Hotlanta

Big sigh.

We wrapped up our trade show tonight and boy, are my feet thankful for that.

We did this show back before Kean was born and right as the economy fell off a cliff-- and

it was a colossal waste of time and money.

Coverings is the big, international tile, stone and marble show for our industry.

And this year, we opted to share a booth with our artist friend, Barbara.

She makes the hand made porcelain tiles in the front and we make the

solid metal tiles in the back (www.palomapewter.com).

We feel like it was a great show... time will tell.



 Just so you know, our booth was pretty basic-- these huge stone and marble companies

from Italy, India, Spain and Turkey come in and build these monster booths--

this one was just around the corner from us.

(You should see the wasted marble and stone that is just thrown in the trash after

these shows-- it is disgusting).

 After the show ended tonight, we headed across the street to CNN's headquarters

to catch up with my old buddy, Drew Griffin.

We worked to together in L.A.  and he's now one of CNN's main investigative

reporters-- he's mostly on Anderson Cooper's show.

 He gave us a tour of CNN's digs-- and if my feet didn't hurt before....

Geez, the place is massive.  3000 people work for CNN just in Atlanta alone.

This is part of one of the newsrooms.

 We visited, oh, I can't even count how many  control booths and studios

where they had live shows going and taped shows.

 Drew then took us to a series of small studios he calls the "confessionals".

This one is where Nancey Grace tapes most of her nightly shows (tonight she was

live outside the courthouse in Phoenix).  But this studio was tiny-- just a desk

a screen behind her and a robotic camera.  She shoots most of her show from here-- all alone

with a crew next door in another control room.  Crazy.

By the way, I hate her show.  She is beyond annoying- so don't take

this as an endorsement.  It's not.

On the home front, my parents are still alive-- and not yet drooling on themselves in the corner of some padded room.

The kids seem to be doing great and I've even learned Kean is doing just fine without me.

Our dearest friends, Ron, Elly and Mark Moomey came over tonight and kidnapped the boy

to take them to their place for some motorcycle riding with Mark and

four wheeler riding with Ron.

Love this and love them!

Yippee... we head home tomorrow.