I started attending UseNIX in 1988. It was a great place to rub elbows with my peers in the industry and meet some of the giants who created it. Dennis Ritchie, David Korn, Mike Karels, Chris Torek and a long list of others were folks I had the pleasure of meeting at those events. By 1996, the UseNIX meetings were getting less productive. Linus Torvalds did a very amusing presentation at the last one I attended. He is a real live wire in person. Not all of the luminaries are pleasant folks in person. I won't elaborate, but one meeting was sufficient for a few. I really liked Larry Wall. He always showed up in a tux for his talks.
The first time I met Phil Karn, I was on a technical business trip to Bellcore. Phil's office was in an adjacent building. It was a real maze of passages. It was around 1 PM when I was looking for his office. A nearby office mate said it was "a little early for Phil". He did walk in a few minutes later. That day he was preparing to attend the Dayton Hamvention. It was nice to finally meet in person. A couple months later, Phil signed on with Qualcomm and made his trek to San Diego with a Qualstar device on the roof of his car.
On second thought, it probably wasn't that I was born too late, but that I was running around the world in the Army.