Inadvertant advertising; Interesting air-travel
People have asked why I don't print up one-sheets for The Firflake and distribute them before or after my workshops in the various cities. I do actually believe in being as professional as possible in my job, so I am hesitant to do that -- I think it's a definite conflict of interest. However, if over lunch or dinner or during a break students ask me what I do in my spare time or how I fill my time on the road in cities where I don't already know people (and those questions are about as frequent as other less subtle variations of "doesn't it suck to travel so much") then I have no problem bringing up my writing and the fact that I've been published.
It happened in Omaha. During a break, one of the course coordinators was sending an email to the course participants and some other co-workers instructing them on parking places for the get-together she was hosting at her house Friday night after the workshop was over; I was also invited. She was talking about the limited parking in her area, and I commented (honestly, without thinking about what I was saying) that my sister was going to likely face the same problem when she hosts my second book signing on December 30th.
"Book signing?" Tracey asked with a smile. So of course I had to then tell her about The Firflake. She jotted the title down and then said, "well, why don't I take a look at it right now" and went to Amazon. By this point, the other two course coordinators had wandered over, and all three said nice things about the cover and about what a sweet little story it seemed to be. Before I knew it, Tracy had ordered copies for herself and another person, and Kevin (another coordinator) had ordered 5 (for himself, and for his four kids / nine grandkids). The kicker -- as Tracy was leaving to go to another meeting, she sent me an email with the directions to her house and then mentioned that she had emailed all of the course participants and told them about my book.
I'm still a bit flabberghasted at how that came together, and how between that and Mom Cornue's words to her former bookclub earlier in the week there might be a jump in sales this week.
Very cool.
* * * * *
So I got to Omaha Airport (Eppley Field) at 5am, dropped the car, got my boarding pass, and then waited. The flight was not full, so I was able to somewhat doze on the flight to Houston (after getting only four hours sleep last night) although of course I never really SLEEP on planes, I just become slightly less aware of the passage of time / exactly what's going on around me. We landed in Houston and I had a half-hour window to get to my connecting flight, which of course was in a different concourse.
Those Continental Express flights out of GWB Intercontinental are the kids of flights where you have to got out a door onto the tarmac and then up a rolling set of stairs to the plane. I was the first one in line except for a gentleman in a wheelchair. We all got to watch as they ground crew used something called a "PAL" to get the man on the plane -- basically, he and an attendant walked into one side of the device, which was then locked shut behind them. Another person used a controller to raise the device to the level of the plane's door, and a ramp extended for the man to walk across -- all instead of him having to climb any stairs at all. Very cool. Except that on the way back down, the attendants who had been helping the man got stuck inside when no-one could get the other side to unlatch. It took a few minutes of kicking, but they were eventually set free. Then, of course, the PAL device had to be moved so the real stairs could be rolled into place for the rest of us. The groundsman moving the stairs was struggling -- one of the wheels didn't seem to be moving quite the way it should. When the attendant holding all of us at the door thought he had it in place, she called out to ask if it was okay to send us out. I will not repeat exactly what he said in response, but it was loud, angry, and there was at least one expletive in there, after which he said "I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN IT'S OKAY!!" Then he started to yell at the flight attendant inside the plane. That kind of sudden anger always scares me a little. He finally locked the stairs in place and walked in the opposite direction. Our attendant told me to go ahead, and I looked at her with a smile and said "are you sure? He kinda scares me a little" as I walked out. The flight attendant on the plane welcomed me aboard and I made a joke asking if it was safe or not -- she laughed and said, "yeah, I think he's over it." I did watch though, as he was loading gate-checked luggage and then prepping the tug-car to guide the plane out from the gate -- he was talking to another groundsman and still seemed to be shouting (and not just shouting as you would over the noise of a plane -- he absolutely still had fire in his eyes).
The landing in Dallas was interesting too, with high winds bouncing us around a bit. But land I did -- then go lost on the way to the hotel. But once at the hotel, I got myself cleaned up and popped down here to Fort Worth to meet up with paragraphs so we can write and chat and catch up and gossip about that silly cruentum and his penchant for destroying laptops and how he's using slightly singed fingers as an excuse not to write today. Some people will do anything, even burn a hole through their own laptop monitor with a candle, to get out of writing their thesis. *grin*
C is off driving her son home from his driving lessons (there's something odd about that sentence ...) so I'm here in the Barnes & Noble waiting for her return and posting about all of this. And I just realized the song I hear vaguely playing in the background is that classic ELP (or was it just Greg Lake?) song "(I Believe in) Father Christmas," but with a woman on the vocals. I need to find out who sings this version ... what little I can hear of it sounds nice, and it is one of my favorite Christmas season songs. And since I'm sitting here working on the "Christmas Ghosts" anyway ....
