From the Desk 5/10/2008

I awoke after an extremely restful night of sleep. I think that the mattress on my new bed at the Inn was possibly the most comfortable one I have ever slept on. I got up and showered and then decided to accompany Amy for some mission work. We met several others at the Compassion Coalition warehouse near Cokesbury United Methodist Church for the Saturday morning furniture ministry. The main purpose of the ministry is to pick up donated furniture and then deliver it to families in need that have registered through the Compassion Coalition. We were mainly doing deliveries today. Mark Moreland, Josi Hawkins, Jeff Nelson, Amy, Chris, and I were there for the bulk of the day. While loading the truck we were also joined by four young men from a community service program that were serving some time as payment for their "debt to society". They were nice enough and willing to help lift and load furniture into the trucks for delivery. We loaded the truck up for about 6 delivery stops with everything from a sleeper sofa to living room chairs, to mattresses and even a TV. We left as a caravan from the warehouse and I rode with Jeff Nelson, one of our church's deacons. He was an extremely nice individual as all of the volunteers were. We foll wed Mark and Chris in the big truck while Amy and Josi followed in Amy's car. We made the majority of our deliveries before stopping at a convenience store to refuel with some drinks and snacks. After finishing Amy, Josi, and I returned to the warehouse where Charlotte was holding down the fort. We picked up the CBCB furniture dolly that Mark accidentally left out of the truck, and put it in Amy's truck to return to church tomorrow. It was truly a blessing to take part in this ministry. We were able to pray with each family that we delivered to and the joy on their faces was enough to last a lifetime. It was almost more rewarding for me than the people that received the furniture. It also opened my eyes to how blessed I truly am.

Amy and I stopped off by the Card Mart to pick up a card for Mother's Day. We ran into an old friend...Jubin! He apparently was also in need of a card and so we talked with him for a while and then finally checked out and headed back to Amy's to pick up my car. I returned to my parents' house, showered, changed, and got ready to go film the wedding. I put a note in to maintenance at the hotel to fix the shower in the guest bathroom. I tried to pull the knob up to start the water streaming from the shower head instead of the faucet and I found that it came off in my hand. That made showering difficult so I used the staff bathroom as an emergency solution. I picked Hickey up around 2:45pm and we headed out to New Vision Fellowship Church to film.

We arrived and were hugged and greeted by Brenda, Lisa, and their daughters from One Enchanted Wedding Planning. It was great to see them all again. We always know that when we film with them at the helm we will not only know what is going on, but will have fun doing it. The service was very touching as the pastor got chocked up at some points because the groom was his son. We rushed over to the Knoxville Convention Center to begin filming the reception, and we had a feeling that it was going to be a real party. We were not wrong. There was singin', dancin', and laughin' that lasted from the time the wedding party was announced until when we left 3 hours later. The DJ was Corey, from Music in Motion Mobile Entertainment. We love working with him because he has a great system, he engages the crowd into activities, and does it all without coming across as cheesy or pushy. We left the reception with lots of amazing footage to sift through while editing. We changed clothes and then headed out to Texas Roadhouse in Turkey Creek for some dinner. We ate until we couldn't eat another bite and then went driving around for a while before ending up at the Hickey household where we watched what is probably the 2 worst episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" ever made. When they were finished I went to my room at Le Chateau de Taylor to retire for the evening.

Meditation for the day: Hebrews 13:4 "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral."

From the Desk 5/9/2008

I woke this morning after a fairly restless night of sleep. I kept waking up ever few hours so when my alarm went off at 6:45am, my first reaction was to backhand it across the room. After it screamed for the third time of hitting the snooze button I finally got up. I drank the rest of the smoothie I fixed yesterday for breakfast as well as a muffin from the batch that Stacy gave me. On my way to work the contact in my left eye begin to bother me. Once I got to work, it became even worse and eventually I decided to take it out and leave it in a case for a while. This made it interesting to walk/see/do anything since I saw half blurry and half clear. Mike, Kimdi, Chris, Stacy, and I met at from 9:00 – 10:15 for the first website committee meeting. We will have these meetings ever Friday morning and put a max of 1 hour on the time limit for the meetings. We discussed the changes we would like to see made in the flow/operation of the website, the appearance, and how to go about fixing the glitches we have found. It was very productive and it appears as if I will now be taught a fair amount of Dreamweaver skills to be able to edit some of the pages we need to change.

