Keith Parker

Airport in Chicago

Keith Parker — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:49:12 +0000

I’ve just finished my Alaska vacation. It was two weeks in my hometown of Sterling, Alaska- the first week was around -10 degrees Fahrenheit, and the next was around 20. I took advantage of this chance to catch up with all of my family who I hadn’t seen since May after I graduated college. I also spent a day in Homer with my sister, where I saw my nephew Dain for the first time. I believe he is almost 5 months old now, and teething. For the last few days, we all went up to Alyeska, the ski resort in Girdwood, Alaska. The snow was really good, the whether was fantastic and everybody seemed to be having a good time. The whole vacation was great! Now I’m in Chicago for the next 15 hours because my flight into Chicago was very late coming in. The original travel time was about a day and a half, now that’s bumped up to 55 hours (more if you include the 13 hour time difference). I’m going back to sleep.

Moving and my last IQPC event

Keith Parker — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:46:08 +0000

I just finished my last IQPC event, Cost-Effective Sustainable Design and Construction 2008. It’s a solid one, and the last one because I quit IQPC on the 5th of December. I’m moving to IIR on the 6th of January so I have the next month off on Gardening Leave from IQPC. Check out the event website for more about this conference, which I think might be my best one yet.It has been a while since I posted and a few things have happened here. Changing jobs is a big one and I also changed apartments. I was living in Umm Sequim in a villa, a very small room in the back but it had a pool (a big plus). My landlords started to have marital problems so they sold the villa back to the original owner, leaving all off us renting out rooms on the street. This was made worse when the chick, who did all the renting, skipped off to England with all of our deposits. I stayed at a friend’s place for a couple nights and found an apartment in the Greens. The new place is only a bit more expensive and much bigger, much nicer and in a much better area. It also has a pool. So this ended up working out alright too.

The Desert Safari

Keith Parker — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:23:26 +0000

Went on a desert safari over the weekend (a long weekend because of the end of Ramadan)- it was great! Started off a bit slow, once we got onto the sand one of the ladies in the SUV decided she couldn’t handle it, had to go back to camp and drop her off. After that, free sailing! We were all over the dunes kickin’ up plenty of sand. Also this last weekend: some time in the sun but mostly endless nights at the clubs in the city- which opened up for the first time in a month for Eid!

Second Project: Facilities Management Execution 2008

Keith Parker — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:01:02 +0000

Finished up my second conference, Facilities Management Execution 2008, today. This was a very difficult event to put together, as this industry is very chaotic in the region and there wasn’t really a clear set of job titles and companies to go after. Also, quite a few vendors in this market and, as we focus on content-oriented events, had to stay away from them as speakers. Ended up with more case studies than the region’s competing conference, which is now in its 13th year! Based on the quality of this one, I’m now launching our first health care event, Health Care Supply Chain, which should prove to be very lucrative! Click on the little preview photo for the brochure, or check out the website: www.facilitiesmanagement2008.com

First Project: Retail Operations

Keith Parker — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:40:36 +0000

I’ve completed my first project, the Middle East Retail Operations conference, which ended up all coming together in the end. Was a bit of a challenge, but turned out really solid in the end with quite a few great speakers! Click on the image for the brochure or visit the website: www.maximisingretailrevenue.com

Life In The Desert!

Keith Parker — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:20:10 +0000

To quickly sum up the summer, I started off by graduating from The University of Southern California with a B.S. Degree in Business Administration with a Global Business Emphasis and Minor in International Relations. Graduation was solid, and I actually graduated with Clint Eastwood who received an honorary degree from the USC Cinema School! Post graduation was fantastic as well, another graduating Frat brother’s family rented out the roof of the Hilton in Downtown LA with an open bar for the 7 or so graduating Delta Chi’s and our families. My family came down for the graduation and rented out a house on the beach for the week- much of the week was spent at all the famous theme parks and showing off some of Southern California‘s greatest spots!
I went back to my hometown in the great country of Alaska for a couple of weeks to relax after 8 semesters grinding away at my studies. After much kayaking, fishing (caught a King Salmon), and lazy mornings, I went back to Los Angeles and crashed on the floor of my old flat-mate’s room in my fraternity house, the legendary Delta Chi. While I was only there a few days, a few fantastic nights out in the town and another day at Disneyland made this worth mentioning.
I then flew to London, and as is my style used about 5 different reservations and methods of transport to save costs getting from London to the small town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the mountains of Southern Germany. This took about 3 days and included a little while in Switzerland and sleeping on the train station floor in Austria. I finally got to this little German town and met back up with an ex-Pink Palace busboy whom I worked with at the famous nightclub in Greece during the summer of 2004, John Shultz, who offered me a place to crash for a large chunk of the summer.
I spent the next couple months in this very Bavarian town drinking almost nightly and daily, staying in the dorms for the Americans working at the military resort, playing frisbee, hiking, telling ghost stories, throwing balls of fire at people on the Fourth of July, sledding down mountains, rock climbing, and everything else that made this an incredibly memorable couple of months. And, true Pink Palace busboy style, John and I were with two of the hottest ladies there. Towards the end of this, I got a part-time job folding clothes at the store on the military base, which came with a military ID that made sneaking in and out of the military dorms a bit easier! Also right before I left to the Middle East, my Sister in Alaska gave birth to he first boy, making me an uncle!
In mid-July, I received a job offer to be a Conference Director in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates, in the Middle East. A great going-away BBQ left me with a train ride to the airport and flight through Italy to Dubai. My new employer covered the cost of the flight, airport pickup, and a month at the Holiday Inn business hotel. For the first two weeks I partied, met some new people, explored the amazing city-under-construction that is Dubai, and bought myself a new suit and some ties!
I started work on August 7th and got straight to my first project. Work is work, so I won’t spend too much time talking about my job. Bottom-line: long hours and hard work but always changing and generally interesting and with good pay, so overall a great find.
On the weekends, I’ve been exploring the seemingly endless array of nightlife available to the young western expat. I’ve also moved into my new villa near the beach complete with a pool (being cleaned right now). A new car is on the way, and my first paycheck just came in!
This brings me to now, still recovering from last night. We went to the Irish Village which had a big tent with Oktoberfest-style debauchery, and instead of waiting in the 2 hour queue, we pushed our way past the rent-a-guards on the side entrance and inside. A fantastic night ensued, which included myself getting sloppy drunk with a girl from work, her boyfriend, and her friend Kim (In some of my recent photos)! Earlier yesterday the four of us went snowboarding at the indoor ski resort here, and would have frozen to death if there wasn’t a desert outside and some hot chocolate to warm us back up.
I plan on using some of those hard earned vacation days to head up to Alaska for Christmas and revisit the quaint mountain town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany. There’s a lot to see here in the Middle East region for those long weekends, and I plan to take advantage of it. Of course, I can’t forget to mention that I’ll be at the 2009 Pink Palace Staff Reunion in Corfu, Greece!

