From the Desk 6/6/2008

This morning I decided to splurge and stop off at Mrs. Winner's for some breakfast. I have not eaten at a Mrs. Winner's since I worked at Funscape back in 1999. It was just as good as I remembered with southern seasoned chicken on a fluffy buttery biscuit. It is no doubt much less healthy then my usual smoothies, but sometimes you have to reward yourself. I arrived at work a little early as the service at Mrs. Winner's was much quicker than I had anticipated. I answered several emails and returned a couple of phone messages I had received after I left yesterday. One of those messages was to approve the sales order and the artwork for the new lanyards that we will giveaway at the Summer Training Seminar to all the employees. I thought this had already been approved as the training is 10 days away and they said it usual takes at least 10 days to produce the 350 we ordered, but apparently they forgot to send the approval request until yesterday after 6:00. I called and quickly approved everything after reviewing the order and artwork. We had our usual website committee meeting at 10:00 this morning, but this week we had Bruce, one of the main developers of Sum/It systems join us to help us figure out what we could get done before it got too far into BTS. The meeting was short, but productive. I then went to work on entering a small stack of mailing list entries to fill the time between the end of the meeting and lunch time. I have probably entered around 1,000 of these this week and there are still 800 or so left for Taylor to enter when she comes in this weekend.

I ate the last of my leftover pizza for lunch today, but I actually ate in the break room with Stacy and Tausha who had gotten some food from Wendy's. We ate and laughed as usual, and before we knew it, our food was gone and we had to return to our desks. I didn't get much done after lunch, knowing that I was leaving around 3:30 to go home and finish the last part of the video work for the training seminar. (the picture to the left is part of the work I have to do this afternoon, but I'll explain the whole thing later). I did get everything answered and scheduled so I won't be swamped with things I could have taken care of before I left on my trip. I will probably be checking my email at certain points throughout my trip to Charleston so if you need to contact me and I don't answer my phone (and its not an emergency) you can shoot me an email. I packed everything up and went home to work on video stuff for a while. I helped Carmen put together a new desk for Mike's assistant that starts next week, and then I left for the day.

I went home and after several attempts and crashes I finally got the loop video to burn onto disc the way I wanted. By the time I finished that it was time to change clothes and head out for the evening. I met Brian and Leslie at Marlow's Tavern for a drink at 8:00. We were joined by Stacy at 9:00 after she got done with her dinner with Corey from work. By the time Stacy arrived I realized that I hadn't really eaten anything so I ordered the wings appetizer. I had half of the order in traditional buffalo sauce and the other half in their honey mustard sauce. The honey mustard wings were the tastier of the two so I will know what to get next time. We spent the majority of the time talking about Brian's interview from earlier in the day as he is trying to get a job locally since he and Leslie will be married in October. We ended up moving outside once Stacy arrived since the weather wasn't too hot. We laughed and ate while listening to the live music provided by one guy a guitar and an amp. He was pretty good though, and dad would have been proud of me for recognizing a song no one else did; "Midnight Rider" by Lynard Skynard. We were just about to leave when it started pouring rain. People sitting a the edge of the patio quickly sought cover inside. We remained dry as we were seated next to the door that connects the patio to the inside of the restaurant. We eventually gave up on waiting for the storm to pass and decided to get some exercise by running to our cars. We all made it, remaining as dry as possible, and then headed our separate ways. It was fun and a good way to spend my last day in Kennesaw for the next 4 days. Charleston, here I come!

Meditation for the day: Psalm 90:2,4 “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”

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.”

From the Desk 6/4/2008

Today I made another unique smoothie drink for breakfast. This time I used vanilla yogurt, orange juice, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. It was thicker than usual due to more fruit being used, but it was very tasty. I got to work and began working on more mailing list entries. I also spent a good deal of time sending out information on some bags we are having printed. I had to modify our logo for printing on clear bags, as well as design the general layout and specify what type of ink we wanted to be used. We are going to add a barcode to the design at some point soon as we are hoping to have these in to sell for BTS (back-to-school). I also began the process of returning the displays that were originally intended to hold our gift cards and holders, but did not work the way we hoped. Time seemed to pass rather quickly today as it was lunchtime before I knew it.

