Charles Apple

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you about our sessions Thursday in Shreveport.

Instead of blogging that night, I tagged along on a trip to a casino. We then sat around and enjoyed a few beers until quite late. Friday, I was up early and to the airport.

After spending most of the day with the fine folks of Delta, I got home mid-afternoon Friday, only to discover blog readers were asking me why I hadn’t posted a full report on the tweeted plane crash photo. And rightfully so; it was a hell of a story. So I worked on that last night.

So this is the first chance I’ve gotten to recap our “Brilliant” time in Shreveport.

I taught a three-hour session Thursday morning and then taught that same session again Thursday afternoon. Three hours each. We had only five at the morning session but fourteen or so at the afternoon session.

Gesturing with my left hand, trying to advance the
slide with my right. Slick, huh?
—

Everyone seemed to enjoy the show and the feedback they gave us was very positive. This is despite a small disaster that occurred to me twice; once during each performance: My Powerpoint presentation crashed.

For me, that’s a disaster. After all, my slideshows are well over 100 mb in size. It takes ten to fifteen minutes for my iBook to even open these files. So it’s not like I can simply doubleclick and pop ‘em back open or something.

I crashed during the very end of the morning session. I was running very long anyway — if I hadn’t crashed, I would probably have run about 20 minutes over. I skipped lunch, threw out about 60 slides from part two of my presentation and hoped the afternoon session would slide by with no further problems.

And it nearly did. Part two went just fine, but I crashed again — this time, near the end of part one. This puzzled me — I’ve given this particular slideshow — what I’m calling part one of my Shreveport presentation — nine times, now. It’s never crashed before.

Desperately seeking a fix. My big mistake: I didn’t reboot
my laptop. I’ll bet that’s what caused the second crash.
—

I still don’t know what caused it. I’ve run through the show twice since then and I can’t seem to duplicate the crash. Luckily, I was close enough to the end of part one that no one seemed to mind. And again, not only did part two go off without a problem, I also managed to finish the afternoon on time.

After three solid hours of lecture and rapid-fire slides, folks like going home on time. And I like making that happen.

For anyone interested, part one — the original Art of Being Brilliant presentation that’s received so much kind feedback — now runs 389 slides over 90 minutes. That’s an average of 13.88 seconds per slide.

Part two — which I refer to as Nuts and Bolts, in which we go into greater detail in how papers big and small can do brilliant work — was running a whopping 438 slides, also over 90 minutes, before I trimmed it back.

Obviously, I’ll have some tweaking to do before my next performance — a return to the North Carolina Press Association’s Winter Institute on Feb. 12. I gotta find out what’s causing these crashes.

Stray notes about the three days I spent in Shreveport…

—
THAT KINDLE IS VERY CUTE

After the afternoon session, folks hung around a few minutes to discuss the possible future of visual journalism. When I mused if the iBook or Kindle would be the wave of the future, Vanessa Pearson of the Tyler Morning Telegraph whipped open her purse and hauled out her own Kindle.

I’ve seen photos and videos online, but I had never seen a Kindle in person. I was very impressed.

As you can see, Vanessa uses it to read the L.A. Times. Also, as you can see, Vanessa has customized her Kindle with a colorful “skin.”

Alan Jacobson tells me he doesn’t think the Kindle will become all that popular. It’s way too tied-in with Amazon, he says, and perhaps he’s right. On the other hand, critics said that about the iPod, too.

Awww… Isn’t this cute? If I were Amazon, I’d download
this photo and use it to advertise the Kindle.
—

—
OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE…

Did you know that every day at precisely noon, they play the National Anthem over the P.A. system at the Shreveport Regional Airport? I came out of the men’s room Wednesday during “the rockets’ red glare” and wondered if World War III had begun or something. Everyone had come to a halt and was standing at at attention. Even the TSA folks.

Turns out, it’s simply the local custom. You can read a little about it here.

The airport is tiny. I couldn’t get over the lack of traffic there. When my shuttle van dropped me off Friday morning for the return flight, a Delta employee met me at the door and greeted me by name.

I figured there must be a problem with my flight or that I was in some kind of trouble. Turns out, they give that kind of service to everyone.

And the very best thing about Shreveport’s airport? Free Wifi. You’ve gotta love that.

—
KUDOS TO THE HOLIDAY INN

The folks of the Holiday Inn Shreveport West were incredibly kind and helpful.

I mentioned already the very cheerful front desk staffer who took very good care of me this week. I finally caught her name: Angela Harris.

Holiday Inn management, if you’re out there: Promote this young woman. She’s the kind of person you want running your hotels.

—
MEET GUS GONZALEZ… SPEAKER, MANAGER, FUN GUY

This was my sixth speaking engagement with the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association’s Traveling Campus but the first in which I actually got a chance to spend any time with the other speakers.

I had a few beers with Michael Schwartz on Wednesday. I regret very much unpacking and settling into my room instead of attending his session on Alternative Story Forms that afternoon. I’ll have to catch his session sometime.

I only got to see Carol Gammell for a few moments as she left for the airport. I think I had met her in Dallas last year. She teaches advertising sessions.

And I got to spend a little time with Charles Kolsky from St. Louis. He flew in late Thursday to teach marketing and online sessions on Friday.

