Trade show

If you’ve ever manned a trade show booth, you know the drill. Dress up, set up, smile. But it’s not a bad way to spend two half-days, which was my share of the InnoVenture booth-manning burden. The balance of my contribution was to design and coordinate production of a backdrop and an InnoVenture-specific greeting card.

By all accounts, we’ll be well served by the conference. Hands were shaken, services were discussed. A few comers seemed to want to begin projects more or less immediately.

Followup calls made by our sales folks over the next week or so will tell the tale, of course, but older hands at this than I already are saying that FernCreek should have been presenting at InnoVenture from its inception.

Michael’s bond hearing is set for tomorrow morning. By the end of the day, therefore, he’ll be either out on bail or serving what will amount to a one-year sentence without possibility of parole, since that’s about how long it will be before his case goes to trial.

He has no priors, which is cause for optimism. On the other hand, he’s accused of a crime that I’m told is unexcelled in its ability to suck mercy out of a courtroom. Better to be accused of murder. At least with murder there’s the possibility of an extenuating circumstance.

A friend who used to teach in the public school system tells me that he knows of several education professionals who’ve quietly resigned rather than fight such accusations. There’s no way to win, he says, because even if you win, you lose. The stain of accusation is indellible.

Another friend, who believes that we overreact to this kind of crime, also believes that we’re making up for all the years we looked the other way. I get that, but … objection.

Lunch with Chris White last week. He said that he’s pleased with how the film we worked on last month is shaping up and I told him that I was glad to hear it. Which I was. I also feel removed from whatever he and film editor Jeter Rhodes make of the raw material I provided. When shooting wrapped, I became an ancestor. Represented in the gene pool, but no longer able to have any deliberate effect on it.