We adjourned the meeting and I once again tried to put my contact in and hoped to find it comfortable now since it was hard to do anything else with it out. I tried and it felt much better. I began to add things to the new Marketing tab to our Google Doc that all the committee members share. I also met with Chris and altered two more ads for publications in June.I ran home for lunch today to pick up a package in the office that was delivered yesterday. It was my latest order of miniDV tapes, which came just in time since I needed them for the wedding tomorrow in Knoxville. I ate some of the food I saved from Stacy's before it started to go bad. I also put all of the video equipment into my car so I could leave to go to Knoxville directly after leaving my hike at Kennesaw Mountain. I spent the majority of the afternoon working on re-creating a flyer that we send out as an order form for the Summer Bridge books. This is a flyer that was originally created by Carson-Dellosa back in January and we asked them to alter some things for us. We have asked them twice since then for our revised copy, but kept getting the run around. So, I decided to just re-make it and include the changes we needed in the first place.

I left work and decided not to hike "The Mountain" as I needed to do a few things at the apartment before leaving and the skies also looked like potential rain clouds. I hit the road to Knoxville and found that traffic was light on my drive up. I also noticed the closer I got to Knoxville, the darker the sky became (not this is not due to the fact that it was nearing night time, but rather due to the strong storms that were rolling through the area). I saw lots of beautiful, but ominous, bright streaks of lightning running across the black sky, but managed to avoid any of the storms where I was driving. I stopped off and picked up Hickey and as we were going to grab a bit to eat we dropped off my filming equipment at my parents' house. We made our way back around to Hickey's and picked up some Taco Bell before watching a couple of episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark". I left there and headed out to the Tucker Summertime Inn off Pleasant Ridge Rd. I watched Jon play some Lost Odyssey before going to bed in my new hotel room. It came with similar amenities as my room at Le Chateau de Taylor as you can see by the picture here of the nightstand, lamp, and alarm clock. I have a feeling that a price war will ensue as competition for single room hotels in the Knoxville market are on the rise.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 65:4 "Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple."

From the Desk 5/8/2008

Today I woke up feeling a bit of fatigue from the longer hike yesterday. It quickly faded as I got ready for work. I made a banana, orange, raspberry smoothie for breakfast and it was delicious. I got to work and today seemed to drag on. Probably because I didn't have any meetings or big projects to work on.

I did get a chance to play around with iMovie for Mac. Dave had called me last night and asked if I could help him with a project in the realm of video editing. He gave me more details today as I was exploring the potential of iMovie to accomplish what he needed. I will be creating a picture slideshow that will be shown at the "graduation ceremony" of the 8th Grade class at Mount Paran Christian School (where Dave's son Michael attends and is in the 8th grade). There are about 300 8th Graders that will participate in this ceremony and I will compile 3 photos of each student, one baby, one childhood, and one current picture that will also display their name. It will be set to music and then a copy of the DVD will be given to each student. The new theater/production building has the capabilities to mass-produce the DVD I will create. I worked on some graphics for the new loyalty program card and chatted very briefly with Aimee about when we might get together to go into the details from their previous meetings on the topic. I ran to Best Buy on my lunch and picked up some supplies for this weekend's celebration of The Day of Mothers.

