Sunday, March 29, 2009

Lisa's Secret Strategy to Meeting Men and Getting a LOT of Attention

No. This does NOT require any clothes coming off. Or even sexy clothing. As a matter of fact, the only skin that will be showing is your face and your knees and you could even do it without your knees showing.

"Huh?" you are probably wondering....

Read on.

OK, I admit that I didn't come up with this one, but the original intention was was for an entirely different purpose....actually it's a sales gimmick. But damn. This is so good for meeting men and really fun too. Well, for people like me anyway. I mean you've got to be kind of a flirt to make it work. Stick-in-the-mud's are just not going to make this happen. Sorry.

Before my final days of my last job I knew I had to start looking for work and a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do this really random job working a booth at a trade show in Sacramento for a few days. I thought "what the hell, I don't have anything else going on." All it required was for me to learn about the company's product, wear a "uniform" and talk to people. OK. No big deal. I can do that. Besides, I knew the owner of the company and he was cool. He owns a couple of Harleys. To me, that equals "cool."

So on the plane ride from FL to CA I read up on the company info. I studied the FAQ's and skipped all the really technical stuff. Then I didn't think about it anymore. Two weeks later the time comes to make the trip. Shannon drills me on the FAQ's for a half hour. I've got it down. OK, good.

(Yes I'm dragging this out, hahahahaha!)

We drive up to Sacramento which takes foooooooooever because we have to follow the owner in his truck. Something happened to it along the way and as long as he drove slow it would keep going. At one point we were doing 35 miles per hour on the 5. Holy mother of #@#&$&# was all I was thinking.


Anyway, we make it up by morning and start setting up our booth. Well, really the guys did. Shannon and I went walking (kind of sleep walking since we hadn't slept) around Sacramento and checked out the trees. Yes, Sacramento is the "city of trees" and you can go on a "tree" tour which we partially did. We walked everywhere just to fill time and keep awake. We even went into a church where an organist was practicing.

Finally the guys were done and we could go to the hotel and sleep. Ahhhhhh. Zzzzzzzzz. So nice.

The next day we put on our uniforms and headed over to the convention center for the California Green Summit. The gimmick was that we were Eco cops wearing very realistic cop uniforms and handing out Eco tickets to anyone who didn't have a hydrogen hybrid system in their car.




Whoooooooaaaaaaaaaaa. I had no idea the fantasy men have about women in cop uniforms until then.


Not only did it help drive people to our booth but we got a considerable amount of attention. Here we are covered completely in clothes with only our face and knees exposed and yet men wanted our phone numbers (personal phone number) left and right.


Quite a few men approached with "Please handcuff me," "Tie me up officer," "I'm guilty, take me away," "Beat me, I've been bad," etc. The only thing we could do was roll with it. It was all in fun anyway (well except for maybe 2 or 3 or 4 that were quite persistent and a couple that seriously thought I had danced at a bachelor party).



What was cool was that the women just thought it was a cute gimmick and so it worked to get them to look at our product too.


The only thing that wasn't cool was that Arnold Schwarzenegger himself came to visit our booth on the second day, but because our cop gimmick was a little too realistic looking Shannon and I had to leave the area. Bummer. Damn PR crap.


Overall though it was a fun experience and great insight into what gets a guys attention. It's kind of like our fascination with men in uniforms....police, firemen, pilots, military, etc.

How can you apply this? Easy.

1. Become a cop
2. Work as a meter maid
3. Duplicate the above or similar at your company's trade show booth
4. Get and wear a realistic uniform while doing your normal errands (just don't get one that is too close to a real cop because impersonating a cop is illegal)
5. Be creative and come up with your own ideas that might use this concept. Share your ideas by publishing them to the comments below (because I might want to try them myself)

DISCLAIMER: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I DO NOT WARRANT THAT THIS WILL WORK FOR ALL WOMEN AND I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ACTIONS OCCURRING AS A RESULT OF TAKING THIS ADVICE.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Must Love Snowboarding



It's been 2 months now that I haven't been able to work out or do any kind of real physical activity--including running. That's a real bummer. Apparently I have a locked-up hip that doesn't want to get better. And to top it off I have some kind of ankle problem too. Joy. Have I tried to do something about it? Of course. But for now I'm done spending money on doctors that can't fix it. It's been too frustrating and besides I'm almost broke. Am I in pain? Yes, but I'm managing to deal with it. For now anyway. I may try swimming or yoga in the meantime. We'll see how things go and hopefully I'll be able to get this body back to normal soon.

Right after I lost my job a few weeks ago, a friend of mine invited me on a ski trip to Utah. Hmm, a chance to go snowboarding! There was no hesitation in my response. No "thinking" about it. No "let me look at my finances." No "let me check my calendar." Nothing. Just, "hell, yeah!" I love snowboarding and will do anything to do it.

Yes, probably anything.

Not even pain will stop me. I seem to have an addiction. Or maybe an obsession. Actually I wonder if there's a snowboarders anonymous club......

Anyway, it turned out to be the most amazing 2 1/2 days.





We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, checked into the hotel and went straight to the slopes at Brighton for night skiing/snowboarding. I had never done the night skiing. It was amazing. The clearest sky, a slight breeze, minimal skiers and powder-packed slopes. My new body glove jacket was wonderful. It kept me warm even though it was only 9 degrees outside.

At first I was nervous because I hadn't been on real snow for 2 months. But my virtual lessons in Florida paid off. I felt really comfortable on the board and started zipping down the hill in no time.





Both my friends are advanced level skiers and so the next day they got me to go up to the top of the mountain (10,000 ft elevation). Talk about some scary runs! The good thing about snowboarding is no matter how steep the slope you can always side-slip down if necessary. At that time I was much better on my toe side so I did what is called the falling leaf backwards down the steep slopes. On not-so-steep runs I just kept practicing my turns. Turn. Fall. Turn. Fall. Turn. Turn. Turn. Fall. You get the idea.....



The last day was pure heaven because it snowed the entire day. There was so much powder that when a person fell, they actually disappeared into the snow! I had a couple of face plants where my face was just buried in the snow. It was actually fun to fall! You didn't feel any pain! The good news was I hardly fell on the last day. Progress!



And I fully "got" the turns and could do the "S" turn--the proper snowboarding technique. There is a certain excitement when you finally "get" it. No one was around, so I just did my own little jumping for joy dance. You couldn't wipe the grin off of my face either. Pleasure moment. So now when things aren't going so well, I just think about snowboarding. It will instantly bring a smile to my face.



That's why I've decided that any man that wants to be in my life must love snowboarding. It isn't even a negotiable point.