A Very Special day...

I barely got myself out of bed this morning, I knew I had to be at work at 10 am, which meant I needed to get out of bed by 9 am at the latest. I was meeting Al for a tour at 10 am.

I was major beat up and hungover from last night, I was operating on one brain cell. I got up at 8:30 am and was trying to post my blog for yesterday, I couldn't remember what I did. Then the phone rang, it was Al, he was on the way to my place and more had unfolded with his clients job.

I mentioned to Al I was hungover, like I normally would and we would laugh, there was a pause and a "oh shit" from Al. That's all it took, I snapped out of it, I realized this was serious and Al's money tree was on the line. He had sent a couple of emails that I either saw last night and didn't remember opening or didn't look at them, I couldn't remember.

I looked at them and he needed sample to one of his customers home in 90 minutes and his client hadn't yet made the official decision on where this job was going, they were giving Al until 1 pm to tie up the lose ends. Al was in major concern and serious mode, to put it lightly. He was also dealing with all the receivership bullshit and what that meant to his clients jobs in process and files stored on the servers.

Al came to my house and we left from there, I had to make a quick stop to McDonald's for an egg and sausage Mc Muffin and a coffee. I told myself, not one more word to Al about how I feel and how low of brain cells I'm functioning on, it was game time. I figured we can talk about it AFTER the fires have been put out.

Without going into details, to add gas to the fires, my brother is not handling his dealing with some of the people well. It's not women and children first off the titanic, it's my brother and all the women and kids life jackets. I've been speaking with him a couple times a day, I care about his well being. I can tell he's free falling, he has been for a long time, he has no idea that he's in a maniac state, he has no perspective and the stress has lead him to heavy drinking of late which also adds to the poor judgement.

I couldn't speak to him during the day, in my hungover state I forgot my cell phone at home. It's such a weird feeling not having your cell phone. I've never seen Al in such an extremely concerned state. I really wanted to help him out and was hoping our tour and meeting with the guys from AG would an ideal solution.

We toured my facility and then went to head office. We bypassed lunch and spent the next 4 hours talking. Al unloaded all the stuff he needed. He was a master in action, it was awesome, some of his one liners are legendary. The minute Wayne and Rino met him, I could tell it was a great match of culture and personality. I pretty much sat quite the entire time, I was hurting, but more importantly, I didn't want to spoil the rhythm that Al had going. I was so hungry by the end of the day.

The net result was Al like what he saw and AG took on the job and really wants Al to move all his work over to them. The amazing thing that was based on me, they committed to do a $250,000 job, that they are sending to a web printer and stroking the web printer a $50 K check up front and that's without a credit check or knowing Al from a hole in the ground. It was based on what I told them about Al and the account. It turns out that even with subcontracting the job and matching the pricing, AG is going to do pretty good on the job.

It was a great meeting, I actually learnt more about AG and Wayne and Rino and now it's great having Al know what the players are like so that when I ask him for advice he has a little bit more insight. Al said he can tell they think very highly of me. On the tour, Rino said that they met last night and worked on a compensation proposal that had potential to make up to at least $500 K and said "that I'll be happy".  He also mentioned that if I do well, he gets something out of it as well. I'm always nervous when someone says, "you'll be happy".

By the end of the day, Al was satisfied and the customer committed the business and a purchase order was sent and paper ordered. This is a very big job and pulling it off will make Al legendary with the client. On the way back home, Al was still putting out a fire and there is now talk that a deal may be done with the offer on the table. I'm not so sure, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if it falls apart in due diligence and probably with my brother. Monday will be interesting.

Al came back to my place and had a couple of beers. He was still putting out fires and as much as he wanted to light it up, couldn't. He had to drive home. Tomorrow night was going to be his light it up night, he had a couple of hockey parties. We had a good conversation and this stuff with my brother and the receivership is heart breaking and as Al says, "a business case could be written on it".

Al left, I continued. I was committed to get back training tomorrow. I haven't trained in 4 days, since Monday in New York. I lost my motivation, I've been brain mush from drinking and as I sat in Wayne's office I was starting to not feel like a triathlete.

I have 3 solid weeks of training before tapering a week for IMSG. I'm starting to feel fat and my brain is not operating as it should. I really don't like the way I feel. One of the key things to doing an Ironman and knowing you're an Ironman is showing up ready and having trained like an Ironman to get there. Not showing up and just struggling through it to finish.

Before we went to bed, I told Alice I need to get off the booze or really start to minimize it. She agreed. If I have the potential to make a lot of money, it's going to be results driven and to drive results you have to be focused and have a clear head, getting drunk doesn't help that, it screws you up for two or three days. I also have IMSG only 4 weeks away. I'm on the bubble, I can definitely finish it now, but I'm on the bubble about whether or not I'll feel like an Ironman doing it or a guy who showed up pretending to be an Ironman.

During our meeting with Wayne, Ari, a minor partner showed up and we decided to go for a ride next week. We rode once last year. Ari was super happy to see me. He wears his heart on his sleeve. When I saw him at the Christmas Party, he near snubbed me. I don't think AG was impressed with my output, I was coasting, which I definitely was. Now that they see I'm kicking some ass and on board, they must have told him that and he seems to have drank the Kool-Aid and I'm back in his good books.

Tomorrow is a new day, a new beginning. I told Alice and she agreed, I'm getting to old for these late nights and I she too doesn't want to keep going to bed late regularly. It really screws up your system. Al and I said this is the year of the me, it's coming close that we will be in parallel universes, starting new career. I know I've definitely got my work mojo back and am confident I'll be able to figure out a work and training routine that works.

I'm still going to let loose on the beer every once in a while, I think I'll just be more selective when and more event based, like Al's 10 km pub crawl after IMSG.

On the home front, Alyssa's doing great at University, she's only got about 3 weeks left and she's got a heavy workload right now, she also has to study for exams. It will be awesome when she's done, I'm still amazed that she has no problem with University, I could NEVER do it.

No Training