The Painted Thumb

Whew! My life has been a whirlwind for the past 9 weeks. It started out at the end of September when my wife and I sold our house and moved into a 500 sq ft. guest house for a few weeks. We moved all our possessions into a storage unit, then moved it all out of storage into a new home. Just shortly after that, I was informed that our convention director was having problems with his heart and was rushed off to the hospital just a week before the convention. This meant that I would have to pick up the directorial duties for the entire convention! The whole weekend, we struggled with organizational problems. The convention started on Friday afternoon in Austin, TX, which is about a two-hour drive from my home in San Antonio. I was the single staff member present when the conventions started at noon. No registration materials, no operating cash, no t-shirts, no programs, no snack bar available at the time the convention began. It was the living definition of "winging it"! Fort