Archive for October, 2008

Early this morning before dawn we washed up on Croc Island, a small traffic island in the middle of downtown Detroit. It was an unfortunate spot, and led to our worst finish line day this tour. We were well away from the main foot traffic from the finish line, and I have to wonder who we ticked off to get sent to the corner for time-out.

In my sleep-deprived state at five in the morning, this fountain was mesmerizing. It was particularly interesting because it would shoot up streams of water and then shoot a secondary stream to collide with the first one to make the water appear to explode in midair.

It was also cold out, and even with bundling up, we were still inclined to huddle up to conserve heat.

I also had one of the worst cafe experiences of my life this morning at Au Bon Pain. I had never experienced an Au Bon Pain before, but I’d heard they were supposed to be good. My experience doesn’t jive with that reputation. They were understaffed, and the employees that were there were for the most part freaking out running around like chickens with their heads cut off doing nothing in particular. I waited to order a drink for nearly five minutes while one of them got angry looking for cream cheese. I decided to get some hot chocolate, and immediately regretted it as I watched them steam milk and add some Herseys chocolate syrup to it. I was willing to reserve judgement until after tasting it, but after tasting it I was not surprised to find it tasted like steamed milk with a hint of Herseys syrup. At least I got in and out before the line got obscenely long (below).

Our resident Texan had an interesting sense of style when it came to cold-weather gear.

After waiting around to sell approximately 4 pairs of shoes this morning, we headed back to the hotel and decided to try White Castle for lunch. I didn’t really know what to expect, but apparently all they have are sliders (mini-burgers) and sides. Stephen decided we were getting a case of sliders (30 of them). We managed to finish 21 between five of us, but Nate and I were responsible for more than half of them. Somehow it was brought up that this supposed eating contest that’s going to take place between Nate and I should be to each try to finish a case of 30. I hope they for get this idea quickly. I’d much rather attempt the 72oz steak than 30 greasy mini-burgers.

In other news, there are multiple honors for the caption contest for the last post. Derek for the obscene amount of word-play on Crocs, Joey for making me laugh the most, and my mom for identifying several things correctly (probably more than she knows), including picture #1.

That first photo is what happens when labor union rules get overcomplicated to the point of being absurd. We’re not allowed to put down our own flooring at many expos in union buildings, so instead guys my dad’s age show up and crawl around putting together our puzzle-piece floor that a four year old could figure out. And then charge us a large sum of money for their time.

So this will be a good old fashioned caption contest. Quotations or humorous comments also work. The winner, as judged by me, wins a free dinner courtesy of me next time I’m in your neck of the woods, (or if you’re traveling with me, sooner). The rules stipulate that you have to come up with responses for at least four of the six images in the comments to this post. Other than that, it’s a free-for-all. I’ll probably pick a winner by the end of the weekend. GO!

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

Bonus points to anyone who isn’t a part of the tour that can identify what’s going on in #1.

Today I did stuff! Molly and I went for lunch at Jimmie John’s. After that, we picked up Lyndsay and did what is apparently THE fall activity for Michgan residents in the fall when the leaves fall and fall is in the air. We headed out to the Franklin Cider Mill. There we found all manner of pumpkins, gourds, jams, jejjjjjjjjjjuujjjjjjjjjj oh crap the _ key on my keyboard _ust broke off. Where was I? – _ellies, applesauce, carmelized popcorn, cheese, meats, apples, fudge, baked goods, apple pie, and of course, apple cider and fresh donuts.

We didn’t really get to see the whole cider press process, but it was interesting to see a water wheel in motion.

they also had done some interesting work using license plates. See Molly’s blog for some more examples.

I went with the classic cider and donut combo, and also bought some apple bread and a half gallon of cider for breakfast in the morning. I opted out of getting “a apple” as I was confused by which way the apple would keep the doctor and if that was a good thing or not.

