From the Desk 7/4/2008

Happy 4th of July! I slept in this morning until a little after 10am which would almost be considered a record for me (at least in the past 10 years). I woke up feeling refreshed and went to work on the wedding video for a little bit. I took a break and made an egg & cheese sandwich for lunch. After that I decided to not do any more work on the video and to enjoy my day off from work. I played some Guitar Hero III and actually am making progress in my skills in "playing" the guitar on that game. I called Christina to find out what the plan was for tonight's fireworks show and etc. She informed me that we would be going to her aunt's house near Buckhead to eat some dinner with her parents, grandparents, brother, and friends of her aunt. Then around 9:00 we would walk downtown to watch the fireworks and avoid having to find a place to park. I did some work on my computer, updating some back-up files, etc.

Christina called me and was heading over a little early to hang out before we embarked on our journey where I would meet the family. We watched an episode or two of That 70's Show that was running as a day-long marathon on ABC Family. We hopped in her car and then drove down to her aunt's house. We arrived around 7:45 and were met just inside the front door by her mom, brother, and her brother's girlfriend. I think I made a good first impression, but I'll make sure to ask Christina later what her parents thought of me. We worked our way through the house and onto the patio by the pool where everyone else was gathered at tables eating. After I had received a few more introductions (I'm terrible with names) we filled our plates with food and then sat down to eat. The food was delicious (chicken fingers, 7-layer dip, baked beans, chips) and we were soon joined at our table by Christina's brother, Taylor, and his girlfriend, McKenzie. It was moderately awkward as none of us knew what to say. I did figure out quickly that Taylor and Christina are pretty much opposites.

After we had some banana pudding for dessert, Christina's mom joined us and we chatted a little bit about various things. We were also joined by her dad who popped in to make a comment every now and then. We then went inside to cool off before we were to walk with a group to their usual viewing spot for the fireworks show. We left soon after we sat down to relax, and we walked for about 15 minutes to this grove of building that had an open view of the sky that was only slightly blocked by another building across the parking garage. We were hoping to be able to see clearly as there was construction going on that prevented us from perching in the usual place. We didn't have to wait long for the fireworks display to begin. It was impressive, with many new types of explosions I've never seen before. The show lasted about 15-20 minutes and ended with a very nice finale of multiple colors and sounds as the fireworks sang their last chorus across the night's sky. We walked back to her aunt's house and then said goodbye and returned to my apartment. We watched a couple of episodes of Dirty Jobs before we both realized that sleepiness was setting in. I walked Christina to her car and then went inside to slip into a deep sleep and dream about the colorful bursts of light we witnessed tonight.

Meditation for the day: Isaiah 12:4 “In that day you will say: "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.”

From the Desk 7/3/2008

This morning I woke up knowing that it would be a great day! I had this positive mindset in that it was the last day working this week and we had a three day weekend in front of us. I got ready and went to work. I worked on various little tasks throughout the morning. I also managed to squeeze in some time to work on cleaning up our mailing list database as the last time we sent addresses for a mailing there was an unusually large number of names that had something (possibly a misspelling in the city or state name) wrong with them that would prevent them from receiving our marketing pieces. I worked on that for about an hour and then it came time to have some lunch. I had originally planned to eat a Smart Ones ravioli that I had brought to eat for lunch, but I gave in to peer pressure and joined Carmen, Tausha, and Blair for lunch at Willy's. It was good food and lots of fun so I'll just justify that meal by saying that I will have something to eat on Monday.

After I got back from lunch I finalized the instructions to the managers for all the supplies to use to promote the BTS sale and what signs to use when. I packed up all of those instructions, a copy of the flyer, and the signs and labels I already had printed. I then went to the warehouse to place all of these packets into the tubs to go out to each store. My finishing of this project was welcomed by the warehouse as Chris had told them we would have the tubs out of the way by Tuesday, but delays happened and they became in the way at some point every day since then. I returned to my desk to find a folder with a project for Monday. I have to edit and reduce a mailing list to prepare for our next quarterly piece and then send the mailing list off to the printer to begin preparations for its production.

5:00 rolled around quicker than anticipated and I left work to go run some errands. I went to Rite Aid to pick up some medicine and a few odds and ins. I then went home and got ready for Christina to come over for a little bit before we went to a movie. We watched an episode of Two and a Half Men and then headed out to the theater. We were going to see Indiana Jones: and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. We bought our tickets at 7:45pm and the lady taking tickets told us our theater was to the left. We walked down that direction and realized that the ticket counter had sold us tickets to the showing that begin at 7:30 instead of (the logical choice) the show that begin 15 minutes after we bought the tickets at 8:00. We wandered around until we found the theater that was showing the movie at 8:00 and grabbed our seats. Since it felt like a Friday night with no work tomorrow, it took me a moment to realize why the theater only had around 30 people in it to view the movie. The movie was very good. I was glad to see that they didn't update the sound effects for the fight scenes, the unrealistic explosions, and the over-the-top villains. If they had altered any of these elements it simply wouldn't have been Indy. After the movie we returned to my apartment and had some ice cream while watching several episodes of Boy Meets World. I walked Christina to her car and then we made plans for tomorrow night and the fireworks show downtown. I found that I would be meeting her parents and while that normally is a terrifying thing to imagine, I really wasn't phased. I figure that parents usually like me, and if I'm good enough to be dating Christina then her parents will like me too. I hope I'm right. We also made plans to go to a Braves game after church Sunday morning. I went back inside and quickly faded into a deep, restful sleep.

