Had a really marvelous long talk with Gary Grigg over breakfast this morning. We've known each other for 25 years now and both seen plenty of changes. He has another change coming in his future and you'll learn about it first in my column in December's GCI.
I lost track of how many terrific friends I saw today. Shout outs in particular to Paul B. Latshaw (a Yankee who decided to come visit), Profs. Yelverton, McCarthy, Miller, Karcher, and Peacock, Dave Ravel (the Czar of Turf at Syngenta), Mr. Palmer Maples, Mr. George Thomas, Chris Gray of Lebanon Turf, Turner Revels of Revels/Deere, the fun and fabulous Patty DiMucci of Bayer, the whole damned Carolinas GCSA board who were out thanking exhibitors and shopping the show floor this afternoon, 129 Facebook friends and Tweeps, Troy Fink of CC of Virginia, Dave Downing, Owen and Patti from Phoenix, Kevin Smith of Bryan Park, Pat O'Brien and Chris Hartwiger of USGA, Kevin Connelly of Landscape Supply Co., the living legend Mr. Willie Pennington of BASF and many, many more. It was networking nirvana.
(I'd like to apologize now to the 83 super-good friends I left off that list because I am old and befuddled and can't remember squat anymore.)
Tim Kreger stole my rental car at one point in the evening. And briefly carjacked and kidnapped one of my salespeople. In case you hadn't noticed, Tim is prone to hijinks.
The big Carolinas Night at the Beach was made even better by moving to a local "dueling pianos" place. Pretty cool to see a couple hundred having fun and singing along. But that's the culture of this group.
Tomorrow's forecast is for moderate to heavy schmoozing on the show floor followed by a warm front as we get things heated up at the "Brain Storm 2013" panel discussion featuring a bunch of very smart, very progressive and very opinionated supers. I'll be herding the cats (moderating) at this little shindig. See you there.