"There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out." -Lou Reed

Friday, March 21, 2008

The Fine Print?


I was just in New Orleans for a conference, but shortly after arriving, well, pretty much immediately after arriving, I knew I was very sick. I haven't been sick like this in years. I went to an Urgent Care Center as soon as I could after arriving on Sunday. I was able to get all of my work done, and drag myself to what I needed to while I was there, but I was incredibly sick. I have a bad sinus infection and bronchitis, and I am still not over it.
The doctor there gave me prescriptions for an atibiotic and a decongestant, and then a few days later, called in a prescription cough syrup. I went to pick it up, and got back to the hotel and was a little surprised to read the label. It's a good thing I know better than to take 15 tablespoons of this stuff! ONE TEASPOON knocked me out for 5 hours today! (I don't think there are 15 tablespoons even in the bottle, but Good Lord).
I hadn't been to New Orleans since Katrina, and I am sad to say, things are not good there. New Orleans is not one of my favorite places, never really has been, but there is a rich history there--the music, the food, the people, and right now, it is a bit lost. The crime is terrible there. I was warned by the nurses every time I had to go and fill a prescription to be careful not to go to this particular drug store or that particular area, and these were areas that were not issues when I was in New Orleans before. I used to travel there a lot when I lived in California, we had conferences there constantly.
Anyway, I am off to bed with my ONE TEASPOON of cough syrup. LOL

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Vintage Easter Fun

(click on image to enlarge)

I was browsing through some other blogs tonight and came across this little gem. This is from around 1960 and includes fun cut-outs and bunnies to dry and decorate your dyed eggs. Too cute! I am sure you could still make this work with a color printer and some card stock...if you are feeling nostalgic!

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Vote for Hannah


My petsitter, Lisa, volunteered at The Hole in the Wall Gang camp this summer. (I know, how lucky am I to have such a great pet sitter?)
Anyway, she formed a special relationship with this little girl, Hannah. Hannah is battling leukemia, and is trying to win a contest to meet her favorite band, Rascal Flatts. Can you help? If you become a member of BrickFish and then vote, it counts more. (It only takes a second). She is in 8th place now! Please pass this on to others!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW HANNAH'S VIDEO AND TO VOTE FOR HER--VOTE DAILY!

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Friday, March 14, 2008

More Vegas



This is from another vendor that I visited in Vegas at ExhibitorShow. They take your pictures, and then insert them into a specific background. I, of course, selected the Parisian background. The vendor thought the picture was also funny slapped into the bullring background.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Vegas, baby

I have spent that last week in Las Vegas for a tradeshow for Event and Marketing Professionals--it is called ExhibitorShow and is run by the folks behind Exhibitor Magazine. The show has been around for 20 years, and is really fantastic as far as offering great courses for marketers and event professionals and also offers a tradeshow floor with vendors that offer products and services especially for people with jobs like mine.
The last time I went to this show was about 10 years ago, and the only reason I haven't been back was just job changes, moving, etc. Since then, the show and exhibit floor has grown so much. The courses I took were so helpful. The exhibit floor was amazing as I found so many products and services that were applicable to us, and it was great to see everything first hand.
Usually, I am setting up booths for shows, as we (my company) are exhibitors at shows, and we always offer nice giveaways like iPods or Nintendo Wiis. But, I can never be eligible to win anything at our shows, and the other companies are always giving away nice stuff, too. But at this show, I was an attendee, so it was a whole different ball game! I was eligible to win everything! Now, I have never won anything like this in my life, so I knew the odds weren't in my favor.
All of the exhibiting companies sent us pre-show emails and mailers ahead of time, and one company sent us an email saying we could win $25,000! Stacey, who works for me, sent the funniest response to that email saying, "Let's be sure and go to THIS booth!"
We actually did go there, and I entered the drawing. The drawing was just the first step--three people would be chosen in the drawing, then one person would go on to "play" for the big money. They drew the three names and they drew mine FIRST! I was so shocked--I have never won any kind of drawing. Then, the three of us had little mini-suitcases we had to turn over to reveal numbers. The person holding the suitcase with the largest number got to play. Mine had the largest number!!!!
At this point, I had to turn around to the huge game board and pick out some envelopes to play a poker hand. But as I was preparing, the host of the game said-- "You realize you are already a $500 winner, right?" I turned into a Price is Right goofball--and said "No, I did NOT!!!"
I didn't end up winning any additional money, but $500 on the first day was a great win. I was giddy.
I also later won an iPod Touch in another drawing. It was surreal. I had a great time in Vegas, and I am not a gambler at all!
In addition, a few of the other vendors there were for some entertainment services you could provide at your events, and one of the companies was called Dancing Heads. They do a sort of Green Screen transformation, plopping your head onto characters. You can see yourself as you do it, so you can add the appropriate facial expressions. I was a little punchy when we did the one featured below, (my co-worker Kathleen is in it with me) it was the last day and the last few hours of the exhibits. It makes me laugh, though, and this would be fun for our company events, I think. I have the end results of another vendor that I will show in another posting.



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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Frozen in Time

A friend sent this to me tonight, and I checked it out, and thought it was really fun. This (and evidently other events like it) are staged by a group called Improv Everywhere (Their tagline: We Cause Scenes).
For this scene, they had over 200 people freeze in place simultaneously in Grand Central Station for 5 minutes, while bystanders were unaware as to why or what was happening.

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Saturday, March 8, 2008

Playing Tag

Cassandra has tagged me in a little blog game.

