I Came. I Saw. I Jiggled. I Jammed.

As a high ranking executive poobah at Irish Fest, most of my Irish Fest weekend is spent either sitting in my leather recliner in the VIP area, sipping Boulevard beer from a goblet carved from green Connemara marble served to me by scantily clad interns, or surveying the site 5000 feet up from our Irish Fest corporate blimp. Not so at this past weekend's Jiggle Jam Family Fest. At Jiggle Jam this weekend I was part of the Beverage crew. Actually, I was a little more than a third of the beverage crew, along with my partner, Irish Fest bars boss Melissa Rohr and for part of the weekend my strapping son Joe. So what that means is that the people running the two beverage tents, the VIP area and the green room would call me on the radio and tell me how many cases of pop, water or beer they needed and how many bags of ice, we'd load it on to a golf cart and deliver and unload it. We'd also do the same thing for the various food vendors who served drinks.

After spending the weekend doing this, I've learned two lessons: One, I really prefer the sitting-around, marble-goblet-of-beer gig. And two, the members of the Kansas City Irish Fest beverage crew are freakin' rock stars.

I'm not kidding. Jiggle Jam is a fraction of Irish Fest's size and I was servicing two bars instead of 7, over 17 business hours instead of 30, and I was absolutely wrecked at the end of the weekend. I'm still tired. But in a good way. The fact the my Irish Fest counterparts do what they do and do it so well astounds me.

Okay, I lied, I learned four lessons. The third one is that you should volunteer and join this crew. Here's why. You'll work hard, yes, but that's not a bad thing. Besides I worked from 6:30 AM until 8:00 PM on Saturday and from 9:30 AM to 8:00 PM on Sunday. You'll work a 4 hour shift, or as many 4 hours shifts as you care to sign up for. I'd suggest one a day. You'll get a great work out. You'll see the festival from the inside. You'll cruise around in a little miniature car. And you'll become part of the Navy Seals of Irish Fest, the Bevvies, who I now bow to in deep respect. The fourth lesson: if you're going to be working outside at a festival all weekend, wear sunscreen like your smarter-than-you wife told you too.

You can sign up for the Beverage Team right here. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm headed to the Irish Fest HQ executive health club for a massage and aloe bath for my sunburn.