Rest, Rejuvinate, Recover

That's what I'd like to do; but I haven't been able to YET!!! Except for a little bit yesterday afternoon where I sat down and watched a movie while my son did his homework...
I've got to brag that our last event of the summer went off like fireworks, well planned fireworks that is. We rocked it. I thought I broke my ribs when I fell down Saturday afternoon, but it's starting to feel better now so I suppose it was just a bruise. We had only one employee working the event with us and he apparently has epilespy. I didn't know this until he siezed at the banquet that night. He fell straight down off the stage (luckily it was a low stage) and busted his face up pretty good.
He was alright once he got upright and out in the fresh air. But he went home and we had to break down all the stuff and load it ourselves. This wouldn't have been so awful if we hadn't been so tired. After busting our asses all day, it was the last thing we wanted to do. Finally got that all done at midnight, then towed the equipment trailers out to the airport so we could set up first thing in the morning for the birthday party.
I was lucky to have some relatives who I delagated things to. I had already paid for all the food, so they went and picked that up for me. The chairs were rented, and dropped off the day before. The tables actually were a combination of borrowed ones from family and some from my boss. I gave the balloons to Steve's daughter and she got them inflated. We had something like 100 yellow and black balloons and once they were done it was FABULOUS. Yellow drapes and yellow table covers really made a difference too. We had the bitchin sound system set up, and the projector was set up so we could show the little video I made, with about 200 old pictures of Steve with his family. He gave me a huge thumbs up for that one, since the majority of the family that came were from his mom's side--and they never have an organized family reunion. We put up the bounce house and the Hot Wheels drag strip that we use at events and that was definitely a great idea--the kids were happy and busy so that kept their parents happy.
I had everything done on time which astounded me. I had so much to do in just a couple of hours, but it got done.
I made sure Steve parked his little Yellow Fever race car right out front, as well as a couple of custom Harley trikes that belonged to his boss. It made a great photo backdrop for his family who's never been up here. In fact, they were actually riding the trikes around the airport!!
When Steve wasn't paying attention, I parked his Yellow Fever scooter next to his car. He took forever to notice it, but when he did--he was like a little kid all over again. I wish I had a picture of the grin on his face while he took it out for a test ride. Too funny. The rest of the afternoon the kids were all taking turns on the scooter and so were the grandmas and grandpas!
It seemed like the longest birthday party ever, lasting six hours. I wasn't worried about people leaving too soon because so many of them had driven at least 3 or 4 hours to get there. I knew they'd stick around. And they all gave me great feedback, on the food, the activities, the location, the music--pretty much everything. I was glad to hear it, after working on it for so long.

So now that it's all done, I'm busy getting things taken care of that need attention. There's quite a bit of work to do on Steve's little rental house, and I guess nobody's going to do it besides me. The renters left a nightmare mess, and there's the normal upkeep stuff that hasn't been done at all. Painting, carpeting, yard work, and then painting outside.

Tonight is the big cruise night for the car show. Every October we have a HUGE car show (thankfully I get to just enjoy it, not work AT it) and they kick things off tonight with a street fair. My boss's girlfriend has a little record store in the area of the street fair, so we're using it as a place to hang out. We can set up chairs, pull up a cooler, and watch the people walk by.

The Clock's Ticking...

Steve's big birthday party is Sunday, and I have loose ends that are killing me. Tables and chairs; I don't want to rent them when I have so many places I could actually BORROW them from. For instance, the VFW here in Havasu puts on a ceremony periodically, like most recently on 9/11. THEY asked Steve to fly the Cobra over the ceremony a few times. So he did. It costs about $1200 to do that, because of fuel and insurance. Steve's boss footed that one. When I called the VFW to ask about borrowing some tables and chairs for Sunday, they said no. "We have to keep a certain amount on the patio for our smokers." WHAT????!?!!!! I'm going down there this afternoon to talk about the $1200 flyover that they didn't have to pay for.

