From the Desk 8/20/2008

This morning I woke up, had some hot tea and checked emails and such before going into work. When I got to work I began creating the second version of the graphical boxes at the bottom of our website. I really think I like the design I did first better than anything else I can come up with, but I needed to make a couple of other versions to show for variety. Besides, you never know when creativity might strike unexpectedly and something great would be born. I also began making a list of all the supplies that the stores would need to send back to the warehouse here for storage until next Back-to-School. I'm learning that you have to be incredibly specific in instructions to the store managers as to what you want them to do. You can't simply say: "please send back the supplies you were sent for BTS". If I did that, there's no telling what we would receive. Instead I have to list all the items that we sent them and mark each one for them keeping or sending back to us. I was also looking over the material for mine and Chris's meeting with Becky Morris, our rep for the Atlanta Journal Constitution's AJC in Education program. Our meeting began at 10:30 and was over quite quickly. We covered the various sponsorship levels and what each package included, got shown a demo of how the new website functioned and then talked about what our level of commitment was going to be. After the meeting I gave them a brief tour of the store and then returned to my desk for some lunch.

I ended up eating in the workshop room with Stacy, Tausha and Blair as the break room was still occupied by the executives meeting about the warehouse move coming up in a couple of months. We laughed, but had to be more subdued as people on the sales floor could hear us if we got too loud. After lunch I created a PowerPoint presentation to help quickly demonstrate/explain what MapPoint can do for us. I'm not sure if I will even need to use this, but I'd rather have it ready just in case instead of talking briefly about the program, getting a bunch of blank stares and then having nothing else to go on. I also printed out the information I received from Chattanooga Parent magazine as Chris and I will have to sit down in the next few days to set the schedule and figure out costs for what months we want to/can run in next year. I fiddled around with various looks for the website boxes until it was near time to go home. I went to my car and grabbed by backpack with my hiking clothes in it.

I changed and then at 5:00 met Christina in the parking lot by my car. She got in and we drove to hike the trail at Burnt Hickory Rd. It was not overly hot once we got into the shady part of the trail and the humidity was relatively low. We hiked at a quicker pace than usual since I was using this exercise to replace my running for the day. We stopped near the large creek (which due to lack of rain had shrunk to a small stream) to take a couple of pictures. (One of the beauty of nature and one of natural beauty!) We finished the 3.5 mile trail in about an hour and realized we were very hungry. I followed Christina back to her apartment where we picked up a burger from Hardee's for dinner. (I know what you're thinking...the hike was just wasted, but we only ate 1/3 burgers, no fries and had Gatorade to drink so it was probably fairly healthy) We watched Family Guy while we ate and then, through an elaborate process of elimination since neither of us like to make choices, selected The Princess Bride to watch. After the movie was over it was close to 10:00 and I was feeling the effects of my new workout plan so I decided to go home and get in bed a little early tonight. I said goodnight to Christina and then drove home. I went to bed very shortly after walking in the door and don't even remember what was on TV as I drifted off to sleep.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 42:8 "By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life."