The Payoff

My boss and I recently paid a HUGE amount of money to advertise with the Lake Havasu Tourism and Convention Bureau, and it is actually turning out to be money well spent. The Bureau, or, The CVB as it's known locally, has some new younger management and their strategy lately has been to actively locate big companies to come here to do business. Be it for events, conferences, conventions, video shoots, or whatever, they're trying to get them to come here. Not just tourists, because tourists are fickle and they back off the traveling with gasoline gets to be where it is today.
So. Long story short. We are currently negotiating to be the managing entity for a Hinder music video and concert out on the lake. Those out there who do not know who Hinder is, you need to turn on your radio for about 30 minutes. You'll hear Hinder played at least seven times. I myself am sick and tired of hearing "Lips of an Angel" by that band, it's been overplayed for waaay too long.

Right now, it's just in the negotiating stages but that will probably change quickly because the video shoot is scheduled for July 7th. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and not trying to name drop or anything...but....The O.C. Housewives reality show called and booked us for 4th of July weekend. Dang! I've never seen the show, but that's certainly something to have for the old resume!!

Live, Dammit!!

We found this little guy in the swimming pool of the place where we had our last 2 events, at a Clubhouse facility. He was probably trying to get a drink and then fell in. I tried CPR. It didn't work. Poor little dude.

On a happier note:

I've been a member of my family's website for about 10 years, it's something my dad's sister put together to keep us all in touch. At first it was a struggle to get people to post pictures and such, because 10 years ago not everyone was on the internet. Not in Arkansas, anyway. My aunt did the bulk of the work, scanning and posting pictures from her childhood. She also created an online family tree, working from some genealogy research she'd done in her spare time. It would've been easier if she'd had some help, but I think it was how she filled in her lonesome hours. Her husband of 25 years had just died of a heart attack.
Right now, I'm the site administrator; we've decided to take turns doing it. All it means is I pay the $29.95 yearly charge whenever it's my turn to administer. And sometimes I send an email out to everyone, reminding them to visit the site and post their news and pictures.
If it weren't for that site, I wouldn't know my family that lives 2,000 miles away.

So as we were sitting at Steve's cousin/stepsister's house on Sunday, I mentioned the site. I was listening to all the questions that everyone had about each other, and I was astonished that they knew so little about each other, and their family.
After speaking to several people, it was agreed that we'd set up a family website.
By Tuesday morning, I'd set it up. I sent out invitations to everyone using an email list we'd gotten a year ago at a family gathering. As soon as the site got out in the emails, people starting logging on. Very cool.
There's very little content, of course, but people are coming to the site.

If anyone out there is interested in setting up their own family site, go to myfamily.com
You'll be glad you did! All you need is your family's email addresses to get started.

Travel and Tinker

We got an email from Steve's cousin/stepsister (I'll explain that relation) last Thursday, to let us know that her dad was gravely ill. So we immediately made plans to drive over to her place in San Diego on Sunday, since that's where he was on Hospice care. When we got there, we joined up with about 10 relatives who had also gotten the news. Steve's dad's side of the family is much like my dad's side; with 10 siblings and a very rural background. Uncle Buck was lying in a bed, with oxygen and lots of pillows to keep him comfortable. He wouldn't wake up for anyone, he had been that way for a couple of hours. Before that, he would periodically open his eyes and respond to whoever was in the room. I guess once he realized that everyone was coming to say goodbye he decided to begin his exit. Good for him. I'm glad he took control and did things his way. He had found out about his Cancer diagnosis on Wednesday, and obviously he had made up his mind about his ending very soon after that.
We visited there for a couple of hours, where I got to know Janise and Laura--two of Bucks' daughters. They have 4 siblings who live in different places, and they are all half Samoan. Their mom, who died a year ago from Cancer, was Samoan. She and Buck divorced many many years ago, and all but one of the kids stayed with him in Southern California.
He died about 5 minutes after we left that day.

Now, Steve is related to Uncle Buck in two different ways: Buck is Steve's dad's brother. He was also married to Steve's mom for about 10 years, after she'd divorced Steve's dad. Kind of convenient in some aspects because she didn't have to change her name and she didn't have to get to know a whole new family!!
It's not like there was some torrid affair or anything like that; she'd been divorced from Steve's dad for many years and while she was attending university classes not far from Buck's place she would periodically go there to visit.
They soon realized they had a lot in common and they had fallen in love.
So they married and traveled the world together. Buck had jobs in exotic places like some tiny island off Thailand, and also Hawaii if I remember correctly.
Steve said once that he was glad his mom got to see all the places she did, all because of her marriage to Buck. They were together until she died of cancer.

We like to tease poor Steve, about his uncle being his stepdad. But I have to admit, when I met Buck last year at a family gathering I understood immediately how a woman would fall victim to his charms. He was such a smoothe talking ladies man, and very funny. People were drawn to him because he was so entertaining. I was certainly one of them!

After we'd finished visiting with the family, we went to the coast to check into our room. Steve had researched the best possible deal on a room with an ocean view, and he did a great job. His daughters were with us, and they were ecstatic when they walked into our room and saw the Pacific, big and blue, right out our balcony:


It was a glorious 70 degrees outside, which was amazing since we had just driven from home where it was 116 degrees. Big difference. It almost felt cold to be on the beach.


While staring out our balcony we noticed a wine bar on the pool deck below. Steve asked them how long they were serving and they said, "Till 5 o'clock."
Then the phone rang. It was one of the wine servers asking if we were the ones just talking to her out of our balcony, and if so, if we wanted her to bring up some wine. Whaaaaa??? We were actually shocked. Free wine, delivered to our door.
Never turn down free booze.
We sat on the balcony and enjoyed some white wine:


We watched the waves come in and out of the beach for a while, then changed into some warm clothes and drove down to the harbor to get dinner.
We found a cute little place on the water, and promptly ordered up lots of seafood appetizers and fancy drinks. I had some sort of gin and tonic for the first time, and I discovered that gin and I could be very good friends. That reminds me, I need to go to the liquor store.
The sun went down and the full moon came out, reflecting on the ocean. I took some pics of the San Diego skyline, across the harbor from us:



Then Steve's daughter took a pic of us together.



We went to bed with full tummies and the sound of the ocean coming in our balcony door, which was open all night.

The next day we headed back East toward home, stopping at a Mexican border town for lunch. Aaah, carne asada.