Sorta Like Christmas

I spent the better part of yesterday unpacking from last year's tradeshows. You can't say I'm not on top of things given that the tradeshows ended in October last year! But in truth, between the broken leg and then coming back from the shows and being so (blessedly) busy with orders, my better half and I just put the boxes into their storage spot and let them be.

With some warm weather predicted and a mini-tradeshow next weekend (more on that later), I figured now was the time to get my stuff out of the storage area and try to clean it up/get it ready for this year's foray into the tradeshow madness. So with the 60's folk rock blasting (can you legitemately blast folk rock music?), I spent all day yesterday unpacking boxes and going "Oh wow - so this is where that was!" Apparently packing up boxes at the end of a tradeshow while under the influence of some substantial pain killers makes for a really interesting packing job and it really was like Christmas with all the goodies I found or had forgotten about.

Last year at one of the tradeshows I noticed that a company had packed all of their materials into giant Rubbermaid containers rather than boxes and then loaded them up onto their pallet. This, I realized, was a brilliant idea as the tupperware is a bit more sturdy then the boxes and most likely has a longer usable life. After two shows the boxes just start to go to pieces with all the opening/closing/packing/unpacking/moving/jostling/banging/etc. So I also hit up my local Storables store (the west coast version of the Container Store) and picked up a couple of those which everything is now neatly packed into.

I'm guessing that this year I'm going to have about 200lbs of materials headed to the shows. That includes the actual display (for the first time I won't be renting furniture at the shows), flooring (which is required so either must buy and bring or rent for an absurd fee), and then all product as well. Every year my display seems to be getting better and better, but it's also causing me to have to cart around more and more stuff. My first year I just shipped two boxes to a friend in Chicago and called it a day. Course then I also paid $600 just to rent furniture at that show so I figure the $900 I'm going to spend to get my stuff to two shows and back again will have me ahead of the game...I hope.

On a totally unrelated note it's going to be wicked hot here this weekend. Yes, I pulled out my old Boston slang for that one. Wicked! It's supposed to be in the upper-90's which is all well and good for you folks in Atlanta and parts south, but the Pacific Northwest literally does not know how to deal with this type of heat. Mainly because none of us have air conditioners and I don't care how many fans you have going it's still just moving hot air around at that point. Under the auspices that I'm worried about the dogs in this heat, I went out and bought an inflatable kiddie pool. It was on sale and I figure the $23 I spent will be well worth the entertainment value of watching the dogs trying to figure out what the heck this new contraption in their backyard is. Plus, at 97+degrees I may very well end up in there with them - with a margarita in one hand and a book in the other.