Wed 12 Mar 2008
Catch an Iger by the Tail
Posted by TJ under Uncategorized
OK, I was cutting it a wee bit close.
Disney top dog Bob Iger was speaking at 9:15. The 8:16 got me in at 9:04. All I had to do was make my way out that back entrance of Grand Central (By the way, I love the two lanes of traffic on the escalator–express and ‘I’m not moving’–heading out of Grand Central to Madison. It’s so…London.), hoof it two blocks up and two over, and breeze through registration before Mr. Mighty Mouse stepped to the podium.
We started crawling around mid-Bronx, and continued to plod all the way to the Triboro. The Harlem Line may do a 98.2% on-time performance rate–that’s arriving within 5:59 of when it was supposed to. But on the day I really, truly needed the train to be on time, it pulled into GCT at 9:13–nine minutes late and two minutes before Iger.
I sprinted all the way to McGraw-Hill, hit the escalator around 9:16, and caught a break in registration, finding a worker that was more than familiar with the concept of alphabetical order. I burst into the ballroom to the strains of Iger being introduced by the host, where I was greeted with some chick in a Clinton-esque pants-suit and nametag.
“Overspill room to the right,” she said.
Like an awkward tween shuffling over to the kids’ table on Thanksgiving, all elbows and knees as he pours himself into a kiddie chair, I made my way into the overspill room.
Instead of seeing Iger in the flesh, I saw him on the big-screen, thanks to the tardy 8:16.
Oh well, it’s not like he’s Hannah Montana or anything.
