From the Desk 6/30/2008

Work began as a very productive day. I made arrangements with James to have the remaining BTS flyers picked up from ABC and brought back to our warehouse to divide out among the stores. I was very pleased with how they turned out. (see the picture for reference). I complied the information I had gathered on the various data plotting programs and data source sites onto one sheet to help us decide the next course of actions. I also reached out to my contact at QED (Quality Education Data) to get an estimate on how many elementary schools were in a 10-mile radius around each new store location and to see how much it would be to purchase that list. I heard back rather quickly and added that information to my report for additional options. It was Carmen's first back from vacation so naturally we went out to eat for lunch. This time we decided to go to Mellow Mushroom. I got the usual (a Lil' Caesar salad and a slice of cheese pizza) It was around this time that I realized that while I had an amazingly good weekend, everyone else was worn out and exhausted which kind of put me in a less happy mood.

After lunch I met with Vickie, Aimee, and Anna to finalize the details for the instructions going out to the managers concerning the BTS sale signs. Some of the signs will already be printed, while the smaller signs will need to have the clear labels with the product sale details placed on them by the employees at the store. During this process the decision was made to add a few more items to the list that would be using smaller signs. This caused a slight headache as I didn't know how many of the smaller signs we had left after the amount we already committed to using and I also didn't know how many labels I had left to print on. After we finalized that, the meeting led to a gift for me. About 200 pages of information from a Scholastic conference that Vickie and Anna attended last week. Some of the information is new and some of it was information that I already had access to through QED (who is owned by Scholastic). I ran to Printing Impressions to pick up the BTS signs as they were complete. I also received the posters for the stores to place in their metal racks. I wasn't expecting these until July 2nd so that was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, my cubical now barely has room to move in it between the 2 cases of new teacher letters, the posters, the BTS signs, and the new lanyards for employee name badges. I was in pretty much a bad mood for the rest of the work day (after lunch) as everyone else was grumpy. I try to be a fairly positive person, but sometimes I get worn out trying to cheer others up and that's where I was today. I sent Christina a text and asked if I could see her tonight since my day was kind of rough.

I left work about 15 minutes early and ran to Target to buy a couple of boxes and then to the post office to mail out wedding DVDs and DVDs to dad for the Graduate Service at CBCB. I then went home and began pulling over video footage from the next wedding I am going to edit. Christina called me after she got out of class and I drove over to her apartment to watch a movie. I decided that Sadie, her cat, might not like it if I kept Christina away from her apartment every night. We watched the "rock musical" Across the Universe. It is set in the 60's and interweaves 30 songs by The Beatles and some live action scenes to depict the feeling of that era. The full plot summary can be read here. During the movie one of Christina's roommates, Hannah, popped in and out so we had a chance to meet. After the movie was over I said good night and returned to my apartment. I finished pulling over the video clips for the wedding I would edit next and then called it a night. I went to sleep replaying the music from the movie in my head and hoping that tomorrow at work would go more smoothly.

Meditation for the day: Romans 12:3 “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”