Greatest Hits, Volume II

Picking up were I left off yesterday…

5. Script Reads - Los Angeles, CA
So what are you supposed to do when your clients comes to you and says that they really need you to fly to Los Angeles with a couple members of your creative crew to read some scripts for upcoming movies? You book your travel within five minutes of the call. A two day trip included stops on the Paramount and Fox lots for a read through and sneak peak of the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Transformers movies. While outwardly trying to maintain professional composure, my inner geek was giggling like a little boy.

4. Letterman Digital Arts Center - San Francisco, CA
As I was walking the halls of George Lucas’ LDAC with one of my creative directors — both of us desperately trying to maintain our cool — he turned to me and said the only words that could summarize the experience: “everything cool that I ever cherished in my childhood was created by these people.” Turn one corner and you’ll see Yoda’s light saber. Turn another and you’re face to face with the animatronic puppet of Slimer from Ghostbusters movies. One more and you’re walking down a hallway lined with matte paintings from everything like Die Hard to Star Wars to Jurassic Park. I think my chin still has the marks on it from dragging along the floor that entire day.

3. Monday Night Football - Green Bay, WI
With the recent announcement of Brett Favre’s retirement, I will always be grateful for the fact that I got to see him play at Lambeau Field on Monday night not just once, but twice in one season. Though a diehard Chiefs Fan, experiencing Lambeau and the Packer faithful firsthand was amazing. Football at its finest.

2. “Love” - Las Vegas, NV
Part of the same boondoggle I wrote about in #8, this experience warrants its own special mention. The night before the conference was to kick off, we went to this Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage. As a Beatles freak (which I should probably spell with a capital “F”), the experience was incredible.

1. International Kids Conference - Edinburgh, Scotland
As you can imagine from this entire list, I do travel for my job a fair amount. Sometimes this is pretty tough on my family. However, I’m blessed to be married to an amazing woman that holds down the fort with grace and tenacity. I would never, ever say that it’s easy for her, though. So when the chance to bring her along on a trip like this came up, we jumped at it. We spent three days in Edinburgh before the conference, the missus tooled around town the days I was in sessions and we had another day on the back end of it all. The promise we made to each other at the end was that this would be one of the first of many international trips that we would take together…and that my job shouldn’t be the impetus for us to travel. That, I believe, is a promise that we will certainly keep.

So that’s it.

I’ve noticed that as I get closer and closer to the top of the list, my ability to describe my experiences has gotten tougher and tougher. I suppose that’s what makes them so special, so memorable: it’s when the imprint of the experience transcends words. I would have never thought that my career would be an opportunity to do so many cool and wonderful things.

As I move on to the next chapter, I really hope that will continue.