There it is. The story. This pic is what I was looking for as the silver lining in this waste of 24 hours.
Yesterday, flew to Beverly Hills yesterday to look at a purchase. Called before I left home to the airport to confirm we were on.
“Yes, Mr. Burton. I’ll pick you up at the airport myself.”
Ahead of the 3 pm flight I had a 1 pm presentation. If I stayed home to finish the presentation I would not have had enough time to make it to the airport, and through security to catch the flight. That meant I’d have to go to the airport early and do the presentation from the lounge.
Cool, no problem. Except, before the 1 pm group presentation I also had lead calls at 11 am and noon. Guess that means I’m leaving for the airport around 9 am.
I was tired from the 5 am wake up and wanted to take a nap already. 😆 But, took the kids to school, and off I went.
Now a the airport 4 hours before my flight, the lounge lets you checkin no more than 3 hours before take off. So I found a corner to take the first lead call from.
No show.
Oh well. Wasn’t a big project anyway.
Second lead call.
No show.
I could have stayed home with my wife a little longer. I could have napped.
Not going to let it ruin my day, so I head to the lounge now. Checked in and found one of those soundproof booths to work from. I had 20 minutes left before the presentation. I laid my head down and tried to get a quick nap.
Alarm went off. Presentation time.
Except… the group admin didn’t show.
No way all three appointments fell through. But, they did.
Now I’m frustrated.
I had messaged all three after our scheduled times. First lead call never replied. Second apologized and rescheduled. Group presentation friend apologized and explained something personal came up, so we’ll reschedule.
All good.
Get on the plane, land in California. Get picked up. Super excited for the surprise purchase, so I try to put the day behind me.
Nice drive. Good conversation.
Drive to the place, annnnnnnd… the purchase item isn’t ready. I even called before I left that morning to make sure it was. Well, surprise, they didn’t realize they needed something else for it.
Yay. Flew to California, tired, ornery, missing my family already, for literally no reason.
Catch a ride to the hotel. Called my kids. That didn’t help with me missing them, but love their faces.
Was staying at the Beverly Hilton, and they thought the hotel was cool. Showed them the aquarium in the lobby, the palm trees out the window. Had memories of staying here with Hottie before we had kids, back in 2006 for the Gumball 3000. It’s an exotic car road rally that was in the US for the first time that year. Went from my home in Utah to Vegas, then California.
Came with my former employer in his Lamborghini. There were dudes that flew their multi-million dollar cars over.
I have pics of three jumbo jets that flew across the ocean to do nothing but unload tens and tens of millions of dollars in cars.
One guy rolled his supercar in a canyon during the Europe leg of the race. Bought a new one and had it flown to the states. Landed before he did. 😳
Never seen so much money. Old money. Oil money.
Back to yesterday. Day is done. Aside from working on the plane and in the lounge, accomplished little.
At the hotel, I switched my flight to as early as possible for the morning.
Hello, 4 am.
Still looking for the positive to come of this, I catch an Uber. Nice guy. Tells me how he loves Uber but really wants to be a musician. Says he made it big a few years ago in Mexican music. “I’m famous in Mexican music.” He says.
Continues talking about how he didn’t like the business though, got out to restart and carve his own path, without labels.
Asks what I do.
“Own a marketing agency.”
He gets excited, “No way! I’ve been looking to learn how to market my music.”
I tell him that I couldn’t help him, but know exactly who could. Point him to my friends Adam Ivy and Kristine Mirelle’s social media pages.
That one connection for someone could be all they need to find success, so now I’m feeling slightly better.
Get through security at LAX and hit the lounge. There it is. The win from the trip. This pic with Jordan Matter.
If you don’t have kids you probably won’t be familiar with him.
With over 17 million subscribers, him and his daughter are major Youtubers. They film a lot about dance. My daughter is a dancer, and loves them. She was watching them before I left yesterday.
Us both looking like a million bucks at 5am doesn’t even matter. 😆
It’s like the more 💩 an experience is, the more I look for the positive. And, I found it.
Going to blow my daughter’s mind, and that makes this whole trip worth it.
