My upcoming trip, background...

Okay, sorry to always bring this up, but I hardly ever travel, so being away from home a week has made this trip on Wednesday the foremost thing on my mind... I thought I'd take this first post to describe this history behind this trip.

Since about 1988, my father and I have been managing a book trade show once a year here in the northwest. There are actually two shows, but the Spring show was so much smaller, the organization didn't need our help. The show is a way for independent bookstore owners to congregate and place orders with many different publishing houses all in one weekend. My dad actually was one of the founders of the PNBA Tradeshow--Northwest, since he was a sales rep for Doubleday back then, and there was concern that no tradeshow existed up here. We were primarily responsible for things related to the actual exhibit hall: where the tables and booths would be set up displaying the Christmas book selection. I started helping with the database work, creating mailing lists, and helping assign table space. I eventually graduated up to something of a Floor Manager, where I would troubleshoot space problems and arrange electrical and phone hookups, etc. We were also responsible for shipments of exhibit materials to the show, for which we charged a certain amount for each box. The money from this was used to pay off the storage and shipping costs to the actual exhibit hall, with the leftover cash being used by the two of us to take a trip in late January.

Well, last October, we did what turned out to be our last show. My father is wanting to retire, and I wasn't very interested in doing it anymore either (I'd rather be focusing on music, in fact I missed out on being part of the MTV segment Frogg was in because I had to leave for the book show). So, since we no longer need to fund the next year's show (mailings, etc), we are taking the whole profits from the shipping and using it for this trip.