Being the founder of Balloon Distractions has given me the opportunity to see many parts of the USA that I might not have visited otherwise.

I flew a small airplane around Mt. Rainer when I visited our Seattle team a few years ago.

(Thanks Vince Dobson!)

One summer I swam in the Great Lakes while visiting our team in upstate New York.

I drove along the ridge of the Appalachian mountains one sunny summer afternoon while traveling from Greensboro to Wilkes Barre.

I drove 100 mph across Texas many times going from Dallas to Houston and back again.

One humid afternoon I saw a drunk guy passed out cold in the middle of Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

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Balloon Distractions started an entertainer team in Atlanta in 2005.

Over the last decade our team grew, today Atlanta is one of our largest regions. I make the 7 hour drive from Tampa to Atlanta a few times each year. The long road from Tampa to Atlanta is surrounded by peanut fields, cotton farms, and state troopers.

I’ve been visiting the Capital of the South for a long time.

The first time I worked in Atlanta was back in the late 1990’s when I was a marketing guy in the deregulated energy business. We had an office in the Buckhead area, back then I would visit Atlanta for 2 weeks at a time. I have an old photo taken at Stone Mountain with me and my daughter when she was a toddler.

Today she’s about to enter college now, the years zipped by.

Atlanta has not really changed in 20 years, there is still construction everywhere, a Mexican restaurant on every corner, and the most congested traffic in this corner of the United States.

I’ve worked primarily in the northern suburbs of the city, where the restaurants are booming, the houses are expensive, and the parking lots are filled with luxury cars.

Some parts of the south might be sleepy, but not Atlanta.

In the last few months my Life Leadership community has expanded into Atlanta, so it looks like I’m going to keep coming back here well into the future.

Deregulated energy… balloons in restaurants… and now Financial Education…

You just have to remember one thing: never try to drive through Hotlanta at rush hour!

Benjamin T. Alexander

May 2016