Work, food and movies

I just finished up my second stint working for Local540 and the Fayetteville Flyer . This time around I have really been focusing on the selling Local540 to local business owners. I have gone on numerous sales meetings with my supervisor, and hence, now feel comfortable enough to talk to prospective clients about it. I developed my own sales presentation based loosely on my supervisor's, but I added some key elements that I think will really improve it. We will see. Switching back to my contractor assistant position is kind of coming at a bad time as I have really picked up some steam with Local540, then again, the extra time will get me a chance to practice and get event hat more comfortable with my sales pitch. I am by no means a salesman, so really, I need all the practice I can get.

Steph and I have been in a restaurant rut. We have been going to the same three or four places routinely for the last couple months so we have vowed to be more exploratory as far as restaurants go. Yesterday, we went to Petra Cafe . It is a local Greek restaurant, and it was freaking delicious. I got a lamb and beef gyro, side salad and a bowl of lentil soup for an extremely reasonable price. Everything was super fresh. It was awesome. For lunch today, I went to Geraldi's with my Local540 coworkers. I split a pepperoni and meatball pizza with my friend. It ruled. It was a classically good pizza, but the meatballs really set it off.

Last week we rented Man on Wire . It is about the wire walker who walked a wire between the World Trade Centers. That's all I'll say about it besides you should see it. It was outstanding. Especially since I feel like I haven't really seen anything good lately.

Hogball

Hog baseball has come to an end for the season at the hands of the mighty LSU Tigers. Yesterday's 14-5 loss was a schooling for the Hogs who really didn't stand a chance. They were coming in with no pitching, and a bunch of position players having to play out of their natural position. Arkansas pretty much left everything they had left on the field when they played Virginia on Wednesday. It was awesome to see them on the biggest stage of college baseball and play well. Should help with recruiting.

With that said, baseball is over, which means football is around the corner. For anyone that hasn't gone to a "football" school (the UofA is defiantly a football school), even if you are just a casual sports fan, football season is a freaking blast. It's so much fun that I start to get excited about it in April, and the excitement just builds until August.

When I first moved to Arkansas in high school, I didn't know anything about football, and I didn't care either. How things have changed. I think it is just this town. It's excitement over Razorback football is contagious and after a while there is no fighting it, you become a fan of Razorback football. You may never become a fan of the sport itself, but when you wake up on Saturday morning you can't help but be pumped. All anyone cares about is the game and you can feel it in the air.

Soon there will be tailgating, BBQing, yelling at opposing team's fans, enjoying beverages, hours and hours of football watching, etc, etc.

Notice I didn't mention anything about the team having to be any good for football season to rule. Truly, it doesn't matter, it helps, but ultimately,it doesn't matter. Football season is still a blast.

That being said, I think we will be pretty decent this year, a little better than last, but not by much. Our timing on offense will probably still be a little off with a quarterback that hasn't played consistently in a couple years, but our defense looks to be better. At least we will have some linebackers this year.

Ready for School

The title of this post is a little deceiving. It's not that I am so ready for school to start back up or anything, but the sooner it stats back up, the sooner I will be done with my graduate studies, and the sooner I can begin my new career.

I have looked for some jobs in Fayetteville, and other cities in the Midwest, and a lot of them have stated they prefer to have someone with an MBA. It feels good to see that, as my bachelors in psychology was never really a selling point in any of my previous job searches.

Plus, I am just looking forward to the possibility of moving out of Arkansas. Steph is all for it. She has lived in Arkansas for nearly 20 years, and I have lived in Fayetteville for about 12 years or so. We love it here, it really is beautiful, but we are ready for a change, if it happens. I will also be way more confident in my ability to find a job in a new city after graduating from the Walton College.

I am about to switch back to working for the Local540 . It will be nice to get a break from remodeling the kitchen we are working on as my body is beaten and bruised from all the labor.

Bad weekend for the Joneses

Haven't posted in a while, mainly because I started working with a contractor friend of mine, and I have pretty much been exhausted during each and every moment of my free time. It has been fun. But as the title of this post suggests, we have just come off a monumentally bad weekend for two reasons.

