Marshall Yard:

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of driving down to McCormick Place with some of my favorite co-workers. The cast for the drive included Midnight Michigan, senior designer; Sasha Grove, manager extrordinaire; and Linda Railroad, working the oldest profession, sales. Update: I’ve finally received permission to clarify the origin of my coworkers’ names. These are porn names: Derived by the combination of our first pet’s name with the first street name that we remember living on (I will continue utilizing my McCormick Place psuedonym, since “Lucy Barton” makes for gender-confused blogging). With this crew, it’s always guaranteed to be quite a trip. The RSNA trade show was in day 3 of exhibit set-up, so let’s recap the day’s events:

When we realized that walking would have taken us over 17 hours that we decided to drive. Linda’s directions were denounced as “the long way.” Commute time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. We covered a lot of conversational ground on the way downtown: Trade show exhibit booths, obviously; how-to-drown skunks and other suburban pests; approved alternatives to watching football over the Thanksgiving holiday; and, finally, the potential drayage costs of parking on the convention center floor, versus the parking garage ($8,000 versus $15).

After arriving, we had a very stimulating time previewing the RSNA show. The Siemens rental exhibit booth is, as expected, surreal and impressive. Midnight seemed very pleased at seeing his 3-d renderings put into corporeal existance.

Other highlights from the trade show floor: One of our competitors, expected to fold within months, builds out one of their last exhibits; and our biggest “competitor” freaks out when we walk around their largest client’s booth. Name badges and company insignia can be quite intimidating, it seems. As innovators in the rental exhibit booth business, we were pleased to see them doing a mediocre job of imitating our custom rental system (ours utilizes custom built components that… well, just go to the website). They can try to imitate, but you can’t beat the real thing.

We took my way home (2 hour drive). It was a far more scenic route, and the subject matter was far less appropriate. Drowning dogs, Linda Railroad taking the “Midnight train,” and things got worse from there. H.R. will be busy sorting out who said what!

Kevin came back early from his weekend home because he was “DEPRESSED” as Lauren put it…she brought him back to the hustle and bustle of the exhibit house chaos, but seriously, as we sit here this evening watching Crossroads, I think it is all about the music…mind you Lauren, he is from Mississippi and likes to hear the blues and not rap music.  You all know my feelings about  Stevie, well, Kevin feels that way about Ry Cooder’s blues.  

That swampy sound of the slide guitar has Kevin in a twist, down with those snakes and alligators, he feels right at home! Can a turtle get depressed, I actually have to agree with Lauren, yes, I think they can.  Let me tell you, I have brought Kevin home now for several weekends, and his little trade show exhibit mascot spirit seems to be taking a beating. Initially I thought that it would be good for the little fellow, but he just seems to sink himself deep in the water and not even the meanest of blues tunes brings him out to feed in front of his weekend collegues.

I thought I was doing Kevin a favor bringing him home on weekends, for the heat lamp and the feeding, but heck, if it is going to get this boy singing the blues, I ’spose it is best to leave him be. I noticed the fact as well as Lauren that he sat himself in the deep blue sea of the aquarium that I bought him that he is not quite as active in his weekend environment.  I can truly hear Kevin quoting Crossroads characters, “if you are going to be a janitor..mop my room.” 

Well, we get back to the Janitor..and I have visions of walking around the ISSA trade show, and thinking oh my gosh, how many more exhibits with bathrooms and toilets, and toilet paper, or fuffy smelly good stuff can I see, the answer to that, unless you are in the exhibit house business, or in the janitorial supply rep business, you can never imagine…and let me tell you, urinal cakes, make and extremely funny gag gift.