Day 5 was another early day for the old man and me. He was tired of me staying up ‘til 3 a.m. playing poker but at least I got him involved last night long enough to scam some money off of him. It worked out well with Maynard and his custom-made chips. However, day 5 was another story. Lying ahead was a big day at the booth and another big night with Dave and Busters putting on a show for us. Or was it us putting on a show for them? Anyways, the day at the convention went well in terms of autographs and the booth. Jimmy Johnson made an appearance. Additionally, Frozen Tundra and I got some nice autographs on die-casts. The Lebron craze was still going on and people were buying the McFarlane statues like it was crack. I think WYZ bought about 100 of them (just kidding Daren...). We had a lot of new faces at the booth this day, including Choke2002, of whom it was a pleasure to meet. In case you all did not know, Choke2002 is deaf. He’s also quick to take a free beer and double-down on a pair of 7’s??? I am kidding, of course... He really did not double down on a pair of 7’s (or at least I would hope not). The day went well for everyone and the night was about to get hot and heavy... We had our eTopps rep. sidekick alongside who was checking things out and was very impressed with what we had done. I think he was actually DeepThroat -- but that is just a hunch. I never caught his name but spoke at length with him about the program and selling it to others. The night’s festivities carried on for 30 minutes after booth breakdown -- no surprise there and no sleep for the weary. So off we went to Dave and Busters... I grabbed my father and we tagged along with Mike (Masinick) and his dad. We had a nice little ride in his pimp sled caddy to Dave and Busters. The layout there was awesome. We had a nice backroom with all the dealer tables set up for casino later. I did not eat a lot of chow but what I did eat was good. Kingsnu, Ronin and Bearabull each got up and gave us about 5 minutes of wisdom and thanked us for all our efforts. As soon as the tables opened I slumped down to a Blackjack table and attempted to lose all my play money. Then I headed to the craps table where I was up and down, then up and down, then finally up BIG! They closed at midnight or so on us and I was still rolling. They called last roller... then last point... then last roll. I was tearing it up with Nick, Ross, GoodfelaNJ, and ePotts. We raked in a good stash of tickets to use for the raffle the next night. The night ended, of course, with poker in my room at 3 a.m. We had an abbreviated group that night with Donutdoor and Bearabull making early exits. Masinick and a few other yard birds hung around and split my raffle tickets up... so we could use them as chips of course. We tried to drink all the beer in the room but it did not work.

Day 6 was about the fifth blurry day in a row for me. The late night swindling was starting to take a toll on me. I was actually looking forward to getting back to Fort Polk and doing some Army training (a relief from my festivities). The sales continued well on Day 6 and there were no changes to the Tracer Code fun. We continued to do their work for them and acted as their operations cell. So, in fact, we executed two separate functions while at the eCon. You could see the concern on a lot of people’s faces... but then again it was nice to meet some of the stars and some people got some nice signatures out of the deal. Today was self-preservaation for me. I entered a couple of "box wars" and won absolutely nothing. I did however come to the conclusion that Donruss Elite was one of the best sets out there. Other than that I packed up my packs and got them ready for shipment. Everyone had a vision of how this day would end -- late night of cavorting with eTopps members back at the hotel. Sales went strong until closing and people were happy across all fronts. The site was finalized today with some finishing touches. I now know the pain of setting up a great-looking booth from scratch! I did make some good connections with the girls from Press Pass and, of course, Lita. I was standing around minding my own business when Rossinmi loaned me $100 because of the lack of ATMs and money. He told me this great story about how he was getting lunch for Lita and licking the sandwich. Then there was this driving-around thing and Lita this and Lita that. I smiled and went to UPS and shipped my box of cardboard. I was a cardboard victim! That was about $40 and the box I shipped was about dishwasher- sized. That perplexed me... Anyways, I headed back to the booth while my old man does strolled around and got autographs. He picked up some Gayle Sayers, Aikman and others. He forgot the Tiger Woods, or so he says, for the raffle so he got a few Aikman pictures to donate. But while I was at the booth someone comes running up saying we need people to take tickets for Lita and her WWE guy friend John Cena (or something like that). Yeah, I ran down to get this shot with Lita. I was pretty excited and had a good time. I did not get any autogrpahs from her though. I did not feel like asking. I was too drained from all the weirdos getting her autograph. I did pick one up for Masinick. Anyways, the day could not have ended soon enough. It was time for the convention and the highlight of our stay.

eCon 2.0 - With images of Lita dancing in my head, two paws full of beer, and a pocketful of raffle tickets, I headed down to the eCon. There was a nice food spread down there. There was also a table set up with goodie bags for everyone, including our sweet name cards that Masinick had just finished printing. I had forgotten what card was going to be on mine (Lebron James... a favorite of many). We had our dinner and exchanged some small talk with Nick and Rob, garnering laughs everywhere. We started the formalities with the author of a book about the greatest players not in the Hall of Fame. He actually had some good stories that were entertaining to all. Then we got on with the speeches and talks from Ronin, Bearabull, the Clubhouse game (me), and Masinick from CardTarget. I spoke of four things: Keeping with NASCAR but limiting the cards each year to about 12 and hitting all the rookies is key. The next was about adding autographed material to the catalog. Then I talked about set selection and how to avoid the problems that came out of 2003 hockey. The final thing was addressing the gaming issue. I was hoping to get these ideas out to Warren and our fellow eToppers who all had discussed these ideas before on the boards. As usual, I included some dry humor (maybe too dry as no one caught it, but that’s alright). eTopps got up next and gave us a nice little pack wars game with some sweet prizes. I was fortunate enough to win nothing! It was all good though. I was waiting for the final event and hoping my gambling from past nights would pay off. Our chats with Warren went on a long time and we hit on some great ideas. We covered everything from getting the word out to younger people to releasing the soccer set. However soccer did not make the impact they envisioned and I am not sure we will see anything for a long time from them again. Hockey and the strike were also discussed. We were out there flapping with no contract signed. Anyways, we went well past our briefing time and were all itching to get upstairs and eat some corndogs and roll some dice. Some chose to play some poker while others chose craps, like yours truly! I got up to the craps table and rolled for about 30 minutes or so. Then Nick and Rob rolled for about 30 minutes each. We walked away from there thinking we had a great shot at winning some good raffle prizes. For the raffle the joke was on Nick (with his 1 million tickets he won a set of golf balls). However, he made up for it in the later rounds by winning an uncut sheet of sweet cards. Then I won a 2001 Vladimir Guerrero (not much but a nice little bennie)! The night went well and all had a good time. We had some good parting comments and everyone exchanged greetings since a lot of people were leaving Sunday (including my father and I).

Day 7 was one mess after another and I was thankful to be going home but it just dragged on. I was about as broke as you could get and knew it! I was just trying to get home and get some sleep for once. My old man left at like 5 a.m. and I was leaving about 10. All my flights were delayed and/or cancelled. Dallas was a huge mess for me. The storms hit town and caused chaos. My flight left two hours late and I did not get into Alexandria until almost midnight... and I had to work the next morning. However, on that flight back into Alexandria our plane got hit by lightning. What a way to end a long week! I would like to thank everyone I met and would like to think we will meet again next year in Chicago. Until then, stay strong and keep the faith. This program is ours and will succeed!