| What's New - June 2005 |
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| June 6, 2005 - Well, it looks like I'll be going to the Bahamas again! Next Sunday night, if all goes well, Rich (VP of Industry Relations) and I will be heading off for a site inspection at Atlantis on Paradise Island. We've built in some extra time to check for off site venues, as well as time for the slides & general resort enjoyment. :)
I spent the weekend hanging out with Erin & Fu-chan shopping, eating & seeing Sisterhood of the traveling pants. Cute movie...it deviated from the book a lot. So Henry has this conversation with Erin which goes something like this: Henry: "I bet $100 that Jenny won't be able to stay on the diet." Erin: "Ok." Henry: "Huh??" Erin: "I'll take that bet. I say Jenny WILL stay on that diet." Henry: "Uhhh...ok, ok...how about dinner?" Erin: "ok, Henry...whatever." So of course, me being me...normally I wouldn't stick to any diet longer than a fly is alive but because of THIS particular impetus, I feel it is necessary to last the full month. So, here it is: 2 weeks on the 1st phase of South Beach Diet and 2 weeks on the Michael Thurmond's 6 week body makeover foods, like I did last time. I'm going for a nice size 4. I can still "fit" into them, but honestly, it's with a LOT of stretching (on my pants part) & grunting (on my part). I'm afraid to bend over lest the buttons pop. :) Fantasy goal is size 2, but come on...who are we kidding? I like to eat & drink WAAAAAAAY too much for THAT to be a reality. Starvation really isn't my thing. June 1, 2005 - I'm BAAAAAAAAACCKKK...from outer space...ok, well, not quite. I was in Oklahoma City (which is practically the same thing) for a week right after Mother's Day, then home for a couple days, then off to Italy for 2 weeks. I'm almost back on LA time. My body doesn't seem to know if it's coming or going. That'll be my last real vacation for a while. :( By "real", i mean "LOOOONG". Anyhow...Let's see - the National Sales Meeting in Okie City went really well. People - i (yes, ME) kept the company's best kept secret in TF history. The executive staff didn't even know about this one. We hired back one of our dearest Regional Vice Presidents back from our competitor. When Rick walked into that meeting, I heard a few seconds of dead silence (those who were trying to figure out who he was and those who were trying to figure out if they were really seeing what they thought they were seeing) followed by a, "OH MY GOD!!!" One of the VPs even went over and slugged Jack, my boss, for not telling her. It was GREAT! I was so happy when Jack told me about Rick coming back that I got a bit teary eyed. Meanwhile, my new supervisor...let's see...what can I say. Hmmm...The sales guys call him the "Sergeant" behind his back because he stands around the phone blitz with his fists on his hips scanning the call center like he was a military staff Sergeant just waiting for someone to get out of line. To us in Sales Administration Home Office - he was not a team player. Several times he pulled my co-worker, Michael, out from helping us so that he could help save his own @$$ (Once from me and once from jack). Not cool. We were over run with the need for help and he pulled the one person we depended on to help us for his own personal gain. That *REALLY* ticked us off. Not to mention home boy is all about throwing me, Michael & John under a bus if it means saving his own @$$. You guys get the general idea about my new boss. The entire department pretty much hates this new guy. I haven't heard such angst from this department in a long time. We're all trying to give him as much rope to hang himself as possible. Wish us luck. Italy - aaaaaahhhh....Italy. Let's see...I landed into Rome on Wednesday around 3:00pm - we took a shuttle out to the City to do a hop on/hop off city bus tour (honestly - the best way to get familiar with a city and to figure out where you want to spend more time...) then to dinner at Cafe Bibo. The food was pretty good - no surprise - i had a bottle of wine and pizza. Yum. BOTTLE of wine. It was so cheap it was criminal. We took off for Venice the following day. We stayed at a hotel (Westin Excelsior) on Lido just 15 minutes by boat from Venice. It was a GREAT area. Our room faced the beach and was absolutely HUMONGOUS. I loved it. We walked around Venice roaming the neighborhoods, canals, & small alley ways. Did you know that all roads lead back to Saint Mark's Square? At least that's what it seemed like. There were so many pigeons in St Mark's that Erin made a comment - "so THIS is where the pigeons come for vacation." We also had the opportunity to go to Murano island where the famous Venetian Murano Glass artwork is made. We got to see a live demo - it's incredible. They use real gold leaves in the gold colored crystals!! After lunch at Artelier (sp?), our favorite place for Panna Cotta, we took off for Florence. (Oh, wait...did i mention that the Italian ice cream, Gelato, was a major part of our daily diet??) Florence is an ok city but i think to fully experience it, you really need to be right in the heart of the city. Unfortunately, we stayed on the outskirts, forcing us to shuttle in/out of the city. We did a lot of window shopping, not a whole lot of buying, despite the terrific pricing on leather goods. Over the next few days we went shopping, sight-seeing, museum-ing, eating and drinking. Somewhere in that mix, we went to see the leaning tower of Pisa, knowing that there is absolutely NOTHING else to do there but see the tower. How sad that the greatest claim to the city of Pisa is a faulty building construction. Rome was not that exciting - the crowds and lines were much like Disneyland...except bigger and longer. We went to St Peter's Basillica (couldn't go to the Vatican Museum or Sistine Chapel as they were both closed). We got to witness a procession (STILL not sure what kind of procession it was) which was followed by a mass at noon. Unfortunately, Kristi got sick on her last day there - Strep throat, so we headed back to the hotel where erin & i laid out by the pool. Poor Kristi had a miserable flight back to the states. :( Anyhow, we're back in action and i'm grounded in LA...at least for this month. Unless I get to go sight inspect the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas!!! :), 2005 - |