Saturday, February 20, 2010

what a night

Who: ML, her sister, Mike & I and about 30 more members of our local agricultural society. And many more members from many more ag societies.
What: The Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies Convention
Where: The beautiful Royal York Hotel in Toronto
When: The past two days.
Why: Well why not?

Well this was a convention so there were trades people to meet and greet with on the trades floor. My personal favourite, the wrestler guy who was wearing a kilt and rock hard nipples and not much else. I have to admit it was hard to know where to look. Those nipples were kind of mesmerizing.

I had no real plan to attend any seminars. My plan was to disappear back up to the room and read while Mike attended a seminar or two. Then our secretary pointed out that a social media seminar, focusing on twitter and facebook, was starting in 15 minutes. And I got really excited. To quote "The Oprah" it was an "aha" moment for me. I mean I knew I big red puffy hearted the hell out of social media, but I was dang near giddy about attending a seminar on it. Apparently I uber love social media... who knew?

And the seminar....... meh.... and I say that with all due respect to the guy conducting it. He had a great solid presentation, but it was more for the newcomer to the fantastic world of social media. I'm still glad that I went, because it let me know that I've got my head in the game and a pretty good handle on how to navigate facebook/twitter. Good news, since I started tweeting on behalf of our ag society just this past week.

I have to admit I was surprised to see a lot of older folks in this seminar. I mean ones that looked like they may just have mastered emailing. Based on the questions they were asking, they really didn't "get" social media, especially Twitter, but at least they were there to learn about it. They asked some great getting started questions too.

With our information gathering duties completed it was time to cut loose and have some fun. And that's what we did in true Hangover fashion.

ML threw a pen at our Presidents wife and then attempted to spill her drink in his lap. Luckily he has cat like reflexes and avoided a wet crotch before he headed out to his swanky dinner hosted by a big name amusement company. I'm pretty sure ML wanted to die of embarrassment, but I did what any great friend would do and laughed about it till I dang near peed my pants. And even after all that he still bought the round.

ML & I absconded with Michael's cell phone and proceeded to send about eleventy kabillion texts to the President while he was at his swanky dinner. I'd like to tell you they were all in good taste, but you know... they weren't. Luckily he found us amusing and not giant pains in the ass.

The Royal York is a big old hotel. Very labyrinth like inside. Michael got lost many many many times.

There were lots of ag societies, all with hospitality rooms. Every where we went in the hotel someone was inviting us in and offering us a drink. Loud drunk people were roaming the halls till the wee hours of the morning.

Mike does not appreciate it when you knock on a random hotel room door then take off running down the hall, leaving him the only person in the vicinity of said door. ML, her sister and I found it hysterical.

11 pm found ML, her sister and I riding an elevator with three drunk ladies and the biggest balloon bouquet we had ever seen and that we had asked one of the ladies to steal for us from whatever floor we had picked them upon. We wedged half of them inside our hotel room and closed the door so the rest were in the hall. Then we laughed till we couldn't breathe

You may wonder why we did that.... well it was just for Mike. He's gone down to the street to have a cigar with a buddy. Since he kept getting lost we wanted to make the door easy to find. He did not find it as amusing as we did.

Mike had a celebrity sighting while down having his stogie.... John Malkovich was staying at the hotel and passed Mike in the lobby.

Today we got a late check out time, Mike headed for the hockey hall of fame and us ladies swam, hot tubbed, steam roomed and saunaed. Then we headed for the mecca of sales, Honest Ed's, where Mike got a dress shirt for $1.99 and a long sleeved t for $1.49 and then it was finally time to head for home.

My batteries were low (and are recharging now) so I didn't get many pictures, but oh boy I'll remember this weekend for a very long time. I can't wait to go again next year.

3 comments:

Merry said...

Sounds like you had an awesome time! Hopefully you'll get to do it again soon!

WIDNEY WOMAN said...

Ah, Honest Ed's. I'd forgotten about that store. Is it as old and packed full of useless stuff as I remember from my childhood? I remember wanting everything I saw and thinking it was the most amazing store. Until I grew up. LOL!!

Sounds like you ladies had an absolute blast!!

Shan said...

Merry - Well Mike will be our ag society president next year, so we'll definitely be at convention. Us ladies were talking about a girls night away in the future though.

WW - Oh it's old and it's packed, but not all useless stuff. The kitchen section is pretty great. I picked up some brand name toiletries for a song. A couple of beanie babies I tucked away for the girls for Easter. Current ones too. Maya's going to go nuts for her little Kai Lan doll. Best part... there was a wedding party in there taking pictures, somewhere in the store I guess. We lost them in the maze.