On Friday, January 29th I was standing beside a big projection screen in front of the entire company of The Motley Fool. I took a deep breath and began:

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve been out most of the month on my Fool’s Errand.”

“I think the Fool’s Errand is a fantastic initiative. I had the most remarkable and rewarding time. But wait, this is The Motley Fool, we don’t evaluate success based just on word of mouth. No, we look at the numbers. So I submit to you, Fool’s Errand – The Report.”

“All right, let’s dive right in.”

“I spent the first half of the trip moving into my new home. You can see in the upper left a chart of which level of my home I spent time unpacking. It turned out most of the work needed was in the attic and basement. Notice here too the number of boxes left to unpack: one. I’m very proud of that.”

“Enough about moving in, lets go on to the road trip. I drove down to Florida with my wife and my puppy, 2969 miles in total. I am presuming that’s expendable, I’ll be submitting an reimbursement report later today.”

“You can see here a breakdown of where I slept each night of the Fool’s Errand, about half in my home, and then a little less with relatives and less still in hotels and B&Bs including SoBe You in South Beach which I highly recommend and La Quinta in Savannah which… well, not so much.”

“While in Florida we travelled down to the Florida Keys and then back to Orlando to spend some time with family. We did hit all four Disney parks in one day. You can see in the lower right here a breakdown of time spent in each park, pretty balanced Disney experience. Also, I want to call attention to this score right here, 39 or -14. Yes, I played a sick game of mini golf  and held the low score of the day at Fantasia Gardens.”

“The weather was surprisingly cold, you see here 19 degrees in Orlando. The locals found that novelty fun and interesting. Me… not so much, I knew cold, I left cold back in DC, I wanted some warmth, which did come towards the end of the trip, 78 degrees on the last days in Orlando.”

“Let’s talk about what I ate while I was away. I totally recommend Puerto Sagua in South Beach for excellent Cuban food, and hey, did you know that there is still a Bennigans in operation in Orlando?! I was so excited to get to have a Monte Cristo sandwich again.”

“You can see her a breakdown of what I drank. We all know it’s important that we have a nice variety of beverages, and I think I achieved that here.”

“Now, exercise… let’s not talk about exercise, wasn’t much to speak of.”

“Ah, entertainment, yes. I highly recommend the Finding Nemo Stage Show in Animal Kingdom, it is Broadway caliber, by far the best thing I watched while I was away. And the worst… that would be my Eagles losing to the Cowboys twice while I was away. Ugh, Cowboys.”

“Oh, there’s my dog. I am very happy about this number, zero accidents in the house or car, she finally became housebroken during this trip. I will also point out this number here, six attacks by poodles. I don’t know what the deal with ShihTzus and Poodles but there is some bad blood there.”

“Finally, if I may tell a quick story, two years ago my wife and I got married on a very warm day in the Florida Keys, and a staff member at the resort, trying to be helpful, put our cake, well actually cake topper, in the freezer to keep when it should have been out thawing. When it came time to cut the cake it was frozen solid, there was no penetrating it. So, my wife and I never got to eat our wedding cake.”

“Knowing I had this opportunity  of the Fool’s Errand, I convinced my wife to join me on the trip to Florida, and we contacted that same bakery and ordered that same cake, and we went to that same spot on the resort where we married. It was two years late, but we finally got to enjoy our wedding cake. And it was damn good too.”

“That alone made this whole Fool’s Errand worthwhile, so thank you The Motley Fool for providing me this opportunity, and thank you all for letting me share my experiences with you today.”

And with that I returned to my seat, smiling, knowing that I had made the most of my Fool’s Errand and the most of presenting it back to the people at The Motley Fool.