In case you're wondering...that's a reference to a great movie...Flatty can hook it up with the answer.  <jeopardy theme music cued and playing> Answer is : The Revenge of the Nerds II, Nerds in Paradise.  They were staying at the crappiest hotel in all of Ft Lauderdale it was called the "Hotel Coral Essex" and they threw a party there to attract everyone and strategically blew out lights to leave you with the title of my post.  Now you're probably wondering why I'd make that the title of my post...well it's because we stayed in, perhaps, the shittiest dump of a hotel in ALL of Orlando.  It was bad...like chalk line in the bathtub bad.  The kind of place where they have not only nightly rates, but hourly and weekly also!  People pulled their chairs out of the rooms to drink on the porch in their Nascar jackets and boxer shorts.  We rode by the place like 3 time before we convinced ourselves that this shit hole was infact the "Best Western, Plaza International".  They had a bar down by the pool though, so we made the most of it.  The bartender there was cool. she was supposed to close at midnight but every night she'd stay late just for us..then throw us out between 1 and 2 am. 

The trade show was cool, I only wish I got to see some of it.  We were so busy with customers and problems that I never got to wander much further then a bathroom.  I saw the booths around us and they looked neat, lots of money went into them, that's for sure.  Ours looked sharp though, we didn't attack people with alot of stuff, simple yet elegant was our theme and it worked for us. 

My role at the tradeshow was something to the effect of "male whore" or company bitch, but I knew that going into it.  I did my setup the night we got there and got everything going to my satisfaction, then made a list of the things we'd need to pick up before the start of everything the next day.  The first day of the show I drove everyone to the show to get them in early then took Tracy around looking for our "wranglers" (def. wrangler - N.  Slutty girl hired to promote your product and herd unsuspecting customers to your booth) then dropping them off and setting out to find my list of necessary parts.  Turns out that traffic in Orlando is pretty bad..even on a Wednesday morning at 9:00.  So I found all the stuff on my list and got stuck in traffic a mile from the convention center.  It must have taken me an hour just to get close enough to find out the parking lot I was aiming for was closed.  So I parked nearly two miles away and walked...and got phone calls from everyone every ten seconds (literally) asking where I was.  It wasn't pretty. 

The rest of the time went much better.  We really didn't have time for breakfast and lunch, so we ate alot at dinner.  I'm talking $40-50/person meals.  Now I don't know how many of you eat $40-50 meals...but I don't  so about all I can do at that price is eat steak; and steak I ate!  One night I had a 30 ounce porterhouse that was $30, worth every penny though...I could have cut it with the broad side of a spoon and they didn't bat an eye when I told them I wanted it rare.  Oh and while I'm thinking of it, Tony Roma's is AWSOME!!  I wish they had one in Raleigh...I'd make it my new place for wings! 

Back to the Convention though.  I said earlier that my role there was to be the house bitch.  I had no problem with that.  I kept the water stocked, the flyers neat and the chairs in line, in addition to fielding all the tech issues.  Well we got so busy at times that customers would come up for info and all the sales guys would be busy with other prospects and they'd leave.  The salesman in me came out and I went into action.  I actually managed to sell 4 deals.  I didn't close them (take their money), only because I didn't know how, but by the time they left me they either wanted the product or they didn't.  4 did!  That was more then some of the actual salesman!  Chris, the CEO said in a couple of cases they didn't even care about the price they just wanted it.  So I'm sure I'll be invited back to future events...infact there's one in Arizona that they've already said they want me at. 

So if you're wondering how my first business trip went..well it was OK.  There were up's and there were down's.  The downs were few and far between...All in all though, I had a great time and would definately do it again.