Springfield

This is my first "blog" writing from on the road. It has been a nutty couple of days I will tell you that.

So I drove up on Monday to play golf with Mike Swartow who is a good client from Boston. He is a good client but not a good golfer and I played pretty well. I have been not using my driver as much lately to keep the ball in play more, especially on new courses so that helped. Anyway after golf, we decided to go the hotel and have dinner at the Champions Sports Bar and watch the football. Let me tell you driving for 3 hours, a round of golf in the sun, and a football double header with Mike Swartow led to way too many beers. They had a bunch of those New England microbrews at the bar and we tried em all. I was one hurtin pup on Tuesday morning at the convention.

This is the first convention I have been to with Grant Hunt and he is not really the same as Jerry Rogers used to be. Grant really wants us to stay at the booth and is giving the real corporate schtick. He is not a sales guy so it is different. There were some of our clients there and Grant was good with those guys in saying Hi and making sure that the back end issues were up to par but when propects came that is when I stepped in. I sometimes think the best relationships at these events are not made in the booth but more when you are just walking around and stuff like that. Grant did not like being at the booth without me so I had to stand there from 8-4 with only two little breaks. Swartow did not even hit the floor till like 11 and I think he left at 2.

We had a dinner planned that night with Matt Parker who is from Boston. He has a pretty big distribution network up here and he would be a great client. I know he has done some buying from George Macredes who is from my town and is in my dart league. The company Macredes works for does not have as quality product as we do so I was hoping we could have a shot. We went to a pretty nice steakhouse that was across from the Marriott and the Convention Center. They had a great cajun rib eye and some of the same beers that the Champions had.

During dinners like that I prefer to talk more about other things than work- Sports, Movies stuff like that but Grant Hunt kept bringing it back to work stuff. All in all it was OK. Going back to the hotel we had to walk by Champions and it was packed with all the people from the Convention. Swartow was there. Macredes was there and a bunch of other people I know. Grant and Matt Parker did not want to go in but I felt it was a good networking thing so I stopped in. I knew I could not do it up like the night before but I still had a good time.

It was a bit weird because I was talking to Macredes about darts and some stuff back home and Swartow came up. I like Macredes and Swartow is a good guy but also a client. I didn't really want to introduce them but I had to. I only stayed till about 11 and they were both going strong when I left.

Well I gotta hit the the booth and catch up with Hunt. More later

Springfield Trip

I am driving up to Springfield today for the convention this week. I am going up a half day early so I can sneak in a round of golf with Mike Swartow.

I am looking forward to this as I like conventions. I can make some good contacts and it is fun to socialize with clients. This will also be my first time hanging with Grant Hunt from the District Office. I hope he is up for some fun. We are taking Swartow to dinner tomorrow night and that is usually a fun night and no doubt I will be hurting on Wednesday. Swartow likes to tie one on and he IS a client so I have to join in. Ha Ha

I need a big night from Frank Gore tonight in my fantasy football league to win. Romo had a great game but Benson killed me against the Chargers.

I am taking my laptop to Springfield so I will post from there.

Labor Day Weekend

Getting back to this Blogging thing and trying to be better about it. Big few weeks ahead of me. Next week I have to go to Springfiled Mass for a three day convention. The convention is at the MassMutual Convention Center. I get to stay at the Springfield Marriott and that is one of my favorite Marriotts. It has a Champions Sports Bar and that is always a good place to unwind.

Grant Hunt from the District Office Schenectady is coming up to this and it will be good to spend time with him. I really liked Jerry Rogers who left the District Office and Grant seems like a good guy. Jerry and I certainly had our fun at some of these Conventions and I hope that Grant will be as much fun. Mike Swartow, who is a client, is going to come up to this so we have a dinner planned with him. Matt Parker is a guy in the Boston area who I have been trying to sell to for a long time and I finally have a dinner with him. I am trying to find a good steakhouse up there to go to. I hope it goes well, he would be a good account to land.

Some other stuff... I was thrilled to see Lefty beat Tiger this weekend in the golf. It was great to watch. Rivalries like that are good for sports. I had my NFL Fantasy League Draft last week. My team name is The Camp North Star All Stars. That was based on one of my favorite Bill Murray movies, Meatballs. I love that movie. My team is pretty good and I have Cedric Benson of the Bears, Frank Gore of the 49ers, Tony Romo of the Cowboys, the Cowboys D and a bunch of other guys. Draft night is always fun. This year we had it at Chaucers where we usually have our dart league and it was a good night out. The league is made up of me, the McGilvary Brothers, Timmy Chiocco, Russ Davis, Russ's brother Scott, and two friends of Scott's-Glenn Pritchard and Peter Flynn. It has been the same bunch of us for a few years and it is fun. Glenn Pritchard got Tomlinson with the first pick.