The way our schedules worked out, I ended up spending most of my spare time with the guy in charge of SNPA’s traveling campus, Graham Kimbrough, and a management instructor from San Antonio, Gus Gonzalez.

Graham is a gracious host and a very organized guy. I didn’t realize just how organized until I got a much closer look at some of the cats he herds in order to pull these programs together. Just amazing. And even after telling him I’d shoot photos of him for my blog this time, I got home only to discover I didn’t get a single picture of him. Damn!

That brings us to this Gus character. Two nights in a row, Gus and I traded stories until they shut down the hotel bar.

Gus makes like Isaac from ‘The Love Boat.’
—

A former Air Force Lt. Colonel, he was in charge of missile silos in the Dakotas and he drank beer with Manuel Noriega in Panama. Some of the stories he tells makes Steve Canyon seem like a pantywaist.

After 24 years of all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Gus then did something really risky: He retired from the Air Force and became a public school English teacher. Yikes!

Gus teaches a variety of classes in management, conflict resolution, customer service and related topics. He and I were on at the same time, so I didn’t get a chance to watch him work. I’ll bet he’s terrific.

Gus teaches his ‘Art of Leadership’ class in the room next
door to where I was holding my own ‘Art of Being Brilliant’
session Thursday.
—

The lesson to be learned from this: The classes they — I mean we — teach are designed to be informative and helpful. We promise you, you’ll learn a lot from them.

But you’ll actually have some of your best learning opportunities after hours, over a couple of beers. That’s when you hear the very best stories and you can soak up some real life lessons.

—
OUR THURSDAY NIGHT CASINO OUTING

The most famous thing about Shreveport, I thought, was the Independence Bowl. I seem to recall a WFL football team called the Shreveport Steamer, playing in that stadium in the early 1970s.

But no — it turns out what Shreveport is most famous for is its casinos. The city — and its neighbor across the Red River, Bossier City — is a huge tourist destination. Folks come from all over to gamble.

Gus really wanted to check this out. He begged Graham — the only one of us with wheels — to take us downtown to see the casinos. So on Thursday, after we had finished our sessions, off we went, the three of us, to the famous Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in Bossier City.

I’ve not been in a casino in many, many years. I didn’t bother to check one out when I was in Baton Rouge a couple of years ago. I was supposed to speak to the collegiate sessions at SND/Vegas last fall, but had to cancel because of a relocation that then never happened. So I wasn’t sure what to expect.

My reaction was definitely mixed. I was both intrigued and repulsed. I’m not a gambler, y’see, nor do I hang out with folks who do a lot of gambling. Overall, the place reminded me of a strip club. But without the strippers.

I saw a lot of very poor people sitting around, pumping money they couldn’t really afford to spend into slot machines that seemed very efficient at sucking it out of their pockets.

This wasn’t the casino we visited, but this picture does give
you a feel for how the slot machines are lined up, lights
a-flashin’ and noises a-blarin’.

This is, in fact, the high-stakes slot room at the Horseshoe.
The room where we hung out was slightly less plush than
this. I’m told the Horseshoe has a total of 1,500 slot machines.
—

Granted, we did run into one woman who was sitting with a dazed look in front of a slot machine with a flashing light on top. I would have assumed she had just lost her mortgage payment, but Graham has been around the block a few more times than I.

Graham asked her how much she had just won. The reply: About nine grand. She was waiting for the casino officials who will give her winnings — but minus state and federal taxes, I’m told.

Graham put a pittance into a slot just to get a taste. Gus spent a little more and actually won something like $200. He cashed out while he was way ahead. I didn’t gamble at all — I hated to show my ignorance of the very, very complicated rules printed on the slot machines. Each seemed to have a different system. None of them made any damn sense to me.

I’d rather hit on the cocktail waitress than play the slot machines. There’s probably a greater chance of winning.

A presumably Photoshopped picture of the hotel (left)
and casino (right).
—

The casino itself sits on an enormous barge in the river. From the hotel-shopping complex-parking deck, you walk down a huge enclosed ramp to get to the barge. If you didn’t know you were no longer on dry land, you’d never know.

The reason I mention it: The wall of that ramp had the most interesting decoration: 10,000 hundred-dollar bills, mounted on the wall behind a big plastic barrier.

A total of one million dollars. You don’t see that every day.

I’m pretty sure this is the same wall we saw. Surely there
aren’t a lot of these floating around.
—

We just stood there and stared. Meanwhile, folks intent on gambling scurried past. Screw the hundred-dollar bills, gotta get to those nickel slots.

I regret not taking a picture of all this — or, for that matter, the slot machines — with my cellphone camera. I suspect security would have descended upon me pretty quickly anyway. My Google searches turned up a few shots you see here, but not as many as I would have thought.

The highlight of the evening — for me, anyway — was the buffet restaurant we hit, there in the Horseshoe hotel: the Village Square Buffet.

This wasn’t a Homestyle Buffet or a Golden Corral, believe me. The food was incredibly fresh and heaped high and plentiful.

Although I was stuffed, I went over to the dessert bar for a small scoop of ice cream or cheesecake. While I was waiting, I glanced over and spotted a huge bowl of good ol’, Southern-style banana pudding. Complete with ‘Nilla wafers!

Screw the ice cream. I loaded up with the banana pudding. I’ve never had restaurant banana pudding that tasted that good.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Charles Apple, Workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.