From the Desk 4/29/2008

Today at work Mike and I talked about some possibilities for mailing houses for The School Box. I called and set up meetings with 2 potential businesses to get the ball rolling on this project so we can make the best decision by the end of May. I also made some more retail signs in preparation for a second packet of signs for the managers sometime in May. I went to eat lunch with the group (sans Mike) at Willy's. I had the same dish I did last time, but for some reason the person taking my order must have mis-heard me and started to make me 2 Quesadillas. Thankfully, I quickly clarified my order and avoided a surprise at the checkout line. We laughed as usual and probably would have disturbed other people except for the fact that it was during the lunch rush and it was noisy in the first place.

After returning from lunch I resolved a minor crisis with our newspaper insert in the Times Free Press in Chattanooga. We thought that last year we ran the insert in the Sunday paper. So when I called and they gave me the total for what we ran last year (47,496 inserts) and then I received an email confirming what we would insert this year (70,701 inserts) I was alarmed. First of all, newspaper readership is declining and certainly not growing by 20,000+ subscriptions in the same zip codes that we used last year. Secondly, I knew that we only had a max of about 60,000 inserts that we could send there if needed after taking care of Knoxville and the Atlanta area. We soon figured out that we actually ran on a Wednesday last year and that explained the difference in numbers. Chris and I decided to go ahead and shift our insert date to the Wednesday prior to our original target insert date. The other minor crisis that came about was Chris sent me an ad that another company had put together for her promoting Summer Learning books for and ad in the Atlanta Parent Magazine. I had to edit and make corrections from the original ad (which was in pdf format) and export it to Chris to send in that day by 5:00pm for inclusion in the June publication. I managed to make the necessary changes and sent it off to her at 4:40pm. All of this commotion took place with only an hour left in the work day.

Once we finished the work day out, I grabbed my clothes from the car and changed so we could leave for our road trip to Chattanooga. The original plan was for Blair, Tausha, Mike, Carmen, Stacy, and I to pile into Carmen's Sequoya and drive to Chattanooga to join Kenny and his wife Stacy at the Imax theater to see U2 in 3D. Well...Blair was in the middle of moving and couldn't make it, Tausha had to go to court for a speeding ticket, and Mike was tired and not feeling well. So Carmen, Stacy, and I hopped into my car and we drove up to Chattanooga. We got there with only a little time to spare before the movie began so we foolishly tried to eat quickly at Mellow Mushroom. We were promptly seated, but found that anything we ordered (aside from the drinks we already received) would take too long to receive or consume. So we paid for 2 cokes and a water and opted to purchase concessions at the theater. We walked into the theater and it was very empty. We grabbed some great seats about halfway up and in the center. The concert movie was awesome. 3D has really come a long way and with it being on the Imax screen it really felt like you were at the concert with the fans and on stage with the band. I'm not really a big U2 fan, but I discovered it is mainly because I have never taken the time to listen to much of their music. It was an awesome show and after we said goodbye to Kenny and Stacy we headed back to Kennesaw. There was little traffic on the interstate and we all took turns playing different songs on our ipods to amuse ourselves for the journey home. We arrived safely back at The School Box at 10:20pm where I dropped Stacy and Carmen off at their cars. I headed home, wrote this blog, and then went to sleep.

Meditation for the day: Romans 1:16 "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes."