Monday, March 12, 2007

Expo West

This past weekend for work I traveled to Anaheim, California to attend the annual Natural Products Expo West tradeshow. This a picture from the front of the Anaheim Convention Center. That place is HUGE!


I was very much excited for this business trip because 1) i got to travel with fun co-workers who I knew would make the long weekend enjoyable. 2) Anaheim was supposed to be very warm and i could get out of the snow for a weekend and 3) IMG (my work) was celebrating our 10th anniversary and were having a party on Saturday night at Dave and Busters. The theme of the party was "we are going to party like 10 year olds" - hence the party at a grown up arcade. Here is a nice picture of my boss Jeff playing some video game where he had to shoot aliens.


I really took this picture in hopes of embarrassing him at our Christmas party this year. We'll see if it makes the cut come December.

The acutal tradeshow was out of control. I wish I could have taken an picture looking down on the entire tradeshow floor, but that was just impossible. This picture somewhat shows how crazy the floor was at all times:


Before i went to the show, i was very concerned about what shoes i was going to wear. You might laugh, but this was a very serious concern. I would be on my feet from 8 am to midnight every day and i was very concerned that my feet and back would feel the effects of poor shoes. I chose to buy some gel inserts for my shoes. And lets be honest, i wasn't gellin'. They didn't do much. By the end of the weekend, i think my feet were going to fall off. Luckily i had no blisters, but standing and walking all day for 3 days straight was almost too much for me!

On Saturday we had a cake cutting celebration on the show floor. The cake had been sitting out for a few hours and was starting to melt by the time that we actually did the cake cutting. The top of the cake was supposed to look like our signature "I", but by the end of the day, it just looked like a big ball of frosting....or more like a deformed alien head. What do you think it looks like?



The party at Dave and Busters was a huge success. I enjoyed it for many reasons. 1) Being sober when almost everyone around you is drunk provided me with hours of entertainment. 2) I had the President of one of our Clients tell me I was his Queen and then tell me that he learned English (he is Japanese) from Mormon missionaries. 3) I made friends with a nice young man (Justin) and played games with him most of the night - beating him in basketball and race car driving. 4) I played pool - and after 10 minutes finally got two balls in the pocket.

On Sunday Diania (my co-worker) and I got to John Wayne airport and all i wanted to do was fall asleep. We luckily found two rows of benches that were very close to each other so we could put our feet up. Really, it wasn't all the comforatable. I really just wanted to be home in my bed.


All in all, it was a very good and successful trip. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

2 comments:

alisa said...

justin...ne na ne na. well done. i'm excited for your email!

Daybreaking Dickersons said...

I totally made the blog!!! I knew if I read long enough I'd find my name somewhere. You failed to mention that you slept on the floor of the airport.