(Cue twinkly music)

I survived. Having heard stories from past trips to NACE and CARS and the challenges that an undertaking like this brings, my main thought coming into this was, “How am I going to do this?” I don’t know why I was worried. This is a great staff that works well together, and this week was no exception.

Somehow, I managed to eat healthy in the land of buffets that could feed a mid-sized country. Kind of. A little. OK, I had oatmeal for breakfast one morning, ate the celery that came with an order of Buffalo wings and walked by a salad bar. Close enough.

As the week went on, I found I was making deals with myself on sleep: “OK, if I go to bed at midnight, I can still get about five hours of sleep. Yeah, that sounds good. Wait, why am I talking to myself? And why are all those people giving me weird looks?”

I really wish I could tell you that I was staying up so late because I was out soaking up The Strip, taking up residence in bars, causing mayhem and doing things that should stay in Vegas. As with most parts of my life, the truth is actually pretty mundane.

Since I’m out here doing quite a bit of photography, our marketing manager and the editor of AutoInc. magazine, who are both wonderful people, asked me to grab a few shots of Las Vegas Boulevard, only if I “ … can make time for it. Really, don’t go out of your way.” Which, in my mind, translates to, “OK, Photo Boy, get our shots or don’t bother getting on the plane to come home.”

I’m happy to report that I got the shots and can leave Las Vegas. In addition, I got to meet really great ASA members that were previously a photo on a page, a name in an e-mail or a voice on the phone. Best of all, I can start to relax and stop being neurotic about getting everything right. At least until I get into the office on Monday.

When you spend massive amounts of time with anything, it all kind of runs together and rarely does something jump out at you. I’ve reached that state with Web sites — to the point that the Internet has almost become a veritable wasteland of popup ads and spam advertising products I hope I’ll never need.

A couple of weeks ago I had an opportunity to sit in on a conference call that would include a test run of ShopMeter, a Web site developed by Mitchell 1 as a benefit for ASA members. I had heard occasional progress reports but this was my first time to see the actual product. As soon as the demonstration began, I knew … This. Is. Big.

The Web site gives shop owners key performance indicator (KPI) data, pulled from the millions of pieces of data collected by Mitchell 1 and is updated monthly. The KPIs are organized on the site by year, make and model of the vehicle, a several mile radius of a ZIP code or by comparing months. The amount and quality of that information is staggering.

In my former professional life as a photographer, a tool like this would occasionally come along, giving the business owner the information or platform they needed to get ahead and would become an industry standard in no time at all. I believe this Web-based tool has that kind of potential.

In a press conference Thursday introducing the new member benefit, Jon Vance, Mitchell 1 project manager, said three words that, in my opinion, summed up what makes ShopMeter valuable: “Knowledge is power.”

I think the knowledge that this new Web-based tool will share with ASA members will give them the power they need to get ahead.

Archie Manning, ASRW Keynote speaker

NFL legend Archie Manning delivered the keynote address for the 2008 ASRW Opening General Session on Thursday morning with candor, inspiration and surprisingly, quite a bit of self-effacing humor.

But first, I must provide full disclosure: Statement #1: It’s no surprise that I thought Manning was great because I suffer from a very serious case of Good Old Days Syndrome when it comes to sports. I long for the days before multimillion dollar signing bonuses, overrated end zone celebrations and athletes throwing temper tantrums like spoiled five-year-olds for all the world to see. Full disclosure statement #2: I’m also 5’7” tall and have the athletic ability of a slug, so any criticisms I might have of athletes are pretty much null and void.

Seriously, though, it seems as though the athletes of Manning’s generation simply dealt with more adversity in a season on the field than a lot of today’s players might see in their whole career. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Archie Manning came across as such a classy individual this morning.

After meeting and working with Clint Eastwood, actor Sean Penn commented, “He’s one of the few legends who isn’t a disappointment.” Thankfully, Manning seems to be continuing that tradition.

The doors open ... to a LOT of people!

Turning to the “And Now For Something Completely Different” department: There’s a lot of people here. No, really, there is. (In other shocking news, the sky is blue and the Earth is round).

I’ve heard numbers of how many people were coming here, but as a visual person, I like to see the numbers. So when the doors opened and people started filing in, I saw them. A LOT of them.

Seeing the large number of people on the floor reminds me of the bustling crowd on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, except this floor is filled with mechanical and collision displays and they’re not sucking my IRA dry. At least I don’t think they are.

I might have to look into that.

Sort of.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Las Vegas … most of the time.

This town is one of my favorite destinations: My wife and I spent our honeymoon there. Some of my favorite restaurants are on the Strip, and I’ve lost enough money to the casinos that I need my own personal bailout plan every time I leave.

They even have slot machines as soon as you get off the plane. How ingenious is that? It’s one of the few airports I know of where you can lose massive amounts of money at the ticket counter and at the gate. Anymore, the slots might be a better value.

I’ve definitely been looking forward to ASRW. It’s been the subject of a lot of my work since I started with the ASA a few months ago, and I look forward to the challenge of  daily photo and Web coverage. Plus I look forward to finally meeting ASA members that who up until now, I’ve only communicated with via e-mail and the occasional phone call.

But traveling to Las Vegas for work presents its own challenges, and it’s not your average day at the office.  For the next week, the commute to work involves making new friends with Transportation Security Administration screeners (my new biggest fear: someone wearing a pair of rubber gloves); traveling at 30,000 feet while keeping the tray table in the upright position; crowds at the baggage claim conveyer belts that make a full-scale riot seem pleasant; and kamikaze cab drivers.

After checking into what is be “home” for the next four days at the Luxor, I finally make it to the office: The Mandalay Bay Convention Center. I’ve gone from a 10-foot-by-10-foot cubicle to thousands of square feet of show floor and ballrooms. I guess I should have been a little more specific when I put in that request for a bigger workspace.

The most disturbing thing of all of this is that I think I may actually enjoy it. I’m the type of person who relishes a challenge, and I’ve got a feeling that being on the road, as well as the days that follow, will not disappoint me.

By Jeff Loy, ASA Web Specialist and first-timer to CARS and NACE

After years of traveling, I’ve come up with a fairly simple process for packing for a trip:

Step 1: Grab a bunch of clothes.
Step 2: Shove them in a duffel bag/suitcase/backpack.
Step 3: Walk out the door.

Last week, the staff at the Automotive Service Association headquarters quite literally packed most of the office to ship it out to Las Vegas for the upcoming Automotive Service and Repair Week (ASRW). Thankfully, though, their packing technique was a bit more thorough than mine.

When you think about it, gathering up most of your workspace to relocate it more than 1,200 miles away is pretty daunting. You must go through a mental checklist of every little thing you’ll need that is usually at your fingertips day in and day out: Pens, paper, computer mice, the gallon drum of antacids … you know, the essentials.

I’m proud to report that everything made it on the truck with little drama. (Okay, there was a pretty heated discussion on what size paperclips to bring, but a mediator was brought in at the last moment and the matter was settled with minimum bloodshed).

Seriously, though, I’m in awe at how easily the ASA staff  — your ASA staff — put everything together. In the short time I’ve been a part of this group, this type of efficiency and professionalism is something that I see every day. And it’s what I believe makes this a premier organization.

I’m so inspired that I might even fold my clothes before packing them this time.

See you in Vegas.