Coverings 2021

[John Bridge]

Janie and I will be leaving Friday for Orlando. It'll be only a 3-day show this year. For the first time in years there won't be any John Bridge furniture in the Russo Trading booth, nor will there even be a Russo Trading booth. They've decided to not set up this year.

I don't expect much of a show. Hope I'm pleasantly surprised. I will look forward to renewing old acquaintances and hopefully some new ones. See you on the floor.

[Tile Money]

Looking forward to seeing you and Jane again John!

I would be honored if you joined us for our Kick-Off Party Tuesday evening!

You can RSVP here https://tilemoney.com/coverings2021/

Free food and drink for all attendees!

The name of the place and address as such:

Rodizio Grill Brazilian Steakhouse Orlando

9101 International Dr # 1220, Orlando, FL 32819

Party is 7-10, all are welcome to attend, please use RSVP link

[John Bridge]

We'll be there, Luke. Bringing Frank and Fredia Black (MudMaker) along if it's okay.

[jerrymlr1]

Elsa might just be joining everyone there in Orlando. If nothing else some wind and rain from the east side of the storm.

[John Bridge]

I'm in the La Quinta-Convention Center in Orlando. I discovered this morning they don't come in each day to clean the room and change the towels "due to Covid." I have duly dressed down the manager, and he's very upset with me, but he agreed he would have our towels changed each day "as a favor" to me.

I'll tell you, I was thinking long and hard about slapping the guy. Oh, and they have you put your trash containers out in the hall each morning, and then I suppose they'll empty them as a favor to us. I've stayed here before, but I will never book a La Quinta again..

I booked through Coverings, and this is an official Coverings hotel. The shuttle will stop here every morning when the show starts. I'll meet fellow guests out at the bus stop. I'll be curious to learn how many of them were aware of the policy before they booked.

[MudMaker]

Who all is here at Coverings??

[John Bridge]

Not many attendees gauging from the interest in this thread.

We'll be registering today and attending the Tile Money get-together this evening. Looking forward to it. Haven't heard of any other parties. There are usually plenty of them. I hope that anybody who might be attending for the first time won't be put off by this year's show. Coverings is only using half the convention center. The remainder will be used by another show.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

I’d like to be there, but just not fitting into the overly packed summer. I could have done it in the spring, but summer in the north is just too short. Too many things crammed into a few months. Have fun y’all.

[John Bridge]

Attended the Tile Money get-together last evening and had a really great time. Met lots of people and ran my mouth a bit. Luke is off and running. He's going to be the next big name in the tile business.

[John Bridge]

Not much of a show. Many of the big name companies are absent, attendance is super low; you can actually walk through the aisles without people bumping into you.

Since they are only using half the convention center, I was able to make the rounds twice in less than half a day. Found myself talking to the same people much of the time . . . . Next year it'll be back to normal hopefully.

[CaliGrown]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop John. Will do my best to make it out next year, God willin’

[Tile Money]

This year's Coverings was all about the people!

It is always a pleasure to see you, John, I believe you were at every single party all 3 nights, and it was my great honor to have you at my party. :

Thank you for the overly kind words.

You are the intelligent and brave soul to embrace the internet and bring us all together online, improving Countless Lives and the tile industry along the way.

I still have not forgotten our very first conversation at Coverings a couple of yrs ago. I meant what I said about wanting to help bring your forum to a mobile format. I know you all have had many hours of conversations about this already, but I believe the only thing to do is just to do it. We won't be able to transfer all the content here, but that's not the point, the point is to preserve this as something we own, not Mark Zuckerberg or any other Corporation.

We the tile contractors need and want our own space on the internet, beyond and more powerful and catered to our needs than social media. I will be working on this project and it would be my honor to utilize some of your content here along with your name. We could direct people coming here to the mobile-friendly site, if and when they are on a mobile phone. Thereby utilizing your Status as the King of Tile Content on the internet, and Not losing readers because they get here on their cell phone.

If this makes some sort of sense, you know how to get ahold of me.

Safe travels, sorry to hear about Jane, if I can help in any way let me know, looking fwd to the next cold one we share together.
-Luke

[John Bridge]

Actually, Luke, we are in the process of upgrading our software ourselves with a mobile presence in mind. We're working on a few bugs. I do not want to leave any of the content behind. We have through the years retained every thread from day one, and all of them are still accessible and searchable. Our database is huge and valuable. We'll figure it out. I do appreciate the thought.

Coverings was not great, but it will work as a sort of practice for next year's show in Vegas. It should be like it used to be with all the players present.

[Tile Money]

Excellent news John! Yes, preserve this tremendous resource!

[Tileworks]

The current VBulliten is mobile friendly. The Devs there would probably be helpful with upgrading.

I run a very large forum on Invision Community which has converters for all the other popular forum software as well.