From the Desk 5/20/2008

Today I woke up feeling a little better, and then ran out of time to eat some breakfast so I stopped off at Chick-fil-A for a biscuit. I arrived at work and after meeting with Dave promptly got to work on the final revisions to the slide shows. I finished the edits just in time as Dave left for a little bit and then returned at 9:15 to approve the changes. I got the ok and then exported the video to prepare for burning to disc. It finished rendering and I added it to the project to burn to DVD. I finished that up at 9:55 and Mike and I ran out the door to our meeting in Marietta with H&W Printing/Mailing. Along the way I called Bobby, the rep that had contacted me previously, and told him we were a little delayed. We arrived with no difficulty in finding the building at 10:15. Bobby took us on a brief tour of the offices and then we made our way to the production floor. It was a fairly good-sized production area with a brand new Heidelberg press that looked very impressive. We also toured their design and digital printing area. They have a very knowledgeable staff that is eager to find ways to complete pieces while reducing the cost or using a unique idea to set their customers apart from others. We met with Dan, the mail house manager. Their mailing area was surprisingly small, but Dan assured us that the size mailings we were looking at doing would be no problem to turn around in 24 hours or less. We left there with a good feeling if we need a place to print and mail pieces that we design in-house.

On our way back to the office Mike and I stopped for some lunch at Sunny's Bagels & Sandwiches. Apparently back when it first opened, Sunny was quite a charismatic individual and the food combined with his personality had people lined out the door for bagels in the mornings and lunch in the afternoons. I had a Grilled Chicken Cuban on a toasted Asiago bagel. It was the best Cuban sandwich I have ever had (even better than Taco Mac's!) and Mike told me since he bailed on me for lunch yesterday with the group he would pick up lunch today. See what nice people I work with. We returned to the office where I began working on gathering stuff up for a meeting with Dave tomorrow morning. I also worked on creating some more featured item pictures for the main image section on our website. I'll let you know when I get them up and running so you can check them out. I also met with Chris to cover the changes I feel need to be made to the graphic that is going on the Employee Summer Training T-shirts. We also briefly discussed a plan for the mailing of the GA Governor's Card flyer mailout. I did some other things until around 4:15 and then I grabbed my clothes from my car and changed into my hiking attire.

Carmen and I left a little early at 4:30 to go hike The Mountain in an effort to keep getting in shape. We made pretty good time as it took us about 42 minutes to hike to the top and then back to the base. We would have done the 5-mile loop, but Carmen had to go to a baseball game soon after that. Carmen dropped me off at my car and I ventured home to get some stuff done to prepare for the arrival of my weekend guests. I ate a quick dinner and then worked on straightening my desk/office area up since that is where I will be staying while Amy and Jon are here this weekend. Most of what was on TV was interrupted by the Tornado Warnings/Watches and news updates on the affected areas of the severe storms passing through the area. I also managed to watch part of the NBA playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons. I went to bed before it was over as I was a little tired from the quick trip up the mountain earlier.

Meditation for the day: Matthew 19:29 "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."