Meditation for the day: (In honor of tomorrow's holiday) Psalm 33:12 “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.”

From the Desk 7/2/2008

This morning I decided to get up a little early to begin importing media into the next wedding ceremony project. My goal is to have this finished by Friday so I can begin the reception on Saturday and finish the while thing on Sunday. I worked on that and then got ready and headed into work. On the way to work I saw something that made me cringe: gas was $4.05 per gallon! At work today I worked with Chris on finalizing the website flyer concerning the GA Classroom Gift Card and then had to run out to Printing Impressions to pick up some extra signs for the BTS sale. Once I had the next batch of signs I begin printing the details on them. Later this afternoon I will divide them all up into envelopes to be distributed to the stores. I took my lunch break a little early and watched a couple of episodes of That 70's Show while dining.

After lunch time seemed to stand still (no doubt because we only have to work 4 days this week) and I began to divide out the signs. I split them out and put the large signs, small signs, and labels for the small signs into envelopes for each store. I then ventured to the warehouse to package the vinyl posters for the metal racks in each store. It took longer than expected to pack them up as I kept having problems with the tape-gun getting twisted or not tearing off. I finally got them packed up and placed them on the pallets for each store. When I returned to my desk I begin to do some more research on the data mapping program we want to purchase to imporve our marketing targeting efforts. I found, through Amazon.com, that the newest version of this software will be released on July 21st, so we will wait until then to make the upgrade. It will probably not be utilized a whole lot until the second or third week of August due to the fact that BTS is creeping up behind all of us and hopefully will pass just as quickly. I worked with Vickie on corrections for the flyer for the website and then it came time to go home.

Before I left, I looked at Stacy's drive belt in her truck to determine if I thought she could make it to Charlotte and back without having it changed. The last service she got done they mentioned that she needed to have it replaced. Since I have seen one that needs to be replaced I offered my consulting services (non-qualified) and suggested that she should be fine to drive to Charlotte this weekend. I went home and immediately begin working on the ceremony video and got much more accomplished that I expected. I got the intro video done, the menus created, the tracks lined up, and the ceremony editied up to the bridal entrance! I then took a break to eat some dinner. Shortly after that I got a call from Christina as she had gotten out of class. She came over to watch a movie and tonight's selection was one I had borrowed from Stacy: Closer. It was an unusual film that was very descriptive in parts. It is not one that I would reccommend even though Natalie Portman did an amazing job portraying her character. We finished the movie and then caught the last part of an episode of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. I walked her to her car and then went inside to go to bed.

Meditation for the day: Matthew 25:21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'"

From the Desk 7/1/2008

This morning I woke up a little groggy, but that quickly faded as I remembered that we only had to work until Thursday this week. I picked up some Chick-fil-A for breakfast and then started printing the details on the large signs for the BTS sale. I ran out of signs much faster than expected so I put in another call to my contact at Printing Impressions to get additional signs printed. I also created a sign to promote the desk calendars that the stores will begin carrying soon to lead into the new school year. I worked on browsing various sites where customers could post reviews of The School Box and found that almost every review had something positive to say about a specific store or employee, which goes to show that customer service can impact a customer's shopping experience in a good way. I took my lunch break around noon and just ate at my desk as I had a few more facts to gather before presenting my data plotting findings to Dave later today.

I got back from lunch and met with Chris to discuss our plans for a flyer to explain the rules/benefits of using the Georgia Classroom Gift Card at The School Box. After we wrapped up that meeting, Dave popped over and said he was ready to meet with Chris and I for my special presentation. I grabbed my materials and we journeyed into Dave's office. I presented my 6 page report/plan for implementing a customer loyalty program for The School Box sometime in the next 6 months. I was able to read their reactions pretty well and they were genuinely excited and thrilled that I was willing to take on this program. We batted around various ideas for specifics that we would need to have in place before implementing a program like this, but I know that we have to get through BTS before we set a date for working this out. After that I briefly covered with Dave about the data plotting programs I have researched and we settled on MapPoint 2006 by Microsoft. Tomorrow I will begin to find the most economical source for purchasing this software and then move forward with using it to better target areas to market to. I went out to the floor briefly to say hi to Christina as she was working today. I told her we were going to Ikea, but she was going to hang out with her friend Leslie after she got off at 6:00, so I promised her that we would take our own trip to Ikea since I knew she loved that store. I worked on a rough version of the Classroom Gift Card flyer before it came time to go home (or at least away from work).

