Many were really, really busy. (Of course.) But I kept at it and ended up seeing nearly everyone I set out to meet! 'I'd never been contacted by a location scout before to show me their work and pitch their services', I heard more often than I can count. I never made it to the beach.

When I look back now at the people I met, the level of individual at the top of the food-chain I was able to arrange spending a bit of their valuable time with, I am amazed to this day. I probably wouldn't even attempt so audacious a plan now. But that was then, and sometimes the less you know about The Big Picture the better off you are, the more successful you will be at realizing your dreams and aspirations. Marol was so pleased with my tenacity, I guess, she offered to share her office space with me for the couple of years I decided to live part-time in L.A., bouncing back and forth between that anthill and Phoenix, where my real life is. I came to know Marol Butcher as, not just 'the production goddess' (so many people I met referred to her as), someone who seemed to know absolutely-everyone, but one of the most genuinely beautiful and incredibly cool (without being crass and snotty about it) people I have ever met. I could go on about her but I won't. She wouldn't feel comfortable with all the goo-goo-praise and all. (Such an anomaly in this business!)

During one of several marketing blitzes I engaged in over those early years, at one meeting where I sat down with two of the three executive producers at a busy company with lots of directors, one of the ladies suggested I go see one of their principal line producers who just happened to be in Phoenix at the time working on a project. They thought he would be interested to look at the diversity of locations I had shown them and that we