Archives for 2011

Worst Lighting Ever

Woke up still feeling lousy, but at the least the diarrhea seems to have gone away. I was determined to try to see more of the events today, so after a light breakfast, we headed over to the Convention Center where we watched the speeches of some of the candidates or their surrogates, and some didn’t even bother to send surrogates. The actual speakers were Rick Santorum, who did nothing but talk about himself (a losing strategy in our book), Newt Gingrich (who is always entertaining, but is still a bit vague about any actual plans or agenda other than the usual manta of lower taxes and private job creation), and Herman Cain, who frankly, ROCKED THE HOUSE!! He has a great no-nonsense style and a great message, with clear and easy to understand plans that might actually work, or at least start a dialogue that goes in the right direction toward something that might work. It would be great if he could get some traction here. He had a good performance on Thursday, albeit they didn’t give him much of a chance to speak because he’s not considered a top tier candidate, but he makes more sense than any of them in my book. And apparently not just my book, he impressed a lot of people here and ended up winning the straw poll by a HUGE margin!! It was incredibly exciting, because I don’t think anyone believed that anyone but them voted for Herman, so when the numbers came up there was as much disbelief at first as there was ecstasy later. He was impressive, and this should wake up the rest of the country to at least listen to him and judge for themselves, rather than having the media or the RNC pick them for us. Anyway, we were feeling just well enough afterwards to decide to have dinner at a restaurant in the Peabody on the walk back to our hotel, and enjoyed a nice but very slow meal there, which included some nice red meat for which we both had a craving. Our client happened by and spoke to us for a few minutes as well, so overall the day went as well as it could have done, even though neither of us were yet 100 percent. We were one our way, though! Just exhausted and weakened from the experience.

Woke up to a very strange feeling, then discovered that before I could even move, I had an attack of awful diarrhea. It was terrible! My stomach was upset, I had to keep making trips to the bathroom with a towel in my hand, cramps, just plain feeling terrible!. Turned out Hubby had the same thing, though not quite as bad. Obviously, it was the soup. We had to stay in the room all morning just to recover enough to get dressed and go downstairs to the gift shop to buy Pepto Bismol. We both felt awful. The PB helped after awhile, and we finally managed to get dressed in our work clothes and go meet our client for a short while, but it was tricky making sure that we were never far from a bathroom. Nothing worse than a bout of food poisoning! We managed to get some food down eventually, but soup was definitely off the menu! At one point, Hubby noticed that a woman at the grill poured tap water into the soup on the warmer, without heating it back up to a boil, which explains to me how the food poisoning developed! My mamma taught me that when I was just a kid! How can something like that happen? Hard to imagine in this day and age. Anyway, we survived the day, but were completely wrung out by the evening, happy to crawl back in bed with another dose of Pepto.

Met up with our client at a room in the Peabody across the street for several hours, preparing him for several presentations he would be making throughout the weekend. Smart guy, picks up things fast, it’s a pleasure to work with him. Stopped for ice cream on our way back to the hotel. In the evening, we decided to go downstairs for some soup, and discovered that the Cafe was only serving off the buffet, and to get $3 soup we needed to pay for the $9.99 Soup and Salad Buffet! Crazy, but they wouldn’t separate it. So we ended up going to the grill in the lobby and got two bowls of chicken noodle soup. After that we headed out to the Convention Center to attend the Fox News Republican Presidential Debate, which our client was kind enough to arrange for us. I don’t know who was managing the house, but it was one of the worse jobs I’ve ever seen. They had an entire area of about 200 seats cordoned off for “VIP’s” but only about a dozen of them were used. When the order was finally given to open that section to the public, a mad crush of people surged in like a dam bursting. People were going crazy climbing over chairs and running down aisles. People came in from both sides, so many were fighting over seats in the middle. It was nuts, and it’s a miracle someone didn’t get hurt. I don’t know whose genius idea that was, but they should be fired. It’s outrageous, and yet we see that kind of thing all the time, amateurs in charge of events they have no business being in charge of. Anyway, we survived it, and ended up enjoying the debate and the rest of the evening. Not impressed with most of the candidates these days, seriously wondering what kind of chance a Republican has against Obama if this is the best we can do. Eventually headed back to the hotel and off to bed anticipating we would be working with our client again tomorrow, at least for a short time.