It happened in Omaha. During a break, one of the course coordinators was sending an email to the course participants and some other co-workers instructing them on parking places for the get-together she was hosting at her house Friday night after the workshop was over; I was also invited. She was talking about the limited parking in her area, and I commented (honestly, without thinking about what I was saying) that my sister was going to likely face the same problem when she hosts my second book signing on December 30th.
"Book signing?" Tracey asked with a smile. So of course I had to then tell her about The Firflake. She jotted the title down and then said, "well, why don't I take a look at it right now" and went to Amazon. By this point, the other two course coordinators had wandered over, and all three said nice things about the cover and about what a sweet little story it seemed to be. Before I knew it, Tracy had ordered copies for herself and another person, and Kevin (another coordinator) had ordered 5 (for himself, and for his four kids / nine grandkids). The kicker -- as Tracy was leaving to go to another meeting, she sent me an email with the directions to her house and then mentioned that she had emailed all of the course participants and told them about my book.
I'm still a bit flabberghasted at how that came together, and how between that and Mom Cornue's words to her former bookclub earlier in the week there might be a jump in sales this week.
Very cool.
* * * * *
So I got to Omaha Airport (Eppley Field) at 5am, dropped the car, got my boarding pass, and then waited. The flight was not full, so I was able to somewhat doze on the flight to Houston (after getting only four hours sleep last night) although of course I never really SLEEP on planes, I just become slightly less aware of the passage of time / exactly what's going on around me. We landed in Houston and I had a half-hour window to get to my connecting flight, which of course was in a different concourse.
Those Continental Express flights out of GWB Intercontinental are the kids of flights where you have to got out a door onto the tarmac and then up a rolling set of stairs to the plane. I was the first one in line except for a gentleman in a wheelchair. We all got to watch as they ground crew used something called a "PAL" to get the man on the plane -- basically, he and an attendant walked into one side of the device, which was then locked shut behind them. Another person used a controller to raise the device to the level of the plane's door, and a ramp extended for the man to walk across -- all instead of him having to climb any stairs at all. Very cool. Except that on the way back down, the attendants who had been helping the man got stuck inside when no-one could get the other side to unlatch. It took a few minutes of kicking, but they were eventually set free. Then, of course, the PAL device had to be moved so the real stairs could be rolled into place for the rest of us. The groundsman moving the stairs was struggling -- one of the wheels didn't seem to be moving quite the way it should. When the attendant holding all of us at the door thought he had it in place, she called out to ask if it was okay to send us out. I will not repeat exactly what he said in response, but it was loud, angry, and there was at least one expletive in there, after which he said "I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN IT'S OKAY!!" Then he started to yell at the flight attendant inside the plane. That kind of sudden anger always scares me a little. He finally locked the stairs in place and walked in the opposite direction. Our attendant told me to go ahead, and I looked at her with a smile and said "are you sure? He kinda scares me a little" as I walked out. The flight attendant on the plane welcomed me aboard and I made a joke asking if it was safe or not -- she laughed and said, "yeah, I think he's over it." I did watch though, as he was loading gate-checked luggage and then prepping the tug-car to guide the plane out from the gate -- he was talking to another groundsman and still seemed to be shouting (and not just shouting as you would over the noise of a plane -- he absolutely still had fire in his eyes).
The landing in Dallas was interesting too, with high winds bouncing us around a bit. But land I did -- then go lost on the way to the hotel. But once at the hotel, I got myself cleaned up and popped down here to Fort Worth to meet up with paragraphs so we can write and chat and catch up and gossip about that silly cruentum and his penchant for destroying laptops and how he's using slightly singed fingers as an excuse not to write today. Some people will do anything, even burn a hole through their own laptop monitor with a candle, to get out of writing their thesis. *grin*
C is off driving her son home from his driving lessons (there's something odd about that sentence ...) so I'm here in the Barnes & Noble waiting for her return and posting about all of this. And I just realized the song I hear vaguely playing in the background is that classic ELP (or was it just Greg Lake?) song "(I Believe in) Father Christmas," but with a woman on the vocals. I need to find out who sings this version ... what little I can hear of it sounds nice, and it is one of my favorite Christmas season songs. And since I'm sitting here working on the "Christmas Ghosts" anyway ....