Wednesday, February 24.2016

Best laid plans of mice and men…

Although I finished conversation with everyone in my family by 1am, I didn’t fall asleep until a little after 3:30am.  For those of keeping score at home, that means I got two hours of sleep.  I met John downstairs for breakfast at 6:30.  Ironically enough, he came down to tell me that he was awake until 3am, too!  We were still bright eyed and bushy tailed, so after a brief conversation about the effects of sleep deprivation we went right into last night.  I told John that I filled Andrea and the kids in on our walk hoe for the restaurant.  He said, “You didn’t tell them what your first reaction was?”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I inquired, and he told me.  “When he first asked if they could rob us, you turned and said, ‘But there’s only 5 of you.’”  Boy did that make me laugh.  Actually, it made both of us laugh.  She’s gonna kill me when she reads this (Andrea, obviously). I also thought it would have been funny if I took their picture last night, too.  John thought it was funny.

It was a good thing that we went early.  The banner fell down and the tv was mounted to a tripod instead of a stand then moved to the corner of the booth. The also had an extension chord with no ends on it.  This was pretty pathetic, but we battled through it.

I enjoyed watching John work one-on-one with potential clients.  He’s a natural, and is clearly in his element.  He collected a lot of cards and handed out twice as many.  He said he was happy with the prospects, so I was happy for him.

Lunch was just ok.  We still had a chuckle, though.  We went up to the buffet and John asks, "Did you see your name tag?"  "Sure," I said.  You better look again.  

It read:

Adam E. Jablonski

Director

Building Furniture, Inc.

Really?!  You can spell Jablonski but you can spell Futures!  Ugh!  I went and had it corrected, but forgot to take a picture beforehand.

After lunch we went to the conference room where John would be giving a presention.  There was suppose to be a presentation from each person, and a question/answer period immediately following.  The opening speaker for this portion was a Kenyan with a deep voice.  He OPENED with, “Thank you for coming.  After a big lunch, you may feel tired.  Just go to sleep.  You will wake up 2 minutes later and can listen to the rest.  Just sleep.  Thank you for coming.”  Wow, what an opening!  But he was right, and they did.  Present company included.  It didn’t help that it was probably 80 degrees in the room.  The organizers are still working out the bugs, because they never introduced John, and I don’t think he even realized it because he never told them who he was.  Additionally, because the first speaker went long, there was no question and answer portion.  John returned to the booth disappointed in his performance.  I told him that he did fines, but he felt different.  We stayed at the booth for a while until the show ended and it was time for dinner.  The show ended; dinner started 1 ½ hours later. 

We sat by the pool under an umbrella to talk about the day and contrast our highs and lows.  There were a few points during the show where some Luo women approached and I was able to interject some commentary because I could ell that they were locals.  Out came the Kiswahili and Dholuo.  John likes watching the Kenyans react when they hear me speaking . 

I’m very sorry but I’ve had enough.  I’ve fallen asleep at the keyboard several times now.  The time change and lack of sleep have caught up with me.  I HAVE TO GO TO BED.  I’ll write more about the dinner and the day tomorrow.  Sorry but I don’t have the strength.