Are we there yet?
Although it is 2:12 AM on Thursday morning, this is my post for Wednesday, May 18, 2005.
Long day.............................. very.
Last day at the Northeast Region General Motors Service Summit. We slept in a little today... 6:00 AM. We arrived at the trade show at 7:30 AM. Ron took off to hear a speaker. Karin and I set up and then abandoned the booth to scavenge for breakfast. Once again, we were offered leftovers from the dealers' breakfast. We both think they were leftovers from the previous day. At least my "fun size" Cheerios was fresh. We then returned to the booth and occupied ourselves with work-related tasks so as not to be completely overwhelmed upon our return to the office. When Ron came back, Karin and I excused ourselves to the hotel to pack. We returned to find the entire trade show in the process of being dismantled. We packed up our booth and then went into the ballroom to hear the conclusion of the motivational speaker.
Let me take a brief detour here...
I usually go one of two ways when it comes to motivational speakers: either I think they're full of it or I think they're repackaging common sense ideas and selling them to naive audiences. The guy today was doing both, and very well I might add. Without going into too much detail, he went on this 10-minute spiel about some previous Nobel Prize winner chosen as Peter Jennings' "person of the week" a couple weeks ago. The speaker did a backwards domino effect about whether this Nobel Prize winner who implemented planting corn and wheat hybrids that flourish in arid environments and has saved nearly 2 billion lives should have been the "person of the week." Maybe it should have been Franklin's first Vice President who assigned this person to the job. Or perhaps it should have been George Washington Carver who invented the corn and wheat hybrids. Or perhaps it should have been the farmer who raised George Washington Carver. "I could go on all day," said the speaker. His point was this: we all affect each other's lives and we have no idea what impact we are having on others, no matter how small the act may seem to us. Wow... I've never, ever, ever heard of this philosophy before. This guy is a genius. He earned his $5,000.00 for the day. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Granted, sometimes it takes a dynamic speaker with overexaggerated hand movements to remind us of common philisophical concepts, but please, do not, I repeat, do not try to pass these concepts off as your own brilliant epiphanies.
OK... detour over. Resume previous course.
After the motivational speaker was done giving hugs to various dealership service managers (ew), the event coordinators proceeded to hand out the door prizes. We stuck around long enough to see who won our door prize -- one year free access to DealerPulse (woo hoo!). Congratulations, Valley Cadillac-HUMMER, congratulations! We then left the Hershey Lodge -- our home for the past three days -- for the last time.
We then headed over to Hershey's Chocolate World to take the Hershey Trolleyworks tour. At $9.95, this tour was a bargain! The amount of chocolate given out during this tour was worth at least $9.95. Well, maybe not. We didn't get that much chocolate, but it was enjoyable. Our tour guide took us on a tour via trolleybus through downtown Hershey pointing out Milton Hershey's birthplace and his mansion, the Milton S. Hershey School, Hershey Gardens, the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey factory, and HersheyPark all while giving the history of the Hershey company. It really is a fascinating story. Afterwards, we departed Hershey, PA (which I learned is not truly a town, just a post office... the technical location of the Hershey enterprise is Derry Township, PA), to head home and our next adventure.
Pardon, but another brief detour...
We rented a Ford Explorer for the trip and the Explorer came with Hertz' GPS system, NeverLost. We affectionately named the NeverLost system "Tina" because of the female voice and Karin and my affection for Tina, the sassy llama in Napoleon Dynamite. Tina had a habit of getting angry with us when we didn't follow her directions to the letter. She would interrupt our travels and firmly but politely let us know that we were no longer following her path and attempted to "recalculate" (find another route to the specified location based upon our current position).
Detour over...
Upon leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, we followed the sign to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the highway by which we arrived in Hershey -- excuse me, Derry Township -- on Sunday. We then followed Tina's directions. About 30 miles into our trip home we began to wonder why nothing looked familiar. Hmmm... we didn't arrive at night on Sunday, we weren't goofing around not paying attention. What could it be? Oh! We're not going back the same way we came. We're not even on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Tina was taking us on a shorter, quicker route via Interstate 80. Cool! We'll get home cheaper -- no tolls on I-80 -- and quicker. Cheaper? Yes. Quicker? No. Definitely not. There was a terrible, terrible accident on I-80 that had shut traffic down for 3 hours and baked up at least 10 miles. We were 10 miles away from it when we were stopped for nearly 2 hours. I read my most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, Ron read USA Today, Karin slept. Finally, we got tired of waiting and decided to drive on the birm of the road to the nearest exit and let Tina guide us back to I-80 past the accident. She did her job and got us back on track. Finally, 9 hours after leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, at 11:00 PM we arrived at my house.
I ran inside, repacked a few things and then hopped on the road to Troy, MI, to stay the night at the Troy Marriott in preparation for Thursday's SFE (Standards for Excellence) FLE (Facilitator Learning Experience).
I am now, officially ready for bed!
There's more details I could share from today (technically yesterday), but my eyes are getting heavy and my fingers tired. Plus, I have to get up in 4 hours! Yay for lack of sleep!
