XII

My wife and I discussed the distorted pics I had taken of James with a couple female attendees nearby before heading back to our room. We were a bit hungry, but the Target across the street was closed and the hotel had no vending machines. So we did the unthinkable and hit the mini-bar. We watched Saturday Night Live in HD while I munched on a granola bar and some Gatorade (my girl had some M&M's and a Diet Pepsi). HD is quite fantastic as I mentioned earlier, but I have to admit there are some downsides to it. While watching Weekend Update, I could see various imperfections on co-anchor Amy Poehler's face. Oh well, guess that means she's human just like the rest of us.

I was looking forward to another workshop with Neale the next morning. My wife had missed the one with him earlier that day while out with her sister. We didn't get to bed until a little after midnight. I felt that if we were too tired, we could skip our first Sunday seminar which was with "Seat of the Soul" author Gary Zukav.

I woke up quite refreshed at around 7. I woulda liked to have gone to the optional morning meditation at 7, but again just couldn't get myself up quite that early. We packed our suitcases as we needed to be out of the room by noon and I didn't want to take all our stuff to the car in between workshops. Before getting in line to be admitted to Zukav's talk, we stopped at a hotel vendor stand and picked up a little somethin' for breakfast. I once again opted for a granola bar (such a good boy).

Zukav's lecture was on one side of the Grand Ballroom (they had halved it for this occasion). We got front row seats just off to the left. I'd browsed some of Zukav's books, but never read an entire one. Partway through the seminar, my lady said she'd noticed that most of the speakers refer to their wives as their "life partner". I said that that's what one does when a part of the New Thought Movement.

During the introduction, it was revealed that Gary was an ex-Green Beret in Vietnam. Paint me surprised. He was so soft-spoken during his talk that I never woulda suspected this. He said he used to believe that the most powerful force on Earth was a loaded gun and that there was no way anyone could convince him otherwise. Now he feels that love is the most powerful force and that nothing will dissuade him from this view. For the first 45 minutes of his discussion on Courage and Spiritual Growth, he was seated. Later, he stood while speaking.

He was a very good speaker, but to me not quite as charismatic as most of the others. Maybe it's just because he didn't make the audience laugh as much. Either way, I'd love seeing him again. He is obviously a man of great wisdom and love. I told my beloved that as soon as Gary quit speaking, we should immediately take off so that we could get good seats for Neale. She said she might be interested in buying one of Zukav's books and then have him sign it. I told her to have at it and that I would go ahead (though I go first, I'll wait for you at the pearly gates :P).