Adventures at the Unseminar Part One

Within five minutes of arriving at Vintage Villas - the location for Pat O'Bryan's Unseminar 3 - the weirdness began.

Here's what happened.

24 hours earlier as I packed my bags to fly half-way across the world, I grabbed a copy of The Robert Collier Letter Book to read on the plane. It's a book on writing sales letters written back in 1937 by undoubtedly the best copywriter of all time.

On the plane, after a wonderful meal of smoked salmon salad followed by fillet mignon - business class is amazing! - I took out The Robert Collier Letter Book and flicked through the pages.

One of the sales letters Collier wrote was for the Harvard Classics - a five foot bookshelf of classical works of literature. Sitting in the plane, I recalled when I first read this book I'd thought it would be cool to get my hands on the original Harvard Classics.

Soon I put the book back in my bag and watched the snow covered fields of Maine and New England.

After a three hour delay at Dulles, and a three and a half hour flight to Austin, I arrived after midnight at Vintage Villas. I found the key to my room in a treasure box in the lobby.

In my room, I dumped my bags and checked out the facilities. When I opened the armoire I found the TV. And stuck at the side of the TV I noticed three old books.

I wriggled them out and looked at their spines. I was stunned. Standing in a hotel room in Austin, Texas. I was holding in my hands three books from the Harvard Classics collection. The very books I'd read about in The Robert Collier Letter Book. The very books I thought would be cool to 'get my hands on'.

And I had.

Well it's time for the Unseminar to begin. I'll let you know if any more weirdness occurs.

I'll see you on the back roads...

Colin