In my room there are 2 queen size beds, a comfy chair, a TV, bar, dresser and desk with a nice view of a building site under some repair. I am on the 6th floor of this hotel and can see amusement rides in the distance. I am close enough to the freeway to hear a modest engine hum. The occasional fire engine does cause me to start on occasion. Thankfully, none of those have fired up during the evening.
I review the huge number of emails that have accumulated since last evening at 1230am EST when I shut down the computer. 2 new spam messages. I delete them and feel strangely productive. I get up and make a cup of coffee. I open the fridge for cream, but realize it is cold and empty. There is cream packets on the counter next to the pot. This cream is liquid, but need not be refrigerated. I am scared. Do I have the coffee black, or risk some strange cancer from milk that clearly has been there since before I arrived and not stored in a cool place. I gamble and take the cream.
After a large sip of awful coffee, I resolve to really take stock. I inventory everything I have done so far this week on the trade floor, complete an update to my company hit list and am amazed to see some trends emerging.
So, I make my plan: to wander aimlessly along the middle of the trade show floor asking more dumb questions and see what it gets me.
I grab my phone, my badge, and head out the door. I can barely walk to the elevator, 15 feet from my room. I am seizing up. I worry – how will I get this monumental task done? Why is my back hurting so much? I didn’t know standing tall could hurt so good.
I nearly sleep on the 5 minute bus ride to the conference center. I force myself out of my seat an onto my mission (in slow motion). My first stop and success, a double cappuccino. I run into Todd Herron in a similar state, reviling food, needing coffee and similarly requiring alternative footwear. We resolve to hit the show floor together. At one point, he enters a draw at random at the RIM booth while I talk to the another firm. He wins a new blackberry – lucky b*****d!
I found a number of interesting companies and ran into one of the fellow presenting companies at ALTIF and at the Venture Forum here. We negotiate the structure of a potential working relationship as we had discussed over dinner Monday. He knows we are also talking to other firms, but he happens to have a patent that will allow him to shut down several of the firms we are talking to. So…. If we can’t beat him, we find a way to work with him. Besides, he’s got cool technology that works.
I also met with a number of business intelligence companies with interesting technology very relevant to our new business needs.
I went out for dinner this evening to downtown Disneyworld with Todd Herron. I didn’t know Disneyland had a downtown, or suburbs for that matter. There is an inner harbor too. With the classic Disney show tunes playing from every speaker, I felt as if I was walking in a cold, windy, dark version of Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. What a bizarre experience!
After buying gifts for kids, we ate (much more modest portions than last night). We walked through the shops and finally headed back to our respective hotels.
Here I sit. I will take in a couple of sessions tomorrow. Finish my few meetings, gather our booth and like every other Canadian exhibitor, walk out with our booth over our shoulder, rather than via a forklift. My flight leaves at 8 am local time Friday, which means tomorrow has to be an early night. I need to get up at 230am our time to get to the airport in time for the 2-3 hours in security I am told to expect.
Good night from somewhere over the rainbow. Tomorrow is time to rolls some dice. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
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