Go where the money is

Over the last couple of days, a business associate and I went on a trip to Fort Lauderdale, FL.  We left at the last minute at 3:30 pm to be at the first set of meeting starting at 12:00 noon on Thursday.  Needless to say, we did not make the first set of meeting.  We had problem with the vehicle we borrowed to drive to Fort Lauderdale.

We started the trip.  We check fluid levels to discover there was no antifreeze in the resevoir and at least one quart low on oil.  We filled the antifreeze's resevoir and added the quart of oil.  When this happen, I told my business partner that we may have to check fluids on this trip, so we were off on our adventure. 

We got to Atlanta and the check gauge light came on and we needed to add oil again.  We added the oil and kept moving with needing to add oil it seem every 150 miles.  Interestingly enough when we get over 1000 miles away from home, the person we borrowed the car from informed us that the car did in fact have an oil leak.  Of course, this information may have changed our mind about driving that vehicle, but we thought we are almost to our destination.  We laughed at the whole thing and continued on our trip.

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 7:30 pm on Thursday. We got a room and went to a well deserved sleep.  However, before we chose our room for the night we check out the rooms at the motel where the conference was being held only discover that the room smelled of mold.  Needless to say, that was not the motel of choice.  We found a little better one about 2 miles away.  We settled in for the night and got an early start the next morning for the mortgage conference.

The mortgage conference was intense.  We met and greeted several mortgage companies and learned about the products they had to offer.  We met companies like Chase, Countrywide, Fifth Three Bank, Wachovia, etc.  Each of these companies wanted our business and offer programs that our customers needed and wanted.

We also met some of our business partners that we only knew up to that point by a voice on the other end of a phone.

This, of course, is not the end of the adventure.  When we arrived in Orlando, the car that we had been adding oil to for over 1600 miles now breaks down.  The car was making some strange noise when we went through the toll.  About 5 miles from that toll, the car makes a clung sound and lost power.  We pull the car to the side and call AAA.  We did not know where we were we walk up to the toll that we could see from where the car broke down only to discover that the toll operator did not know where is was either.

More on this trip in Part Two.