We were out of town on two consecutive weekends in early April—one weekend at the Allegra Print & Imaging conference and the next at an unofficial reunion of NAQP "Old Farts." Each trip had its own highs and lows.

At Allegra in Houston, we got to mingle with lots of old friends and present awards from Quick Printing and our sister publication Wide-Format Imaging to top performers. Our booth at the trade show was visited early and often by attendees who, for the most part, had nice things to say. (Okay, okay, I'll get another picture taken for my column and I know I've got a lot more gray in my beard and lots less hair on my head.) At the close of the trade show we had an experience that speaks volumes about the importance of taking ownership and the hazards of not doing so.

The show closed just before 5 p.m. and, due to an administrative mix up, we ended up with one paper-carton sized box that had no prepaid shipping label. No problem; there was a FedEx Kinko's at the convention center and, even though it seemed somewhat sacrilegious to go from an Allegra event to a FedEx Kinko's, we rationalized that we were shipping something and not buying printing.

As we rode up the escalator we saw that several other vendors with large cartons or booth material containers had the same idea. "I bet that's why they have these convention center locations," I told Karen. "They get lots of business from trade show exhibitors."

I had no sooner gotten that out of my mouth than I saw a woman inside the store walking toward the door. She looked directly at the escalator loaded with shipping business, flipped the "closed" sign, and locked the door. One of the vendors who was ahead of us tapped on the glass door and the woman pointed to the hours of operation, snarled "We're closed!", and walked away—leaving a substantial amount of business behind. It was 5:00 Friday evening and she was going home, customers or no customers.

In Phoenix the next weekend the only bummer was a Thrifty rental car with a windshield so filthy inside that we had to stop and buy Windex to clean it or risk death because of the glare from the headlights of oncoming traffic. Everything else was great—except, of course, for the gray beard and thin hair digs from other geezers who had little room to talk.

It was great to see all the old-timers, most of whom had managed to exit the business with dignity, grace, and sufficient cash. Each had found a life outside of printing. There were the expected golf, sailing, and other leisure things, but most had gone beyond that and had started second businesses or were involved in activities that ranged from building a sculpture garden of frontier pioneers on the banks of the Mississippi to driving a tour bus just because it sounded like a fun thing to do.

These early NAQP stalwarts had made a good living in the printing business and were proving that there is, indeed, life after printing.

I'll bet they never slammed the door in the face of potential customers.