{"id":30,"date":"2008-03-06T14:34:44","date_gmt":"2008-03-06T14:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/03\/06\/ball-of-fire\/"},"modified":"2008-03-06T14:35:48","modified_gmt":"2008-03-06T14:35:48","slug":"ball-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/03\/06\/ball-of-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Ball of Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Everyone —<\/p>\n

Well,\u00a0we celebrated Ron Ball’s 30-year-anniversary with the company in fine\u00a0fashion last week at\u00a0a local bar restaurant called the Black Bull — which is perfect for Ron because\u00a0black’s his color and\u00a0for those of\u00a0us\u00a0who know and love him,\u00a0no one flings\u00a0the bull like Mr. Ball. See below for photos from the evening, and some classic Ron moments…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On Sunday, I’m leaving for my first-ever Advantages Roadshow, this one going through the Midwest and stopping in Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis. The suppliers I’ll be traveling with like Key-Bak’s Tom Ngo and CFS Promotions for Now’s Mark Bruk are planning appropriately and swear to me that the bus we’ll all be riding in from town to town will be stocked with road sodas (translation: cocktails). As I will be blogging — with photos — daily, you’ll all be able to see the rapid deterioration from day one, when I’ll be relatively shiny, happy and perky, to the last day, when I’m predicting I will resemble this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, stay tuned &\u00a0keep in touch next week as I make\u00a0my way through the Midwest with my supplier pals on the Magic Bus. If you’re a distributor, come by one of the shows and say hi; if you’re a liquor store owner, stock up\u00a0on the Grey Goose.<\/p>\n

Ron Ball’s 30th Anniversary Soiree<\/strong><\/p>\n


\nRon Ball and his wife Leslie at the party celebrating Ron’s 30th anniversary with ASI. Though it may be hard to believe, Leslie is a pistol of a character in her own right and the perfect person to keep Mr. Ball in line — a Herculean task if there ever was one.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n


\nManaging editor and star of The Joe Show, Joe Haley demonstrates an activity that many people who know me have wanted to engage in first-hand. He has also, on occasion, tried to duct-tape my big yap shut (usually when I’m on a nagging rant) and used a laser-pointer to zero in on the crow’s feet around my eyes to illustrate the perils of rock star-like partying for our younger staffers. He’s a charmer, that Mr. Haley.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n


\nFrom left: ASI Chairman of the Board Norman Cohn, President\/CEO Tim Andrews, Ron Ball and ASI Vice Chairman Matthew Cohn offer a champagne toast in Ron’s honor.<\/font><\/em> <\/font><\/em><\/p>\n


\nMe and Ron, one of my two “work husbands” (because Lord knows one of anything is never enough in Michele World …), sharing a moment in which I know exactly — and am immensely amused by — what’s holding his gaze.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n


\nRon and I sharing a celebratory kiss for his 30-year anniversary with the company, in a photo taken by Leslie, his wife. After the kiss, Ron and I immediately felt weak-kneed and realized we’d need antibiotics forthwith.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n


\nRon with Tim Andrews, who’s never one to leave a party early. Ron pointed out that in the outfit he’s wearing, he looked like “a priest waiting to hear penance.” Which may, of course, be one of the most disturbing comments ever uttered.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Everyone — Well,\u00a0we celebrated Ron Ball’s 30-year-anniversary with the company in fine\u00a0fashion last week at\u00a0a local bar restaurant called the Black Bull — which is perfect for Ron because\u00a0black’s his color and\u00a0for those of\u00a0us\u00a0who know and love him,\u00a0no one flings\u00a0the bull like Mr. Ball. See below for photos from the evening, and some classic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}