After lunch I worked on some wording for a future letter/blast email to the teachers and bookkeepers concerning the rules for the Georgia Governor's Gift Card that each teacher in the state will receive in July. We are offering the option for teachers to pick out and take home the supplies they want and then schedule payment from their gift card from the state or with their own personal credit card. This will help cut down on the crazy rush during the 9 days that the Governor's Card is active for use, and allow teachers who start back right at the beginning of August to have their classrooms set up without fighting through the crowds. The phrase I came up with was: "Take it home without delay and pay for it another day". Aimee and Vickie loved it. I also met briefly with a woman from Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church to get some information about their Road Race in October that we are participating in as a sponsor. She was very nice, and also very gracious for our support. I worked on a few odds and ins for the rest of the day and decided, as I was getting a headache, to have a day of rest from hiking. Mike and I will go tomorrow after work before I leave town.

I went by the post office after work to mail out Flat Stanley for Tausha. The line was about 15 people deep at 4:40pm (since I left work early to beat the rush) and there was only one window open. The worker was doing his best to move people through quickly, however, the people in front of me didn't seem to know simple things like that you must write an address on the envelope or package you wish to send. I finally left the post office at 5:15. Ironic how I was there later than I would have been if I had just stayed at work. I got home and was about to fix some dinner when I got a call from Stacy. She was going to fix dinner and wanted me to join her. I went over there and while she was finishing up some work stuff on her laptop I put together an organizer for her garage. I cooked the chicken with some tasty seasoning while Stacy made macaroni and cheese from scratch. It was a simple dinner, but was delicious and filled me up. We then competed at Jeopardy while eating some ice cream for dessert. I took out the trash while Stacy gathered up a goody bag for me of the foods she knew would go bad next week while she was in Miami visiting friends and family. I got to take home some bread, milk, cheese, muffins, and crackers to avoid them going to waste. Before I left I helped Stacy test out Cooper's new travel carrier. She figured it would take two people to coax him inside the carrier for the first time. Cooper wasn't really keen on the idea, but soon warmed up once he realized it wasn't a death trap. (see the semi-dark picture of Cooper's head popping out of the bag). I returned home and watched the new episode of Grey's Anatomy. After the show ended (which it was a good one) I packed for the weekend in Knoxville and the wedding on Saturday afternoon. I went to bed hoping the rain would stop soon so the ground would have time to dry if we choose to hike tomorrow.

Meditation for the day: John 6:12 " When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted."

From the Desk 5/7/2008

Today I woke up and was not really sore from the hike yesterday. I got ready and ate a quick bite to eat and then headed off to work. I got to work and begin re-creating some of the ads that our catalog company, CCC, had done for us. They were given to me in a format I couldn't edit so I began to remake them with separate layers so I could manipulate text items such as price, product descriptions, and expiration dates. I didn't take that long to remake the two recent ads I was asked to change and I had a little bit of time to do more loyalty card research before my first meeting of the day. At 11:00am Mike and I met with Nina, from Graphics Solution Group. They have handled a few jobs for us in the past such as poly bagging our catalogs into 2 packs and mailing them out for us, and creating some presentation folders for the sales reps. We talked mainly about how their operation has grown over the past few years and where their facilities are located now. We also determined the turn-around times for projects that need to be simply mailed, and for projects that we would have them print and then mail out for us. It was a very informative meeting and I think that they would also be a good company along with Atlanta Business Circulators to use for projects and see how smoothly they run before we commit to giving the bulk of our business to one specific company. We also set a meeting for next Friday to tour Graphic Solutions mailing and printing facilities. I got a call right before I went to lunch from a gentleman from QED who wished to meet with me that afternoon around 2:00pm. I had planned on meeting with him later in the day, but I told him to come on since he was out of a conference in downtown Atlanta early. I met with him at 2:00 after we cleared up some confusion as he had received directions to the Northlake store not the Corporate Office. QED is a educational data company that is actually owned by Scholastic Publishing and they continually survey and research educators all across the country. They have focus groups, panels, and market research specialists that can grant access to companies like ours to their database of information or they can build direct mail or email lists to let us buy. We met for over an hour to discuss different services that they offer and ways that they can help us grow our business through effective marketing efforts.

