It was my intention to do a somewhat real time blog of our day at Oktoberfest in Aztec, NM. I mentioned in my last article the preparation that went into this endeavor. Last night we even set up the booth to see how it would all go together.

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We was to have our booth setup by 9 AM so I arrived on Main Street at around 7:30. There were already folks there setting up their displays. I met with Karla and Becki and discovered we were not exactly where I thought we would be, but close enough. Bella had made arrangements with the owner of Jayco Customs to stick a wireless access point on his DSL and they were not open yet. So I started to unload the truck. This is what the street looked like when I arrived.

Bella and Debbie showed up a little while later with breakfast..... who has time to eat. I was excited at the prospect of the day. So we got to work and pretty much had it together a little after 9 AM. Jayco still wasn't open and I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have Internet access. I should have put the access point in last week. My mistake. (No, Bella doesn't like to have her picture taken.) She is so sweet to put up with me the way she does.

Our Neighbors...

A little while later the parade started. Standing on the street side of our booth, here is a view down and up the street as well as the parade.

The color guard was the High School ROTC.

Aztec's Old Soreheads

Here is the Aztec Tiger Band

And that was the parade. Then at around 9:30 it hit. A gust of wind rocked my perception of how the day was going to proceed. I watched the weather last night and the weatherman said there was a chance of some pretty severe storms today. We and everyone else there took a chance and proceeded anyway. The wind came right up main street. We don't have winds from the South very often so it was a little unusual. It hit the side of the booth and moved the whole thing over about two feet. I heard several crashes and saw Bella scrambling. I grabbed the frame of the booth and held on. It was just a gust and it was over almost as fast as it came but the damage was done. The computer monitor was on the ground and most everything else on the table was in total disarray. Bella, who was sitting behind the table held up the video cable of the monitor which still had the connector to the video card attached. It yanked it right out of the back of the computer.

I had a couple of concrete blocks on a couple of corners of the booth. It was obviously not enough. So I quickly went down to Ace Hardware and picked up some tie down straps and strapped two more corners to a couple of cases of water. We picked up the pieces, I put what was usable anymore in the truck and carried on. In the mean time Bella was asking everyone who came by if they wanted to register for the Plantronics Discovery 925 ear piece. It wasn't a trick question although she kept getting looks like it was.

So let's see what the other booths are about. Oh, Bella is giving away water.

Jean with the Aztec Chamber of Commerce is doing something with food. Looks good... I never did get around to eating breakfast.

These ladies make purses out of rags.... probably not really rags.

The Fire Department is giving away some pretty cool stuff.

This guy has a pretty good collection of jewelry. I assume this was made in the Four-Corners-Area.... but don't know for sure.

Here is an interesting collection.

The Avon Ladies.

Aztec Friends of the Library

The First Baptist Church of Bloomfield put up a booth for the Outreach Ministry

More jewelry

Interesting hair accessories and other accessories

A mom and her daughter selling turquoise.

Oops.... a call from Bella saying it is time for the 11:30 drawing. I'm coming... Bella finally got around a dozen registered.

A young lady drew a name from the bowel...

and the first name wasn't present. The second drawing and congratulations Katrina Sikora.... (Sorry Bella.).

No sooner was the drawing over and here came more wind. This time it wasn't letting up as fast. I held onto the booth while Bella and Debbie tried to gather up stuff that would blow away. We had to get the booth down before it was damaged. Looking around, we were not the only ones. Up and down the street stuff was coming down. And at 12:30 it was over. Almost everyone on our side of the street was packed up.

This is what we found when we got home. It was about time to take down the screen house anyway. I didn't plan to take it down in shreds though. The wind blew so hard it even blew open the lid to the freezer. Nothing was thawed out.

Well, what did I learn here. An outdoor event is certainly different than a trade show. We put in quite a bit of time and money preparing for the event. We may have a dozen names from the drawing, none of which can be considered prospects. We gave away one Plantronics Discovery 925 and sold one. Not bad overall. I don't know if we made an impact on anyone but High Desert Technologies was out where people could see us. We are a Corporate Sponsor for the Aztec Chamber of Commerce and tried to do our part to support the event. Thank you to Cascade Bottled Water for donating water for the event.

The wind blew and it rained the rest of the day. It was a good thing we packed it up when we did.

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