It’s the national sport of Parking and the IPI is no exception. About 100 folks, many of whom are vendors, ventured to the local links to get in a fast 18 this morning before the show opened. It was a shotgun start with a scramble format. If you don’t know what that means, you probably aren’t interested in this anyway. Suffice it to say that everyone gets to start and finish about the same time and that it makes it more fair and fun for the best and worst of the players.
I spoke to a lot of friends there, I wasn’t able to play cuz I’m back here doing this, but I did get some good conversations and promises for drinks assuming I’m at the right bar at the right time.
John Millet over at Austin Mohawk was telling me that business is good. I asked how he could sell on the west coast when he build his booths in New York. He said that it is strange but not unusual for BIG to install a booth near his office in New York and for him to install one in Southern California near BIG. He also said that a lot of the business is going to homeland security. It’s not unusual for a booth to sell for over 100K. Of course he added, it had a lot of toys in it.
Tim Morris from WPS was standing there and looked at me when the 100K number came up – Heh, can you imagine putting in a bid with a booth that cost one hundred thousand. WOW
Frank DelMonico was there from Laz Parking and we were commiserating about the problems with the meter system in Chicago. He laughed and said that someone had a since of humor. They got the contract on Friday the 13th and had to have a rate increase on April Fool’s Day. He said that they had taken over only four hours when the city started to complain. I’m glad someone in that group kept their sense of humor.
All the regulars were there like Joe Wilson and Mike McNicholas from Federal, Tom Wunk from S and B, Derek Kiley from WPS, Peter Young from Digital Printing, and the normal cast of 1000s that play golf, have fun, and then tell lies about their game for the next year. I didn’t play this year but in years past I have been fortunate to be in a foursome that won an award, that’s of “Most Honest”.
Sigh
JVH
