Teddy is Back

I was watching television today and saw that some sort of Teddy Ruxpin lookalike is now on the market from Playskool. Remember Teddy? That lovable little bear that you'd pop a cassette tape into and he'd tell you a story, moving his eyes and mouth? My sister had one when we were little and she loved him. Well, like any mechanical toy, one day he started to malfunction. I can't remember if he wasn't working properly, or if he quit working altogether. Anyhow, my dad (who can fix just about anything) took it upon himself to fix Teddy. Long story short, to get to the actual mechanics of the bear, he had to remove all his fur. That's when we saw another side to Mr. Teddy Ruxpin. He wasn't cute or cuddly at all! He was downright creepy! That talking bear was nothing more than a hunk of metal and wires with two eyeballs and a mouth. He appeared like a mix between the Terminator and Chuckie (actually, Jenny's My Buddy looked a lot more like Chuckie, but that's a story for another day). Dad never did get Teddy back in working condition, but that's wasn't such bad news. After seeing this new and not-so-cute side to the talking bear, we weren't so keen on having him operable anyhow.

Back to Normal

Well, ILC is finally over (it actually ended last Saturday) and with the conclusion of ILC, it seems life is finally getting back to normal. I took yesterday and today off, so my house is clean and my laundry is caught up. The chaos of meeting planning has died down for now, and in a few days I should stop dreaming about this meeting that has been over for nearly a week.

The best news of all is that Chris is home for good and will begin working with his uncle's company again on Monday. Although he's only been working out of town for about eight weeks, it seems more like eight months. He said he doesn't care if he ever sees the inside of a restaurant again; he is quite tired of eating out.

ILC was quite the success overall. Our speakers were a hit, and every session went off without a hitch. There are always unexpected surprises every year, and this one included a last-minute visit by Senator John McCain during one general session. I'll spare you the details of how all that came about, but two days after he announced his bid for the presidency on David Letterman he was on our stage. He spoke for about ten minutes and did talk a bit about politics and the war in Iraq but not too much. None of our attendees had any idea he would be there, and given his celebrity I think most attendees - Republicans and Democrats - were plesantly surprised.

The final awards event finally ended at 11:08 p.m. on Saturday night (that particular event was supposed to end at 9:30). My guess was 10:58 p.m., so I wasn't far off.

The photo above is a pic of my boss, Teresa, and I testing out the mini bobsled run that our founders rode onto the stage on during the opening ceremonies Thursday morning. It was actually quite fun!