After lunch I helped Stacy with a project. We are going to our major vendor’s websites to make sure that our store locations are listed and the information is accurate under the vendor’s local store section. Most of the website that I checked had some but not all of the Georgia stores, did not have any of the Tennessee stores, or still listed them as P&S School Supply. I managed to check 15 vendors before having my fill of that for the day. I will probably continue to assist Stacy in this for the rest of the week as my plate doesn’t have too much on it right now. I also worked on tweaking the packaging for a new product that we are going to carry in the stores. They are called Communicator Clearboards and are actually very versatile in their potential uses in the classroom or an office setting. The problem is that they come in a 10 pack and have no information with them telling consumers what they are looking at. They have template books that can be purchased to go with them as well, which as you can see, have also been highlighted on the information sheet. Five o’clock rolled around and it was time to go home briefly before hiking.

I went home for about 45 minutes and then changed and headed up to Cartersville to meet Mike Bruce, and Kenny for hiking at Pine Mountain. This was the first trip we took where it was all guys, which was nice for a change, and a bit different from the regular crew. We made our way up the mountain talking about Summer plans and vacations. The topic of work came up surprisingly few times, which made the trip feel like more of an escape. We returned to our cars and we each went our separate ways. On the way home I stopped off at Rite Aid to try and get my prescription refilled before I ran out. After filling out their information sheet and flashing my insurance card they got me set up 15 minutes later. While I waited I called mom and informed her of my success with refilling the prescription and talked about my upcoming trip to Charleston. I returned to my apartment and finally had dinner (at 9:20pm) after the pizza I ordered from Pizza Hut arrived. I also confirmed that I would be filming the wedding of Amy Chandler & Aaron Fraley on October 4th. I did a few other things before realizing that I was tired after hiking for a second day in a row. I took a shower and then went to bed. I doubt we will hike tomorrow, but I think that the possibility of a Friday hike is looking good as long as the weather holds out.

Meditation for the day: 1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

From the Desk 6/3/2008

This morning I made a smoothie using my own ingredients and amounts instead of following the recipe I've been using. (sometimes you have to have variety) I used non-fat vanilla yogurt, orange juice, and frozen raspberries. I must say that the flavor was overwhelmingly raspberry, but that was the intention since it is one of my favorite fruits. I packed up my hiking stuff and my small camera for a project with Mike and then headed to work. I arrived and began to respond to proof that had been sent to me for new entrance rugs for the stores, for the lanyards for the new name badge holders, etc. The office was also slightly distracted as Aimee had brought her dog to stay in Mike's office while she was out at another store for a mini-managers meeting. Her dog, Stella, looked terrified, but you would too if you had been spayed and had baby teeth pulled all in one day! I decided to leave the animal some dignity and not post a photo of her in her recovery stages. I spent more time today on entering names into our mailing list. (me thinks we need a better plan for entry than whoever happens to decide to do it...I'll have to work on that)

For lunch I had some Smart Ones Ravioli, which would not have been filling enough but Mike gave me a few of his fries from 5 Guys. I resumed entering names and came across an entry slip that made me stop and think....it was kind of eerie. The woman's name was Amy Taylor, and she lived in Tucker, Georgia on Smithsonian Ln. It struck me an unusual for not only the name, but also a place where a good friend used to work before trying to get a job in Knoxville again. What does it mean? I have no idea, but it seemed coincidental enough to mention. Later in the afternoon I followed Mike around with my small camcorder and filmed him demonstrating the way that Sum/It can be used with card access security in both a retail and warehouse/receiving environment. Once I have the link for the video that is posted on You Tube I'll let you know so you can see my extraordinary filming talents. (read: incredibly strong sarcasm). It was nearing the end of the work day so I changed into my hiking clothes and then Tausha, Carmen, and I loaded into Mike's car and we were off to go hiking.

