Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Blogging

I'm having issues blogging, both for my personal blog and the one I have to write for Advertising Week. I have lots of topics, just seems like a monumental task to me right now and I don't want to sit down and do it. For the Ad Week ones I even have outlines of the blogs, but I need some essential Kansas City pictures for one of them and I haven't gone out and taken them. I'm in a funk. I'll try to snap out of it here soon.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Back to travel

On Thursday of last week I received a call from a sales rep in Alabama asking me if it was possible for me to fly to middle-of-nowhere Alabama on Tuesday (yes, 5 days from the current day) to give a 30 minute presentation. You read that correctly. I asked the bosses if that was indeed how they wanted me to spend 2 days and approximately $1200. They agreed that the account was big enough and the time would be well spent. The planning commenced. Now let me just say here, that after almost 4 years of traveling multiple times a week, it is REALLY hard for me to just send my travel details off to someone to plan for me. The first email to the travel girl looked something like this.
Kate -; I need to be in Geneva, AL at 8am Monday morning.
the second email looked approximately something like this:
I'd like to fly on March 12 at 10:45am out of MCI to Fort Walton Beach, through Atlanta, landing at 5pm. I would like a mid-size rental car, and I found a Hampton Inn in Enterprise, AL where I will stay for the night of March 12. I will fly out of Ft. Walton Beach on March 13 at 1:10pm and arrive back in Kansas City at 7pm. Thanks.
I just do it better myself. Anal? Maybe, but travel is no joke.
Here are some random observations about this trip.
- Florida is HORRIBLE at signing their streets. Alabama did it fantastically well.
- After 7pm in mid-March bugs in Alabama attack vehicles like rain drops.
- Luckily the humidity in mid-March in Alabama is also horrible, so first thing in the morning there is lots of dew on the windshield which has soaked the bugs overnight so that they come off easily with windshield wipers.
- In relation to when I traveled 4 times a week 3 years ago, there are way more healthy options to eat in the airport. Way to get with it people. Still overpriced, but at least they are now available.
- Taking one's own lunch is an even better idea.
- People have to get stupider when they travel. Why stop in the middle of a concourse and talk on your phone or text when 300 people are behind you trying to walk to their gate? Why go to the front of the boarding line when you are in zone 3 and first class is the only zone boarding now? The plane will not leave without you if you are sitting 100 ft away in a seat. Get a grip people.
- I'm not all together convinced that 13 hours on an airplane or in airports, 5 hours driving and 8 hours in a hotel are worth a 30 minute meeting. That is yet to be determined.
I did feel good getting back to traveling. Two days out of the office is great. The new phone that gives me my email on the run is even better.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Fancy Fancy

I manage digital media, yet until last Saturday I didn't have a smartphone. After telling my employer that I most definitely would not just "add" my work contacts to my personal phone and having them scoff at me for weeks for being so unreasonable, I finally convinced them to put up the fee for me to have a phone that they can contact me on at all times*. (*which means when I'm supposed to be working).
So Saturday I went to Sprint and got a shiny new (EXPENSIVE) Galaxy. I've had the phone for almost 5 days and I've added some apps, created a foursquare account, synced up my emails, transferred all my text campaigns to my work phone so every time I get a text message it isn't a dumb store telling me about their special (clarification, none of these stores have specials in my city, thus, they're dumb), and generally got used to the ginormous smart phone that I now carry with me when I'm "working". I'll tell you what, I don't get the hype.
Maybe it is because I spend hours a day on facebook and updating text campaigns and devising fun promotions, but I just don't really give two hoots about having extensive phone access. I know I needed it, so it was about time, but I have probably really used it 3 times. I'm sure I'll adapt as I have it more and try to figure out this app world, but it sure seems like a lot of work to me.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

blogging

This blogging thing is taking some getting back into. I started blogging again because I really do like writing. Now that my kitchen remodel is finished and I have my house back and will be spending more time here again, I'm going to try and get back into the blog. I'm not without topics. I seriously think of things to blog about left and right. Sometimes I write the whole blog in my head. In fact, often I'm convinced I have already written a blog, then I come to find out that I haven't blogged in 6 days. I've never had a good memory, but that is getting ridiculous.
I also determined that I need a phone with a camera so that I can have it with me at all times to take snapshots of what I want to blog about. Visual support is so much more entertaining.

I just got distracted by a grocery store commercial on TV. I haven't been to the grocery store for food for my own house in a month. The fridge is really bare. I should stop blogging now.