Chapter 138

The flight to Dallas was uneventful. The memories of the night before were spine tingling. I wondered how the voyeurism episode would affect the girls. It didn't take long for it to come up in the conversation. It was the first time for them and they were still giddy about it. They couldn't believe that it added so many thrills to the sex experience. For them it was a new kind of kink.

The two back to back seminars went smoother than I expected they would. The flight home was peaceful, maybe because we were so tired.

It was hard to believe so much would happen in the two days we were gone. Charlotte needed more cars already as did Richmond and Charlestown, WV and Marcy also needed cars for the Naples site. We had planned on replacing 200 this year and now we were looking at an additional fifty just to shore up the sites with improving sales, and this was in less than three weeks!

It's funny what a change in management does to a business, especially when it had been run on cruise control with little actual over-site for over six months, the whole operation had just gotten sloppy.

Managers called other managers to see if anyone knew the new owners and to ask what was going to happen. They wanted to know if there was any truth to the e-mail that site inspections were going to happen, and how soon. They did make routine calls to each other to follow effective sales patterns and to make sure they were not out of the loop on things that worked. It was sort of a manager's insiders club.

The word quickly spread that bosses showed up at Baltimore on the very first day and took cars based on sales and reservations. Then they showed up at Charlotte with a brief case with fill in the blank pink slips. They were putting up with no bull.

Jack was from the respected old school group and the word went out that the new people had their act together. Managers were shown the door and people were being promoted and hired on the spot. Get your site in order and keep it that way or else became the new hush phrase.

They also learned that they could call and talk to a real person and get answers to questions today, not in weeks. Money was again being spent on advertizing. The 20% reduction in the rental numbers had changed directions and was showing a slow but gradual improvement in just a few days.

Marcy's meeting Wednesday night was a barn burner. A NASCAR team owner that Jack was friends with had approached Jack about renting 30 vehicles, including tractor trailers, for 10 months and replacing the cars and pickups with new ones the next season on an extended contract. The cars and pickups had to be Chevrolets. We knew nothing about renting tractor trailers and specialized equipment but Marcy was going to find out.

The Mom's and Dad's were back from Naples and gave us a complete rundown on the houses and the potential airport site. Both Mom's were very tan. Much to their dismay Dad let the cat out of the bag that it was a total tan. There was a bathing suits optional beach in a private cove. Mom and Lisa did tell us how much fun they had and how much shopping one could do in just a few miles.

Jason and my Dad raved about the charter fishing trips out into the Gulf and the surf fishing. I knew they would be willing to make as many trips there as was needed. Jason was talking more about retirement and dropping hints he may be interested in helping us part time. Jenny was keeping him up to date on the Frost Borough bids. His dad and the judge had bought the hunting-ski cabin. I guessed that goose and deer hunting on the shore, then elk and bear hunting season at Frost Borough, then when it got too cold Florida and fishing looked good. Those recreational activities were things that could be added to the web site, maybe even a list of those with proven results.

Ching Lee filled us in on the advertizing for the vacation rentals, it had started running in the selected areas on Monday. The web site had 10,000 hits the first day and they weren't just open and close it, many had browsed all the pictures of the houses. They were a combination of the pictures from the realtors and from those the Dads had taken when they were doing our inspection. They looked at dates of availability and the optional perks.

Ginger, Ching Lee's secretary and assistant had taken dozens of calls and even had a few lock in dates by credit card for the complete package, round trip flight, and two weeks rental with car rental. Ching Lee and Lorrie shared Ginger as a secretary. We were going to have just 3 weeks after the closing on the houses and the car rental site to get everything ready for the first rentals.

That also added two more things that needed to be taken care of when we were in Naples next week. We needed to contract a maintenance group for any emergency repairs and a Merry Maid group to thoroughly clean the houses between rentals. I knew we were going to be spending several days there and not just the one as we had initially thought.

Marcy slid a newspaper article to me and asked, "Is this going to be a potential problem for us in the future?" The head line read: "Men's Group asks for injunction against City's Free Self Defense Training for Women and Girls as part of Sexual Assault Prevention Month for being Discriminatory."

Jenny and I both read the article and dismissed it as another California group wanting free media time. The colleges were covered under a lot of different rules and students could be directed to different events as part of their studies or safety. When we converted over to the paid seminars as part of the gym offering they would still be held at colleges under the same conditions.