis strupifolia
Paph. Clair de Lune 'Edgard von Belle'
Paph. emersonii
Paph. (Hsinying Zebra x Hsinying Velvet)
Paph. Maudiae 'Los Osos'
Paph. niveum

-danny