Convene

I just got back from a convention in Miami, Florida. People from all over the country came together--The people from Texas tend to get drunk and go crazy, and the people from stuffy places like New England like to bunch together, watch them have fun, and look down their noses at them while wagging a critical finger.

One really neat thing that happened was that I got a chance to play golf on a beautiful, insanely expensive course which I would otherwise never play on. Then...I found out that I was going to be playing with a VIP from the convention--a Japanese executive from my company. It was a little unnerving to think that I would subject a stranger to my wacky, manic-depressive golf game which consists of glimpses of talent interspersed with hilarious outtake-style "whiffs" and mis-hit shots. I read Pete Dexter's novel Train (warning: this is a pretty rough book), but one of the characters is a golf caddy who observes that the one or two good shots that a golfer makes each round keeps them delusional that they are actually a good golfer...

It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable golf outings I have ever had--the VIP, the president of the company I work for, warmed up to me after a couple of holes and I guess he must be used to star-struck underlings in his presence, because he seemed to put everyone at ease. He was a great golfer, too. Since he spoke only "some" English, there was another Japanese guy riding in the cart with me who helped with translation, and we had a great time talking to each other.

It is common for Japanese branches of our corporation to send their employees to the states for several years--they leave their families during that time and live in apartments, focusing on work. The guy I was riding around with was in the middle of that process. He said "I miss my daughter....My wife--I don't miss her as much! Maybe I start another family in the US..." I must have looked horrified, because he quickly smiled and said "I'm kidding".

Hmmmm.

At one point, I hit a 275-yard smash beautifully into the middle of the fairway--the VIP exclaimed "Oh, Mike! You hit very good shot!" and came over and gave me one of those close-fisted high five things--a little awkward...At the end of our round, the VIP came up to me and said, very seriously, "Mike...You exercise golf more." I think he either wants me to lose weight or practice my putting.

There's a pretty funny phenomenon at these conventions--the first night, everyone seems to go out and stay up late. The next night people tend to recover and go to sleep a little earlier--then the next night, craziness again--if you graph out the Party Intensity over time, it would look like a sine wave.

There I was on night one, sitting at a table with people I see once a year--once you engage someone in conversation and ask them a couple of questions about how things are going for them, you either get into a deep philosophical talk about something random, or you end up talking about the finer points of work for hours at a time. I had a nice drink and someone passed out nice cigars (I think being in the general vicinity of Cuba put some people in the mood). I may smoke one cigar a year, and I always time it so I have at least a couple of days to recover and get rid of all traces of cigar by the time I get home. I felt like one of the miscreants in Pinnocchio who turns into a donkey. One of the characters, Lampwick, draws on a cigar deeply before hitting a pool shot and sprouting donkey ears--this mental image always makes me self-conscious when I enjoy my annual cigar...