pulsefmonline.com

[LindaNorton]

On our second TV show taping, "Brian" flew to Florida in advance of me. I believe he got there the Monday before me (which would be approximately Monday, April 11th) and I flew there on Wednesday, April 13th. "Brian" said that he was doing advance work and contacting local companies who would be ideal candidates to advertise on our show. I had rented a very inexpensive car from Alamo and "Brian" had secured lodging at a local hotel for free, in exchange for including them in the credits at the end of the TV show. That hotel was the Residence Inn, on Tamiani Trail North in Naples. When I checked in, the manager of the hotel greeted me as though I were royalty and said "You're the CEO" as though I were somebody important. It was clear to me that "Brian" was hyping us as some big thing wherever he went, and I figured it was part of the process of maximizing our oomph and exposure in the area.

I didn't see "Brian" until the following morning at breakfast, when he told me that he had no money and only $9 to live on until the following Saturday, including the cost of his meals. I believed him and gave him the $20 I had in cash. We left immediately afterward for the short drive to the studio. Sometime during that morning, Brian mentioned to me that he had purchased the digital video camera out of his own money. I was horrified and told him I had no way of paying him back. He said that he was now trying to figure out how to make his $400 car payment, which was due in 4 days.

The makeup artist was late, and both of us called her several times to make sure she was okay. She wound up an hour late; the result of a communication gap between herself and "Brian." So we started filming about an hour late.

After lunch, we filmed the show without problem, then went to lunch with Mike Luker, the sales executive with Comcast, at a country-club-like restaurant in his private gated community. We went directly from there to the airport to drop me off. Earlier in the day, while we were at the studio, "Brian" asked if he could use my rental car for one more day and explained that he had left his rental car at the hotel, with prior permission from his rental car company, and that his rental car company would be picking it up. He said he would pay for the extra day; that "extra day" turned out to cost me $263.51 -- another surprise on my credit card.

In retrospect, I don't remember seeing his rental car and I strongly suspect that he didn't actually have one. I was concerned because "Brian" was not on the rental car agreement as being authorized to drive the car I had rented. I insisted on his getting the name of the person at Alamo who said that, yes, "Brian" was authorized to drive the car since he was a business associate of mine.