After a stop at Walmart to fix a taillight, I returned to the hotel where I had a fairly productive afternoon. I did my monthy expense report, and after that I sat down and pondered what exactly happens to me as of December 7th. I pulled up blank text documents in order to put some thoughts down on (electronic) paper. – things like how I will translate this _ob onto my resume, what I want from my next _ob, places I’d like to live (below), and resources I should utilize in pursuing a _ob. While I didn’t actually do any specific work on getting a _ob (here on called a “position”), I now feel much more focused. I refocused goals, prioritized, and now comes the action.

No, I don’t know why I seem to have taken to taking pictures of my laptop screen rather than _ust a screenshot or something. Get over it.

After all that thinking, I needed some food. Nate and I headed over to Olive Garden where, thankfully, nothing awkward happened and the waitress even brought extra mints with the check (SCORE!).

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Best Buy. Nate and I spent a while looking at TVs while he pondered which model he’d like for his apartment he’s moving into in Dallas.

I also stumbled upon a glorious sight, the new Macbook! I’m still drooling over it (or the pro, can’t decide which I’d want more), and now that I don’t have a friggin’ _ key, I have another excuse for why I should think strongly about replacing my four and a half year old laptop with one infinitely superior. I spent a while messing around with it and simply admiring it’s asthetic qualities, and I was amazed by the new three and four fingered gestures for the touchpad.

So, tomorrow it’s back to work. Things are good. Yeah, the economy sucks, “position” prospects aren’t good as a result, I’m hungry and I _ust recently ate, and I’m lacking a key on my keyboard. But things are really good.

No offense team, but we’re in a slump!  Granted, it’s a good time to be in a slump since we’ve got a pretty busy several weeks ahead of us and it’s nice to have a break, but I want to get out and do something, and we’re spending way too much time sitting around in our hotel rooms lately.  Let’s get up and go!

It reads, “Owning an HDTV is undoubtedly a curse when John McCain’s ghastly visage appears thereon.”  The split-screen didn’t help McCain much.

Tomorrow, I’m going to DO something.

After granting myself a generous extra portion of sleep by not waking up until after 10:00, I headed out to run some errands on Michigan Avenue (Chicago’s Magnificent Mile). I replaced my iPod charging unit (if you have an iPod, I suggest doing so – it’s free and apparently the old ones can break off in an outlet), bought some shaving cream, and continued to strike out in searching for a pair of jeans in my size that I like both the fit and wash of. Along the way, I ran across the Nike store. I thought it was really cool that the day after the marathon they had covered their storefront with a large mural/poster that included the names of all the 45,000 or so runners.

We met back up at our hotel to walk to lunch. Along the way, we saw the most striking view of the new Trump Tower yet. I definitely agree with Nate that in a way it’s an eyesore. It’s so much mirror-glass and modern design, it doesn’t quite fit with the flavor of the city. It’s definitely quite the building regardless.

For lunch we had some Chicago-style hot dogs with all the fixings. They weren’t particularly memorable, but now I can say I’ve had them.

We followed up lunch with some melt-in-your-mouth Garrett caramel corn.

After lunch and dessert, Nate and I walked back to the hotel, where we proceded to do nothing (which in this case includes watching cable news channels and surfing the net) for hours until dinnertime. It was refreshing to sit around and do nothing for a while after basically not having had a true day off for 11 days.

For dinner, we went to Gino’s East (a pizza place, of course). The pizza was very tasty. They use one large sausage patty covering the entire pizza much like some of the other pizzerias in they city. Now our Chicago style pizza tour is complete. We’ve hit the most famous three: Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s, and Gino’s East. The walls at Gino’s East are covered with writing and etchings. It’s ironic that they encourage it, yet the bathroom door has a sign on it asking customers to avoid writing anything on the bathroom walls.

After dinner I relaxed in the hotel’s hot tub for a bit (I should really be making more use of these since most hotels we stay at have them) and wrote the weekend event recap. Tomorrow we’ll head into Michigan, where eventually we’ll end up in Detroit for the Detroit Free Press Marathon.

Meet Heidi. Heidi works for another marketing agency representing Snickers Marathon Bars. We see her at many events, and she’s been friends with Stephen for a while. I ended up running an errand with her to go pick up a package, and when she found out that the package had not arrived, I saw first-hand that she is someone who will get what she wants regardless. Here she is on the phone(s) with FedEx discussing said missing package.