Guten Tag from Garmisch Partenkirchen!

Keith Parker — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:18:03 +0000

It’s been a while since I sent an update out, so I figured it’s about time. I just graduated from USC in LA with a business degree, spent about a week up in Alaska, went back to LA for a couple of days, then spent three days getting from there to Garmisch Partenkirchen in Germany, on train and by plane through England, Switzerland and Austria. I’m staying with a good friend here in Germany, who some of you might know (Busboy John from The Pink Palace), who’s been a great host since I’ve been here. We’ve gone out to bars and clubs almost every night, went to Munich yesterday and got hammered at a beer garden, then almost sold the girl we were with to a German guy for 2,000 euros- which fell through when we found out that she wasn’t down, even when we offered her 10% of the cut. Tonight a few of us are heading out to a Pearl Jam concert in Munich, as long as I can scalp a ticket when I get there. I’m here in Germany for at least a couple more weeks, while I apply for work in Dubai. Once I get something lined up over there, I’ll be working out my work visa and heading straight over, something I’ve really been looking forward to. The town I’m in is awesome, fairly small but with plenty to do. I’m to the point now that I routinely run into people I know, and have been enjoying some great whether here for the last few days. For those at the Palace, there is a chance that I could stop by there for August, if I get something lined up in Dubai starting in September. Otherwise, I might end up getting a temp job here in Garmisch to support my drinking habit during the time I’m not on my laptop applying for work. For everybody else, enjoy whatever traveling or working your doing now!

The Pink Palace: Published!

Keith Parker — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:41:50 +0000

As promised, I’ve finished making a photobook from pictures of the palace last summer. It took a little while, as I did almost all of it in my free time with my laptop at work over the last few months (I don’t have much free time and ‘making the book’ includes narrowing down 3,000 pictures to 800, editing and color-correcting each one [including Eddie's red-eyes in every bloody picture] and formatting it all). You don’t need to know any of that, I just wanted to let you know how hard it was.

I just got my copy of the book today, and it looks great. You can order a hard cover version ($49.99) or soft cover ($44.99) online. I got the hardcover- it will definitely be on my coffee table for a long time to come. Might be a bit expensive, but it is a full-color 8 by 11 inch book with 200 pages, you can’t expect it to be cheap (I’m not really making any money off of this, its all printing costs).

Here’s the link: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/41545

You’re a Dr. George!

Cheers,
Keith

Brooke Burke, Ouzo and Broken Plates

Keith Parker — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:25:49 +0000

Came across this article from FHM magazine. They interview Brooke Burke and she mentions The Pink Palace during a Wild On Greece filming:

STUFF: You party pretty hard on Wild On. Ever get really loopy?

BROOKE: We did Wild On Greece. At one bar they have this pink toga party, where they bring one honorary person into the center of a circle and they do this fire ceremony and sing songs and do Greek dances. Then the guy who runs the place busts plates over your head. He asked me if I would do him the honor of being the chosen one. I was like, “Sure.” I got into the center, and they started feeding me ouzo—one shot after another. Then someone came over and said, “Sit still, and whatever you do, don’t move your neck or back.” I was like, “Oh, no.” Then he came over and smashed 11 plates over my head.

STUFF: Did you crack this dude in the jaw?

BROOKE: No. A few minutes later he asked me if I would represent them in a beer-chugging competition. In my stunned, ouzo-influenced state, I was like, “Sure!” And I won. I can race a beer.

Tour de United Kingdom

Keith Parker — Thu, 18 May 2006 17:17:05 +0000

Just a quick update on the happenings in England. After I arrived in London, I stayed with a friend of mine Dan in Reading, where he works at Microsoft‘s UK headquarters. After this, I went on to go to a Radiohead concert in Wolverhampton, which is close to Birmingham. So I called up a friend of mine in Birmingham, Luke, and stayed at his place for the night after the concert. I’m now in Leeds, staying with a friend Natalie. Today we’re bar-hoping 16 bars starting at 2:00, in about an hour, dressed up as doctors and nurses (I think I’m going to go with the Doctor’s costume). I’ve been out about every night, just kicking off the summer here in the UK. Anyway, I’m leaving Natalie’s tomorrow afternoon for Rome, where I’ll be meeting up with my friend Travis. We’ll both be at The Pink Palace in Corfu, Greece, on about the 21st. I might check out Ios for work too, I’ve heard a lot of goods things about that island. If you’re stopping by, let me know so I know who to expect! Hope everyone’s enjoying their travels if your still out and about.