New Backyard in Orlando

Due to the duration of this trip, we decided is would be more cost effective to take a cab to the airport, and he arrived right on schedule, getting us to the airport in plenty of time. Unfortunately, the flight was posted as being delayed for half an hour, but then somewhere along the line it got back on schedule, so we arrived just about on time. Picked up a little stripped down Chevy Aveo (such a downturn from my Mustang!), but since we don’t have all that much actual driving to do, it will be good enough. For $11 bucks a day, who can complain? Arrived at the Rosen Plaza Hotel just up from the Orange County Convention Center where the bulk of the activities were to be held. Checked into a nice room on the 16th floor, so it was nice and quiet except for the A/C which was a window unit, though it was ten times better than the hotel in Chicago where we stayed earlier this month. Ordered Chinese as has become our habit on the first day of our arrival, and went to bed early.

With Marina still limping heavily, we decided to run her over to our hostess’ vet, and they were kind enough to fit her in. The diagnosis is still arthritis, so an anti-inflammatory was prescribed, something else our hostess will have to do in our absence, unfortunately. She’s perfectly capable, of course, I just hate to keep piling stuff on her to do, what with giving Apollo his allergy meds, not Marina more pills. Nothing we can do at this point, however, we just have too many things going on right now!

Joined a friend we made at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul at a lovely Indian restaurant, and got caught up as much as we could over a two hour lunch. Looking forward to working with her again in Tampa, assuming we get asked back again. We won’t know till probably January, but it looks as promising as it ever does. After all, we have been doing them since 1992! But it’s never good to count one’s chickens before they’re hatched…

Decided we needed a few things for our lengthy stay in Orlando, so we spent the day shopping, mostly for clothes. Not entirely successful, but did manage to find a couple of things that will be useful. Everything on every rack in every store at a mall just looks the same to me, and if I don’t like what the “designers” have decided is “in” this season, I’m out of luck. Not much available in a classic look, which is definitely more my style, but we’re planning on being in NYC in a few weeks, maybe I’ll have some more choices there (though I’m not counting on it.)



Rhode Island Sunset

Rec’d an email from our new client in Jacksonville, FL. He has an event in Orlando the week before our already scheduled training event, and has asked us to come in a few days early to work with him, so I spent the day changing our flight, arranging accommodations and a car rental, and generally working on logistics. Hubby looked for a problem with the wiring on the vehicles, when we arrived the brake lights and one side of the turn signals on the RV weren’t working properly, so he tried to narrow it down. It seems it’s not the RV, it’s the truck, so that will need fixing before we leave Rhode Island. It’s always something, but at least it’s not like having a whole house to look after! Glad to have another job, though, it’s always a good thing!

Well, it seems that the horses had a few problems while we were gone. Apollo is apparently allergic to some weed that’s heavy in his field, his nose is running like a kid with a bad cold, and Clio’s back fetlock is swollen and has a few abrasions on it, as though she got kicked or it got caught on something. We took a trip to the pharmacy and got some allergy pills that our hostess said would do the trick for Apollo, and decided to keep them both inside for a few days to recover. Nothing serious, just something to keep an eye on. Dogs are doing great, though Marina’s limp seems to be getting worse, I’m finding it hard to believe it’s just arthritis. It really does look like an injury that’s just not healing properly. Again, we’ll keep an eye on her to see what’s going on.

Today was the first day the weather was too cold and rainy to drive the Mustang with the top down, but we were thankful for the many good days we had with this little red guy. Lots of fun! Other than an hour delay in our departure and arrival, it was an uneventful flight back to Providence from Nashville, though the parking bill at the airport was outrageous. Raining a bit here as well, and the temps have dropped somewhat, to be expected at this time of year. Thoroughly exhausted, can see us crashing for several days!