True story. I’m currently trying to buy “something”. Now, I don’t want to be flip but the cost of this “something” is in the thousands of dollars (versus something that might cost $5). So just like other companies, I’ve identified several vendors, set up meetings to discuss their products, and requested price quotes.

The first vendor (who I know on a professional level) not only didn’t supply a complete quote but hasn’t responded to my requests to get a complete quote. At this point, I’m convinced they’ve received a better piece of business (or a large inheritance) and my paltry couple grand doesn’t mean squat.

For the second vendor (who I also know on a professional level), I actually gave them a ballpark of what the quote needed to come in at (based on research and my other quotes).   So, what do they do? Provide the highest price of all of them. *sigh*

Meanwhile, a potential customer calls me last week and asks for an outline of my services. Needed it the next morning. Did I stay up all night (well not literally all night…but you get what I mean) to make sure they had it on time? You bet I did.

When customers have money to spend, they’re in the driver’s seat. If you want to keep them as a customer, you need to be agile – answer their questions quickly and completely, respond to their requests, and deliver your best information – on time. If they tell you the budget is $3000…don’t quote $4000. I’m not Einstein but this just seems logical to me.

Yes, these examples are very tactical in nature. On a simplistic level, my experience could just be attributed to poor follow-up skills or the inability to competitively price products. But if left unaddressed such things could become a systemic problem for a business.

In today’s economy, businesses will be successful (and profitable) if they can respond quickly and correctly.   Speed and accuracy are the name of the game. It can all go bad if you don’t pay attention.

I am proud to say I’m a C-L-Y-D-E-S-D-A-L-E! Many people in the Triathlon Sport know the division is there, but many of them think that it is the “fat boys division.” That is what I thought after being labeled as such. So what constitutes a Clydesdale? A Clydesdale Athlete is usually defined as any male athlete over 200 lbs. and any woman athlete over 145 lbs. (aka Athenas).

The American Clydesdale Horse Society says this about the breed of horse: "Male or female, a Clydesdale should look handsome, weighty and powerful, so that the impression is given of quality and weight, rather than grossness and bulk."

I guess that could be a compliment.

I have done my training and now I am ready for my first Triathlon. Honestly I am still nervous for the swim. I am glad I took swimming lessons finally and learned some technique. Nothing like a 33 year old that can’t swim yet signs up for a triathlon. My bike is tuned and my running gear has a couple of miles under her belt. The only thing to do now is show up and start the race…oh and finish the damn thing.

I am sure my “Little Sissy” will rear its ugly head and taunt me 200 yards into the swim, telling me that I am drowning or that feeling I just felt on my legs was a shark ready to attack. I will  push my “Little Sissy” to the back of my thoughts, but it will come wiggling back out during mile 10 of the bike section as I start to ascend the dreaded hill. Once again I will force it back into the depths of my subconscious. That self doubt I refer to as my “Little Sissy” will make its final appearance  2 miles into the run telling me that my legs are done and that they are refusing to move. That I should back out now…that I should quietly walk off the course and give up. It will be then, that I see off in the distance… the finish line! 

Watch Out…… The Clydesdale is Unleashed!!!

We finally arrived at the smallest border crossing I had ever seen. It was a combination of a few old and when I say old, I mean REALLY old buildings. we pulled up to a window and spoke to an old gentleman and he asked us for our papers and where we were headed. We told him we were headed to Mendoza and handed over all of the papers we had for the rental car. After he looked through everything he shook his head and said that our car didn’t have a VISA to go to Argentina and we couldn’t continue. I pleaded with him to let us pass and finally said I had to go speak with the boss of the border crossing, so we pulled over to the side and went into this old ramble shack to find out if we could cross over.

I called Hertz International and they confirmed our itinerary and that we had authorization to go from Santiago, Chile over the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina. They said we just needed to contact the local Hertz store in Santiago and have them provide us the correct papers. I called the local Hertz store in Santiago, but of course it was Sunday and no one could help us. The paper that we needed had to be notarized. The Chileans love to have papers notarized here. I always see people standing in line at places of Notary. The lady informed us that we would have to return to Santiago and then take the paperwork to be Notarized on Monday and it might take until Tuesday to confirm. That is not what I wanted to hear. I am stubborn and so for an hour I tried every possible way we could think that would allow us to cross the border. We finally admitted that they were not going to allow the car across the border. They said we could leave it up there and talk to one of the many tourist busses that crossed occasionally and see if they would take us with them to Mendoza. We honestly thought about it … but decided to return to Santiago.

So we will stay here in Santiago for the next three days and then just drink wine and visit the wineries here in Chile. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow even when you don’t want to. This is something that I have a VERY hard time with.

