As it was, Isidore wasn't the major downer faced by conference attendees. Instead, the U.S. Customs department stepped up to the plate for honorary bad guy, confiscating conference materials because (gasp!) the words Virus Bulletin appeared on a set of coffee mugs contained in the shipment. Certainly it never crossed my mind that terrorists would smuggle anthrax or smallpox in containers emblazoned boldly with the words Virus Bulletin, but apparently it was a concern of Customs. Despite the fact that we live in an age of instantaneous communications and it would seem very little effort would be required to thoroughly check the credentials of the shippers and the legitimacy of the logo, Customs wanted no part of reason. Instead, they moved from questioning the purpose of the coffee mugs (ummm, hot black liquid, [perhaps with cream & sugar] comes to mind) to questioning what they deemed a suspicious thread count used in the included T-Shirts. Of course, these were also emblazoned with a similar phrase, "The Twelfth Virus Bulletin International Conference". Apparently, if you work in U.S. Customs, this translates into something along the lines of, "Warning. T-Shirt contains biological weaponry". As such, the products were poked, prodded, scoped, and no doubt subjected to a variety of indignities in an attempt to uncover whatever it was Customs feared was lurking in the cotton of the tees of the porcelain of the mugs.

The folks at Virus Bulletin magazine, hosts of the conference, were simply amazing with their good humor, rearranging entertainment and revising speaking schedules when the weather caused delays - in short, putting on one heck of a good conference despite the odds. Then there were those who, like Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure, drove through the torrential rain just to make it to the conference after their airlines cancelled flights and dumped them in nearby states. An inspiring group of folks to be sure. In the end, and after intervention from a high-ranking conference attendee, even Customs came around and conference materials were released just in time for us to grab our bag of goodies before catching our flights home.