Anyway, jump a few hours forward in the expo. We needed to get into our storage to get more shoes and bags, and I went to the union services desk and talked to two different people, both of whom gave me the run-around and made countless excuses for why we couldn’t get into our storage. Stephen asked Heidi to get us into our storage. I had my doubts, but she threw on a Crocs shirt and two minutes later we were in a freight elevator headed towards our storage.

I was impressed. Then again, guys are at a natural disadvantage (or girls are at a natural advantage) when it comes to dealing with union workers.

Much of our time at the expo was also spent writing directions on raffle tickets. Next time we’ll think ahead and get tickets pre-printed. My hand didn’t last long in this age of computer-written everything.

And here’s a shot to give some perspective on just how huge the expo was. This is maybe half of it. Note how huge Nike’s presence was (the big white hanging sign area). Our booth is right above the black REI tent in the foreground.

There’s always something interesting going on at the expo.

And compare these shots to the last post. Much like the amazing transformation from load-in to expo-ready, breaking down happens amazingly quickly. This is about an hour after the expo closed.

After a really lousy cab ride punctuated by slamming into the side of a curb, we went to bed early since we had a 4:00AM wake-up this morning.

We got to the Crocs store on the race course at about 5AM and immediately began transforming the area into our “Crocs Block” theme. The stencil and spray chalk worked amazingly well.

People made cheer signs until they were gone, and then we gave out probably a thousand or more pieces of swag (keychains, iPod armbands, etc.) in about 15 minutes. This job is definitely a great way to learn about the psychological impacts of mob mentality. That and people just want free stuff.

Since we were at mile 2 on the course, 45,000 runners came and went fairly quickly.

The chalk on the roads actually held up to all the runners amazingly well.

After the crowd died down in front of the store, we moved to the finish line area to give away our remaining gear. This is where all of us pretty much simultaneously hit a wall and were ready to be done with a very long weekend. I definitely think Crocs are comfortable, but like any good thing, too much can ruin the experience. I needed to get out of Crocs for a while. My feet are in rough shape.

After finishing up and getting back to the hotel, Nate and I intermittently napped and watched football all afternoon. At 6PM, we headed out for a nine mile run (this was planned ahead of time – we didn’t just decide running a bunch while already worn out sounded like a good idea). Regardless, it felt really good to get out and exercise, and helped wake us up at least temporarily. Now that I’m halfway training to be doing distance running, I’m hoping to be able to get in at least one more half marathon before the tour is over.

And even though it took three days in Chicago, we treated ourselves to pizza at Lou Malnati’s tonight. The pizza arrived and Nate, Molly and I all simultaneously whipped out cameras to take pictures. We’re blog nerds I suppose.

First up, a nearly 3′x3′ Duke logo that has been cut out and turned into a stencil which, when combined with some nifty spray chalk, will be used to mark up the race course in front of the State Street Crocs store for our marathon raceday grassroots efforts.

This event is by far the biggest event we’ve had since I joined the tour, and the scale of everything is probably ten times that of any other event. Just check out this expo floor plan.

The expo is at McCormick Place, which has 4 main buildings all individually larger than most convention centers, a hotel built in, a food court, two Starbucks, two FedEx Kinkos, and much more. The massive buildings feature glass fronts and appealing architecture.

Oh, and I should mention that the last photo is approximately where I was nearly run down by an umarked police car this afternoon. I was crossing (with the crossing guard waving me on) when we both heard what sounded like an ambulance siren start up nearby. I figured my best bet was to run to the other side of the street to get out of the way since I couldn’t see the siren source, but just as I began to do so the unmarked cruiser whipped around a car at the light at high speed and missed me by perhaps two feet. Yikes. The crossing guard’s jaw dropped.

Anyway, more architecture.

One of the buildings had a very simple, elegant fountain that is one of my favorite fountains of all time as of today. It was simply arches of water that would shoot out of a shallow pool and form an arch back into the water. The clean, crisp look and sound of the fountain was very refreshing.

