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Technology Stocks : NEXTEL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Al Gutkin who wrote (6261)	5/22/1998 9:11:00 AM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10227

...Nextelites: Relax..Another Smart Story. Here's alnother one of my little stories to ease collective jitters. I won't comment on Nextel. Title: Christina's Wrath Get's Smart.. I had an interesting experience during the past three days - Baltimore, DC, Richmond, DC and back home. The plan was to leave Chicago early Monday, get to DC and drive to Baltimore for our first meeting with a large broker dealer. We have this audit trail/compliance product which we are rolling out to the securities industry -does everything from soup to nuts as far as documenting quality service on electronic trades sent anywhere anytime. If the initial interest we are getting is any indication we will be very busy going forward. So I my developer/partner and his family made plans to be in DC with family over the weekend in advance of my arrival Monday. We talk Saturday and I ask how's the weather. "Suffocating, blazing hot!" he says. Getting up early Monday in Chicago I realize how hot our weather was already so I decide to think ahead and keep my suit jacket in my overnight bag, going instead with a comfortable jean shirt. At the airport I decide to check my bag - again didn't want to sweat by lugging it to the gate, etc. Smart idea. Arrive in DC on time. My developer meets me at the gate. We go down to baggage claim. Like clockwork the 10th bag is mine...... Get into their rented minivan with sister in-law two kids - a baby boy and daughter 3 1/2 years old. Crying all the way north to Baltimore. As we drive the subject shifts to some funny travelling experiences we've had. I have so many stories I really need to write them all down in a book. The 12-ft trail of toilet paper that stuck to my shoe in a fancy restaurant - discovered it AFTER I got back to the table of clients from the restroom. The time - in a mad dash in Cleveland - I didn't look at the label on the restroom (the airport was under construction) and found myself changing into more casual clothes for a CUBS game while two ladies entered...... Won't go into any more details. This stuff happens to people like me who are more visual, creative and focused than your typical American Joe. Won't say any more. I did survive Cleveland, however. So we get to Baltimore and I request they drive up to the Hyatt downtown across from the harbor so I could get out, get changed and get on to our meeting. The kids and two sisters were going to the Aquarium and we had our Nextel phones so all this seemed very organized, etc. Got up to the second floor of the hotel and walked a good distance to get into the men's room. Damn the sweat was already starting to gather on my forehead. Hit the big open space of handicap stall and begin unhooking "my" Samsonite ultravalet. What's wrong with this zipper? Why is this piece of steel cording coming out of the corner? Did United run a plane over my bag? Finally got the bag open in one big coordinated tug as I lifted the weight to take the pressure of the zipper. In one fell swoop the bag revealed this pink and white dress, some high heel shoes, etc. etc. .... I closed my eyes, quickly closed the bag instinctively as if I had just dome something wrong. On came the sweat. Being used to these moments I have to take these things in stride. I get out of the restroom, call over to my partner from across the huge second level and notify him that we/I have a problem. Get onto my Nextel phone to my office and begin reading off the label and number of Christina Quinlan's bag and requesting an immediate search for my bag, etc. From that point on I felt as if this Christina-Effect was following me for the story gets richer. Now I had to accept the fact that I had to show up for a very important meeting in my jean shirt. My colleague was dressed very well which only accentuated the contrast. We make the call. I know these people. Great icebreaker, laughs all around. Hey, being able to laugh at yourself is key and I'm very used to it. The meeting went very well and we are now on the road to DC to attempt to get my bag and suit for an even more important meeting with an important government regulatory agency. United can't do anything to confirm my bag's whereabouts without me coming in person. Time is getting away from us. We'll be lucky to make it to the agency so we bag the attempt to get to Regan Nat'l Airport. While in route the two women attempt to find a haberdasher. I take a 37 sleeve, which is tough. I decide to go all the way and show up in this august government body in my jean shirt. We enter the building. Make our way through two-three security check points. The white-shirt and tie ratio is about 98% best as I can tell from a casual scan of the surroundings. I'm feeling like Clint Eastwood, John Wayne. Where's the cowboy hat, damn..... We finally find the right office after going in circles through this maze of confusing offices and numbers. A secretary points us it the direction to a conference room down the hall - we are about 10 minutes late. A group of five government professionals - ALL buttoned up (dresses, white shirts & ties) meet us. I fill into the head spot at the one end of this large square