Santiago is a mix of cool architecture. There is old Colonial Architecture and then a big boom of 1950’s buildings and now there is a great mix of some very modern buildings. Two of South Americas tallest buildings are currently being built and are very beautiful. Due to all the people that live here and the many buses and taxis and of course now the numerous cars that are becoming more and more available create and incredible amount of pollution. There is a constant filter of dirty air hanging over this city, at times it is even difficult to see the mountains.

Mamita prepared us lunch. We had wonderful Empanadas, which are absolutely wonderful. They are filled with ground beef, a quarter of a boiled egg and an olive. She also made us some Chilean salads. It was fun to stop and see them and of course my mom crocheted them numerous different kitchen hot pads, towels and pan scrubbers. They were so excited to receive the gifts. I also brought some peanut butter which they love. You can buy it now in Chile, but it is to expensive for them to buy. They are happy and doing well. I would love to come back and visit them for a week and stay with them.

On our way up to Cabildo to visit the Ficher Family, we stopped at the school to playground equipment. Fred and I went up to the school at midnight last night and the playground equipment had finally arrived. The Rotarians hired a few local guys to install the equipment over night. I am pleased to say…these guys worked all night and we got the equipment all set up. There are a few final things that need to be done to the floor and then new playground will be opened up to the kids. There were a few kids that we allowed to play with on the new playground equipment so we could take a few pictures. They were very excited and I think it was a successful project. These kids will really enjoy this new play area.

We changed cities tonight. We are now in Santiago. Santiago is a big city, six and a half million people live within this city. Here you can see the extreme difference between those that have money and those that don’t. There are multi-million dollar homes for sale and down the road there are eighteen thousand dollar houses. Many people here in Chile don’t own homes though. Individuals that have money buy the properties and then rent them. Santiago is an old Spanish city that has a lot of history and I am excited to see more of it tomorrow.

To see more of the pictures from today…

CLICK HERE

We had arranged with the Rotary Club of Sugar House to do a direct feed back to them through SKYPE. We strung cables all over in order to get our live feed up and going. Good thing we had a couple of engineers onboard with us to navigate everything. It was fun to do a direct live feed back to the Sugar House Rotary club, they could see us and what we had accomplished and we could see and talk to them. What an incredible thing technology is.

The rest of the afternoon was free time. A few of us decided to walk around Vina Del Mar. Of course we couldn’t resist the temptation and had to have another Completo. Later that evening the Rotary Club of Vina Del Mar hosted us for dinner. It was fun to spend some time with them and we are already planning our next service project.

To see more pictures of today…

CLICK HERE

After finishing up everything we could do without the playground equipment we decided to hang out and play with the kids during their recess break. They wanted us to take pictures of them and then they loved looking at the digital image on the camera. Simple things in life are some times the best. We then went to the Naval Club of Chile for lunch. Ricardo, the president of the Vina Del Mar Rotary club, is a naval officer and so he pulled some strings and got us all on base to have lunch.

After lunch I took everyone on a tour of the surrounding areas. We toured through Con Con and Renaca, the tourist areas of Vina with the nice beaches. We then went over to Valparaiso to check out the old port city. I love the windy roads and houses built along the sides of the hill leading directly down to the port area. It is a unique city with its unique problems. I didn’t care walking the hills while I was a missionary, but think it is a pretty cool place to explore now that I am able to drive a car around the area.

After returning back to Vina, I had to run over to one of the best places to eat a completo in Chile. It is a little hole-in-the wall restaurant. A completo is a hot dog and traditionally eaten with a layer of diced tomatoes, then a thick layer of mashed avacodo and then a generous layer of mayo. It is a big bite. I don’t like hot dogs, but will always grab a completo when I can get a traditional Chilean Completo.

After dinner some of the group took off to go to a local bar and see an incredible guitarist. I ended up running up to visit with Johann and Doris Ficher. I lived with Johann and his family in a small mining city called Cabildo. Johann and his wife Doris recently moved down to Vina to attend school and work. It was great to see them. They cooked me “once”…a late dinner and we played UNO. After that I ended up back in Vina and regrouped up with the rest of the Rotarians and we continued on to another bar to watch some Karaoke. Another eventful day.

If you want to see more pictures from today…

CLICK ON THIS PICTURE

We found our little hotel, The Hotel Monterilla. We normally stay the Casino Vina Del Mar, but Rick says I am on a fixed budget these days so we opted for a hotel across the street. The Hotel Monterilla reminds me a small boutique hotel like some of the ones that we stay at in Italy. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was comfortable and the people that worked there were very nice. After a quick rest we were off to work.

