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Playing catch-up...
Mar. 6th, 2003 07:35 amI'm not going to try to recap the past couple of days right now... I'm much too tired. We got home just a little while ago.
We ended up leaving around 10:30 in the morning and it was slow going over Wolf Creek Pass, but once that obstacle was past, the road was pretty much dry, except for a section between Buena Vista and Denver.
That section looked like something out of the Twilight Zone, because a persistent westerly wind would, at certain places, blow streams of snow straight across the road, causing a little mini-snowpack section to appear in the middle of a long, dry stretch.
Amazingly, through the whole trip, we kept catching up with the rest of the crew, who had left Pagosa around 8 am or so. By the time we passed Salida, they had (according to a phone conversation) also just left Salida, although we never saw them in front of us.
In the end, we pulled into the parking garage at the Adams Mark hotel just as Karen and Mike (part of our group) were unloading their car. By the time all of the check-in formalities were finished, it was around 4:30.
We all agreed to meet for dinner and ate in the hotel. ("Big mistake," as an Schwartzenegger character might say.) The service was pretty poor, although the food was edible.
I was impressed by the turnout for the Kiyosaki seminar. The "purple" area (for those who'd shelled out nearly $100) was full, and I'd estimate there were 300 seats there. Of the "cheap seats" (where we were), I'd guess there were around 700 of them, and nearly all of them were taken (at between $50 and $60 a pop, depending on the group size).
Outside the hall, the Forces of Salesdom were busier than one-armed paperhangers selling Rich Dad™ products to the crowd before the seminar, during the break, and afterward (we spent $80).
The seminar had a strong sales theme to it, but I found it educational, too. By "strong sales theme," I mean Kiyosaki made frequent references to products and books that were available for sale.
As usual, Kiyosaki stressed the importance of learning to be financially literate, comparing it to the importance of learning to academically and professionally literate. He also highlighted some major differences in the way that "poor," "middle-class," and "rich" people think (he uses the three groups prototypically).
After the seminar, Kiyosaki (and a number of his advisors, who were along to basically plug their products) stuck around to sign autographs. Galina had the presence of mind to bring along a couple of his books that we'd bought a while back, and I went through the line and got them signed.
Everyone in our little group pretty much dispersed to their respective rooms to put away books, brochures, etc. and then met in the lobby to discuss the prospect of having a late snack. We ended up going down 16th street, which is not exactly a pedestrian mall, since there are special buses traveling along the street in each direction, but pretty close.
We ended up going into a place called the Apaloosa (though I'm not sure of the spelling). The art on the wall was horrid, the rap music coming out of the speakers was degenerate, but we could not generate enough group spirit to leave. The food was reasonable. Galina had a quesadilla and I had a Reuben and a couple of porters.
Our room at the Adams Mark was adequate, but something of a joke. For nearly $160 (which doesn't include tax), we got a closet-sized room with a double bed. I had some trouble finding the room at first, because when I got out on the 7th floor, the rooms off to one side of the elevator banks ranged from 700 to 722, while those off to the other side ranged from 724 to 738.
I figured maybe the sign was wrong, so I set off down the side labeled "724-738," but the sign was correct. When I returned to elevator banks, a small surprise awaited me.
Our room was in the elevator bank area, between an elevator and an alcove containing the ice and vending machines. There was another elevator on the other side of the alcove, and four elevators on the other side of the hall.
For $20 more, I could've had a normal room, and not one where one wall was common to both my room and an elevator shaft. Fortunately, the elevator was pretty quiet (or I was simply too tired to care).
* * * We got up this morning around 8 (which is very late for us). We wandered over to the Starbucks across the street from the hotel around 9 and met some of our group, and we all started to discuss where we were going to go on our way back to Pagosa (although a few of our group were going to stay up in the Denver area for another day or so).
We ended up going out on I-70, turning left on a road whose name I forget, which eventually led us to highway 285, which eventually led us to a spur that took us to Del Norte and onward, toward home. Galina and my conversation over the past 100 miles or so was, um, interesting.
