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On The Road Again...
Sunday, October 23, 2005
I'm writing this from a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I arrived last night just ahead of Hurricane Wilma. As I drove my rental car on Interstate 95 from the airport, the overhead signs flashed the warning: "Mandatory Evacuation of Florida Keys in Progress." What's wrong with this picture? Everyone else is leaving, and I'm just getting here. I'm in town to do a pair of book signings, one in Boca Raton at 4 p.m. today and one Monday night in Fort Lauderdale at 7:30. Right now, it's cloudy outside but not threatening. Today's signing in Boca should be fine, well ahead of the hurricane. Tomorrow night in Fort Lauderdale, however, is a total crap shoot. If I had to bet, I'd give it about a 50/50 chance of getting canceled. Meanwhile, the humidity is about 200 percent, but that's par for the course for October in South Florida. I know that from my 12 years of living here. Now, it's just a matter of where will Wilma go and when will it go there. Here's hoping the windy girl doesn't spoil the party.
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It's been a busy several days for me. Marley & Me came out Tuesday, and was ushered in by a great piece on the KYW/Channel 3, Philadelphia's CBS affiliate. The transcript is at: http://kyw.com/seenon/local_story_290175341.html.
On Wednesday, I did my first reading/signing for actual real paying customers, not the booksellers for whom I had signed at a number of pre-publication events. The signing took place at the Barnes & Nobles store just off Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia. It's a lovely store in a big, old classic building overlooking the (incredibly beautiful) park. My reading was on the third floor, and I was gratified to find people standing along the walls because the 40 or so chairs in the space were taken. Lee, the events coordinator, told me she usually averages 10 people for an in-store reading, so she was pleasantly surprised to see the crowd -- and so was I. This is my hometown, of course, where I am a columnist and where my newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, had just run a positive review (see below) and a box publicizing the signing. So, that explains it. We'll see how many turn up when I'm in Cleveland or Dayton or Pittsburgh, all cities I'll be visiting in the days ahead. (To get times/dates for my appearances, please go to www.marleyandme.com and click "events" in my opening note.)
From the signing I hopped a night train to New York, caught four hours sleep and was up at 4:30 a.m. to appear on Fox News' Fox & Friends morning show at 6:50 a.m. They were great and made me feel comfortable...and I actually had fun jawboning with the hosts about Marley and his antics -- and the lasting effect he had on our family. After the live appearance I taped a segment to be shipped out to the Fox affiliates around the country, then I got to spend a couple hours at HarperCollins meeting the many great people who helped make this book a reality. Then it was home for a day before heading here to Florida, where I continue to watch Wilma's approach. More later....
posted by John Grogan at 8:51 AM
 
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