Italian Gathering

As Sue mentioned in her last post Dave and I spent most of Sunday at the "Italian Gathering" car show on the grounds of Wendy's corporate headquarters in Dublin. Great fun - a real Grand Day Out! I mean really, when was the last time you parked in a lot that had more Lamborghini's and Ferrari's than all the other cars put together??? It was a charity event to benefit Dave Thomas' Foundation for Adoption so I didn't mind paying the $25 entry fee. At other shows of this type that I had attended in the past (The Italian Happening in Detroit for example) paying the fee earned you a parking place on the grass and maybe a dash plaque. This time, to my pleasant surprise, paying up earned us cool (printed canvas) goodie bags filled with neat stuff like a l.e.d. flashlight, fancy car polish, a Lamborghini pen, and even a coupon for free salad dressing!! If you add all the stuff together it probably adds up to nearly the price of admission...

I didn't count 'em but I'd guess that there were at least 20 Lambos at the show, mostly newer models. Very impressive (they should be as I think they sell for about $250,000!) although they seem to me to be designed more to show off than to drive. There were even more Ferraris present ranging from a 1963 model to a couple of brand new cars at the Ferrari dealer's display. Lots and lots of red cars at that end of the field! Dave took his Ferrari this year and was one of four 308's at the show. There may have been a dozen cars in the Alfa row. Some of them like the Gulietta that's right behind my X in the photo above were quite nice but a couple were kind of rough. There weren't as many Fiats as Alfas and my X was the only one there. The winner of the top Fiat prize , as well as the best of show award, was a beautiful, rare, Fiat Ghia (with a licence plate that read "PASTA 66"). Cool car. Fun show. And to top it off Dave let me drive his Ferrari back to his house!

Changing subjects to the work front, all is not yet clear... But, here's where we stand for now. My supervisor and his boss did show up as promised and informed me that the Great Secret may only be told to those that Need To Know and that I don't need to know yet. They did tell me that the secret will be reveled within a month, it will approximately double our business, it will add another pharmacist to the staff, it will probably lead to the pharmacy department being expanded at our present location, and put us next in line to have a new store built. We're at least a couple of weeks into the month they told me that it would take so we should be learning more soon. The bad news to balance this (hopefully) good news is that Phil is leaving Rite Aid so he won't be my partner any more. Bummer. He's going to work for Walgreen in Bryan in the hope of shorter days and less stress. I do wish him the best but, boy, I'll miss him!

Cheers! - dj