As for the tag, here are the rules:
Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here are my seven random facts about myself...

1) Cassandra's mom pays me to be her friend. (just kidding).

Ok, I'll start over.

1) I have a weird fear of trains, really more of driving over train tracks or walking over them.
2) When I was little, I had an imaginary friend named...Kim.
3) I used to be t e r r i f i e d of flying and actually passed out on several flights when I started traveling for business.
4) I am known for finding lost little children in shopping malls and stores. It happens to me ALL the time. It started happening a lot when I was in college and has been happening ever since. I would say it happens about once a month. Which means, I probably am out shopping too much, or there are too many careless moms/dads out there! (It actually happened while I was in Atlanta with Cassandra while we were in IKEA)
5) I have to have a TV on to go to sleep at night.
6) My favorite TV show is Frasier, I can watch the reruns over and over (and do that a lot). I am buying the box sets one by one.
7) My favorite drink is Lorina French Lemonade. Although I drink Propel most of the time because it is low calorie, the Lorina is my treat, and takes me right back to my visits to Paris, sitting in cafes. When I was there, they served that everywhere.

Now, I am supposed to tag other bloggers. But, I don't know seven other bloggers! I do know that my friends Judith and Kim SHOULD be blogging!

-Kim >^..^<

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Friday, March 7, 2008

The Ranunculus are Here!















I love fresh flowers, but my absolute favorites are ranunculus. They are only available during the March-April timeframe, and every year I order them for myself or search the flower shops for them. The picture is of the latest bouquet on my desk I ordered this week.

I discovered them the first time when I lived in San Francisco in one of the amazing flower markets downtown there. I saw them and absolutely loved them and asked the man in the market what they were. That was in 1999 and I have been getting them ever since.



Click here for a nice website with some great pictures and details.





-Kim >^..^<

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Sunday, March 2, 2008

Are We There Yet?




I have mentioned my friend Cassandra (and her family) in an earlier blog entry. This weekend, Cassandra and I took off for the mean streets of Atlanta for a girl's weekend. It was a total blast! I am accustomed to traveling alone, due to all the business travel I have to endure, and also, my trips to Paris and other personal trips have been solo. But traveling with Cassandra was a breeze. We have very similar interests: we are both night owls, we like similar food, and just like to roll with whatever comes along. I am all about being spontaneous when I travel, I like to plan to an extent, but if something fun presents itself, I want to veer off the path.
Most importantly, we can make each other laugh until it hurts, and it happens more often than you can imagine.
Our trip started off a little, um, worrisome. I had booked us in a Holiday Inn Express in the Buckhead area (I had hotel points). I had checked with my friend Judith (who lives in Atlanta) to make sure I had the location right and that it was safe. She said it was fine. When we arrived, the location was great, but it wasn't like any Holiday Inn Express I had ever stayed in (and I have stayed in soooo many with my business travels). The doors were "outside", meaning they weren't covered in an interior hallway--this is something I usually won't do being a female traveling alone, and I was worried about doing it, even with two of us. But it was after midnight, oh well. I had already requested a room on the second floor, so I figured we would be OK.
We loaded up a baggage cart (yes, we overpacked), and began to try and steer the damn thing to our room. I knew the vicinity of our room, so we guided the cart around the pool area to look for the elevator. We didn't see one. Cassandra kept saying..."they DO have an elevator?" I remembered seeing one in the lobby and I guessed you just had to take the elevator from the lobby to all the floors. (seeing that the lobby was in a single level building should have given one of us a clue). So, we rolled the cart all the way around the other side of the pool area, into a VERY narrow doorway into the lobby building, struggling to get it over the threshold, losing some articles in the bumpiness along the way, finally reaching the lobby. My memory was poor. No elevator. You have probably all seen the ad/commercial campaign for Holiday Inn Express, where they show ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary feats after staying in a Holiday Inn Express, made wiser simply by an overnight stay. As we rolled our way back to the pool area, very frustrated and tired, Cassandra turned back to me and said, "I don't think we are going to get any smarter staying here."
This is why I love being friends with her.
We finally made it to our room and laughed, gave each other no end of grief, slept, and got up the next day and headed out to begin our weekend. We went to the High Museum of Art, then went to pick up a coffee table I bought of off Craig's List in my old stomping ground of Dunwoody (long story), then to La Madeleine's restaurant--a FAVE of mine--a little French cafe--what a shocker, then shopping at the Container Store, and IKEA. Ikea is so busy and chaotic, but the deals are fantastic. We both found some great deals.
On Sunday, we met my friend Judith for breakfast at The Flying Biscuit. It was so great to see her and to catch up, and to eat yummy food in one of my favorite restaurants. (best southern grits in the world!) Then, we ventured off to Judith's house where I got to visit with Lulu, Judith's dog, and just my most favorite dog, ever. When I lived in Atlanta, Judith's home was like my second home, and I was living nearby when they got Lulu. I feel like Lulu's special Aunt or something. She is the most loveable, sweet, adorable dog. Judith believes she recognizes me--even after all these years, and long spans of times between visits. I hope so. Judith and I were talking this morning and realized we have known each other for 14 years. It is amazing how time flies. When I met Judith, her son was in second grade, and now he is in college. Wow.
I treasure these friendships-- the ones that have stood the test of time. I am so fortunate to have several long time friends in my life that make it richer, more fun, and add beauty to the tapestry of my life!

-Kim >^..^<>

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