Don't ask why, because I don't know anymore. But at 9am today, I found myself at the Denver Colosseum, waiting amidst a very long line of cars for entrance to the parking lot. The event? "Get Motivated." A day-long seminar featuring a bunch of much-lauded speakers who would motivate the people of Denver to greatness. Or something like that.

I guess one could say it all started last week. (Although I've been hearing about this thing since last month from my mom, whose company is helping to subsidise the entrance fee for their employees.) Last Friday at the sales meeting, one of the people announced that he had managed to acquire a couple dozen of free tickets to it through the company, and offered them to anyone on a first come, first serve bases.

He said that in the past that he and people he knew had paid significant sums to see "Zig Ziglar" (one of the featured speakers at the event; and if "Zig Ziglar" was actually born with that name, well... then he has my sympathy too). They would sometimes get up early in the morning and drive hours to attend when it was in another town.

A $220 value. Or at least that's the price printed on the front of each ticket. Anybody who actually pays $220 for admittance to such a thing has my sincere sympathy.

A couple of the guys -- roughly my age -- were joking after the meeting about how they would rather spend the whole day constipated, taking a crap on the toilet than show up to this seminar. I should have listened to them.

Initially, I didn't ask for any of the tickets, mostly because the whole thing sounded so excessively cheesy. I wanted other people who were genuinely interested to get the free tickets. Then if there were any left later, I might think about checking it out. I mostly forgot about it after that.

Then last night, my dad said he had come into possession of one of the extra tickets, and offered it to me. Sure, why not? Rudolph Juliani was one of the scheduled speakers, and he might be interesting. Try everything at least once, right?

So this morning, I woke up bright and early. The instructions on the ticket said to affix a business card to the back, or optionally fill out your name and address in the blanks. I dug out a business card bearing the CompUSA logo and taped it over the address form as instructed. I made sure to leave the "Don't contact me about additional offers and share my information with other companies" checkboxes UNchecked. Send me all the spam you want at work! Just for today, I can be Peter Galvin.

Rush hour traffic was annoying, especially when I managed to miss my turnoff the first time and had to double back on I-70. Doh.

I paid for the overpriced $7 parking. Well, I guess if I got the ticket itself for free, it was only fair that I pony up a little cash for the parking.

Once inside the collesseum, as I looked for a seat, I noticed that many of the other people were carrying magazine-sized brochures about the speakers and the event. Must have missed those.

So I doubled back to the lobby, and found a table with many large stacks of them. As I reached forward to grab one, the attendent behind the table asked to see my ticket stub, which I promptly provided.

"That will be $20 please."

I'm like... "Excuse me? You're charging $20 for an event brochure?!?"

The attendant smiled patiently. Well, I certainly wasn't going to be buying one of those. I left the magazine brochure on the table, walked away, and took a seat near the back top.

I wasn't getting a good feeling about this.

Things got underway with a lot of flashy lights, stage pyrotechnics, 3 giant projection screens, a person singing the national anthem, and an M.C. who had obviously dissolved a few too many caffeine pills into his cappuccino that morning.

The first featured speaker, a purported "doctor" of some sort, spent 20 minutes sharing some amazingly little-known discoveries he had found out about ways to improve your health. Among the tips he gave: Don't eat too much sugar, avoid fried foods, and don't eat the fake olestra fat, because it can cause problems with the rectum. Whole, natural, unpackaged foods such as fruits and vegetables are good. McDonald's french fries contain ingredients that can clog your arteries, and fried burgers are even more harmful.

Well, thank you Mr. Super Health Genius! I wouldn't have been able to find any of these amazing facts had I not gotten this free $220 ticket to come and see you talk. Next?

Well, actually, from then on, the speakers I saw started to blend together. Lots of platitudes about discipline, positive thinking, and good salesmanship were uttered. Lots of big fancy hand gestures, and strutting around the stage hollering about you can start making decisions to start improving your life RIGHT NOW.

Oh yes, and they also made frequent references to the "workbook", instructing people to turn to page such-and-such, where you could look at little diagrams, fill in blanks answering questions about your life, and mark checkboxes next to words, circling terms such as "Punctual", "team player", and "Caring".

I didn't have a workbook to write in. I felt so deprived.

Zig Ziglar himself was the worst of them. Although I have to give him credit at his age, still being able to get up, run around the stage, and squat just like good old Chris Farley. Seriously, those poses were a dead ringer. I would have burst out laughing had it not been so interminably repititous and boring. This guy went on for over an hour without really saying anything of substance.

I was somewhat surprised to find that Zig, along with the event at large, it seemed, mixed a moderate dose of religion into what was purportedly a secular event. I would call it Christianity lite. Throwing in occassional references to God, quoting Bible texts, talking about faith in making your life fuller, etc etc.

The non-Christian in me was annoyed by this crass assumption that we were all followers of either the Protestant or Catholic persuasion, especially at an event that had not been advertised as religious in nature. Were I still a member of the sect in which I was raised, I think I might have been offended by how it was reduced into being yet another element amidst a large pile of cheap theatrics. So I have to wonder, what was the point?

The whole thing felt like a combination between a cheesy televangilist, Matt Foley screaming his head off, and a few sprinkled bits of Stuart Smalley affirmation talk to make it nice and warm fuzzy.

In theory, that sounds like it could be really funny. But it wasn't. It just dragged on, and on, and on. And I wanted to be out of there.

I listened as the next speaker gave "investment advise", spending at least 10 gruelling minutes explaining how $1 doubled 20 times can become a million dollars. Did he believe none of us had ever learned about exponential growth in school? He conveniently glossed over any discussion about what sorts of investment vehicles might actually yield this amazing 100% return on equity. (Or maybe he wasn't talking about annual return, in which case it might have been useful to clarify exactly through WHAT MEANS and HOW LONG it takes to "double your dollar" by investing it.)

At this point, I noticed that a significant portion of people were randomly getting up and walking out, probably so they could get a jump on the lunch crowd. When the row below me had hollowed out enough to make an easy escape, I bolted.

To hell with it. I was still somewhat interested in seeing what Juliani might have to say, but not enough to be willing to sit through another 4 hours of gibberish before hand.

I took the motivational themes to heart. Just because I had wasted my morning doesn't mean I have to waste my afternoon too. I took charge, and moved to action!

Straight out to the parking lot, where I jumped in my car, beat the traffic, and got the hell out of that den of idiots. It must be a baby boomer thing or something.

Now I'm going to make a quick call to the automotive shop before throwing in a movie.

I intend to enjoy the rest of my afternoon. (At least until the sales meeting this evening, at which point I'm not sure how or whether I will broach the matter, should it come up. Hopefully, we can just forget that the whole thing ever happened, as if it was all a bad dream.)