From the Desk 6/5/2008

This morning I again, had me a mixed berry smoothie before heading into work. I arrived and immediately met with Vickie and Stacy about the communicator clearboards and their packaging. We decided to create our own packs of 5 boards per bag and then change the info sheet to a vertical sheet so they could be laid on the shelves or on the bookcases with the sheet showing. After I corrected that I worked with Judy on creating the item in our system for the chart storage bags that we are having imprinted with our logo. Once she got the item into the system I was able to take the barcode that was associated with it and use the copier to enlarge/enhance the logo to a suitable size for printing. I tested it and it worked on paper so our hope is that the reflection off of the bag and the clear background won't prohibit the barcode form being scanned. If it does, the cashiers can simply type in the quick entry number listed beneath the barcode. I worked on the last of the mailing list entries that I will do as Taylor should be back next week to finish entering them into our database. Once I reached a breaking point, I joined Stacy, Tausha, Carmen, and Blair for lunch at El Nopalito for lunch. It was a quaint Mexican restaurant located in the shopping center across the street from the Box. I had 3 chicken Tacos and our topic of conversation was not entirely food friendly, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

After lunch I talked with Mike about retrieving the zip codes from the system that each store enters with each transactions. We want to collect them for each month and then add them to a mapping program to show where our customers that shop at each store come from. Mike informed me that Bruce would have to write the programming to retrieve the information, but that by Monday we could collect it and start analyzing it. The afternoon was fairly slow as far as a workload so Tausha and I spent sometime talking with Mike about her car accident that she had this morning. We saw her car and it was sad to see her less than a year old car dented and scratched so badly. Thankfully, Tausha was alright. She was just mad that someone messed up her new car and her good mood that she started out the day with. It soon came time to go home. We decided to postpone the hike until tomorrow after work since we were all pretty tired and looking forward to it being Friday.

I got home and ate some leftover pizza for dinner. I then went to REI to pick out/buy a daypack to use on the longer distance hikes and to replace my backpack I use to carry my hiking clothes to work. I had looked at several options on their website, but was unsure about which one I wanted until I looked at it in person. I chose the Kelty Redwing 3100 in the charcoal/orange color. Here is a picture of it once I got home and packed it with some things for the trip to Charleston. I stopped off by Target after REI to procure some necessities for the trip such as sunscreen, deodorant (which I needed for times other than just the trip of course), snacks, and gum. I got home and packed my main bag with clothes for the trip and even remembered to pack the sunscreen and a beach towel. (I'm all grown up and can pack myself now....I'll probably forget something like my glasses since I remembered the other essentials for this trip). I worked on a few last minute things for the School Box Summer Training video until 9:00. I then watched the first game of the NBA Finals on ABC. This year's finals revive a classic rivalry between two legendary basketball dynasties, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. It is sure to be a good series no matter who ends up winning as both teams dominated the regular season and are truly the top 2 teams in the league. I enjoyed watching the unique commercials to promote the finals that have aired throughout the playoffs this year. You can watch the one featuring Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett here.The game was lots of back and forth until the fourth quarter when the Celtics seemed to keep ahead every play. The Celtics won game 1 and now the series will go to Los Angeles on Sunday where the Lakers will get to play on their home court.

Meditation for the day: Ephesians 3:17-19 “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”