Now, the expo itself. Dealing with union labor wasn’t great, but was still an improvement over Philly. It struck me during load-in just how much transformation the expo room undergoes in only a day. Take these photos as examples.

A complete mess.

No mess whatsoever.

Did a tornado come through?

And today.

The size of the event brings bigger vendors with better booths to the expo. Some of the highlights were VW filming personalized commercials that get posted online for viewing…

Bank of America filming the entire race course by car and running it as a time-lapse style video (also interesting to note: I was confused when I watched the vehicle filming repeatedly cross into the wrong side of the road until I noticed police cars creep into the edge of the picture from time to time. That’s a pretty serious effort if it involves getting a police escort just to drive the course)…

Nike has a space many times bigger than any other vendor, but their area was packed the entire day. Hundred upon hundreds of people made it impossible to move around their area. I’d call it a booth, but that wouldn’t even begin to describe it. They had at least 20 cash registers. We have one.

And for further comparison, our setup during load-in:

And the finished product (you can play “where’s Molly?”):

Cheer signs are often popular, but today things devolved into an all out kids coloring party at one point. We’re having to ration greatly because we only have 400 for the weekend though we could easily pass our 1000.

After a long expo day with some rush hour driving, parking tickets, and arguing with various people, we finally got back to the hotel and went to a place called Big Bowl for dinner. You know this city takes its marathon seriously when restaurants provide high-carb menus for carbo-loading atheletes. I didn’t order off this one, but I can think of many times in the past where I would have.

The last time-deadline drive is nearly over! We’re only 30 miles from Chicago, and we’ll be heading into the city in the morning for set up for the biggest event I’ve worked yet, the Chicago Marathon. Along the way today, lots of random quirky things.

Nate, Molly and I started off the day with a 6 mile run. That definitely helped to clear out my lingering cold.

This pump seemed fishy…

Had an encounter with the left lane hog. This white van was the bane of my existence for a good 45 minutes. Not once did he leave the passing lane. While in the passing lane, his speed was inconsistent and he’d slow down while passing other cars and then speed up to the point that I couldn’t accelerate around him. I watched as nearly a dozen different cars tailgated him trying to pressure him into the right lane to no avail. I spent a while flashing my lights at him, but with no effect. I eventually managed to pass him (on the right) but was not able to implement my master plan before we pulled off for lunch. I really wanted an open stretch of road with no cars behind him so I could pull in front of him and slow up until he was either going very slowly or was forced into the right lane to go around. I’m really curious what would have happened.

We washed the trucks (about time!). Note that cleaner spot on the back – that’s where I took a window squeegee and wiped off a spot. They were very dirty.

In the truck getting scrubbed and sprayed.

And ta da! A bright shiny truck!

I checked four different floors of our hotel this evening, and they all have complimentary empty bowls. I’d take one, but I don’t have much use for a bowl.

And no day is complete without some gelato!

During dinner we did a talk-through of the weekend. It’s going to be a long one, but should be fun. There are also plans to revisit Weber Grill and Lou Malnatis for food, plus some new eateries that are yet to be determined, but will be of the utmost deliciousness.

So the lack of posting in the days prior can mostly be attributed to not having internet at the hotel we were staying at. That is, the hotel had internet, but it cost $14 a day. The upside to the hotel we picked is that it could not have possibly been closer to our finish line tent.

The event was business as usual. While our job isn’t perfect, we could certainly be doing a lot worse.

Then after the race (Lyndsay and Stephen both ran. Congrats!) we hit the road immediately and drove well past dark to get to Elko, Nevada.

After a brief stop for some sleep, we hit the road again and put in another 650 miles today to get to Cheyenne, Wyoming. This picture was supposed to be of the wind turbines, but it’s kind of amusing what happens with the slow iphone shutter speed and road signs. This one definitely stands upright, in spite of appearances to the contrary.

During our last fuel stop of the day, Molly was involved in a hold-up.

But eventually we made it.

I forgot to mention that last night I lost my voice in a head-cold related incident, and it has only partially returned at this point. The good news is the cold itself would appear to be fairly minor. I should hopefully be back to normal by the time we get to Chicago.