Upon arriving at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, expecting partly cloudy skies and 74°F weather, contractors attending the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) 41st Annual Convention and Indoor Air Expo were not too disappointed. I know I wasn’t. The skies were much less than partly cloudy, and the sun was beaming in around 80°. When I had departed from the Cleveland-Hopkins airport there was no sunshine and 12° which is nothing to jump and down about — unless you’re just trying to stay warm while waiting for a shuttle bus.

The merging of the ACCA Indoor Air Expo and the IAQA Expo turned out to be a pretty good idea. There were two different types of name tags weaving through the show floor, people got a chance to exchange business cards with some new faces, and I heard that HVAC contractors and mold remediation specialists agreed that the Texas Shiner Bock was worth the trip to Fort Worth.

The show opened up on Tuesday with a junk yard band called Vocal Trash, the guys at the CEO Forum did a little trash talking of their own on Wednesday afternoon with a few good-natured jabs, and two guys with chain saws were cutting up with the audience at the closing event on Thursday.

All in all, another good trip to the South for The NEWS, which happened to be a platinum sponsor of this year’s ACCA convention.

Next stop — Scottsdale, Ariz., for the Mechanical Contractors Association of America Annual convention, where I’m looking for more short-sleeve shirt weather.