We decided, since it was Tausha's first time, to do the loop at Burnt Hickory Rd. since it was less strenuous than going straight up Kennesaw Mountain. It was quite hot before we entered the shade of the trail as the temperature gauge read 93 degrees! It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to hike the 3.5 mile loop. Along the way Mike and I had some fun such as throwing things into the woods to sound like animals moving about. I should probably tell you that Tausha is terrified that some creature will attack us on the trail and we will all be killed and eaten. This did not happen as I am still alive and writing this blog. However, it did give us some motivation for playing jokes along the way. We loaded back up in Mike's car (which was by now 103 degrees) and he dropped us off at the Box to pick up our cars and go our separate ways. I went home and had some dinner. I then showered, so I didn't smell like a bag of rotten garbage, and went to Super Target to do some grocery shopping. I talked to mom on the phone most of the entire time I was there, and amazingly I didn't forget to get anything I needed...food wise that is. I still forgot to pick up some sunscreen and supplies for the beach, but I will get those Saturday morning before we head out. I returned to the apartment, put away groceries, and then decided to go to bed a little early as I will be hiking tomorrow and Thursday.

Meditation for the day: 1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”

From the Desk 6/3/2008

Today I woke up later than planned. I had set my alarm for 6:15 so I could go down to the weight room and lift before work since I always seem to run out of time or hike after work. I got ready as usual and then made my way to work, on the way passing the Exxon station that now is selling gas for…..$3.99 per gallon! Just when you think prices can't go any higher. I got to work and everyone was still as cheerful as they were Friday, which made it a good start to the week. I worked on re-sizing an ad for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, creating an example of a poster/chart storage bag that we are having printed with our logo on it, and various other graphic tasks. I also finished printing everything for the stores monthly retail signs packet and then packaged then in envelopes and placed in the stores' mailboxes for distribution. I worked with Vickie on problems surrounding our new gift card & envelope displays that we finally decided won't work for what we need. Tomorrow we will probably send them back and look for an alternate solution.

For lunch today, I ate a turkey and cheese sandwich with some Doritos. I decided to be good and not go out and eat since I have food that will go bad soon if not consumed. I worked with Stacy, Vickie, and Mike on finalizing most of the details for the Back-to-School flyer that CCC is printing for us later this week. We hope to get them in about 2 weeks so we can take them to Atlanta Business Circulators to be ink jetted with addresses and then mailed to our customers. There is a delicate balance between being on schedule and falling behind. Unfortunately, projects seem to fall into the second category more often than the former. I also worked on entering more names from the door prize registration forms into our customer database. I have entered about 300 so far and hopefully that will be enough to help Taylor get done with the rest by the end of the week. The day was beginning to slow down in terms of business and then Mike asked if I could take him to pick up his car, which was in the shop for routine maintenance. I told him sure. We were going to head over there at 4:00 and then Mike told me to just shut everything down and go ahead and go home after dropping him off. That was nice as it gave me a chance to catch up on some video editing that I desperately needed to do.

I dropped Mike off and then went to work immediately on editing the School Box footage for the Summer Training Seminar. It took me about 2 hours to get everything edited and burned over to disc. Hopefully, everyone will be happy with their speeches and we will not have to re-shoot any scenes later. I then took a break and ate some dinner. I also apparently needed to take a nap as I fell asleep while watching Two and a Half Men and woke up about an hour later. I felt refreshed and went to work on the reception video. I also talked with Hickey about our potential trip to Charleston and he told me that he was able to get off work and we were good to go! That was very exciting news. Not that I really need a break because my life is going really well right now, but I will jump at every chance I get to go take a break before the back-to-school rush comes. I took care of more emails and wedding paperwork before calling it a night and falling into sleep almost as soon as my head it the pillow.

Meditation for the day: Ecclesiastes 4:10 "If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"

From the Desk 6/2/2008

This morning I woke up and ready for church. I had to wait briefly while Amy finished getting ready and during that time I managed to take a good "still" picture of Samus. She was itching to jump up on me, but somehow remembered Amy's instructions to refrain from doing so. On the way to church Amy and I stopped off at Krystal to procure a gift card since the location I stopped by yesterday was out. I think I might have to come up with alternate gift ideas for G-mom and Papa as whenever I go to purchase them a gift card for a restaurant the establishment is almost always out. I worked the booth for both the 9:30 and 10:45 services and then drove out to McAlister's on Schadd Rd. to meet everyone for lunch.

