If you had the chance to attend a seminar featuring iconic American heroes like Michael Phelps, Colin Powell,  Rudy Giuliani, and Zig Ziglar live and in person, would you go?  Heck, I sure would, and I did.  On March 26, 2009 a seminar called “Get Motivated!” came to the Arco Arena in Sacramento, CA.  Although I don’t exactly live in the Sacramento area, I had a free ticket to this event (supposedly a $225 value) so I woke up at 5:30 am to make the drive and attend the seminar.  That’s how interested I was in hearing these titans of American culture speak live.  So what was the experience like?  Before elaborating, let me try to put all of my thoughts into a single sentence:  The “Get Motivated! Business Seminar” was an interesting mix of fantastic public speakers, Christianity, and sophisticated,  irresistible sales pitches to which many succumbed. Read on and I will explain the whole event in detail, paying attention to the fantastic speakers, but more importantly to the impressively clever ways in which this seminar pried into people’s willing, open wallets and made a killing. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the key difficulties in executing an adventure is providing a source of funding.  The classic, modern American formula is to work a regular job that you probably don’t enjoy so that you can earn money and then take a couple of weeks off per year to engage in something you actually do enjoy, i.e. a vacation somewhere nice.  That is a formula that doesn’t work for me; I seek jobs that involve adventure or jobs that offer enough flexibility to engage in frequent excursions.  With these ideals in mind,  I constantly brainstorm ideas for making an income and living the way I want to.  So far in life, I have to admit that I have not totally achieved my ideals, but I’m working on it.  In any case, I’ll relate a recent opportunity that provided for a chance at an adventure and some cash flow assistance too: the inauguration of Barrack Obama.

I knew that I wanted to participate in the historical inauguration of Barack Obama, but the lousy economy had my already lean budget stretched to a breaking point.  Fortunately though, my sister lived in Washington D.C. so I had a place to stay.  And she bought me  plane ticket for Christmas, so there was essentially no excuse to  avoid the journey.  Still, I thought if only I could find some temporary work in D.C., it would be a tremendous financial help.  This is where craigslist came to my rescue.  Looking at ads on craigslist for event related work, I noticed an ad put up by I.A.T.S.E. seeking stagehands to assist with the setup and takedown of inaugural events.  (I.A.T.S.E. = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees).

I should mention that I have no prior stagehand experience, nor have I ever worked for a union of any sort.  I applied for the job anyways, and received an encouraging response from John Brasso, the business agent for the Local 22 faction of I.A.T.S.E.  in Washington D.C.  He basically told me to bring  some handtools and give him a call when I got into town.  I enthusiastically agreed, but realized that I would have to check a piece of luggage in order to bring tools on an airplane.  I hate to fly with anything but a carry on though.  You see, the airlines used to lose your checked luggage for free, but now they want to charge you $15 or more for the service.  Then a thought occurred to me: I could probably use a flat rate box from the post office and mail my tools to Washington D.C.  I investigated this idea and found that all of my tools fit into a $9.70 box (this is a box that ships via first class service anywhere in the continental United States for a set price, regardless of weight).  My tools were at my sister’s house within four days, well ahead of my arrival.  Several days later, when I  flew to Washington D.C. with only carry-on luggage, I avoided the $15 checked bag fee.

I flew to D.C. on Thursday the 15th of January.  During a layover in Las Vegas,  I called John Brasso.  He set me up with some work for 8 a.m. the next morning.  With barely a moment to catch my breath after arriving in D.C., I woke up early on Friday and did my best to navigate the D.C. Metro (public transit) system towards the work location.  Freshly arrived in a new city, chilled and bustling with rush hour commuters, I fumbled a little but made it to the Hinckley Hilton, a nickname given to the particular Hilton hotel where John Hinckley Jr. made an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981.  Once there, I poked around and eventually found the Local 22 stagehands gathered and ready to begin work on the hotel ballroom.

My very first day of work in Washington D.C. as a stagehand was well paid and ridiculously easy.  This being my first union work experience, I was humored to find that virtually every stereotype I have heard of union workers was apparently true.  Our first job that day was to unscrew light bulbs from the ceiling, remove the socket extension, and then screw the light bulbs back in.  We broke into teams of 2, and in one case a team of 3.  Seriously, I am not making this up- it took two or three people to screw in a light bulb.  One person held the 6 foot ladder steady while the other climbed up the ladder, unscrewed the bulb, removed the socket extension, and handed the unneeded extension to the person below.  I couldn’t believe I was getting paid $34 per hour for this, but who was I to complain?  This was the best deal I had ever landed into.  I worked while chatting with some of the veteran stagehands who had a lot of experience and learned that usually the work was more demanding

The next work gig I was offered was a two day stint.  The conditions were stiff, but I couldn’t refuse when I heard the details.  The deal was this: on January 19th, show up at a specified street corner to help set up a float for the AFL-CIO that would be a part of the Inauguration Day parade.  The work hours were 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., and the pay $51 per hour.  Then the next day I was to show up at a different street corner to help dismantle the float and load it back into an awaiting truck.  The hours for the second day were 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., and the pay $68 per hour.  With this kind of money being offered, I would have been a fool to refuse.

