April showers
Each year to celebrate Scott's birthday, IPI has me working to plan, promote and organize our largest annual event, and I usually am not in Texas to say happy birthday to Scott.
Seriously, it's just poor luck that "World Intellectual Property Day" falls on Scott's birthday and IPI happens to prioritize IP as one of its key policy issues. This year is IPI's 5th annual World IP Day event, and they've even tacked on an evening reception at the Capitol after the conclusion of the all-day policy forum.
In addition to my other responsibilities to plan, promote and organize the two events on the same day, they also asked if I could invite the ambassadors of the embassies who have officials already planning to be there. So far, I received a yes from the Ambassador of Fiji and a maybe from the Ambassador of Thailand. The Thai ambassador would actually be monumental, to tell the truth, because Thailand has been egregiously in the red with the US when it comes to IP rights. (Google 'compulsory licensing' sometime.) The attache told me on the phone she's highly interested in changing the ambassador's schedule to get him to the reception to offer remarks, since IP is an 'important' issue 'Thailand is working hard on to correct.'
Anyway, my poor hubby has to endure me working late nights throughout the month of April, being stressed out and exhausted, and usually quite pissy.
Plus, PEO has its state convention here in Fort Worth the same week as this DC trip, and not only has my chapter worked to plan the concluding evening banquet, but asked me to secure the keynote speaker and now sit with him at the head table and introduce him to the crowd of 700 folks The keynote speaker is Mark Davis of WBAP.
I'm *just* a little on edge.
So April is always tough. However, I think I'm getting used to it, because the planning process for this particular function seems to be going much more smoothly as compared to previous years.
In fact, those of us who were in the office yesterday took the time to have a little birthday party for my boss. Tom had lamented how he couldn't partake of one his favorite treats while in Tanzania-- fresh coconut-- because he had to avoid any food that was potentially tainted by bad water or handled by folks who didn't have clean hands. So I made him some, which was a big learning experience.
Betty brought in a key lime pie, plus a pizza, and Mark, Betty, Tom and I just sat around for about two hours and ate and talked and relaxed. Tom seemed very impressed about the coconut. We all talked about travel-- and when Tom mentioned he recently got half off his stay in Orlando for agreeing to a sales pitch about Marriott time shares, I asked a lot of questions about ways to get discounts on travel like that, since Scott and I would love to travel but our money goes to higher priority stuff for now-- house fixes and debt repayment.
Tom later came into my office, sat down and said he had 800,000 frequent flyer miles, and he accumulates them much faster than he can use them. He told me if Scott and I ever want to go somewhere and use mileage for the flight and hotel, let him know and he'll just transfer the miles to my AAdvantage account. He said, "Seriously. Have fun. Go places together. Find a deal, let me know, and enjoy it."
So Scott and I are in the process of trying to find somewhere we can go using only miles for the hotel and flights. On AA, you can book a vacation and it says you can redeem miles for everything, but I looked at a few places and it would still make you pay, like $1,000 on top of 140,000 miles or something. So I'm still fact-finding. But it's still pretty cool.
Seriously, it's just poor luck that "World Intellectual Property Day" falls on Scott's birthday and IPI happens to prioritize IP as one of its key policy issues. This year is IPI's 5th annual World IP Day event, and they've even tacked on an evening reception at the Capitol after the conclusion of the all-day policy forum.
In addition to my other responsibilities to plan, promote and organize the two events on the same day, they also asked if I could invite the ambassadors of the embassies who have officials already planning to be there. So far, I received a yes from the Ambassador of Fiji and a maybe from the Ambassador of Thailand. The Thai ambassador would actually be monumental, to tell the truth, because Thailand has been egregiously in the red with the US when it comes to IP rights. (Google 'compulsory licensing' sometime.) The attache told me on the phone she's highly interested in changing the ambassador's schedule to get him to the reception to offer remarks, since IP is an 'important' issue 'Thailand is working hard on to correct.'
Anyway, my poor hubby has to endure me working late nights throughout the month of April, being stressed out and exhausted, and usually quite pissy.
Plus, PEO has its state convention here in Fort Worth the same week as this DC trip, and not only has my chapter worked to plan the concluding evening banquet, but asked me to secure the keynote speaker and now sit with him at the head table and introduce him to the crowd of 700 folks The keynote speaker is Mark Davis of WBAP.
I'm *just* a little on edge.
So April is always tough. However, I think I'm getting used to it, because the planning process for this particular function seems to be going much more smoothly as compared to previous years.
In fact, those of us who were in the office yesterday took the time to have a little birthday party for my boss. Tom had lamented how he couldn't partake of one his favorite treats while in Tanzania-- fresh coconut-- because he had to avoid any food that was potentially tainted by bad water or handled by folks who didn't have clean hands. So I made him some, which was a big learning experience.
Betty brought in a key lime pie, plus a pizza, and Mark, Betty, Tom and I just sat around for about two hours and ate and talked and relaxed. Tom seemed very impressed about the coconut. We all talked about travel-- and when Tom mentioned he recently got half off his stay in Orlando for agreeing to a sales pitch about Marriott time shares, I asked a lot of questions about ways to get discounts on travel like that, since Scott and I would love to travel but our money goes to higher priority stuff for now-- house fixes and debt repayment.
Tom later came into my office, sat down and said he had 800,000 frequent flyer miles, and he accumulates them much faster than he can use them. He told me if Scott and I ever want to go somewhere and use mileage for the flight and hotel, let him know and he'll just transfer the miles to my AAdvantage account. He said, "Seriously. Have fun. Go places together. Find a deal, let me know, and enjoy it."
So Scott and I are in the process of trying to find somewhere we can go using only miles for the hotel and flights. On AA, you can book a vacation and it says you can redeem miles for everything, but I looked at a few places and it would still make you pay, like $1,000 on top of 140,000 miles or something. So I'm still fact-finding. But it's still pretty cool.