Arriving in Orlando

As Jennipher mentioned in an earlier blog, we all made it here to Orlando, but not without some drama.


I got to the Club Industry East reception with about a half-hour to spare Wednesday night. That's because I was on the tarmac at the Orlando Airport for about an hour after we landed as we waited for lightning to pass over the area. Apparently, the airport folks don't want their baggage handlers to get jolted while shoveling luggage full of undies and deodorant around. It was bad enough I had the Clampett clan in front, next to and in back of me (they were actually nice people), but it was even more discouraging to have a Jethro three rows back who wouldn't shut up. "If we don't get off this plane in 10-15 minutes, these kids are going to have a conniption fit," the man said with his young kids near him. I think it was the dad who was having the conniption fit.


Pam, our editor, told us at Wednesday night's reception that she was on the same flight as Frank White, a former second baseman for the Kansas City Royals (my hometown team), who now works in the Royals' front office. This might not mean a lot to you, but I've met Frank several times, and he was part of a book I wrote about a league that helped him get to the big leagues. I told Pam that had she approached him on the plane, she shoud have name-dropped me to him. Yes, I'm that famous.


Frank was on his way to the Major League Baseball draft, which is being held here in Orlando at Disney's Wide World of Sports. Knowing this prior to our trip, I actually put the following item down on my itinerary, which I gave to Jenn and Pam:


Thursday, 2 p.m. - Stu escapes show floor to watch Major League Baseball draft in person; gets on TV by storming the stage and yelling, "Go, Royals!"; embarrasses company; makes ass of self


I don't think that's going to happen.


This morning has been very productive. I sat in on sessions conducted by two of our contributing columnists, Michael Scott Scudder and Sandy Coffman. I thought it would be wise to stick to my own kind in my first Club Industry show. Michael and Sandy were great, and I'll blog about each of them in more detail later.