Convention 2003: Day 3

Up again at 5am, as I will be tomorrow as well. Again showered and then soaked in a bath (how people can just bathe is beyond me, who wants to soak in filthy water).

Breakfast followed by another general session. So they had this guy speak in General Session today… don’t remember his name but he is apparently on the board of directors for the company. Anyways, I think his comments were met with a little cynicism or at least skepticism, as for the first time in any convention assembly I heard murmuring in the crowd… I was of course laughing, hehehe. He was talking about how people don’t say “I love you” enough. (The theme of this year’s convention is “touching lives”). He started by telling how one time in his office, after he was done talking to an employee, he ended with “Hey, I love you.” He was totally serious too. So his whole speech was geared around telling everyone you deal with outside your family (since it’s normal to tell your family you love them) that you love them. Oh man. I mean I know he was well intentioned and that it was meant it a platonic way, it just doesn’t seem like it would fly very well in society today. I think it’s fine to show love for others by how you act towards them or how you treat them, but I think you should reserve saying it for people that you have some sort of relationship with other than just a customer. I mean, if I were attending some demonstrator’s workshop and this was my first contact with her outside of maybe a phone call and she busted out “I love you” on leaving, I’d think one of at least two things: a) you’re a whacko, I may not be coming back, or b) you’re so fake. I’d only believe you if you were covered with some of that positively charged pink mood slime on Ghostbusters 2, hehehe… you know the scene I’m talking about. I think metaphorically this guy was trying to hose the audience with some slime but I’m not sure it worked.

Either way… I was laughing because I couldn’t help thinking of Fletch. The guy on stage is saying “go on, tell everyone you love them!” and I’m thinking of the scene in Fletch where he runs into the restaurant to evade the cops and he jumps up at the podium and starts talking about Fred the Dorf Dorfman, and how Fred was once a cop, and how cops too often go unappreciated—how people are afraid to “reach out and touch an officer of the law”. As the police start managing their way to the front, Fletch is like “go on, hug a cop!” hehehe… that’s exactly what it felt like when this guy was telling everyone to say “I love you” to everyone else. Some of you may appreciate this… (Mar!—this is the story I meant to tell you today).

Ronald McDonald came to convention, woo! He was there for the announcement of the company’s new partnership with the Ronald McDonald House charity.

A part of the “Gathering Place”, the name given to the big hall in between the Make & Take hall and the Main Stage hall. In particular this is a shot of some of the boards that have stamped samples on them for demonstrators to view, photograph, and clean stamping ideas from.

Other than that, today was more or less similar to yesterday in flow—worked till 6 or so today (got off an hour early), ate with Melissa and Brandon and came back here to update the ol site, since I don’t feel as wasted as I did yesterday, though I’m rapidly approaching bed time. I might get out for pictures on the strip tomorrow night, but if not, no big loss. Been there, done that. Have a handful of pics salvaged from last year, won’t be disappointed if I don’t get to go out in the 105 F weather at night and walk on my already hurting feet. (Yes it’s frigging hot out even when it’s dark. It doesn’t cool off nicely like it does up in Sandy. Maybe the suburbs are different but here in the heart of Sin City (where the strip and all the hotels are) it stays hot all the time… It’s probably still in the 80s when we get out in the morning). I guess this too reminds me of summer in Korea.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, I did talk to a Korean lady today named 미영. I didn’t know she was Korean until I had to help her log in to the web site, and her name popped up. So I spoke to her a bit in Korean, since I could tell her English was a little slow. Turns out she’s been in America for like 36 years and has only been back to Korea 2-3 times… she must have married a soldier of something and moved to America, who knows. Some people never get that fluent at English I guess, though she was certainly good enough to get around. Of course, being outside of Utah she was baffled as to how I could speak Korean so easily (of course the intro and small talk phrases all come out easily, those are the most often repeated and therefore easiest). Anyways, that was kinda fun.

There were some Japanese women that I helped too, they may have been from Hawaii but their names were definitely Japanese… they were a bit faster at English but still had an accent and slightly rough English. I would be too afraid to bust out one of the 2 or 3 phrases I know in Japanese for fear that they’d respond and think I could speak more, hehe. I guess since I’ve learned Korean I always feel a desire to speak to people in their native tongues and find myself a little frustrated when I cannot, whether it’s Japanese, Spanish, or anything else.

Demonstrators in the Gathering Place.

Anyways, I’m writing what I can remember of the past few days. If I remember anything else interesting and/or funny I’ll post it later I guess. As you can see my picture taking has waned—lots on Monday, a few on Tuesday, and then not so many today. Although shooting short video clips is fun as it can give a better representation of things as they really are. Too bad I hadn’t thought to use it earlier!

I have to say it was interesting to be so wasted the last couple days that the thought of turning on the computer and getting on the Internet was like prolonging torture, heh.