I came out that meeting excited about the possibilities of what our partnership could produce for the future. I created new name tags for the sales floor associates to wear after summer training to have a fresh, new look for Back-to-School. I also saw the most unique product I have ever seen sitting on Vickie's desk when I walked by. It was a goldfish training experiment. It required you to watch an instructional DVD on tips to actually train the fish to fetch, play basketball, slalom, and etc. I'm not sure if it actually will work, but I am eager to discover the results of Vickie's tests. After work came to a close Mike, Carmen, and I headed over to "the mountain" for some more hiking. We decided once we reached the top where we turned around yesterday, to keep going and climb to the top of Little Kennesaw. The trail was about 5 miles round trip so I felt even better about doing something active for that amount of time. After we returned to the cars I dropped Carmen off at The School Box and then proceeded back home for a minute or two. I changed clothes and then headed off to SuperTarget for some groceries. When I arrived I noticed that everything I needed was on sale! (when you bought 4 or this, or 3 of that) So I am now well stocked on food for the next 3 weeks and came out under $100.00! I returned home and unloaded everything (which felt like hiking another mile!) and then ate some dinner around 8:45pm. It is now time to relax and then drift off to sleep for the rest of the night. The week is almost over!

Meditation for the day: Ecclesiastes 9:11 " I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."

From the Desk 5/6/2008

I slept well after my elaborate, but not late into the evening, Cinco de Mayo celebrations. I remembered as I was about to walk out the door that a group of us was leaving right after work to go hike Kennesaw Mountain. Apparently there is a group that goes hiking at least once a week after work so I am excited that the "hiking season" has officially begun (although Jubin would agree with me that there is no off season for this outdoor activity). Before Vicki arrived for the day we needed to move 2 tables out of the workshop room so we did the only logical/humorous thing that Mike and I could think of. We stacked the tables in front of her door and placed a sign on the that read: "Office Space For Lease. Call Vickie for details". She kept the sign on her door all day, which made me feel accomplished at 9:00am.

I worked extensively on brainstorming names/themes for the new customer loyalty program. I explored everything from "Operation: Education" to "The Hall Pass" and "Extra Credit". These last two were probably my favorites and the last one came with some assistance from Aimee, one of the regional managers. These two options were definitely the most marketable in terms of putting on paper and generating interest, but they have a long way to go as I must compare them to the rules I have established for making this program successful to see if they fit. I ate my left over Nachos Tostadas from Friday's last night for lunch along with some tortilla chips. Does it seem odd to anyone else that I ate Mexican food the day after Cinco de Mayo? Well, maybe its just me then. I also worked on new name badges for all the employee as we are wanting to re-vamp their appearance and add an element of history of the company at the same time. I hit a creative brick-wall around 2:00pm and did not recover for the rest of the day. I resigned myself to work on less creative tasks such as updating the marketing calendar and making notes on certain events that need to be planned earlier next year. 5:00 rolled around and it ended up that only Carmen and I could go hiking (Mike aka. dad couldn't come and Stacy was busy), so not to let the others spoil our fun we went.

Kennesaw Mountain State Park is located about 10 minutes from The School Box so I feel that I will be exploring the park after work quite often. We parked and Carmen warned me that she was not in as good of shape as she used to be so we might have to take some breaks. I said I was just glad to be hiking so we could go at whatever pace she desired. It was good to go with just Carmen. I got to learn more about her, her kids, her husband and the office politics system. We made pretty good time climbing up the steep path toward the peak of the mountain. It only took us 26 minutes to reach the summit and only took 22 minutes going back down. The views from the top were breathtaking. Looking one way you could barely see Stone Mountain off in the distance, but downtown Atlanta was clearly visible. The other direction you could see McCollum Airfield and if you looked carefully the School Box shopping center. I have determined that when you people come visit me we should go hike this some time. It isn't the most difficult trail, but it is all up hill to the top, but that makes the descent that much easier. We got back to the visitors center and I discovered a poster seeking volunteer to help on the second Saturday of every month from 8:30 -1:00 to help clear and maintain the trails in the park. Perhaps I will join the nice and elderly looking men in the pictures one time. Carmen dropped me back at my car at work and I went home for some food.

