Ozzy! And of course Brom. :)

Ozzy Osborne begins the signing at Barnes and Noble, Old Orchard, Chicago's Flagship Store

Today, Barnes and Noble was crazy. We finally had Ozzy! The event was a success. The book brought in over half of our plan alone. Wow. I need to stop blogging and start writing a book. Maybe I should stop reading everyone else's books and start writing my own. Maybe this blog is becoming a book in the making. HAHA. Who knows? To start with...the line was SOOOOOOOOO long at B&N. For those of you that know Old Orchard, it began down in the music section of B&N, wrapped around our upper balcony, out the front doors and past Ann Taylor. That is long. People were willing to stand outside and wait for Ozzy's signature. Now me, being the honest person I am, accepted a "C" wristband. That is so generous of me to take that instead of an "A." (Great thanks to our head cashier for making sure I had a wristband so I did not have to show up at 6AM to stand in line to get one). Basically, seeing as I work there, I was not about to stand in line to wait. The people who had "C" wristbands were probably in line already at 6 this morning. To give you a spectrum...each letter represents 50 people. The letter "K" was handed out to people that showed up at 8:20AM. That is around 550 people. I showed up at 11 today. HAHA. That means if I were a customer, I would have gotten a wristband for God knows when and wouldn't have gotten a signature until 5 o'clock. Sad. But, like I said, I am honest and waited with the "C" peeps instead of the "A." Let me tell ya, Ozzy draws a funny little crowd. I wanted to yell at a woman in my area. She was so annoying. A store manager from Village Crossing was the keeper of the "C" group. She and I got to be good friends. (Oh, btw, our group was harbored in the Religion section. Needless to say, none of the books were touched.)

At around 1:20, Ozzy finally showed up!!! The store let out many cheers. The press was going wild and many pics were taken. Now. The fun part. Ozzy is really not as tall as you would think. He has nice long brown hair and is very frail looking. He was wearing his purple tinted glasses (all the employees of B&N had to wear purple for him today), a black shirt, black pants and a gold chain.

Well, my group did not have to wait long. We got to Ozzy fast. As I approached the table, I watched his interactions. I could tell this is a very genuine man. He is real. Oftentimes, we fantasize about people like him and portray them as being so godly. Ozzy is a person. He drank his tea, ate his fruit and smiled at people just like any of us would do. It was the little humanly things he did that made it so much better. I gave one of my managers my camera to take a pic as he was signing my book. Kathy, an bookseller, said "Ozzy, this is Patrick. He is one of our booksellers at the store." He looked up at me, smiled and said "How do you do? It is very nice to meet you." He extended his tattooed arm to me and shook my hand. His gold rings and finger tattoos caught my eyes and it felt so real. He had shook my hand. As soon as he did, my manager was called away and didn't get to take my pic with him, but it is totally cool. I will never forget shaking the hand of such a controversial figure. I won't forget his smile and his calm voice. After I had my book signed, I came back to the music section (with my special bookseller privileges) and took a few candid shots of him.

He was totally awesome. He signed a couple of people's arms. Initially, we thought his publicists were only going to let him be there for two hours. But, he wanted to stay until EVERY book was signed. He also wanted to get pics with the B&N staff. A couple of pics from today are posted on here: Ozzy signing books, the store in chaos, the staff pic with Ozzy and the five of us in purple. :)
*Sharon stayed on the bus. After the event, my GM had the privilege of going on the bus and getting to converse with her. So, by 5:30, when he left, we had already made plan for the day.

We had 50 employees working today. About 10 were store managers from different stores in the district, one was the district manager, we had the regional CRM, the regional LP man and the Barnes and Noble Vice President. Our store made such good publicity for the company today. When Ozzy left, we cleared the store. We made sure all customers were out. We began to recover everything. At about 5;45, our DM asked all of us left to come to the cafe. She wanted to thank us all and treat us to cafe drinks and food. The store remained closed for an hour and re-opened at 6:20. One woman informed our DM she was going to Borders. Oh well. Good thing. We didn't need her anyway. So, after the cafe, we went in hyperdrive to clean the store and restore it to its original settings. The doors opened and we let the Saturday night customers in. Most were teens and I loudly encouraged them to leave the store. They were obnoxious. Some I lectured in a teachery way and that made them leave on their own. I was like "Come back guys! I wanna keep talking!" I got a lot of props from customers and employees for my knack of getting kids out. They recognized the "teacher" in me. :)
















So, after all of this, I have a quick Brom re-cap.
The Lady of the Mist is ok.
Ulfger is crazy.
The Captain Samuel Carver is introduced.
The Reverend is introduced.
Alliances are formed where not expected.
People die that are not expected.
We learn more Avalon history and history of the flesh eaters from their perspective and from the perspective of Peter.
Murder occurs.
Lying happens.
People are saved.
Pixies die.

This is my best synopsis at 3AM. I am tired. I want sleep. I am up to page 403. Great book. I will be done today. I LOVE IT. Have a wonderful night!