On my second trip to Sundance Film Festival, I had a chance meeting with a gentleman on the icy streets. I recognized the actor immediately and quickly offered him one of my promotional t-shirts. He accepted, tucked the chotsky under his leather coat and then was ushered into a shiny black Cadillac Escalade, where I assume he wiped the snow from his boots with a t-shirt. A film crew was positioned across the street. Ha! I thought they were shooting a Cadillac commercial.

A couple of years later, I watched an episode of HBO’s “Entourage,” and there was the dude. In the episode where the boys from E-rage enter the film in Sundance, “Drama” (the brother played by Kevin Dillon) is

Red Chihuahua Attacks Drama At Sundance

wearing the same leather coat and the same cowboy hat as when I met him. Of course I Tivoed the episode and have scoured the screen looking for a dork carrying a stack of t-shirts. I guess I don’t get my SAG card yet.

That was the second coolest thing I saw at Sundance.

Most cool was a film viewed high atop a mountain, in a resort lodge, a few miles from Robert Redford’s ski/film village. The film was about inner city dancers finding alternatives to drugs and violence. The kids were there, mixing among the crowd, which of all people included Pamela Anderson for whatever reason. (The director was purportedly arrested and thrown in jail the following night for some belligerent misadventure.) Ah Sundance! Here’s the cool part. The film aired on top of the mountain, but the reels or discs or whatever were miles away. The entire movie was beamed up to the party using what was then a new WiMAX technology. Pretty cool demonstration, and “the par-tay weren’t bad, netha.”

That was then. This is now. Next week I am headed to WiMAX World 2008 in Chicago to pass out t-shirts. Just kidding. I’ll check out this distant cousin … this Wi-Fi on steroids and try to determine what it means to the Wi-Fi rank and file.

Millennium, Chicago

Here’s the deal:

Conference Program Highlights WiMAX Deployments and Strategies for 2008 and Beyond

Industry leaders will come together at the WiMAX World 2008 Conference & Expo (http://global.wimaxworld.com/) to present their perspectives on the state of WiMAX deployments and new market opportunities. The conference, which is being held September 30 to October 2 at McCormick Place in Chicago, will feature a comprehensive lineup of more than 150 presentations by operators, service providers, vendors and analysts. Executives from Clearwire, Motorola, Intel, Samsung and Nortel are among the many high profile speakers that will be providing audiences with global insights and perspectives on the latest WiMAX deployments, enabling technologies and trends in demand generation.

Hopefully there will be no snow and no arrests in Chicago.

Know what I sayin?