What do you do?  A Special Project.  I think if I'm going to build a computer for you, or write software, or design a website, I need to know as much as possible about the nature of your business and how you conduct it. Because I'm willing to get involved, clients often call on me to help out with special projects. And that's just what happened with Elyse and Marsha of Property Tax Adjusters.

Several months after they took delivery on their new office systems, they called to say they were planning to host a booth at the Home Show to be held in a few weeks at the Nassau Coliseum. They'd done this before, with good results, and thought things would go even better for them if they could bring one of their systems to the show and literally conduct business on the spot.

That's how it came to be that I found myself, about a month ago, sitting at the top of this ramp waiting to descend into the bowels of the Coliseum with my cargo of Elyse's complete PC system. Waiting isn't fun, but the folks who manage the Coliseum had things pretty well sorted out and soon we had Elyse's system unpacked, set up, and tested from stem to stern. I took leave of the partners, wishing them well and making sure they knew how to contact me in case of a problem. To maintain proper service for a situation like this, I make sure that someone is "on call" during show hours to ensure things go smoothly.

As I emerged from under the Coliseum and looked to my right, I was greeted by the bright welcoming sun and this frivolous-looking edifice. A veteran of past Coliseum shows, I know this confection is really an office building, but all I could think was "chocolate layer wedding cake with playground slide tongue". I guess the fellow (or gal) who designed this has as much fun in his business as I do in mine.

Elyse and Marsha had fun at the weekend Home Show too. They lined up a substantial number of prospects and actually signed up several new clients right there at the show. That was the good news. I learned the bad news when they called to tell me they didn't need me to pick up the system and get it running again in Elyse's office. Someone had walked off with their computer!

I know some of my "colleagues" would be glad of the additional business created by the theft. I know I wasn't. I put Acer and myself into overdrive and delivered a replacement system, identical to the original, fully tested, configured and ready to run, by week's end -- at cost. So you see, this was a special project in more ways than one.

And now lets take a look at something else I find special, the VW Beetle.