I ate some dinner while watching a couple of episode of Two and Half Men. I then finished up my last load of laundry for the week and sat down to pay some bills. I was sifting through emails when I got one from Carmen saying that Mark, her husband, had cleared her to go hike again tomorrow and this time Mike would really try to be able to join us. That news alone made me look forward to tomorrow (too bad work gets in the way of hanging out with friends, huh?). I paid some bills and then went to work on catching up on sleep that I missed this past weekend in K-town.

Meditation for the day: Exodus 19:17 " Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain."

From the Desk 5/5/2008

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! I woke up late today which did not help my cause for getting up at 6:00am to go run in the weight room. I got to work and verified that the palettes containing the newspaper inserts did indeed get loaded on the truck to Chattanooga. I also put together the packets with notes in them instruction the managers about the new set of retail signs I sent them. I worked for the most part of the morning on creating an example of a newsletter that we would send out monthly to our customers via email. We need to make more of an effort to communicate with our customers on a regular (at least monthly) basis to ensure maximum customer retention. I ate some left overs from McAlister's for lunch (without the tea unfortunately) and then worked for the remainder of the afternoon on my secret project of establishing a customer loyalty program for The School Box. I was occasionally interrupted by some jokes between the cubicles and once was interrupted by Mike who posed an interesting question of: "I want to know who thought that this product was a good idea?" (see the picture of a pen with a magnetic end and flexible joint for some questionable approaches to product uniqueness)

After work I went home for about an hour until Stacy came and picked me up. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate Leslie's son Ryan's birthday. I took me back to the days when I worked at Funscape as I watched all the kids try their hardest to win tickets and beat their friend's at whatever game they were engaged with at the time. We eventually sat down and ate some pizza, watched the kids dance with Chucky (they really loved him), and watched Ryan open some presents. He got Transformers, Spider Man, and Speed Racer toys (which really reminded me of the days of GI Joe and TMNT action figures). We all sang and then ate some cookie cake. After letting the kids burn off what energy they had gained from the sugar and beverages we packed everything up to leave. Ryan left with his dad, Carson, and Stacy, Leslie, Brian, and I went to T.G.I.Friday's. We originally wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but realized that they would all be overcrowded and not worth the wait. So we ate some appetizers and had some drinks to celebrate in our own way. Stacy dropped me off at the apartment and I finished a load of laundry before relaxing with some TV and then not soon after going to sleep.

Meditation of the day: 1 Chronicles 16:34 "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever."

From the Desk 5/4/2008

This morning I woke up and had a tasty smoothie, graciously made by my mother, for breakfast before heading off to CBCB for worship. I ended up working in the booth as there was no one else present to assist Gary Casteel in running the board. After the conclusion of the service, I went to Target on my way back to my parents' house to pick up a car charger for my new cell phone. The battery had dies at some point during the night and I determined that it would be difficult for Hickey to call me when we needed to meet up for the UT baseball game if he couldn't because my phone was dead. (it is scary how much we rely on technology) I bought an off brand charger for about half the cost of what I would have paid at Verizon so I was not terribly unhappy at making this forced purchase. I returned to the house where I packed up everything I brought this weekend, changed clothes, and then left to run some errands. I bought gas, got a car wash, went to Super Target, and finally ended up at Pac Sun in Turkey Creek to procure a hat to shield my face from the sun at the UT Baseball game.