We arrived up at La Escuela Especial de Rapa Nui. We toured the small school, it gave a chance to those that had not been there before the opportunity to see how the school functions, meet the school professors and see the children that we would be helping out. The kids get so excited to have visitors. It is fun to see their excitement. They want to show us everything that they are working on and the latest art projects they have done. We got to see the bakery that we had built the last time we were hear. The kids were in there working on baking a pastry called Brasa de Reina. It was good to see the kids using the bakery. They were excited to show us the different things they had learned to do in the new bakery.

We knew we wouldn’t be able to complete everything in our project by ourselves during this trip, so we hired some local handymen to come and help out. We were very pleased to see that they had actually started before we arrived and had already installed support beams for the roof structure. While those guys worked on installing the plastic corrugated roof, we started our designer painting of the roof structures supports and beams. If you ever make it to Chile, you will see that Chileans love color. Houses are painted blue, yellow, red, green and very vibrant colors at that. I think it helps make a difference in a world where everything is either brown dirt or green shrubs. The splash of color on the houses makes for a beautiful patchwork of modern art. Our painting skills might not be the most professional, but everything looks good. 

After painting, we had free time to wander around Vina Del Mar. Everyone was pretty tired so we opted for an early dinner. That of course is a relative term. Here in Chile, restaurants don’t open until around 8:00 in the evening. After dinner everyone went back to the hotel to catch up on their sleep after flying the night before. Of course, Fred and I decided we need to explore some more. We ended up at a little bar down the street from our hotel called Kamikaze. The median age in the bar was probably 19 but it was fun to try all the different Pisco drinks they had on the menu. After flirting with the cute Chilean girls and drinking our fair share of Pisco…Fred and I finally decided we better call it a night. Tomorrow there is more work to be done on our playground project.

The School that the Sugar House Rotary Club and the Vina Del Mar Rotary Club partnered up on is called La Escuela Especial de Rapa Nui. It is a school that helps kids with special needs such as Autism and Down Syndrome. Most families in Chile do not have government support to help them with Autistic and Down Syndrome children. Many children, with these types of needs, are placed into the care of government agencies or these children are isolated to their houses. La Escuela Especial de Rapa Nui was formed to help the parents teach their special need children how to function and be a part of a working society. The school now teaches them the basics of an education along with skills to help them socially survive. Some of those skills include how to interact with neighbors. The Rotary Club created a replica of a typical Chilean house and this enables the children to learn how to make their beds, clean the floors, use a stove, wash dishes and the other skills they need to become more independent at their own homes.

The first big project that The Sugar House Rotary Club helped on was to build a working bakery at the school. Three years ago we came down and built the new bakery. Many of the families of the children that attend this school were having financial difficulties. By building a working bakery onsite at the school, we were able to teach the children a trade that now helps them contribute to their families financial situation. Breads and pastries are baked everyday at the bakery and sold to the neighboring public. Chileans eat fresh bread and pastries for every meal. It was a great project that not only helps the families of these children but also helped the children gain a new found confidence.

This year we are building an enclosed playground for the children. We are also bringing down school supplies, donated by Red Apple School Supply and Leez Osterstock. We are also providing each family with a new Spanish/English Dictionary. I will post pictures and maybe some videos from our adventures building the playground area and interacting with the children at the school. Of course there will be a lot of fun along the way so I am sure to capture some of that.

On our flight down from Chile, we sat across the isle from Angel Cabrera. Mr. Cabrera had just won the 2009 Masters Champion on Sunday and was returning to Cordoba, Argentina. It was fun to sit and talk to him about his recent big win. He was actually very humble about it. He talked about his crazy shot hitting the tree and bouncing off and him not able to see where the ball went. He signed my copy of the USA Today with a full page picture of him on the front page of the Sports section and yes he had his “Green Jacket”. However he kept it in a bag that was embroidered with “2009 Masters Champion”. I asked him if I could try it on and he wouldn’t let me.

I am excited to take off and head to Santa Barbara for the weekend. Beach, sand, waves, warmth…I am looking forward to wearing shorts all weekend. Driving up to Santa Margarita and picking up my brother Zack’s new puppy from Kenya Labradors. It will be fun to spend the weekend with my "little" brother.

All morning long, I have had my iPod playing in my office. A great song came on that made me stop and sit back and think about life. It is called, "End of the World" by Matt Alber. Matt’s sound is touchingly personal and sentimental, dreamy love songs that speak from the heart. His songs are bound to bring floods of memories and desires within your grasp. Sit back and listen to his song "End of the World" and enjoy the roller coaster ride.