table. After a longer pause than necessary I say to those assembled, "there's a reason why I'm wearing a jean shirt." Told the story. Hit right home. Laughs and cackles. Welcome to DC - a cynical man's paradice where all like to laugh and spend money on the problems of others. That meeting went very well too. On to dinner at Old Ebbitts Grill with two professors who have been working with me. At dinner my Nextel phone rings. Its United. Christina is waiting for her bag. I explain how my schedule was booked all day and that I'd be back with her bag later in the evening. I had this eerie feeling of a women's wrath climbing through the phone. After dinner we schlep out to the airport. I give my business card with an apology note to the attendant which she staples to Christina's claim slip then pick up my bag and leave. Ended up sleeping in the basement familyroom of my colleagues sister-in-law in what is set up to be a massage room for she's a massage therapist. Lots of strange pictures of ancient nudes, candles, beads and devices all around. This massage table/mat is actually on the floor. Very strange aura. Was that Christina on the wall?? I did not sleep a wink all night. Early am. I enter the family room area downstairs only to find my colleague working on his PC with on a live remote connection back to Chicago. I explain the sleepless night. Sit back in this big black leather reclining chair and start fiddling with this glass plate on the in table next to the chair. A few fiddles later the glass plate slips between the metal bars and down comes a glass of water and a big bowl of sunflower seeds. Nothing broke but the water and seeds did take some time to collect and mop up. My developer's wife calls upstairs for everyone to come and get goodies from Startbucks: Latte, Mocha, sticky buns and muffins. I'm dressed in my suit pants - same from the day before only this time I have the jacket - and a white shirt. I'm tired and foggy minded after walking up the stairs. Sit down at this big dining room table and ask which cup is mine. As I'm turning my colleague's Mocha cup one of my fingers catches something and low and behold another disaster... The Mocha cup, as if in slow motion, has crashed landed and a thin sea of this deep brown fluid slithers across the entire dining room table. Several minute streams of Chocolate Mocha are now running through cracks in the table onto a cream colored carpet. Someone throws me a towel which I place on one stream then they retract the idea for it will stain the towel. The best thing I can do is lay down on let these streams just hit my body, back or whatever as I try to mop up with paper towels. Needless to say, my suit pants and shirt are history. Keep in mind, I can still laugh at myself when these things happen. As my developers sister-in-law drives me to the nearest cleaners I said travelling with me is like living in a Chevy Chase movie. She said a film crew should follow me wherever I go. I make reference to Christina's ghost. We laugh and I dart into the cleaners. The drive to Richmond is uneventful. Two meetings - both successful. Then dinner with two clients. Tell my story. We laugh. Toward the end of the meal, I'm fiddling once again as I talk and low and behold this little bottle of cream tips over an cream spreads across the table. We contain it no problem. I'm getting better, but Christina's wrath is still following me. We make the drive back to DC and along the way - using our Nextel phones - I am listening to a very discrete kind of rationalization for how "we might not be able to accommodate Mr. Smart" because of the fact that the massage room table was set up again, etc. etc. I'm don't at all take this negatively and we spend about « hour trying to find a hotel room. Doesn't look good. Entire area is booked due to graduations, etc. I leave my developer and impress upon him to not look at this from my perspective. I will find somewhere to lay my head down, etc. So they would not worry or feel guilty, I strongly recommend he tell his wife and sister-in-law that I DID have a place to stay.. I drive off into the night with my trusty Nextel phone. "Get Smart! Get Nextel.ha, ha, ha, ha!" Is that Christina's voice? After trying more places on my Nextel phone with no luck,. at 9:45 pm I call my professor-friend who is working with me on an Audit Services Consulting practice which we are launching. He picks up and says I'm about « hour away from Falls Church VA. He, too, tries to call a few places with no luck. I've got a place to stay IF I can get there soon. So I get on 395 South which at 10 pm is one HUGE traffic jam because of an accident far ahead. The « hour becomes more like 1 hour. With Nextel I was in touch, however and finally dragged my tired soul into their townhouse. Christina's wrath still seemed to be swirling around me that evening. I did not sleep well at all. The couch was too small for my 6'4" frame. I won't bore the readers of this board any further. I like to write and communicate and have collected dozens of stories like these through the years. If you can't laugh at yourself and life you aren't truly living. It's times like these when we need to keep our composure and look at the bigger picture. Good Luck! Jimmyo, you can collect these for your patrons at the Doolittle Inn. Just beware when I arrive someday. Pack all crystal and china away.