Friday started off with a bang at the college. The Seven Eleven had just been robbed and the getaway car ran the red light. By luck it was one of our security old Ford Explorers that was crossing through the intersection and not one of the newer ones. It was T-boned in the right side passenger door. The driver had on the safety belt as the rules required. The speed was fast enough to push the Explorer 20 feet side-ways. That meant that I was down one person from the start, as the guard would be in ER most of the morning getting checked out. He did not want to go, but I told him he had no choice; it was in the rules and that was all there was to it.

The driver and the holdup man had both been ejected through the front windshield onto the hood of the old Impala they had stolen. That blocked the intersection and then the 20 police cars responding to the hold-up alarm just closed down everything. That happened at a few minutes before 8 AM.

The Frost Borough group was only miles from the college. They had arrived at BWI at 6:30. They had signed the paperwork at Mid Atlantic Auto rentals at 6:40. For a morning heading to the Eastern Shore they were going the opposite direction of the heavy traffic heading into Baltimore and had make good time.

They were then stuck in a traffic jam just a mile from the Chester River Bridge. A local would have easily negotiated around the problem with a 20 mile end around but they were simply lost. It was 9 when they finally arrived after a detour through the old part of town.

I spent the entire morning dealing with paperwork from the State and local police. They impounded the totaled Explorer and held Tommy Chester until they completed the investigation and a re-enactment of the accident. It was almost noon when he reported back to work.

I inspected the repaired Homer dummies and loaded them into the Suburban. We were flying west early Monday to Oklahoma State and staying overnight there. Then on Tuesday morning we were flying to Dallas to do two seminars and then back home Tuesday night. Thursday morning we were flying to Atlanta. After the seminar there we were flying to Louisiana do two more Friday before flying home.

The board took the Frost Borough group to the best restaurant in the area where $150 a person was from the cheap side of the menu. It was 2:30 when they finally made their way to the security department.

I had met Mr. Skaggs and two of his group when we did the seminar at Frost Borough. He went through the introductions with the others. I spent an hour highlighting the security system and procedures we had in place and how we operated all shifts. The group went over to the admin building to finish up with the KCC board. At 4 we met in the parking lot and they followed Patti and me to the Narrows Seafood Inn. The rest of my group met us there including the three new administrators along with Katz and Bradberry. It was a wonderful meal. After the meal they followed us to the gym.

After a complete round of formal introductions and responsibilities I turned the meeting over to Katz and Bradberry to explain all the working details of the system. They demoed the locks, cameras, ease of installation for the wireless cameras and also how levels of security access could be controlled by the ID cards. They also explained about the discount for allowing them to use the college in advertizing about the system.

I explained the security plan that I had drawn up with the locations of the cameras and the manpower and cars. I explained the background checks and random drug testing that would be done on all our employees. I gave an overview of all the training that the full time people would have to complete successfully.

Marcy then gave a detailed overview of the cost based on the complete package and a five year contract. The final number that she had worked out came to 1.1 million a year. Jenny gave them the proposed contract for them to take with them to review.

I knew from the conversations that I had with Mr. Scaggs that was close to what they were paying without all new equipment. We spent another hour answering questions. Some were about our other business ventures and some about the security system.

At 8 we were boarding the G5 at the Island Airport. At 8:45 they were walking to their cars at Frost Borough airport. As we were landing I emphasized that we were only 45 minutes away if there were any problems. They promised that we would have an answer to our proposal within 30 days.

Jenny met me at the door. I could see the sad expression on her face. I knew was what she was going to tell me by the date on the calendar. Her period had started. She broke the down feeling by saying, “We will try again, Then added, “We knew it would take a while,” as we hugged each other. Jenny whispered, “I can go with you this week and play the villain again, Please?”

“You need to discuss that with Chin Lee,” I replied.

“I already have, she is OK with it. She needs the time to catch up the web site and the gym with all the changes happening,” Jenny said.

The weekend went past like a bullet. It seemed like we didn’t even have a weekend. Marcy’s phone alarm went off several times. The alarms were from various rental sites. They had hit the threshold or had rented all the cars they had. Marcy had her work cut out for her Monday.

Edit by Alfmeister