Daniel,

>snip<

>I have not attended a VFP, VB, or Oracle conference in 4 years because I
>now prefer to attend conferences that are not tool specific in nature (and
>some outside of the IT field). Retooling has never been difficult to me and
>I get far mnore enjoyment attending conferences where I can learn about
>animal migration patterm than I ever did at a tool-specific conference.
>Furthermore, it allows me to contact people that have interisting problems
>to solve but not the expertise to solve them. Or maybe I attend these
>conferences because I'm weird...

Hardly.. IMO those that are the most innovative (from where I sit anyway) tend to draw from a very wide range of sources and "bolt together" new and improved notions based upon wildly disparate sources. I call this creativity! <g> I work in my yard to clear out my brain.