Stacy and I drove down to Ikea after work. She was looking to buy a chaise lounge chair and I was along for the ride as the "muscle" to help load and unload it from her truck. I was slightly overwhelmed by the size of the store and knew that I couldn't possibly look at everything in the time we had allotted for our adventure. After looking around the top level (mostly model areas set up) we stopped and ate some lunch at their cafe. I had a buffalo chicken wrap and Stacy opted for the Swedish Meatballs with macaroni and cheese. My wrap was delicious and I sampled some of Stacy's, which was delicious as well. We then ventured to the lower level where we browsed through kitchen ware, decoratives, and bedding stuff. It was immense and very affordable. We then grabbed a flat cart and loaded her chair and a coffee table she found onto the cart for check out. We got the items loaded into her truck with only minimal problems with the box the lounge was packed in falling partial apart. We headed back to the Box to get my car when we had to make an emergency stop along I-75 to remove part of the box that was almost blown off the back of the truck. After readjusting the box and putting some loose pieces in the cab of the truck with us we continued on to Kennesaw. I followed Stacy over to her house where we unloaded and assembled the chair. The people that design this furniture are geniuses. It only took about 20 minutes to unload, unpackage, and assemble the chair. I left Stacy's and returned to my apartment. It was a long day as I didn't get home until a little after 9:00pm. I fiddle around online for a bit and then Hickey called so I talked to him for a while. I began to feel my eyelids growing heavy around 11:30 so I decided to call it a night.

Meditation for the day: Philemon 1:3 " Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

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.”

From the Desk 6/29/2008

This morning I slept in until 8:00 and then my alarm saw to it that I didn't sleep any later. I got up and ate some breakfast, then showered and got ready for church. This morning I was meeting Christina at His Hands, a non-denominational contemporary church in Woodstock, GA. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find it, but as it turns out I had driven by it earlier in the week as I mad a wrong turn off of I-575 trying to get to Super Target. I met Christina just inside the doors, and I could tell before even walking in the building that this would be a more comfortable environment for me as there were many more people flowing in through the doors than were at North Star. We were handed glow sticks on our way into the worship hall in honor of the 4th of July. We sat down and were looking around for Anastasia (one of the girls who works in customer service at the Box) and her husband Derek, but were unable to locate them. The band came up at 10:00 and began playing some worship songs. It felt good to just sing and praise God with a group of believers. The pastor came up after several songs and read the scripture focus on freedom for the morning. (Colossians 2:6-7) After that we walked to the rear of the room and picked up some juice and bread and observed the Lord's Supper. We followed that by singing the praise chorus by David Crowder, "Nothing But The Blood". It was truly powerful to feel the music in the room. We got to experience the 2nd Annual Indoor Fireworks show after that. No they didn't set off actual pyrotechnics in the building, but they did have the band playing patriotic songs while we watched a fireworks display on the projection screens. The pastor proceeded to give the morning's message that focused on the difference in being persecuted for things we bring on ourselves vs. being persecuted for being a follower of Christ. It was good and made me think about how fortunate we are to live in this country where persecution still happens, but not to the extent of the rest of the world.

After the service was over we were walking out and finally found Anastasia and Derek so we stopped and said hi to them briefly. Christina had to go immediately to work so I told her next time I'd take her to lunch afterwards. I went home to work on/finish the reception video. I worked on it until 4:00 when I had to take a break to avoid throwing my computer out the window due to editing complications. I went to REI to browse through their clearance stuff they started promoting a couple of days ago. I then stopped by Target and picked up Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii. While I was there I ran into Dave and Chris and their kids Michael and Anna. It caught me off guard to hear someone call my name since I really don't know that many people down here. We caught up on each other's weekends and then went our separate ways. I returned home and worked on fixing the mistakes on the video until around 6:45.

Christina called and she came over around 7:00 to watch a movie. We watched Employee of the Month, starring Dane Cook, Dax Shepherd, and Jessica Simpson. She really liked the movie and I must admit that no matter how many times I watch certain scenes I still laugh. We watched a couple of episodes of Dirty Jobs, and while we were watching that we kept hearing the sounds of fireworks that sounded fairly near by. We ended up walking out to the parking lot where several of my neighbors were also standing around watching the fireworks through the trees. We missed the majority of the show, but we did catch a few of the big ones. We finished watching Dirty Jobs and then I walked her to her car. We said goodbye and I went back inside. I made copies of the DVD and printed the labels. I also put everything in their cases and prepared them to ship out tomorrow. After that I knew it was time to go to sleep.

Meditation for the day: Colossians 2:6-7 "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."