Dress Shoes

 

Photo by Chris Hunt. No, really, Chris Hunt took this picture!
(He said perhaps he could get a photo credit on the blog.
So here we are.)

I went to my niece's wedding near Storrs -- yes, as in UConn -- a few years ago. 

At that time, I still had a pair of flat-front black dress shoes from Kenneth Cole. Nice shoes (back in, say, 2006). But also very unflexible.

The thing is, I have had a lifetime of foot issues, basically because my feet are flat. I believe it was 1980 when I learned that tidbit and my parents were basically told that it behoove me to not have cheap quality shoes.

So, while the Cole shoes were nice, they weren't comfortable.

Thus, on the day of my niece's wedding, I stopped at DSW and Danbury and emerged with a pair of black Florsheims. 

They're comfortable. Much more.

But, not for 13 hours.

And that brings me to today. Oh, the alarm went off at 4 a.m. But first, my eyes opened at 2:21.

No, it was not a good night of sleep. So I grabbed every last wink I could possibly get before ambling to the quiet Greenwich train station.

Solid advice. Especially when the mics work! 

I walked into the Harvard Club in Manhattan around 6:20.

Mike and Erik were already there. Walker walked in with me. Cody and Bogdan came in just after us and Drew rounded out the early crew.

Chris and Scott made us a full team.

I've told you about the Hunt Scanlon conferences before. There is a rhythm; a routine. 

Train. Exhaustion. Prepare the room. Prepare the registration area. Breakfast. Greet attendees. Coffee. Talk. Introduce. Monitor time. Talk more. Breaks. Lunch. Talk lots more. Be a nag about keeping things on time. Say goodnight. Go to cocktail hour. Take train home on fumes.

There are jokes and topics we'll hit among us virtually every time. My screwing up Scott Scanlon's name once was not among them, even though I considered using the joke myself in the body of the speech. But we talk baseball, other sports, someone brings up the blog and the cat, we talk about Mike Hawkins' impending child, and so on.

A rhythm.

As a moderator I have to be aggressive at times, talking over the crowd when they simply don't want to stop talking. And so I did, even going so far as to gently chide them. Purely teasing but it worked.

Harvard Hall following the conclusion of the conference

Oh, and tech issues. I mean, I know plenty about those, don't I? Heck, even my microphone didn't work at one point. But -- take it from me -- no matter how frustrating it is for you as the user, it's that much worse for the audio people, who expect everything to be perfect.

I normally want to crawl into a hole in that spot.

But we got through it as we always do.

The reviews were so kind and I felt like I wasn't worthy of them today. That being said, I kept things on time, delivered every piece of speech, and quarterbacked the day from the podium. So I guess I did my job and I should not worry about it.

The walk to Grand Central across 44th Street is always great because the conference is complete and we feel proud of the day. Then comes a long slog of a train ride.

Then the walk home. Perhaps the longest walk of all. Why?

Because my feet hurt.

I got home around 6:15 tonight.

A long conference day in the books once again.

Now we gear up for London next month.

The Hunt Scanlon team (photo contributed by Chris Hunt)
Back: Erik, Bogdan, Walker, Talking Guy, Cody
Front: Chris, Scott, Mike, Drew