From the Desk 5/15/2008

Today I was supposed to go on a tour of the smaller stores with Vickie, which meant that I wouldn't be in the office for the majority of the day. I worked on the video project for Dave' kids' school until about 9:15. Vickie and I loaded up and then hit the road to our first stop at East Cobb. While there I took a few pictures and then made notes on what sign they needed and what signs I had already made that were too large to use effectively. The main purpose of this trip was to help me better market each location by observing the stores' surrounding areas and the size of their location. It was definitely and eye-opening experience. I had only see the 3 big stores so when I walked into East Cobb I was slightly taken aback at the small size of this location. When we left East Cobb and headed to Howell Mill near Buckhead in Atlanta my left contact started to really irritate my eye. Vickie stopped at a Walgreen's so I could buy a contact's case and I left it out for the rest of the day. This made my perspective a little off for the rest of our trip. We stopped off at the retail location for Lakeshore Learning Products near the Howell Mill location. Lakeshore Learning is a national company that is majority driven by its catalog business, but they also have many retail locations throughout the US. Their store was very neat and well organized. I also got some creative ideas from their displays and made mental notes on things we could use in our stores.

We arrived at Howell Mill, which is our smallest store managed by my good friend Leslie. It is about 4,000 square feet and is located in an upscale shopping center just outside of Buckhead. It didn't take long to look over this store, but I did take lots of pictures as this store will be our most difficult one to market. We left from there and journeyed to Southlake to see a mid-sized store. While there I saw lots of signs that needed re-working and we ran into Anna, one of the regional managers. We chatted a lot about possible future promos and then it came time to move on to our next stop. We decided to grab a bite to eat before visiting the next store in Douglasville. We ate lunch at Truetts Grill, the birthplace of the modern day Chick-fil-A. It was set up like a diner with lots of chrome and a little train that ran around a track along the ceiling. I kind of reminded me of a mix between Swenson's and Bell Air Grille. I ordered the hot brown, which sounds pretty gross, I know. It is chicken pieces covered in a rich cream sauce and topped with cheese and bacon. It looked like cheese covered grits with toast and bacon, but it was delicious. It was very rich and I was unable to finish it since all the entrees were also served with a salad. We talked a lot over lunch about what my visions were for marketing and my life since I have moved down here. We finished eating and returned to the parking lot to find it raining again. (Yes, it actually rains down here!) The car that had pulled in next to Vickie's Honda SUV had pulled so close that Vickie could not get in the driver's side door. I could barely squeeze in, but managed to get inside and then Vickie suggested that I just drive to the next store. It wasn't very far, and I honestly had gotten so used to not having one contact in that I drove without really noticing the vision difference. It wasn't until we got out of the car at the McDonough store that I remembered and mentioned to Vickie that she is very trusting to have me drive without having both of my contacts in. She remarked, "Oh no! I completely forgot. Well, thanks for not killing us!" We spent about 45 minutes at McDonough, and I made even more notes on signs to make. All of the store managers I met (again, but on more of a one on one basis this time) were so nice and complimentary of my signs. It really shows how great of a company The School Box is to work for as most employees have been there for over 5 years, and most managers have been there for over 10 years. We left McDonough and traveled through the rain to Douglasville. We did the usual stuff there and then made our way to our last stop for the day, Austell. The size of the last three stores were about the same and the pictures I took gave me great ideas for some marketing in-store for each store. We left Austell around 5:40 and headed back to Town Center to call it a day.

I called Leslie and told her I would be a little late for our dinner meeting, but she had to cancel to help her mom with something at their church. This was fine with me as I was really tired and wanted to out my glasses on so I could see clearly again. I spent the majority of the evening re-writing my notes (legibly this time) so I could begin work on the new signs tomorrow. I ate some dinner and then worked on the wedding video very briefly after watching the new Grey's Anatomy at 9:00. I have been feeling a little stopped up in he evenings so I decided to go to bed early and try and give my body a chance to fight off whatever is trying to catch me.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 103:8 "The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love."