Then, I paid a local company to print "Huff's 1/2 Century October 14, 2007" on 100 pillboxes. I'm using them as party favors. I'm filling them with candy and putting them on the tables (the ones I don't have yet)
The printer didn't print the right date on the pillboxes. Their idea was to ignore it because nobody will notice. I disagreed. I paid $200 for pillboxes to be customized and I can't imagine anyone at the party would ignore that. So they're printing the right date on some metal labels and putting them on the pillboxes.

Everything else seems to be coming together, all the gifts I arranged for are done. Just gotta stay sane while my boss and I put together our last summer event this weekend. Friday and Saturday we'll be busy with that, then we have to switch gears very quickly and get the party ready on Sunday.

So Many Assholes, So Little Time

My boss, Todd, and I spent yesterday morning in a very heated meeting. The owner of Hot Boat Magazine and a client of ours who owns a shop called Absolute Speed and Marine.
We yelled the entire time we were there. An hour and a half of the 'f' word and pieces of documents proving that these people had been lying to us for the past 6 months. At first they lied and said, "Hey, none of this is true," but then we pulled out our proof and they got pissed that we were basically proving them to be a-holes.
We run a very kick-back business. We do all our deals on handshakes and lunch meetings. Most of the events we pull off are easy enough at this point that we can do it all with our hands tied behind our backs. But that's not because the work itself is easy, we just know what we're doing and we've trained the staff to know what they're doing.

One of our proudest events is a HUGE poker run in October, with enormous colorful boats driven by very rich people. These a-holes that we met yesterday are involved in that event to an extent, and this year they decided that they would go behind our backs and make the event their own. And they figured that we would just roll over and go, "Okay, you guys take this one over, since we're busy with other things." They didn't take into consideration that the Coast Guard only issues one permit for something like this, and it's already been issued to us. So once these dirtbags found out, they panicked. They thought, "Well, we're going to have to buy that permit from Jokers Wild." (that's us) Well, it's not like a liquor license, you can't buy it. The permit is our guarantee to the Coast Guard that we're going to have a safe event run in accordance with all the laws. People get killed at some of the big poker runs because these big boats race each other and do stupid things.
So we walked into the meeting with guns blazing. We won in the end, because we had enough leverage to shut them down. Very strange feeling, having leverage.

All week long, our phones have been ringing with people calling to tell us what they'd heard about all the drama. We were exhausted and felt beat up. Today, we're still exhausted but we have a very complex event to run this weekend and we gotta get ready for it.

Meanwhile, my baby Shay is getting packed for Hawaii. His dad and the future step-witch are going on vacation and taking him with them. He's excited, which is cool. I'm glad he gets to go because he has been a good little angel for quite some time and he deserves a nice break.

I'm getting last minute details together for Steve's birthday, and it all seems to be coming together nicely. I'll handle the catering today, and hopefully I'll find some tables and chairs to accommodate 60 people. I think I know where I can borrow them, I'm just not looking forward to being the one picking them up and setting them up. Yikes.

Sharing my Man

Kinda happy, because my small group of friends actually got to spend a little time with Steve on Sunday. I only have a few close friends, well only two really, but there were some extended friends who were there, as well.
Steve is like the mystery man to these people, because he is busy when I'm with them, so they know this much:
He is almost 50,
He works at the airport,
He's busy,
And he lets me go out and do my own thing whenever I want.


Steve goes to bed at 9pm sharp, so if I'm out with friends at the night club he's at home asleep.

And if I'm working an event and my friends are there just to enjoy the party, they never see Steve because he's usually busy when I'm working.

We went for a motorcycle ride to a ghost town/mining town called Oatman on Sunday, and Steve rode his boss's custom red Budweiser Harley trike, with me on the back.
Hilarious looking. HUGE. Fast. Loud. We were joined by a small convoy of friends who have never really even met him. So, they got to know him a little, and I think they were impressed. Nice ride, too.

Just Busy, That's All

Had a regatta this past weekend, and that takes up about 40 hours of work in 2 1/2 days. I wore a new red cocktail dress for the banquet on Saturday night, and got nothing but compliments! Very cool.
I'll put the link up once our photographer gets them ready.

We went to this year's firt parent teacher conference for Shay, and he's doing very well. The teacher had only one complaint, his handwriting. So, we get to work on that, with a handy little workbook.

Steve went dragracing while I worked over the weekend, and won all six races he ran. He was in heaven, showing off.
I noticed his flourescent green cane that I made him for Christmas is getting scuffed and chipped, so I bought a new cane to be powder coated today. I suppose I'll try to match the color of his drag racer, and then give it to him on his B-day.

That's all the new news for now.....

The OTHER Thornton

Just got back from an American Cancer Society conference in Reno, Nevada. It's right where they're looking for Steve Fossett's plane (remains....let's not kid ourselves)

Anyway, the conference was AMAZING. I gained a lot of knowledge but more importantly I got inspired and motivated. It wasn't a love fest or anything, but a chance for people to share their stories and most often it was something that made you want to cry. Or sob, really.

Since I took over the Lake Havasu Relay For Life, we have almost tripled our money raised for cancer research. I was amazed to hear that out of the several thousand people at this conference, some of them had actually heard about our success and they approached me to congratulate me! What really meant the most, though, was being thanked by the researchers and cancer patients who were benefitting from the fundraising. Very touching.

The man who started the whole Relay For Life thing back in 1985 is a colorectal surgeon named Dr. Gordon Klatt. He's kind of like John Lennon to us fundraisers because he did something that truly changed the world. The Relay For Life events annually raise $100 million + each year and it all gets used for reasearching a cure for cancer. So this guy is a demi-god to us.

They surprised us all with a visit from Dr. Klatt, first thing Saturday morning.

A huge ballroom full of about 2,000 people (mostly volunteers like me) just stood in shock that this guy was actually onstage in front of us. I'd held it together all week but seeing him just made the tears roll. Truly an angel.

This was the morning following my Billy Bob adventure. Oh, let me explain! As I perused the entertainment ads for the hotel we were staying at, I noticed Heart was playing on Friday night. Yeah!! Rock ON!! I planned on buying a ticket ($60, ouch) until I saw that Billy Bob Thornton was performing onstage poolside, the same night. And it wouldn't cost me a dime because "Ladies" were free. I went and it was awesome. I didn't even know he sang! He has a great band, they play everything from country to really hard rock. What shocked me was how skinny and tiny that man was. He is probably 5'3", if he's lucky. And 100 pounds, soaking wet. He and I made eye contact a couple of times, as he was checking out all the chicks standing near the stage during his performance. Made me uncomfortable, like I was being sized up.

The concert ended around midnight, and I happily went to my room to wait for my ears to recover. The next morning everyone was talking about Patrick Swayze. Huh? Apparently he was in the pool area enjoying the concert. I couldn't figure out how I could've missed him, until I was told he was a tiny little man, too!! Little tiny guy with big, fake looking hair. And he was drunk. DAMMIT!!!!! That would've been an awesome, yet funny picture for Myspace....

I did buy one of Billy Bob's cd's that was actually autographed, so that's cool. I also talked with a gentleman who was Billy Bob's attorney, and he gave me the phone number to his manager. So, if I can manage to get a nice venue I could likely set up a concert with ol' Billy Bob. Cool!

The picture up top is what my crappy camera got at the concert. Man, it's time for a new one.

Barbie World

I wish this were mine, but it's not. My boss owns a Black Rhino store, (as well as being an Events Promoter) which customizes Yamaha Rhinos and sells them for a very pretty price.
We took this one out for a photo shoot, so we can put it on the website and brochures.
The while roll cage is actually sparkly, it shimmers in the sun!!
Oh, by the way, we HAD to park it in the shade because it was 120 degrees today. Ug.