We were all up at 3:30 am to head for our 6 am departure. Our group is extra funny when we are tired. Needless to say we had a lot of laughs this morning. I’m fairly certain we ticked more than one person off in Portland’s small Red Carpet Room. The HIGHLIGHT by far, however, was Robin’s joke about mom’s shoes. I’m not sure why mom ended up wearing a pair of shoes she wasn’t excited about but somehow she did. I told Robin mom was conscious about them and that she should make a comment. She was hesitant and it took a lot of bating. Finally, she said when she returned from the bathroom she would do it. I wasn’t so sure I believed her. When Robin returned she said, “Leslie, I like your shoes”.” I was thinking to myself, “that was sort of weak.” Mom looked at Robin, she paused, and then said, “I think Ryan’s grandma has a pair just like them.” Hahahahahahaha. It was so funny. We all died, laughing. Mom then said, “Katy told you didn’t she. I’m gonna get her.” It was all worth it.
In the LAX Red Carpet Room we were disappointed in the snacks because it still wasn’t late enough in the day for trail mix, yogurt covered raisins, cookies, veggies, crackers and cheese. Instead I think they had like toast and toast. We did, however, have fun talking to another Club guest. There is one room in the side of the LAX club with a TV and 15 or so chairs. There were only two people in the room when Robin found it, so we decided to go inside with them. They seemed like a nice middle aged couple. I felt like the guy looked vaguely familiar. Evidently Jason felt the same way. At some point we got chatting with them, hit the usual, “where are you goings?” and they said DC. At this point I think the light bulb went off in Jason’s head. We then got on to Washington and politics, probably because of something on TV. The guy was the head of Toyota North America. As you may or may not know Toyota is currently in the midst of one of the biggest product safety recalls in the history of the US. Washington is raking Toyota over the coals and unfortunately for this guy he is baring a huge brunt of it. Even in the face of that he was a genuinely nice guy.
We eventually made it to Cabo, got our bags, got through customs, found our car and talked our driver into stopping at Costco on the way to our hotel. He had a pretty sweet 15 passenger Mercedes van. it was impressive that he fit all of us, our bags and our Costco groceries in one vehicle. The check in at the Hotel Monte Cristo Esates was rather efficient. Before we knew it we were settled into our condo.
After the long day of travel we decided to make it an easy and early night. We ate a pizza we picked up at Costco along with some snacks for dinner and headed to bed.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Off to Cabo We Go...
Happy birthday dad! Today is dad’s 67 birthday. We are off to Portland tonight to celebrate with all of his children. R2, J2, mom, dad and me are leaving for Cabo in the morning. The plane tickets were $400 cheaper per person to leave from Portland, so that’s what we are doing. As an added benefit dad gets to have dinner with all of us AND Joe and Han-Mei. He wouldn’t pick a restaurant, so Joyce and I picked Typhoon on Broadway for him.
Joe and Han-Mei have been doing a massive remodel on a house they bought in Portland. We hadn’t seen the new siding, so we all decided to stop by their place before heading down to the restaurant.
In total there were nine of us going to dinner, therefore we needed two cars to get to the restaurant. This unsurprisingly led to a bit of a race since Ryan and I were driving the two cars. He passed me entering the steel bridge heading into downtown. I wasn’t thrilled by this but knew that I held my trump card, parking karma. Ryan passed the block with the closest street parking to the restaurant. I was feeling good about that street, so I turned. Needless to say I found an easy-in parallel parking spot, pulled in, bought the max time of one hour, which would take the time to 7:01, one minute passed when it is required to pay to park. We beat the second carload of people to the restaurant by a solid five minutes ;~)
The food at dinner was good but the company was great. We had fun catching up on all kinds of things. Dad was also in hilarious rare birthday form. We had planned to have the restaurant give him a special dessert but before we could even get to it he told the waitress, “I want coconut icecream with a candle in it.” I wish I had a camera to show his facial expression at the time as well. I’m certain we will all be laughing about this for many birthdays to come.
After dinner mom, R2, Joyce and I ran to the Nordstrom’s Rack because mom forgot her jacket and she wanted one to take on our trip. We had twenty minutes to take accomplish this task and did it in 15. Post shopping we headed for the La Quinta by the airport and called it a night.
