More contest winner photos

It was December in the windy city. It was cold outside, but inside was a hot round of prize drawings at Allan Dick's special dinner event. I didn't get pictures of every winner, but I "borrowed" a couple taken of a couple of the winners I gave prizes to.

First, Chris Sherman won again. He got an Irwin tool bag filled with Irwin tools. It was a great prize, although I felt sorry for him having to try to figure out how to get that home. After all, he doesn't just live down the street.

But, since I didn't hear any more about it later, I think he must have figured out how to get it all home. It was quite the bag of tools. It included vise grips, a mini level, and work gloves as part of the overall sampling that was included.

Yes, this is the same Chris Sherman that won a tool belt in San Jose in August. Now he'll have something to fill that belt up with, so I guess that worked out well.

The other prize winner that I located a photo of is Alan Rimm-Kaufman. He won a Bosch Litheon Pocket Driver. I thought that was a great prize, and he was pretty excited about it. At the time, it was pretty much brand new technology and it was pretty exciting to get one of those as a give-away. I'm sure Alan is enjoying it - I'm sure I would.

We'll have to see what I can get donated for the next dinner event. This one will be in New York next month and should be another top-notch event. The folks at Vintage Tub sure know how to throw an event.

Chris Sherman - Tool Belt Winner

Earlier this month, Allan Dick from Vintage Tub & Bath invited me to a dinner while I was at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose. He had it at the famous Hakone Gardens, and also had co-sponsors of Hitwise and PepperJam Search entertain us with their very memorable haiku sales pitches. I must say, it was one of the more enjoyable events of the week. He even arranged for John Smart, notable futurist, to do a presentation on the future of search, reading notes from his Tummy PC the whole time.

While we were enjoying our ethnic cuisine, Allan had set up a table with prizes donated from several of the retailers that were attending the event. We donated an Occidental Leather adjustable framer tool belt. Being that this conference is typically a bunch of geeks getting together, the tool belt seemed like it was an odd fit. But it turned out that quite a few people really liked it. After people put their tickets into the prizes they were hoping for, the drawing began.

When it was finally my turn to draw, I pulled Chris Sherman's ticket. Chris is a nice guy that works for SearchEngineWatch and wrote a book that I enjoyed titled "Google Power". But to make it even better, Chris is in the middle of remodeling his house and could actually use the belt. He seemed truly excited to have won it, which made it very rewarding to have donated such a unique prize.

As you can see from the picture, it even fit him with minimal adjustment. All that's left is for Chris to fill it with tools and get to work.

Happy remodeling and congratulations, Chris!