But the last 48 hours have been rather hectic. You see, most of the 4,329 fulltime Pollstar.com employees are on retreat. That’s right, they’re at one of those high-class resorts discussing business strategies, dissect philosophical conundrums and recharging the old cerebral batteries so that they can come up with exciting new ways to present tour info, like the latest schedules for Chicago and Widespread Panic.

Because of the retreat, the care and feeding of the beast known as the Pollstar.com concert database has been left up to us interns. So if we’re a little slow on posting shows for Digital Underground or Little Feat, now you know why. We’re just data-experts in training, and we have to be oh so careful when it comes to listing new dates for Herbie Hancock, Eric Jerardi Band and Sir Mix-A-Lot. That is, if we want to avoid any problems like that one last year that nearly took out the entire east wing of the compound. The EPA is still on our backs about that one.

But we gotta admit, we’ve had some tense moments during the last couple of days. Take the new dates for Ani DiFranco, for example. That almost interrupted this morning’s scooter races in the lobby. Then there were the problems we faced trying to lower the water temperature of the employee pool so that we could go ice skating. Heck, that took so long we thought we’d never get to the updates for Gene Watson, Juice Newton and Tone Loc.

And you don’t even want to know how long it took us to break into the executive liquor cabinet. We thought we’d never get that sucker open. Thank God for dynamite.

But don’t think we’re taking advantage of the situation, and that we’re running amok while all of our supervisors are doing the retreat thing. They did leave one exec behind to supervise us in the proper entry of dates for acts like Rick James & The Stone City Band. That reminds us, we have to loosen his ropes every few hours or the blood stops circulating in his legs.

Yes, we sure have been busy these last couple of days. Between entering dates for Waylon Jennings and calling Ticketmaster to ask if they have ‘Prince Albert in a can,’ we haven’t had a single moment’s rest. But it’s all worth it. Our bosses said if we do a really good job, they’ll bring us back a present from the retreat, something really unique that will inspire all of us interns to strive toward that day when we become fulltime Pollstar.com employees. We just hope they remember to bring it back with them when they return.

After all, a promise is a promise, and we’re really looking forward to having our very own autographed picture of Betty Ford.