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A True Test
By Sherman Ragland | June 8, 2007
I’m heading to Cleveland to speak at the Retirement Education Group Conference on Investing In Commercial Real Estate Through Your IRA.
I have seen folks make hundreds of thousands in really cool ways, including options to buy land, and then flipping their contracts for BIG BUCKS – With All The Profits 100% TAX FREE.
A few weeks ago I accepted this personal invitation from Dick Desich, although I’m not sure if he know this would be my debut as a speaker.
Tonight I got my first “True Test”.
Sherman’s Law: “Murphy was a FREAKING OPTIMIST MAN!” Everything that could go wrong (almost) has…
Although I am not scheduled to speak until tomorrow morning, I decided to catch a mid-afternoon flight today and get to Cleveland in time for a good dinner, and a peaceful night’s rest. So much for planning. Its now 9:35PM and the flight was suppose to take off at 1:50 this afternoon. Yes, an almost 7-hour delay. They said a major thunderstorm had hit the mid-west and was heading our way and they were not kidding (see pictures. O.K. these are canned – but it looked JUST LIKE THIS out my window though).
So at 2:00 we pull away from the gate and start heading down the taxi way, only to be stopped abruptly and have the captain come on and say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears there is a little weather over Cleveland right now, so the FAA has stopped all flights… We’ll sit here for a few minutes and see if we can get an alternate route” 45 minutes later we go back to the gate and the head flight attendant says, “please stay near the gate… as soon as we are cleared we will re-board and get going” 45 minutes later, and for the next 6 hours we get the same schpeel: “Sorry folks we do not have any new news…we’ll update you in 45 minutes.
Finally at 9:00 we re-board and the pilot heads down the taxi way like he’s going to drive to Cleveland at 120 miles an hour or something, and then he pulls into the middle of the field, does a “180″ and I look at the lady sitting next to me. I look at her, she looks at me, and we both say “Did he just parallel park??” Sure enough the pilot comes on and says: “Sorry folks but none of us are sure if we are getting out tonight as a MASSIVE line of Thunderstorms is crossing the country and the only break appears to be a window that continues to open and close right over BWI…”
“OPEN AND CLOSE” – WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN!!?
After about 45 minutes he fires up the engines and never says a word… after about 30 minutes of “cork-screwing” through the thunderheads and lightning he finally straightens out and takes us to Cleveland. So half-way through the flight I say another round of prayers and realize, this is my first “TRUE TEST” as a speaker. If ever there was a time to throw in the towel, today was the day…
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Tags: airlines, BWI, cleveland, lightning, southwest
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