Jeff Brummer: Year of the Golden Pig

I went to Vegas last week and went to the Electronic Transaction Association Conference for two days. I was going to drive there because I was trying to talk Lindsay or Dean into coming with me but that didn't work out. So, literally, at the last moment I decided to fly. Tickets are not always the cheapest at the last minute for some reason so I had to pay $250 for a round trip to Vegas. I stayed in our Timeshare off of Las Vegas Blvd.

In the morning I played in a golf tournament with Gary Rutledge, the COO of North American Bancard. Two years ago Gary and I won this 4 man scramble in Las Vegas so we wanted to give it a whirl again. It was a beautiful day and we teed off at 8 am. We only had 3 players because our fourth guy dislocated his shoulder the day before when he was water skiing. This was unfortunate because he was a scratch golfer. We still had a good team, and a great chance at winning. I was hitting my driver well all day but the rest of my game was less than desirable. Because the course was short we only had the 50-100 yard shots to the greens. Unfortunately, none of use could get those too close, so we had a lot of long birdie putts. Gary made some long putts for us, and I had a couple of great par-3 shots that actually won me closest to the pin on one hole. We finished at 11 under and in third place. Not bad for playing mediocre and we had a fun day.

The conference was very educational; I am glad that I went. In this business and in my world it is fun to rub shoulders with people that do the same thing you do because day in and day out I usually don't deal with people that know more than me about the industry. This is because I am always dealing with potential merchants that don't know much about the card processing industry.

Towards the end of the trip, I met a cool Korean couple that are sales reps for North American Bancard and they were fun to talk with. We chit-chatted with Rita Feldman and went to lunch together before I flew out of Vegas. They said that our baby is going to be very special because in the Oriental culture this is the "Year of the Golden Pig". Now you may ask yourself - Why is this special? Who wants there child to be born in the year named after a animal that is killed for bacon? Well, let me tell you... The Year of the Golden Pig only happens every 600 years. According to Chinese Folklore, this is an event that occurs once in every 600 years and will insure that a baby born on this year will experience a prosperous and wealthy life.

This legend is so popular, that Korea is expected to have a 10% increase in birth rate this year, which is apparently much needed as its birth rate is extremely low.