Those aren't pillows!

The trip to Orlando for this year's annual gathering of newspaper marketers from across the country was a reaffirmation of several key points. The industry is in a transition and can no longer survive as the solely monolithic model of the past, newspaper's reach across multiple platforms that include magazines, special sections, stand-alone niche publications, and of course digital, has never been greater. But perhaps the most important truism for me: there is no such thing as over packing when traveling with Pastorino. Four days, three night trip? Better pack for a week. It goes a little something like this...

We had a break between sessions that would allow for a cigar on the ground floor veranda of our hotel room to enjoy the sun. Pasti disappeared to take advantage of the "home court advantage," leaving Tim (newly appointed Mkt'ing mgr) and I to discuss intellectually which sessions we had gotten the most out of, which deteriorated into a discussion on the crop of female funbags this year. Pasti returned and enthusiastically joined the conversation. I resisted my own call of nature for about 20 minutes, allowing the bathroom to air out after Pasti's violations. I gave the room a quick smell test as I approached and decided to go in. Done. As I stand and reassemble, I notice that the back of my drawers were soaked. Damn! I throw a towel on the large pool at the base of the toilet that had somehow escaped my notice. Fasely assuming the puddle was water from the morning shower, I used the hotel-issued blowdryer on them and returned to the patio. "Did you have a leaky colostomy bag?," joked I. "Oh yah, I missed," Pasti answered sheepishly. Ahhhh! It's urine! Quick change ensues. Find out the puddle was actually from an overflow situation that arose from a repeated operation of the flush handle, (as if pumping the handle would somehow quicken the pull and disappearance of the bowl's large and tricky cargo). Feeling slightly better, but not entirely so, even with a "10 parts per million" scenario.

The man is an animal. He seemingly has no alcohol limit, especially when on a vendor's tab. knocking down bourbons, beers, or whatever is put in front of him, and remaining vertical. At least we didn't have a repeat from last year's Crystal Mountain golf trip. I'm still emotionally scarred from that episode. It goes a little something like this...

All day marathon golf on a northern Michigan course. Doesn't get any better than that, right? Anyway, back to the room at the end of the day of golf and large intakes of alcohol, I passed out face first and fully dressed. I wake up a few hours later to take a leak, it's dark. Pasti is in the queen next to me (that's queen "bed"). I go back to sleep. I wake up several hours later. My eyes open, I jump out of the bed and scream, "What the F...!", for Pasti was obliviously snoring away in the same bed. My screaming stirred him. He opened his eyes and looked around in an obvious fog. Giggled something incoherant and went back to his own bed. When questioned the next day, he couldn't remember what happened, but speculated that he went to the bathroom and then collapsed at the first bed he came to, never really conscious or sober enough during that nightly field trip to adequately process where he was.