2:45 a.m. Yes, but it's a good tired. A satisfying overall sense of accomplishment. It's a rare day when you have something tangible to show for all your hard labors. Today was such a day. Today I can show you my stuff.

For various reasons, I found myself wandering the aisles of an aviation convention today. The same powder blue and lavender aisles. The same molded white chairs and hard-handled plastic bags to carry your goodies in. The same bowls of Tootsie Rolls and Hershey's Kisses, piles of yellow Post-It notes and ordinary ball-point pens.

The same. Typical. Conventional.

But every convention yields a few goodies to the professional mine-sweeper. As in: "That's mine." I'll have one of those, thank you very much. This particular convention walk was a special challenge today because I didn't even have a badge. I actually got by with walking around with just the shoelace necklace that you see in the pictures.

That and my digital camera and a somewhat officious demeanor. Thus, in order to get a nice free T-shirt from the fellow, opposite, I had to take his picture. The logo on the front says, "Windchill Factor!" and their website is here.

They sell solutions for collaborative product commerce. Ok. I'm going to have to be very careful wearing this T-shirt out in public for fear of being mobbed with requests to explain that previous sentence.

My next photo is of a woman named Wanda. She has something to do with the U.S. General Services Administration -- I believe they are the very same people who are always in trouble for the $9,000 toilet-seat covers at the Pentagon.

I can't be sure. I stopped to talk to Wanda simply because she was friendly and polite and fascinated by my camera. No goodies from Wanda, although I did give her my card leading her to this site, so if you've made it here to see your picture, well then: Hi Wanda.

This fellow actually had an interesting product, although he was wasting his time showing it to me. However, once you've been stuck in a purple booth made out of PVC pipe long enough, you can no longer control yourself. If you catch the eye of a hapless passerby, you must start your pitch.

Do you see the square white object in the upper right corner of the photo? That's the overhead luggage compartment of your typical wide-bodied airplane. The mirror he's holding is supposed to be glued to the inside top of the luggage bin so you can see into the far corners.

A nice idea, I'm sure.

Again, no goodies at this booth. I took pity on the salesman and again played show and tell with the camera.

But as I sit here typing, I'm sucking water from a brand-new plastic sport-utility sipper: (Aspect Development) and I'm resting it on a nice leather coaster (MRO Businesses). On top of my Zip drive I now have two nice squishy rubber airplanes from Hewlett Packard. And really, you can never have too many ballpoint pens (Deloitte Consulting).

Actually, that's not true. You can. I'm entirely too happy about my pens and my new little rubber toys. I need to get out more. And get some sleep.