I got the call from Hickey and went to his house. There I picked up him and Chris and along the way we picked up Justin at his brother-in-law Jessie's house. We made a quick stop by Wendy's for some food and then headed up to UTK to watch the final game in the UT vs. Vanderbilt series. UT had not had good luck in the series so far as they had lost both of the previous game they played recently. We left before the game ended, so I can confirm if the outcome of this game was the same or not. While we were there, we noticed that there were several mascots and business "icons" present for this game. We were very confused until the announcer blasted that it was sponsor appreciation day at the park. That is why I have captured this lovely video for you to watch. It is a relay that usually they select two children from the stands to participate in, but if you have people dressed up suits that make them uncoordinated why not take advantage of that instead.


After we left the game I dropped everyone off at their respective locations and then hit the road home. Stacy had called during the game and said that she would be cooking dinner for herself tonight and if I want to I could join her. Of course, I responded "yes" and asked what time did I need to leave to make it for dinner. I called her on the drive home and updated her periodically to my location so she could begin to cook dinner for us. I arrived back in Kennesaw around 7:45pm and headed straight to Stacy's as no doubt she was starving from having to wait on me to arrive in town. When I arrived she told me she was fixing us a pork tenderloin, but when she checked on it, it had not cooked much at all. She determined that something was amiss with her oven and so we went to McAlister's to grab some dinner. I had the club (no tomato) and some much needed sweet tea to keep me awake after my drive home. I returned to my apartment and unpacked a few things before going to sleep for some much needed rest after my day in the sun (note the picture demonstrating my apparent inability to use sun screen properly)

Meditation for the day: "After we have felt that kind of pain we are better off because then we have nothing to be afraid of. Then we can truly live" ~ Forgetting Sarah Marshall

From the Desk 5/3/2008

Today I was unable to sleep as late as I had planned, so rather than lie in bed hoping to fall back asleep I got up and ventured to the workout room. There I found a note on the door stating that the room would be open again on Monday morning, so I returned to the apartment and finished packing for my weekend in Knoxville. I got everything ready and then hit the road around 9:00 after I stopped to fill up on gas. (I was pleasantly surprised to find that the station I usually buy from had dropped in price to $3.55 per gallon) As I hit the road I saw the clouds looming overhead, threatening to drop rain at any moment. My prediction of rain was fulfilled not long after I began my journey and followed me all the way until Athens, TN. I stopped off in Sweewater for some breakfast at Sonic. After feeling more awake I rejoined the other drivers on I-75 and made my way to the joining of I-40.

It was just before this that I noticed that my check engine light had come on. It only figures that when one thing on my car is fixed (i.e. getting new tires this weekend) another thing would pop up. I drove to my parents' house and Dad advised me to take it to Advanced Auto Parts on Middlebrook Pike. They will read your car's computer read-out for the check engine light for free and then print out the diagnostic report for you to take with you. This info is especially helpful considering that most places charge a minimum of $80.00 to read the computer before they even try to fix the problem. They told me that my catalytic converter was performing below the optimal level. I will see if this light goes away from slug burning off of a sensor or if it continues to remain on for a week, I will have to get it checked out by a mechanic. After that I dropped my car off at National Tire & Battery (NTB) to get my new tires. Dad picked me up and we ran to church and then to Grandmother's to help put things away from her garage sale. After that we went back home and changed clothes for our celebration a little later in the evening. Mom and Dad dropped me off at NTB to pick up my car (which took 20 minutes due to the severe lack of sufficient staffing) and then we drove to Ye Olde Steakhouse to celebrate my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary.

It was my parents, Amy and Jon, my grandparents, Aunt Donn and Uncle John from Florida, my cousin Clay and his wife Heather and their baby Laura, and my cousin Clint. The food was delicious and the company was enjoyable. I had the 10oz. Ribye with a baked potato. We also brought a red velvet cake for dessert. After eating enough to make me walk slower, I rode with Amy and Jon to the church parking lot where I left my car. I popped in the game room and gym briefly to say hi to the young marrieds class as I don't get to see them at basketball games or at church anymore. I returned to my parents' house briefly before Hickey picked me up and we went to the 10:10pm showing of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Meditation for the day: 2 Samuel 23:4 "he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth."