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Good morning from the Sunport, Albuquerque’s cool futuristic name for their airport.
This morning’s Boston Globe – “Today’s Business Cards Offer a New Edge” – Talks about my business chips. Validation is cool.
This Sunday morning finds me headed home from Albuquerque to pet my cats, do a load of laundry, and get a few hours sleep. Tomorrow finds me back on a plane to speak at the 2007 Mobile Web Americas conference in Orlando, and I’ll be in Orlando all week, working, meeting with clients, and the like. I may or may not be getting in some much needed tunnel practice, I can neither confirm nor deny that at this time.
So Friday, I was the keynote speaker at the New Mexico PRSA Annual Meeting. First off, these people know how to treat a speaker. I’m incredibly basic. I don’t care where I stay, I don’t need anything special, I don’t have a rider that requests my caviar be be-salted before it arrives from Minsk. In fact, I’m incredibly chill. Give me a bed somewhere, and the occasional bottle of Diet Pepsi. Everything else I can play by ear.
This is why it was so amazing to me how well Benson and all of the NMPRSA treated me. From the time I arrived to another gift basket! (How much do I love these things!! Thank to the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau!)
to the warmth and hospitality shown by the entire group, it was hands down, one of my best speaking gigs so far.
A lot of what I spoke on touched on creativity, and how we are simply going through the motions on a regular basis, because we live in a society that accepts that. If we could start moving past that, and putting forward a goal of just 1% better, I think we’d really have something. Remember – you don’t have to be 1000% better than everyone else – just 1%. That’s all it takes. Victory goes to the person who makes the second to last mistake, remember?
Benson and I, at dinner after the event.
Oh, fun moment – Geography has never been my strong suit. So waking up Friday morning, I figured I’d go for a run. Got out of my hotel around 5am, started running. Thought process went like this:
“This place is beautiful. Wow. Look at the stars. Wow, those mountains! Hey, here comes the sun! So, why can’t I breathe?”
Got back to the hotel after five hellish miles, to be reminded by the front desk clerk that New Mexico is over a mile above sea level. Lovely.
Following Friday and a lovely dinner with the entire NMPRSA, I woke up early Saturday morning to get to Skydive New Mexico, to breathe the air and enjoy the views. Sadly, the winds didn’t cooperate, and I spent a few hours hanging out in the hanger, playing with the dropzone dog, and making new friends. But finally, the winds died down enough to get out… Threw on a rig, (borrowed one from the DZ,) slapped on an Altimeter, and into the air we soared! At 10,000 feet (which was actually 15,000 feet above sea level) the ground radioed up to us that the winds were back and gusting over 30 miles an hour. Sigh. So down we went. (so close, yet so far.)
The spectacular pilot, though, sensing our disappointment, made the trip down interesting, putting the plane into an almost vertical climb with G-forces of well over 4-5x normal, then reversing the climb into a vertical drop, so we went weightless!! It was six seconds of pure weightlessness! It was so amazingly cool! Four of us in the plane, crashing into each other, with no harness of gravity to weigh us down. One of the jumpers pulled a rubber band out of his pocket, and we watched, amazed, as it floated right in front of us, like a magic trick. The pilot did it again for us, so we actually got about 12 or so seconds of weightlessness overall. One of the coolest moments of my life, to be honest.
Then the nausea came.
You know, common sense would say that if I jump out of airplanes and don’t get nauseous, I could handle anything. I don’t know why that’s not true, but it’s not.
Landing on the ground, I was definitely a bit dizzy. But fortunately, long ago I found the best cure for nausea in the world, and 20 minutes and one double whopper with cheese later (no-HFCS be damned) I was fine, and in the car headed to visit Santa Fe.
The hour-long drive down was made shorter by listening to WFAN on XM Satellite Radio, and listening to my Mets DESTROY the Florida Marlins, 13-0. My prayer worked. Let’s pray again today, shall we?
Believe.
Walking around Santa Fe, I found the spot where Roger Davis (Adam Pascal) played for change in the movie version of Rent. Knowing full well it would embarrass my skydiving buddy Skysprite, I had no choice but to put my jacket down and air guitar for change in the same spot.
Not surprisingly, I didn’t make any money.
Then it was a trip to Wal-Mart. You’ve got to understand my fascination with Wal-Mart. Simply put, we don’t HAVE them in New York City. And even if we did, they wouldn’t be real Wal-Marts, because the prices would be New York City prices, not New Mexico prices.
And this wasn’t even a regular Wal-Mart – This was a Wal-Mart SUPERCENTER. Oh, how happy I was.
A winter coat, a pair of work-boots, six dollar Wrangler jeans, and a bunch of t-shirts later, I was back on the road, giggling with glee, while my frightened skydiving friends looked on.
We encountered a thunderstorm, and after it, a rainbow! I figure this was a higher power happy that I shopped at Wal-Mart.
Finally, congratulations to Sarah, the latest of a handful of very, very special people who make my life complete, for her inclusion in today’s 365 Portraits. (I was June 5th.)
Anyone in Orlando want to get coffee sometime this week? Do let me know.
Going to find the airport bar and see if I can watch a bit of the Mets game before my flight.
Aw, crap. It’s already 4-0 5-0 Marlins. Sigh.