One, we went floating. Sounds harmless enough, right? And it would have been if either Steph or I had ever been floating. We went with a large group of people and had expected to both be paired up with experienced canoers, but that's not how it ended up. We ended up together. We floated the Mulberry which we hear is not the best river to learn how to canoe on. Long story short, we tipped (a lot), got dragged along rocks, and I lost my wedding ring. It was 6 hours of misery.

Two, and the main reason for the crappy weekend, Steph lost her job.

So, we are pretty ready for some good things to come our way.

My dog is named Swayze

When I am not generating sales leads for the Local540 , I have been writing for the Fayetteville Flyer . I wrote about the baseball Hogs a few times as no one else with the Flyer wanted to, but more importantly, I recently wrote an article concerning the credit card reform that recently passed through congress. As the summer progresses, I will continue to write about developing business news. It will give me a chance to keep up with current events and possibly open up some communication with Flyer readers.

Steph and I have recently decided that we want to take our dog camping. This is kind of a big deal for us since he is kinda crazy. When we originally set out to get a dog, we imagined ourselves as the kind of people that would take our dog camping, and for rides in the car, etc. Unfortunately, it has never worked out that way, but we are working on it. He has been going on more and more car rides with us and he has gotten pretty good about them, he has been staying relatively calm. But camping will be the big one. We are terrified that he will run off or bark all night and keep our friends awake, but we think that with some work we can accomplish our goal. We are looking to take him camping in the fall, so as of late we have been letting him wander around outside in our front yard off the leash. It has gone surprising well. He really doesn't run off very much, but when he does, we call him back with turkey pepperoni in hand waiting for him.

New Grizzly Bear album tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this one for a while. I really got into Yellow House, and feel they are poised for something special with this new one. We will see.

Creativity in business

One of the main reasons I choose to study the arts during my time in undergrad was because it seemed like the arts would allow for me to pursue a career that was challenging, but also allowed for some creative thinking. At the time, business seemed boring. Mundane. All business, no fun. Just a series of processes. Well, like most 18 year olds, I was wrong. I started my internship with Wonderstate media last week. It's unlike any job I have ever had in a lot of ways, but there are two reasons that stick out. One, there are only three of us, and the other two guys are really good friends of mine. Two, it's a new business. Working for a new, relatively unknown business that is just starting to make itself known and just starting to attract customers is a totally different experience for me. That is where the creative part comes in. How do we make the public aware of the products and services we offer with a limited marketing budget? Good question, I'll have to get back to that one.

My sister turned 21 late last month. It's weird how nothing really makes you feel older than when the people around you begin to get older. Anyway, taking her out last weekend pretty much drained our funds for this weekend. So, Steph and I went to a local bar called the Smoke and Barrel . Pretty much every weekend they have bands playing, with no cover, and cheap beer. Perfect for those weekends when you don't have a lot of money to spend.

Grades are in

I received the last of my grades this morning, and all is well. For anyone that is nervous about entering business school without having a lot of experience, education or otherwise, should know that as long as you devote enough of your time and energy to learning the material, you will be fine. I am living proof. The fact that a program has let a person in is proof that they are intelligent enough to do well, then it is just up to how hard someone is willing to work to be successful. During orientation, my mentor said the key to doing well, even beyond prior experience, will be to manage your time well. She was right.

I have watched a bunch of movies over the past week of freedom I have had. One of the movies I watched was Apocalypse Now Redux. Wow. Easily, the best war movie I have ever seen, and probably, one of the best movies I have ever seen period. I totally recommend it to anyone whether they are a fan of such movies or not. I appreciate that some people may not want to sit through a 3 hour and 15 minute movie, so you would probably be alright with the original cut instead of the Redux edition. Before I watched the movie I knew the Redux edition had an additional 50 minutes worth of movie over the original, and as I watched it before reading about which scenes had been added, I was able to pick out about 45 of the 50 additional minutes that had been added. That's the thing about additional scenes, usually they are pretty easy to pick out, or to recognize why they were left out in the first place. But, if you are the kind of person that can watch a three hour movie, go for the Redux. In my researching after seeing the movie apparently there are a couple other editions of the movie that are like 4.5 and 6 hours long or something. That may be pushing it.