And that's all there is to report tonight from the--Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Matthew
Long day.............................. very.
Last day at the Northeast Region General Motors Service Summit. We slept in a little today... 6:00 AM. We arrived at the trade show at 7:30 AM. Ron took off to hear a speaker. Karin and I set up and then abandoned the booth to scavenge for breakfast. Once again, we were offered leftovers from the dealers' breakfast. We both think they were leftovers from the previous day. At least my "fun size" Cheerios was fresh. We then returned to the booth and occupied ourselves with work-related tasks so as not to be completely overwhelmed upon our return to the office. When Ron came back, Karin and I excused ourselves to the hotel to pack. We returned to find the entire trade show in the process of being dismantled. We packed up our booth and then went into the ballroom to hear the conclusion of the motivational speaker.
Let me take a brief detour here...
I usually go one of two ways when it comes to motivational speakers: either I think they're full of it or I think they're repackaging common sense ideas and selling them to naive audiences. The guy today was doing both, and very well I might add. Without going into too much detail, he went on this 10-minute spiel about some previous Nobel Prize winner chosen as Peter Jennings' "person of the week" a couple weeks ago. The speaker did a backwards domino effect about whether this Nobel Prize winner who implemented planting corn and wheat hybrids that flourish in arid environments and has saved nearly 2 billion lives should have been the "person of the week." Maybe it should have been Franklin's first Vice President who assigned this person to the job. Or perhaps it should have been George Washington Carver who invented the corn and wheat hybrids. Or perhaps it should have been the farmer who raised George Washington Carver. "I could go on all day," said the speaker. His point was this: we all affect each other's lives and we have no idea what impact we are having on others, no matter how small the act may seem to us. Wow... I've never, ever, ever heard of this philosophy before. This guy is a genius. He earned his $5,000.00 for the day. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Granted, sometimes it takes a dynamic speaker with overexaggerated hand movements to remind us of common philisophical concepts, but please, do not, I repeat, do not try to pass these concepts off as your own brilliant epiphanies.
OK... detour over. Resume previous course.
After the motivational speaker was done giving hugs to various dealership service managers (ew), the event coordinators proceeded to hand out the door prizes. We stuck around long enough to see who won our door prize -- one year free access to DealerPulse (woo hoo!). Congratulations, Valley Cadillac-HUMMER, congratulations! We then left the Hershey Lodge -- our home for the past three days -- for the last time.
We then headed over to Hershey's Chocolate World to take the Hershey Trolleyworks tour. At $9.95, this tour was a bargain! The amount of chocolate given out during this tour was worth at least $9.95. Well, maybe not. We didn't get that much chocolate, but it was enjoyable. Our tour guide took us on a tour via trolleybus through downtown Hershey pointing out Milton Hershey's birthplace and his mansion, the Milton S. Hershey School, Hershey Gardens, the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey factory, and HersheyPark all while giving the history of the Hershey company. It really is a fascinating story. Afterwards, we departed Hershey, PA (which I learned is not truly a town, just a post office... the technical location of the Hershey enterprise is Derry Township, PA), to head home and our next adventure.
Pardon, but another brief detour...
We rented a Ford Explorer for the trip and the Explorer came with Hertz' GPS system, NeverLost. We affectionately named the NeverLost system "Tina" because of the female voice and Karin and my affection for Tina, the sassy llama in Napoleon Dynamite. Tina had a habit of getting angry with us when we didn't follow her directions to the letter. She would interrupt our travels and firmly but politely let us know that we were no longer following her path and attempted to "recalculate" (find another route to the specified location based upon our current position).
Detour over...
Upon leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, we followed the sign to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the highway by which we arrived in Hershey -- excuse me, Derry Township -- on Sunday. We then followed Tina's directions. About 30 miles into our trip home we began to wonder why nothing looked familiar. Hmmm... we didn't arrive at night on Sunday, we weren't goofing around not paying attention. What could it be? Oh! We're not going back the same way we came. We're not even on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Tina was taking us on a shorter, quicker route via Interstate 80. Cool! We'll get home cheaper -- no tolls on I-80 -- and quicker. Cheaper? Yes. Quicker? No. Definitely not. There was a terrible, terrible accident on I-80 that had shut traffic down for 3 hours and baked up at least 10 miles. We were 10 miles away from it when we were stopped for nearly 2 hours. I read my most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, Ron read USA Today, Karin slept. Finally, we got tired of waiting and decided to drive on the birm of the road to the nearest exit and let Tina guide us back to I-80 past the accident. She did her job and got us back on track. Finally, 9 hours after leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, at 11:00 PM we arrived at my house.
I ran inside, repacked a few things and then hopped on the road to Troy, MI, to stay the night at the Troy Marriott in preparation for Thursday's SFE (Standards for Excellence) FLE (Facilitator Learning Experience).
I am now, officially ready for bed!
There's more details I could share from today (technically yesterday), but my eyes are getting heavy and my fingers tired. Plus, I have to get up in 4 hours! Yay for lack of sleep!
And that's all there is to report tonight from the--Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Matthew
posted by Matthew D. Bowland at
1:12 AM
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