Miami Beach, FL. For IAEE
What is there not to love about Miami Beach? Sun, beautiful beaches, warm water, great bodies (male and female), many nightlife choices, yummy but expensive food…but when you are there for work, it’s distracting!

IAEE’s annual convention was a blur – but in the end – successful. My “3 day” meeting began on a Saturday evening upon landing and ended the following Friday afternoon. I must tip my hat to the current management at the Loews Miami Beach hotel. The customer service and hotel itself was fantastic – a far cry from the last time we were there for IAEM years ago.

So a few of the mornings, I woke up early to go work out and find out there is a “nominal” charge of $10 a day to use the gym. It’s less that The Hotel in Las Vegas, but still - I’m spending about $250 plus food, drinks and taxes for a hotel room – why do they have to charge me to use an average gym? I will be very happy if this particular “revenue stream” goes away as a result of the present recession.

To those of you I saw, spoke, taught, ate or drank with – great to see you! Have you ever noticed from year to year you run into the same people everywhere you go? It’s almost always a different group at each convention. I ran into our webmasters – the ASP Event group almost everywhere I went for days on end. Everywhere! We all stopped making plans to meet since it seemed redundant. “See you later” actually meant “see you in the next 15 minutes!”

LAS VEGAS, NV in the snow!
Having just recouped my sleep, headed on a road trip to Las Vegas, NV to facilitate an all day training session on customer service for our friends at CORT Trade Show Furnishings. The drive to Las Vegas from Los Angeles was amazing. Clear, snow-capped mountains, in a word – indescribable!

As you may have seen on TV, a pretty big storm moved in while I was giving the all day session. By mid-day, it was snowing. When the class ended, it was still snowing! My car had about 6 inches of snow on it! 

Folks from the Midwest and East Coast and other cold places don't understand how excited we get from seeing snow fall to the ground - not on TV, but in real life. When you live where it doesn’t snow, and then it snows, well it’s just way cool. Yes, I did actually wander about in the snow trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. And I'm not embarassed a bit!

Las Vegas in the snow – surreal. No plows. No de-icing machines for airplanes. Not too many experienced drivers with the white stuff. Surprisingly, the drive back to where I was staying wasn’t as bad as anticipated.

The one thing I learned about this trip was the next time the 15 Fwy South closes for snow, I’ll remember to wait a good 3 hours after it opens to begin the drive home. Still, all in all, quite the good adventure.