I had the Fiesta Chicken Salad, which was delicious and potentially a new favorite there. We ate and talked and then made plans for who was to go pick up the ice cream so we could continue the birthday celebrations of Dad and G-mom. I returned to the Tuckers and changed clothes. Once everyone arrived we proceeded to open gifts once Samus had been moderately subdued. After the gift openings we ate some penguin cake and ice cream. The cake is actually easier to make than it appears, as it is comprised of shaped cupcakes in a divided pan that you push together and add icing to give it the authentic animal appearance. It was delicious as was expected. Jon, Amy, and I then gave a demonstration of Guitar Hero III to pass the time and prolong the party. While watching Jon play, Amy discovered that an entire million-ant march was taking place under her bay window. She only mildly freaked out, and Dad and I went to work with the spray and vacuum cleaner in a futile attempt to kill/cease the attack by the ant army. I left soon after the fight began as I needed to hit the road and, due to my past apartment experiences with insect invasions, I wanted to avoid re-living nightmares.

I filled up on gas again before hopping on I-40 towards home. I will surely miss the $3.78 gas prices I have enjoyed while visiting Knoxville. The roads were very crowded as I made my way back down to Georgia. Along the way I did encounter a traveling group of Corvettes driving all in a line. I don't know if the picture does it justice, but it was a truly beautiful sight to see all the varieties of these legendary cars. I got home to find that I had received 13 emails over the past 2 days and I decided to try and sort through some of them before tomorrow morning at work. I also worked on laundry, and pulling over video footage from the School Box summer training tapes. I updated my blog from Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and also did some looking on REI.com to see what type of daypacks they carry (since that is what I will use the rest of my gift card to purchase. After all was said and done I managed to do very little (sadly) of what I needed to do before it was time to go to sleep for the night.

Meditation for the day: Proverbs 15:1 “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

From the Desk 5/31/2008

I woke up around 8:30 this morning and headed downstairs to the kitchen after I took a shower. I found Amy making some sweet rolls for our breakfast. I ate 3 rolls and then headed out to Victor Ash Park to meet Jubin for some frisbee golf. We met at 10:00 and began our round. We both played fairly well, without losing any discs and only having to search for them occasionally. We finished up and then I left to run a few errands. I filled up on gas, ran by Krystal to pick up a gift card, and then grabbed some lunch from Chick-fil-A. I returned to the Tuckers and ate my lunch. After satisfying my hunger, I prepared to do some yard work. I dug up one of Amy's bushes in the back of their house and then moved it up to the front flower bed. It took longer than expected and more effort than I thought it would have taken, but in the end it was worth it to "earn" my stay. I left there and went to get an oil change. I then stopped off at my parent's house and showered and changed for the wedding.

I picked Hickey up and we headed off to First Baptist Church Downtown to film the wedding. We met Brenda and Lisa in the parking garage and were greeted warmly as usual. We also found that Carlos was to be the photographer, which made us happy because he strives to work with the videographers instead competing with them. The church was beautiful and very ornate. We got everything set up and the ceremony almost went smoothly. The pastor, who was not at the rehearsal, neglected to do the unity candle ceremony. We waited around for almost an hour before the bride and groom walked out of the church and got in their horse-drawn carriage that took them to the reception. We arrived at the reception and got our pre-shots of all the food, cakes, and decorations before the guests began to stroll in. The reception was kind of odd in that after the usual events (first dance, cake cutting, etc.) 75% of the guests left and no one was really dancing. However, about the time we were going to pack up and head home, everyone started dancing and the party seemed to come back to life. We filmed for another 45 minutes and then packed our equipment up. We ran into Lisa Foster, who was there to pack up the flowers that she provided for the reception. We talked with her and her husband, Sam, for a while and then decided to dance to the Cupid Shuffle and the Cha-Cha slide with the remaining guests and the wait staff from the convention center. We headed back to Hickey's and watched a couple of episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?. I drove to the Tuckers to spend another night courtesy of their hospitality. I watched the final minutes of the movie One Missed Call. It was a disappointing ending even though I didn't see the rest of the movie, which almost guarantees that I will not waste my time watching the parts I didn't see. I turned in earlier than the night before because I knew I would have to get up to drive Amy and myself to church for her to practice with orchestra and me to prepare for the broadcast.

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."