,
Day One in Orlando
Or “Big in Japan”
I would like to report the following:
1) I brought with me a stack of newly-printed business cards, and I realized only when I handed one out that they printed the Japanese version of my boss’s card on the back of mine by mistake. Front of the card: Rick Mullin, Mere Scribe. Back of the card: Joe Smith, Editor-in-Chief (printed in English and Japanese). I have two thoughts on this. One is that my boss is on his way to Japan ill-equipped for the ritualistic business meetings he’s been looking forward to–and if he finds out they printed his Japanese creds on the back of my cards, he will irrationally blame me. I am also thinking I can have some fun throwing my weight around with the guys from Sumitomo Chemicals down here.
2) Walking around this trade show, which I’ve covered for ten years or more, I am greeted by name by many people I don’t recognize. There could be several reasons for this. One is that people tend to remember reporters who interviewed them better than reporters remember the people they interviewed. Another is that all of these people look exactly alike, whereas I, with my bum beard, Martin Scorsese eyebrows, and ponytail emanating from an altitude of 5 ft. 3 in., look really, really different. And the fact that I forgot my home phone number three times this week might have something to do with it . [Editor’s note: Twice I had to ask my daughter what our number is while I was on hold on the phone. And I know what she was thinking: “Pretty soon we can take Dad to that place where Mom says the nice people will keep him clean and happy”].
3) In the lobby of my hotel, the home of Shamu, there is a carp pond filled with 5 ft. 3 in. carp swimming shoulder-to-shoulder in very little water. The lobby thus smells like the Passaic River in May.
4) There was a little bit of confusion when my friend Bernard from the Port of Marseille and I tried to get a cab tonight. The valet directed a vehicle to stop in front of us after we asked for a cab, so…we assumed it was our cab. But a man behind us yelled, “Hey, that’s my car!” We immediately stopped climbing into the back seat. Our mistake, and all. The man and a woman he was with got in and drove off. Then Bernard, dumbfounded, looked at the valet, and asked, “Was that…?” And the valet shook his head yes and answered, “Mr. Sununu.”
That would be Senator John E. Sununu (R. New Hampshire) to you.
It is, indeed, a glamour profession. And the lobby did smell kind of funny.
That’s what I’ve got. Tomorrow, the Shamu interview.
Shamunu (Deep bow),
Vanx
February 16, 2006 at 3:22 am
I’ll post a picture so you can know I’m telling the God’s honest truth, but my mother has a koi pond in her basement. The fish live outside in a beautiful pond she’s had built in the back yard in the summer time, but they live in the basement in the winter. And it doesn’t smell like Shamu down there, either. The people at the hotel need to thin their fish population and invest in a good water filter, if you ask me.
How are you liking Florida? I have to say, I’m a little jealous. We don’t get to take a vacation this year - all our capital is tied up in kitchen cabinets and remodeling payments - but we are usually jetting off to the Sunshine State around this time every year. Last vacation was a week at Sanibel Island, after having done two straight years with the Mouse for the girls. Though this winter hasn’t been nearly as cold and nasty, and my annual bout with S.A.D. seems somehow less intense this go-round, I still wish I could step off a jetway into 80 degrees.
Bring some of that back north with you when you return, wouldja?
February 16, 2006 at 4:27 am
s–Your mother’s basement pond is no more a challenge to credulity than our encounter with the senator from New Hampshire at Sea World tonight. I hesitated to add the fourth point (after you posted your comment) because it seems like bull-dada. But, it happened! And we at Verb-Ops are into full disclosure.
I like the idea of a koi pond in the basement, by the way. It proves there is a right and a wrong way to do anything, and that therefore anything is possible.
Florida is very cold this week, in fact. Yesterday you needed to wear a jacket. Part of the blizzard system kicking around? I don’t know. Nowhere near 80 degrees. I took my older kids here in 1997, and we’re booked to come back this year so that the little one can say she has been to the American Mecca.
Selah,
Vanx
February 16, 2006 at 10:04 am
i’ll personally take new england any day. florida is flat and full of bugs (no offense to floridians, i AM just stating facts). i can’t wait for the shamu interview though