Actually, I have no idea how to do that. But I now know how to coordinate a conference booth, get together 10's of thousands of dollars worth of education materials and create a marketing program while riding motorcycles through south america. The good news is that future conferences will seem as easy as catching a cold from a baby. As I sit here in the Chicago airport waiting to return to our previous life of motorcycle riding (after only a week and a half I have already forgotten what it feels like) I want to take the time to reflect on what we just went through… and what better way than to do it in verse:
(if this seems like a silly gimmick to you than I have to apologize;
but sometimes writing a blog can feel like my demise;
So I have to keep my mind entertained and happy;
otherwise my writing won't feel so snappy)
8 days in chicago, oh what a dream;
it should be so fun, or so it would seem;
the art institute and a chicago dog;
a deep dish pizza and some lake michigan fog;
but when you fly back to the states for a short time;
to work a conference for our business online;
the inside of hotels is about all you see;
that and a thousand faces of teachers montessori;
which is to say it is truly a pleasure;
montessorian hearts are something to treasure;
when we arrived in Chicago we jumped on the train;
found our hotel room with very little pain;
we tracked down all the boxes that have come from near and far;
assembled it all in our room without the use of a car;
we called our connection like our friends at Hello Wood;
to ensure our small booth would look tidy and good;
we came up with a plan on how to create a small shop;
and at 6:00 am got our boxes and ourselves to the Marriott;
Through Megan's good taste and with my sales history;
we set up a fantastic display for all to see;
we were ready to take credit cards, cash or check;
we had our receipts and hoped the whole thing wouldn't turn into a wreck;
The doors opened and it was on;
we worked out tushies off to dusk from dawn;
And so it went for 4 days in a row;
Selling our goods at the montessori trade show;
We met administrators, teachers, and even nuns;
They all loved our stuff but teachers are perpetually short on funds;
We held our ground and kept our prices fair;
we needed to break even, so the discounts were rare;
They all loved our cards, said they were the most beautiful;
The gave us suggestions, we wrote down it all;
We sold culture bags made in ecuador;
The teachers, they loved them, the bags they adored;
All those proceeds go to school;
We are raising money for a scholarship, now that's pretty cool;
Some were nervous to spend 40 bucks;
So we didn't sell them all, being left with 15 more sucks;
Wanna buy a bag? They have fun things, you can see;
At the end, we had sold quite a bit;
A little shy of profitable, but so it went;
We were so very tired but needed to break down the booth;
With our minds numb, we felt our lack of youth;
We looked around and realized we were the last around;
In a stupor and a daze we tried to take it all down;
It took us two hours to load it into boxes;
Our minds were numb, like two tired foxes;
Then for two more days, we processed our orders;
We calculated our wins and our losses in our hotel quarters;
We thought about next time and what we would do;
We sent our boxes home. Fedex, we love you.
So that was it and now here we are
Flying back to Santiago which seems really really far.
We'll jump on the bikes and have time to ponder
about what we just went through over yonder
in chicago for just over a week
and that was my poem, now its your turn to speak.
Drop us a comment and let us know where you stand
Did you like the verse, or does it sound sort of canned?
8 days in chicago, oh what a dream;
when we arrived in Chicago we jumped on the train;
And so it went for 4 days in a row;
At the end, we had sold quite a bit;
Then for two more days, we processed our orders;
Drop us a comment and let us know where you stand
Starting tomorrow, the annual AMS Montessori conference starts in Chicago. 2600 Montessori teachers from around the US will converge at the Marriott for 4 days of Montessori Mayhem. Part of this conference includes an area for vendors to hawk their goods. We can't pass up this opportunity so for the past 4 months we have been prepping for this conference while in Seattle and on the road. During the evenings of the moto trip, we would both hunker down in front of our computers and work on things like a catalog, pricelist, figuring a way around the $100/ day internet convenience fee that Marriott charges... things like that.
We stayed a week in Mendoza, Argentina with a childhood friend of mine. Kevin and I were quite tight from 7th grade up to 12th grade. In 1984, when I returned from a year abroad in 6th grade in Holland, I had missed the key social group formation that happens in the first year of middle school. That, and living in Holland had changed my perspective on things a little bit. For whatever reason, Kevin was kind enough to show me the ropes of middle school and we became very close friends. We both excelled in computers and we were drawn to the Commodore Pet 32 computers that they had at school.
As you can probably guess, this accelerated us into the cool group at school and we couldn't keep the ladies off of us. That, and being good at wood shop really had us running the school. We pretty much stayed nerds for the rest of our school careers. I remained sub 100 pounds until my junior year in high school which didn't help any either.
We BBQ'd, we toured the area a bit, and we got reacquainted. When they had to work, Megan and I visited wineries and went up into the mountains to explore. The mountains in the area are enormous and come straight out of the valley. They form a 15000 foot wall and the canyons that go into them are amazing. It is a nice area and one I could see going back to for sure.
It was a pleasure to hang out with the family and somewhat scary and exciting to hang out with a two year old for so long. She is incredibly cute and fun to watch, but she is also a lot of work and needs constant attention. Kevin and Belen do a fantastic job juggling their personal lives with Chloe and it makes me nervous to consider having one of these of our own. But it'll be ok, right?
Having a deadline to be in Santiago by friday afternoon, we packed up our bikes on Thursday "morning" (which was really 1 o'clock) and headed for Chile.
[the human rights museum in Santiago] We dropped of the bikes at this Chilean born, german motorcycle enthusiast and hoped for the best (for both our bikes and our pocket books). My steering head bearing went out again and megan's are starting to go. Because we need parking for the bikes for the next week, we also had him change the oil.
We enjoyed 2 days in Santiago, a very clean and modern city with US like prices on everything. I went for runs in the morning and then we walked around seeing the sites.\
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