Hello All,
Fargo was a place that lived up to all I thought it would be. The town smelled bad most of the time, it is ugly, the wind is unrelenting, and the people talk even stranger than they do in Minnesota. The best thing to do is go to the hotel bar, O'Kelly's, where TJ and I were combined younger than any other one person in the joint.
The weather here has improved from horrible to heavenly, it was 81 degrees and sunny today. I can't complain about this because it was my day off, and I went out to Lake Minnetonka, and did some wakeboarding behind a $110,000 Sea Ray 290, and didn't even have to pay for gas. This boat is soon to be owned by a member of the Minnesota Wild, and there were still beer bottles in the boat from his demo, where six members of the team took advantage of the time. The water in the lake is finally warming up to a steaming 71 degrees.
I begin work again tomorrow after my long 1 day weekend, we are going to start setting up for a show that TJ and I are in charge of.
I wish I was at the beach.
Pura Vida,
Casey

One Month Later, "I suppooose?"

A lot has happened in my first month in the harsh Midwest. It seems that when my family was here with me the weather was exactly what the department of Minnesota tourism ordered. The temperature never got above 65 degrees and we saw a speckle of white clouds in a week and a half. Don't let this deceive you, the Midwest is a freakish place. A couple days after Jamie and Rebecca left I was settling in and working 12 hour days. You will find this is pretty standard for the boating season in the marine industry. I had just completed my first half day do to setting up for a show in White Bear, MN, when I decided I needed some supplies from Sam's Club. Let us note it was a beautiful day when I went into the store. As I left the store with my jumbo pack of t.p. and 84 fitness beverages, I noticed a sound to which I was not familiar. This was the worst, most horrible sound you can imagine. So I decided to get in my car and drive home. When I was driving down HGWY 241 through St. Michael, traveling at 55-60 MPH the weather turned from blue and beautiful, to an above ground rendition of Haites. I could no longer see two dashed lines ahead of me and before I knew it my car was now traveling 55-60 MPH a full lane to the left of where I had started. Well of course I immediately start running scenarios through my brain and decide that this was one of the many tornadoes that touched down this day. This was also the day when the town of Hugo got decimated by a tornado.
When I got home and put my car in the garage, I noticed small hail hitting my house, then golf ball hail hitting my house, then softball hail hitting my house. Then all of the sudden, in late May, my street was filled with ice. And then that horrible noise, which I now know to be the tornado sirens began again. It was as if Minnesota was saying welcome, we laugh at hurricanes.
The White Bear boat show we set up and ran went well. I was involved in four radio commercials out on the lake. We worked 10-12 hour days and got some more serious weather in the process.
After we cleaned up the show in White Bear, we were told we were going to go to Missouri for 12 days for a boat sale that was happening nation wide. At this point I was not told that the Kansas City area was the windiest, wettest and most tornado filled place on the planet right now. We will get to that show.
I had just finished returning my last boat to the lake after the White bear Show, 1 day before we left for Missouri when a funny thing happened. I was less than a quarter mile from getting back to the store and dropping off the company truck. I was getting my first full day off. I was stopped waiting for a car to turn left. All of the sudden, I heard screeeching brakes, and WHAM!, a semi truck rear-ended me going 45+ Miles an hour. I looked in my mirror, and saw a jack-knifed truck sliding straight for me. I then hit the gas of my smashed F-350 and proceeded down the shoulder until I came to a stop in front of the MarineMax store. A witness pulled up next to me and I sent them into the store to let someone know what just happened. Luckily I was able to walk away and despite the incident, the semi had pulled up right behind me on the shoulder. The enormous, heavy-duty hitches the the company trucks have probably saved my life, and caused some serious damage tot eh semi. The bed of my truck was smashed, the cab dented from the back back, and the driver side rear window broken; which I later found my head caused.
The police showed up withing a minute it felt, and to let you know the state of the semi-driver, I will read the police description;

"Campbell was unshaven and dirty. He said he had been doing pit work all day. He said he had gotten up at 0430 this morning. Campbell said he went to bed around 10:00 last night. He said he got up with the alarm because if he turned it off he would sleep 3 or 4 more hours. Campbell said he had fished all day yesterday which he considered relaxing. He said he had stopped for lunch around 12. He said he was tired today because he has no AC in his truck and it was hot, humid and dusty. Campbell said on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 well rested and 10 very tired he was an 8. "
"The police report states he was Dirty/disheveled, unshaven, eyes watery and tearing, had noticeable body odor, yawned during interview, easily confused, there was a urine bottle present, and so on."
In total there was about 9,000 dollars worth of damage to the MarineMax truck.
Then came Missouri. Other than the raging storms, tornadoes, and people dying, it was not a normal trip at all. I would have to write a novel to get across the horror of this sale and the people who attended. Instead, I will give you prime examples:

The wind, which blew approximately 30 MPH every day, all day, was lifting the 500 hundred pound cement blocks holding the tent down 6 inches of the ground with gusts. The average weight of Bass Pro Shops customers, men and women topped the scales at 325, at least. The average credit turn down rate for an 18,000 dollar boat was 78%. The most common line I heard was " this boat costs more than my house." The average number of teeth for a passer-by was 13. Number of clear meth addicts, who thought the boat made them sexy, and had an eighty year old, disheveled black man driving them, 3. There was a man with a backwards trucker hat, front and back red mullet, red goatie, kid's large wife beater, ripped jean shorts, seven teeth, and work boots, to whom we tried to get a picture but it did not come out. And many, many other things to which my blog does not have enough space or attention span.
After all of this I learned a lot about my business, myself, and troubles that a lot of people go through. Coming home through De Moines, Iowa, the flooding was so bad that a baseball complex no longer had visible dugouts, outfield fences, and the bathrooms were covered with water to the roofs. If you think you have it bad, visit the people who are going through hell in the Midwest right now and think again. If you get a chance to help them out, please do.
I am leaving for Fargo, ND this Thursday and I will write again when I get back.
Pura Vida,
Casey