Joe and Han-Mei have been doing a massive remodel on a house they bought in Portland. We hadn’t seen the new siding, so we all decided to stop by their place before heading down to the restaurant.
In total there were nine of us going to dinner, therefore we needed two cars to get to the restaurant. This unsurprisingly led to a bit of a race since Ryan and I were driving the two cars. He passed me entering the steel bridge heading into downtown. I wasn’t thrilled by this but knew that I held my trump card, parking karma. Ryan passed the block with the closest street parking to the restaurant. I was feeling good about that street, so I turned. Needless to say I found an easy-in parallel parking spot, pulled in, bought the max time of one hour, which would take the time to 7:01, one minute passed when it is required to pay to park. We beat the second carload of people to the restaurant by a solid five minutes ;~)
The food at dinner was good but the company was great. We had fun catching up on all kinds of things. Dad was also in hilarious rare birthday form. We had planned to have the restaurant give him a special dessert but before we could even get to it he told the waitress, “I want coconut icecream with a candle in it.” I wish I had a camera to show his facial expression at the time as well. I’m certain we will all be laughing about this for many birthdays to come.
After dinner mom, R2, Joyce and I ran to the Nordstrom’s Rack because mom forgot her jacket and she wanted one to take on our trip. We had twenty minutes to take accomplish this task and did it in 15. Post shopping we headed for the La Quinta by the airport and called it a night.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The New York International Gift Show
January 30 - February 3, 2010
I spent the last four days with my mom at the New York International Gift Show. She has a floral and table top business and wanted to explore the new products that are coming to market. I don’t think either of us had any idea how big the Gift Show was going to be. I had designs on seeing a few things in NYC outside of the show but I literally did not have an extra five minutes of daylight. We spent between eight and ten hours at the convention Sunday through Tuesday.
I had five main reaction to the show:
1. After being home for two days, the overall size of the market is still shocking. It filled the entire convention center in NYC (Javits Center), a LARGE pier (pier 94) and three permanent showroom buildings in midtown.
2. For a wholesale market, on average, the price of merchandise was shockingly high.
3. I want to start a store called “Things I Like”. There will be no central theme to the items carried in the store other than that they will all be... get this... things I like. From this show that would include all “Knock Knock” products, Wry Baby clothes, Jacarte Vases, a variety of things from Tokens and Icons, a few random pieces of jewelry, custom made Christmas ornaments, and these ornate hand painted eggs from Austria (the guy is so old school he has no website).
4. I can’t believe the number of independent jewelry makers. In retrospect I wish I had taken a survey to see the average number of years each had been in business. I can’t believe that there is enough room in the marketplace for all of them to succeed.
5. Thankfully, for at least another year, the entrepreneurial spirit lives on in America.
I spent the last four days with my mom at the New York International Gift Show. She has a floral and table top business and wanted to explore the new products that are coming to market. I don’t think either of us had any idea how big the Gift Show was going to be. I had designs on seeing a few things in NYC outside of the show but I literally did not have an extra five minutes of daylight. We spent between eight and ten hours at the convention Sunday through Tuesday.
I had five main reaction to the show:
1. After being home for two days, the overall size of the market is still shocking. It filled the entire convention center in NYC (Javits Center), a LARGE pier (pier 94) and three permanent showroom buildings in midtown.
2. For a wholesale market, on average, the price of merchandise was shockingly high.
3. I want to start a store called “Things I Like”. There will be no central theme to the items carried in the store other than that they will all be... get this... things I like. From this show that would include all “Knock Knock” products, Wry Baby clothes, Jacarte Vases, a variety of things from Tokens and Icons, a few random pieces of jewelry, custom made Christmas ornaments, and these ornate hand painted eggs from Austria (the guy is so old school he has no website).
4. I can’t believe the number of independent jewelry makers. In retrospect I wish I had taken a survey to see the average number of years each had been in business. I can’t believe that there is enough room in the marketplace for all of them to succeed.
5. Thankfully, for at least another year, the entrepreneurial spirit lives on in America.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)