I took this gig and showed up both nights with plenty of warm layers.  Although the nighttime temperatures were frigid, I found that if I kept moving and working, I stayed warm enough.  We finished the first night’s work in 4 hours and the second night’s work in 5 hours, but for whatever reason we had a guaranteed 8 hours of pay for each night.  In other words,  a good deal got a whole lot better.   As an added bonus, I got to see the majority of the Inauguration Day parade, minus Obama unfortunately.  It was incredible that we were on the clock starting at 5 pm on Inauguration Day at the rate of $68 per hour and all we did for the first hour of work was to watch the tail end of the parade and wait for our float to show up.  The actual work that night only took 4 hours, so were on our way home by 10 p.m. with a full day’s pay.

The day after Obama’s inauguration, I was back at the Hinckley Hilton, helping to dismantle the lighting and rigging in the main ballroom.  The work was steady but not difficult, but the pay was back to the normal rate of $34 per hour.  I had no problem with that.  Making a steady $34/hour may not set any world records, but for me it is a personal best.  The problem is that the work was not steady.  The day after inauguration, Wednesday, was  a busy work day, but Thursday was a dead end.  The work simply vanished, at least for me.  I really wanted to work more and get ahead a little– the past several months have been lean times.   I put in a phone call to the Local 22 office and I was told that little additional work was available, and any such work would go to the locally based union members with seniority.  I expressed my deep gratitude for the work opportunity and said goodbye, happy to have at least earned something.

During the four days I worked at the inauguration events, I made a couple friends, one of whom directed me to a website that stagehands use to find work gigs.  Searching through the job listings there, I noted that most gigs around the country were offering very modest wages, and most were scheduled to begin during summer anyhow.  It seems the inauguration of Obama provided a rare and brief work opportunity not easily repeated.

In the future I will consider stagehand work as it represents a possible method to earn good money and still have chunks of free time available for other pursuits.  At the same time, I am looking for full time jobs that involve some sort of adventure or interesting dynamic.  I am not afraid of commitment or working hard- I’m afraid of shackling myself to mind numbing drudgery.  The point of this article is not just to tell a story about an interesting experience, but to provide ideas that aim to solve the needs of making a living and  having time to enjoy life too.  The holy grail for me would be a one two punch: a job that allowed time for fun, and a job that was enjoyable itself.  As I continue to investigate possible holy grails, I will discuss those ideas here at Adventure Stories.info.

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States was an event that I was excited to witness. Traveling to Washington D.C. for the event was an adventure in itself, dealing with crowds and road closures, and lots of excitement. These were all things to be expected. What I did not count on was that I would not actually get to see the inauguration.

I had my binoculars, so I figured that even if I was far away, I would still be able to see the historic occasion with my very own eyes. But on the morning of January 20th, 2009, I braved cold weather and a 7:45 am start time to find that even a direct line of sight to the stage was out of the question. I stood with my sister and her friends near the Washington Monument, a considerable distance from the capital building, not really able to make any use of my binoculars. The problem was a large tree that obstructed our line of sight- it was a rare instance where I was wishing for some lumberjack hitmen to parachute in and rain down chainsaw destruction.

From where we stood near the Washington Monumnet, this is what we saw.

With so many people gathered at the U.S. capital to view the inauguration, it was necessary to make use of gigantic, truck mounted flat screen televisions and speaker systems to broadcast the event to the sea of spectators. However, this was not a completely satisfying solution. After all, I was freezing my ass off to stand outdoors and watch TV?! With these considerations in mind,  here is the inevitable question: was it worth it? On balance, I think the answer is yes. Everyone who attended the inauguration got something that those sitting at home missed out on: the magnitude and spirit of the people gathered. The show of solidarity in wishing for a new way forward. This was an election by the people, for the people, and the inauguration was no different.

Some fun facts about the Inauguration event:

• I would guess that most of the people in attendance were 18-50 years old, with most of crowd in the 20-40 bracket.  There were few kids or upper middle aged to elderly people
• The skies were clear, the air frigidly chilled, and a light wind of arctic air never let up:  it was too cold for comfort, but too warm to die.
• when images of Bush appeared on the gigantic television screens, there was some booing. In at least one area of the crowd a chant broke out of “sha na na na…..hey, hey, hey,…..goodbye.”  I should also note that some people standing near me muttered things like “let it go” and “that’s disrespectful” in response to the booing.
• Obama entrepreneurs hawked an amazing variety of paraphernalia- there were Obama t-shirts, bumper stickers, magnets, pins, and hats.  There were earrings with little dangling pictures of Obama.  There were sets of his and hers Obama cologne/perfume.  And there were Obama action figures.
• The warmest place to stand on Inauguration Day was in a port-o-potty.