{"id":31,"date":"2008-03-10T20:03:40","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T20:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/03\/10\/on-the-road-with-the-advantages-show-day-one-from-minneapolis\/"},"modified":"2008-03-10T20:03:40","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T20:03:40","slug":"on-the-road-with-the-advantages-show-day-one-from-minneapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/2008\/03\/10\/on-the-road-with-the-advantages-show-day-one-from-minneapolis\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Road with the Advantages Show — Day One from Minneapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi from the Twin Cities!<\/p>\n

This\u00a0is the first day of the Advantages traveling show, which will take me\u00a0from Minneapolis today to Des Moines, Omaha,\u00a0Kansas City and St. Louis.
\n
\nThis is\u00a0the first road show I’ve ever done and am already loving getting to spend time with some awesome suppliers I don’t normally get to hang out with like Eddie Roth from Aunt Beth’s Cookie Keepers (who is a CHARACTER!!!), Tom Vann (aka “Tommy T-shirt”), president\/CEO of Target Graphics, Mike Contreras from Perfect Line, Harry Fotopoulous from Custom HBC Corp. and Sydra Newell from\u00a0SnugZ, who was looking forward to working on the four-hour bus ride\u00a0to Des Moines. She would like you all to know that I am the Devil, because I have stocked the bus with various types of alcohol so we can all enjoy road sodas. I have explained to Sydra that a glass of water is a perfectly good waste of a tumbler.<\/p>\n

Having never been on a road show, I was surprised by the packed crowds this morning as the show drew more than 200 distributors from the Twin City area. Suppliers were happy with the attendance and are now tearing down for the next stop.<\/p>\n

More from the road and on to Des Moines!!!\u00a0Hilarity is right around the corner, with pandemonium just around the bend. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n

— Michele<\/p>\n


\nHalls & Co.’s Eric & Connie Johnson and I at the Twin City Grille last night in the Mall of America. You gotta love a restaurant that has a Wall of Wine.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n


\nHaving never been to the famed Mall of America, I was amazed by the sight of an amusement park in the center of the complex. I went over today and rode the rollercoaster — as if my life wasn’t erratic enough.<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nMy pal Tom Ngo (left), sales & marketing manager for Key-Bak, signed on to do this week of the Advantages Roadshow to hang out with me and keep me out of trouble. The consensus is that he’ll have his hands full. Harry Fotopoulos, regional sales manager for Custom HBC Corp. is a new friend who revels in his Greek heritage and wants to take me to a Greek Island, which I will happily agree to!<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nClockwise from top: Perfect Line’s Mike Contreras, Key-Bak’s Tom Ngo, Dreama McDaniel from Expert Performance T, Me, Andrew\u00a0from USK and Andy Townes (of the illustrious Townes family) having cocktails last night at the Holiday Inn bar. Mike Contrares, who is more physically diligent, shall we say, than I am, wants to run fitness and self-defense classes every morning for the suppliers on “tour.” He believes that people should treat their bodies like temples… having treated mine with Dionysian decadence, I’ve offered to be the water girl.<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nAndy Townes, here helping Nick DiNicola — who runs the Advantages road shows — keep everything going smoothly, hangs at the bar with Tom Vann, president\/CEO of Target Graphics. And yes, tequila shots were involved…<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe Advantages road show drew over 200 distributors to the Holiday Inn in Minneapolis, on the first day of the five-city tour.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi from the Twin Cities! This\u00a0is the first day of the Advantages traveling show, which will take me\u00a0from Minneapolis today to Des Moines, Omaha,\u00a0Kansas City and St. Louis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","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=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bellwether-asicentral.com\/bellblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}