Day two
In the darkness and fatigue of the previous night, I hadn’t taken a close look at the buses — luxury touring coaches, if you want to be picky about terminology. In the too-early light of that second day, I gave my new home away from home a good going over.
The “old” bus I’d boarded to meet with Bill showed no signs of age. Designed to convey 15 people in comfort, it was at least twice as large as my first apartment and far better appointed than anywhere I had ever lived. The driver’s seat, manned by Reg Donaldson, looked like the cockpit of the space shuttle. In addition to speed and mileage, he could monitor [all the things he could monitor] from the glowing dashboard.
Rows of reclining seats and a couple bunk beds led back to the lounge, galley, and surprisingly large bathroom. The entertainment center, with its satellite TV, DVD player, Xbox game system, and stereo, looked like a display from the home theatre section at Best Buy. Reading lights and computer hook-ups studded the seating areas. The large tinted windows let in plenty of light, but an elaborate climate control system governed the temperature. Intercoms built into the walls allowed for easy calling from front to back.
It was posh. It was high-tech. For a bus, it was spacious. But with my boss peering over my shoulder at my designs for his web site, it felt cramped.
We pored over the examples I’d drafted for more than an hour. My carefully crafted narration went out the window; Bill asked questions and I answered them. He approved most of what I’d done but was not shy about nixing the things he didn’t like, or about telling me to lift up the faith-related features.
“Lift up? You want those at the top of the page?” I asked.
“I want them emphasized,” he said. Oh. Christian vocabulary lesson number one. I would make the Mission Statement and the Daily Inspiration more prominent.
He liked the idea of adding sound and video clips to the site, provided I didn’t post any complete songs people could illicitly download. The route-tracking roadmap, the audience photos, and the Q&A also got the okay. However, the colors purple and orange were off limits. I wasn’t going to miss orange, since I hate it, too, but the ousting of purple meant I’d have to rethink some of the color scheme. I wondered how far I could push indigo before Bill decided it was purple.
Other instructions: proceed with taking new portraits immediately, starting that evening; proceed with interviews immediately, starting with Bill right now; proceed with blogging immediately and submit a sample for review by sound check that evening.
That last one rankled, but not as much as it might have. While I’m loath to cede editorial control to anyone else, even the boss, part of the agreement had been that Bill would review the first couple weeks’ blog entries before posting to make sure they were kosher, so to speak. Once he trusted that I wasn’t defaming the Caravan, I’d be on my own.
The photos would have to wait until evening and my first blog was already written in my head, so I switched to the seat across from Bill to begin the interview.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to take notes?”
“I’ll remember what you say.”
“But you can’t remember everything. Not exactly,” he protested. “You need notes or a tape recorder.”
“Actually, I can remember it all,” I replied. “I have a photographic memory, and if I mentally close-caption a conversation, I can recall everything that was said.”
His skeptical expression elicited a mental sigh from me. I’m used to being asked to prove it and have the parlor trick down to a science. Taking a deep breath, I began to repeat our conversation starting from the first hello, and including tone of voice and gestures for good measure. It took only a couple minutes to convince him.
“Very impressive,” he said. “All right, let’s get started.”
He led off with a canned spiel honed by years of giving interviews. I listened attentively, but I’d heard it all before: how he . . .
[And here’s where we get Bill Williams’s back story. I wonder what it is.]
The “old” bus I’d boarded to meet with Bill showed no signs of age. Designed to convey 15 people in comfort, it was at least twice as large as my first apartment and far better appointed than anywhere I had ever lived. The driver’s seat, manned by Reg Donaldson, looked like the cockpit of the space shuttle. In addition to speed and mileage, he could monitor [all the things he could monitor] from the glowing dashboard.
Rows of reclining seats and a couple bunk beds led back to the lounge, galley, and surprisingly large bathroom. The entertainment center, with its satellite TV, DVD player, Xbox game system, and stereo, looked like a display from the home theatre section at Best Buy. Reading lights and computer hook-ups studded the seating areas. The large tinted windows let in plenty of light, but an elaborate climate control system governed the temperature. Intercoms built into the walls allowed for easy calling from front to back.
It was posh. It was high-tech. For a bus, it was spacious. But with my boss peering over my shoulder at my designs for his web site, it felt cramped.
We pored over the examples I’d drafted for more than an hour. My carefully crafted narration went out the window; Bill asked questions and I answered them. He approved most of what I’d done but was not shy about nixing the things he didn’t like, or about telling me to lift up the faith-related features.
“Lift up? You want those at the top of the page?” I asked.
“I want them emphasized,” he said. Oh. Christian vocabulary lesson number one. I would make the Mission Statement and the Daily Inspiration more prominent.
He liked the idea of adding sound and video clips to the site, provided I didn’t post any complete songs people could illicitly download. The route-tracking roadmap, the audience photos, and the Q&A also got the okay. However, the colors purple and orange were off limits. I wasn’t going to miss orange, since I hate it, too, but the ousting of purple meant I’d have to rethink some of the color scheme. I wondered how far I could push indigo before Bill decided it was purple.
Other instructions: proceed with taking new portraits immediately, starting that evening; proceed with interviews immediately, starting with Bill right now; proceed with blogging immediately and submit a sample for review by sound check that evening.
That last one rankled, but not as much as it might have. While I’m loath to cede editorial control to anyone else, even the boss, part of the agreement had been that Bill would review the first couple weeks’ blog entries before posting to make sure they were kosher, so to speak. Once he trusted that I wasn’t defaming the Caravan, I’d be on my own.
The photos would have to wait until evening and my first blog was already written in my head, so I switched to the seat across from Bill to begin the interview.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to take notes?”
“I’ll remember what you say.”
“But you can’t remember everything. Not exactly,” he protested. “You need notes or a tape recorder.”
“Actually, I can remember it all,” I replied. “I have a photographic memory, and if I mentally close-caption a conversation, I can recall everything that was said.”
His skeptical expression elicited a mental sigh from me. I’m used to being asked to prove it and have the parlor trick down to a science. Taking a deep breath, I began to repeat our conversation starting from the first hello, and including tone of voice and gestures for good measure. It took only a couple minutes to convince him.
“Very impressive,” he said. “All right, let’s get started.”
He led off with a canned spiel honed by years of giving interviews. I listened attentively, but I’d heard it all before: how he . . .
[And here’s where we get Bill Williams’s back story. I wonder what it is.]
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