Huh... I probably should have tried it.
I got in early and was parked in row 510, so I'd have to walk away from the show gate to get there, so I just skipped it and went on in. I'll have to give it a shot if they're back next year. Did Fratello's run that, or someone else?
Yukon Jacks as someone else mentioned, and it really was pretty good. Even had decent salads for when you finally just couldn't shove another burger and fries in your face for another meal. Small bowls of fruit too. (See below.).
Breakfast buffet was all-you-can-eat and had a decent selection of the same type stuff you see at any hotel buffet. One plate was plenty. Waffle sticks, biscuits and sausage gravy, patty sausage, link sausage, the mystery corned beef hash every breakfast buffet serves, hash browns, eggs made out of that pourable stuff (those were worth skipping, but they were eggs if you wanted them), fresh fruit (melons cut up with grapes added), etc.
Lunch/Dinner was the ubiquitous burgers and fries, but they also had grilled chicken sandwiches (Doug took his out of the bun) and a BBQ pork wrap thing. Not too bad for cooking in a tent.
Staff was really friendly too. They even let some folks tap into their AC power there in the center of their tent with a couple of power strips instead of walking down to the shower house/charging station.
I believe the WiFi that folks said worked was theirs, not EAAs. It had a different ESSID of "north40cafe" and I spied an AP hiding behind the gear. Whether they intended for it to be an open access point, or if it was supposed to just be for their credit card machines, I did wonder a bit. Hopefully it wasn't accidental and they don't have a $1000 data overage bill coming from their carrier! LOL!
No complaints here, since we were two rows away. Convenient!
I'm normally not a breakfast eater, but at OSH I'd eat a big breakfast and then just walk through lunch most days... a couple of the days we were there, it was too hot to eat mid-day anyway, so I just hydrated heavily and kept going. Worked out nicely.
Nothing on the menu cheaper than $10.95 and a single 16 oz beer was $5, but that's Oshkosh food vendors... no big surprise there.
Sure was nice to tie down, set up tents, and have a cold Leinies Summer Shandy in-hand minutes later. They couldn't serve alcohol until after 5PM and had a separate line for beer and five or six different beers on tap.
Someone also pointed out that there's a new convenience store/gas station over near the Hilton this year, and that's the place to make a beer run to for the North 40 now... Ride over to the Hilton, walk a very short distance, buy a styrofoam cooler, beer, and ice, and ride back around on the bus. Done.
We didn't do it, but it made sense.
Late one night I saw someone unplug the Ethernet from the ATM machine and stuff an Access Point in between the ATM and the Ethernet drop. Haha. For a moment there I thought I was at DEFCON.
Somehow I'm guessing that wasn't the intention of having an Ethernet drop to the ATM right next to the EAA Store! LOL!
The "official" WiFi on the panel antenna up on the light pole marked with the WiFi logo with the roaming "EAAWiFi" ESSID never worked more than about 20-30 seconds. Something wrong with the authentication/login stuff where you have to say you accept the terms. It'd connect and then drop.
Verizon LTE was OMG screaming fast and covered everywhere except the center of the main exhibit area well. And that area had reasonable but slow 3G from the COW trailer parked outside the gate near Hangar C (?) right next to the TV trucks and their microwave masts for live shots.
I saw some dude in what looked like a 3rd party tech support/tower company polo shirt and jeans and the standard company badges hanging off a lanyard, poking at that gear in the trailer like something was broken and talking on his cell phone on Tuesday. He would look at blinkenlights, talk to whoever was on the other end, shake his head like that wasn't the problem, and eventually shrug and walk off, then come back every few minutes for about an half hour. I was sitting under the tree there waiting on a phone call from my mortgage broker... long dumb story there. But had to stay where the phone worked for a little while.
Flying used to pay for the building behind press HQ for their staff to work in, and they didn't this year... I wonder if that had anything to do with it?
One could argue that with the "big tent" changes at EAA and in beefing up Sport Aviation magazine, that supporting Flying in any way just hurts EAA...
And they did steal J. Mac away... I believe there's some strategy afoot there...
Even if it's not planned, I don't think EAA would cry any tears if Flying went all the way under, considering the circumstances right now. They're competing for the same advertisers.