And that's that. We just had a light dinner, fed the animals, and now I'm going to do a fast review of new e-mail and then go upstairs and spend some time with Galina.
Cheers...
We ended up leaving around 10:30 in the morning and it was slow going over Wolf Creek Pass, but once that obstacle was past, the road was pretty much dry, except for a section between Buena Vista and Denver.
That section looked like something out of the Twilight Zone, because a persistent westerly wind would, at certain places, blow streams of snow straight across the road, causing a little mini-snowpack section to appear in the middle of a long, dry stretch.
Amazingly, through the whole trip, we kept catching up with the rest of the crew, who had left Pagosa around 8 am or so. By the time we passed Salida, they had (according to a phone conversation) also just left Salida, although we never saw them in front of us.
In the end, we pulled into the parking garage at the Adams Mark hotel just as Karen and Mike (part of our group) were unloading their car. By the time all of the check-in formalities were finished, it was around 4:30.
We all agreed to meet for dinner and ate in the hotel. ("Big mistake," as an Schwartzenegger character might say.) The service was pretty poor, although the food was edible.
I was impressed by the turnout for the Kiyosaki seminar. The "purple" area (for those who'd shelled out nearly $100) was full, and I'd estimate there were 300 seats there. Of the "cheap seats" (where we were), I'd guess there were around 700 of them, and nearly all of them were taken (at between $50 and $60 a pop, depending on the group size).
Outside the hall, the Forces of Salesdom were busier than one-armed paperhangers selling Rich Dad™ products to the crowd before the seminar, during the break, and afterward (we spent $80).
The seminar had a strong sales theme to it, but I found it educational, too. By "strong sales theme," I mean Kiyosaki made frequent references to products and books that were available for sale.
As usual, Kiyosaki stressed the importance of learning to be financially literate, comparing it to the importance of learning to academically and professionally literate. He also highlighted some major differences in the way that "poor," "middle-class," and "rich" people think (he uses the three groups prototypically).
After the seminar, Kiyosaki (and a number of his advisors, who were along to basically plug their products) stuck around to sign autographs. Galina had the presence of mind to bring along a couple of his books that we'd bought a while back, and I went through the line and got them signed.
Everyone in our little group pretty much dispersed to their respective rooms to put away books, brochures, etc. and then met in the lobby to discuss the prospect of having a late snack. We ended up going down 16th street, which is not exactly a pedestrian mall, since there are special buses traveling along the street in each direction, but pretty close.
We ended up going into a place called the Apaloosa (though I'm not sure of the spelling). The art on the wall was horrid, the rap music coming out of the speakers was degenerate, but we could not generate enough group spirit to leave. The food was reasonable. Galina had a quesadilla and I had a Reuben and a couple of porters.
Our room at the Adams Mark was adequate, but something of a joke. For nearly $160 (which doesn't include tax), we got a closet-sized room with a double bed. I had some trouble finding the room at first, because when I got out on the 7th floor, the rooms off to one side of the elevator banks ranged from 700 to 722, while those off to the other side ranged from 724 to 738.
I figured maybe the sign was wrong, so I set off down the side labeled "724-738," but the sign was correct. When I returned to elevator banks, a small surprise awaited me.
Our room was in the elevator bank area, between an elevator and an alcove containing the ice and vending machines. There was another elevator on the other side of the alcove, and four elevators on the other side of the hall.
For $20 more, I could've had a normal room, and not one where one wall was common to both my room and an elevator shaft. Fortunately, the elevator was pretty quiet (or I was simply too tired to care).
We ended up going out on I-70, turning left on a road whose name I forget, which eventually led us to highway 285, which eventually led us to a spur that took us to Del Norte and onward, toward home. Galina and my conversation over the past 100 miles or so was, um, interesting.
And that's that. We just had a light dinner, fed the animals, and now I'm going to do a fast review of new e-mail and then go upstairs and spend some time with Galina.
Cheers...
