Tales of a Russian

I've just finished my second week of travels in a row and subsequebtly spent the weekend away from anything work related trying to forget how exhausting it is to go to 4 countries in 2 weeks. Back in the office today, I started to recall a rather interesting meeting with my favorite Russian. His name is Yuri (Russian enough) but some how whenever I meet with him (twice thus far) I like to secretly think of him a Putin (It makes me consider him to be as influential and important in Russia as he considers himself). The first time I met this man in person was back in October of 2007 (not so long ago). In this meeting he was the opposite of happy (mostly because I was sent to deliver the message that my boss, who was an hour late, would not be attending this meeting) and I only met with him to try and rectify the situation. There was a bit of yelling. Needless to say, I wondered what this next meting would bring and looked forward to seeing him on neutral soil at a trade show. He showed up at 3:30 for his 5:oo meeting (he picked the time) and asked us if we could meet earlier so he could have time to return to his hotel and change before the evening's gala dinner. We told him we could meet immediately which led to him disapearing for half an hour and then coming back for the longest meeting of the day (he requested a 30 minute meeting but talked for 3 times as long). Aside from business, he brought up various topics and I took notes, including a few quotes which are just a rediculous in context (they were never in ocntext) as they are at random (let's face it, they were delivered at random). Unfortunately, I was not able to take down the best comments as I didn't know they were coming but he did go into a bit of a rant about wanting to be at his peak again to impress the ladies - by which, I deduced he had a huge crush on my boss and then he challenged her to a vodka drinking contest from which she successfully hid. I'm so glad Russia is in my region. Here are a few of the quotes I managed to squeeze into my notes, imagine that we were talking about planning an event to take place in Moscow and you will begin to realize how out of context this man was. "Obama is cleave but Hilary is Hilary" ::delivered with a huge smile:: "I like Hilary." "I like drinking"