Friday, September 4, 2009

Travelin'

Since graduating with my degree in International Studies, or as my brother says “My Secretaria degree”, I have always wanted a job where I get to travel or live in an awesome country. I was convinced it was going to happen….but it never has.

When I was an International Logistics Coordinator (yes, my brother called me a Secretaria here), I just knew that my company would be sending me off to China, Spain and Italy….all the places where we bought products for the company. Since I was writing their Customs handbook, I would HAVE to travel! How else was I going to make sure we weren’t dealing with companies with sweat shops? Needless to say, the farthest I ever traveled was to Grapevine, TX to go meet the companies that shipped all of our products. Whoopee.

Then it was off to Neiman’s where I was a Purchasing Coordinator (yep, glorified Secretaria.) In my interviews, they talked about sourcing out to new companies in Latin America (yay, I have ‘experience’) for their furniture and other items they put in the store. Obviously they would NEED me to go and help pick some things out. Hell, some of my bosses even traveled to Turkey, Germany and other places to source. Well, the closest I ever got to Latin America was in the VP’s office where I listened in on a conference call with some guy speaking Spanish and the farthest I ever got out of the office was to Longview, TX. Yay me…

Finally, I am in my third job and my Secretaria skills are a little more complex. I manage booths for Trade Shows. In my interview, I was under the impression that I would have to travel to these shows to make sure everything runs smoothly. Well, I have been here for a year and FINALLY I get to travel! As in hop on a plane and make my way to some city, by myself, and pretend I know what I am doing on the Show floor. So here I come NEW ORLEANS! Even though you aren’t too far away, I can’t drive to you from my office for the day. I will get a hotel room and have to eat some of your great food. Oh yeah, and I guess I will actually make sure everything runs smoothly for my client as well.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!!!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Looking for a New Best Friend!

Welcome to the Annual Notice of what Stephanie is doing for her birthday. This year I won’t be hopping on a plane and heading to any crazy wild place like Vegas or Mexico. I am keeping it a little closer to home, as long as you think 4 hours is close. The theme for this year’s birthday is “Looking For My New Best Friend” except I am not going to go all Paris Hilton on you and make you express your adoration for me on camera (although if you would like to make a tape as my present, I will gladly accept it) or make you do stupid stunts (once again, if you would like to humiliate yourself for my entertainment, I will let you). This year I hope my best friend will be in the form of a shiny new diamond! No, not that kind of Diamond... One I find myself in the mines of Arkansas! Here is the linkey to the mines:

http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/


I want to stay at the Swaha Cabins. This place is located on a lake, they are pet friendly and have boat rentals! There are cabins, cottages and condos at this place. So it seems like it would a great place for relaxing, grilling and lake fun….all with puppies!

http://www.swahacabins.com/index.htm


So here is the tentative schedule:

Thursday, July 23, 2009: Leave Dallas and drive up to the Swaha Cabins. Make it up there, unpack and drink and play some games.

Friday, July 24, 2009: Start the search for the perfect best friend at the Diamond Mines. The mines are open from 8 AM – 8 PM. Yay, plenty of time. Obviously we will get breakfast, lunch and dinner some where in the day. Also, it might be fun to find a local bar at the end of the night. I figure this day is up for grabs on what you want to do.

Saturday, July 25, 2009: Let’s go to the Diamond Mines again! You can never have too many friends! I figure we could do a half day this day and then the other half we could rent a party boat and hang out on the lake near our Cabins. The have some BBQ/Grill fun at night.

Sunday, July 26, 2009: This is all up to you but eventually I will be making my way back to Dallas.

If any of this sounds like fun to you, let me know. I think I will probably book something at the Cabin place next week.

In summary, the plans are diamond hunting, lake fun, puppy fun and more diamond hunting.

Feel free to invite anyone you want. Let me know if you are in.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Updated...with a Soundtrack

Once again, it has been awhile since I have updated my blog. So here I go again….and to mix it up a little bit, I will let you know what I am listening to on my iPod while I write (I am at work writing this…)...yeah…I know it won’t make it any more interesting. So here goes.

First Song: Waste It On – Silversun Pickups – I have this song because I bought the CD for Lazy Eye. Since I don’t like this song…I shall skip…

Cover Me – Candlebox – Who doesn’t like this song? I downloaded it (illegally of course) in college. No good story to continue with it.

So back to the updates… a couple of days after my last entry I got in a car accident. First of all and shockingly enough, it wasn’t my fault and no worries I wasn’t damaged at all….just hit my head on my side window. As I was driving to have dinner with one of my friends, I was hit by crazy Dallas driver. She decided to ignore all the road signs and go the wrong way on a one way street thus insuring that she would collide into the beautiful, kind of scratched up (ok, beat up) paid off Jetta. Needless to say, she killed it. She killed my sweet, sweet paid off Jetta. So update number 1, my Jetta died.

Oooh, new song….Lose Yourself – Eminem – Yeah, loved 8 Mile, love the song and most of all I love Eminem. Yum.

Since my car was killed, I had to go car shopping. If anyone knows anything about my first two cars, you will know that I am stubborn. Once I decide I want a car, I refuse to look at anything else. Even if it is a good deal, cheaper or better car for me overall…I won’t even consider it. Since I don’t like the new body styles of the Jettas and I wanted to upgrade, I set my sites on an Audi A4. So I scoured the Dallas area for an Audi A4 in black or gray. I drove a lot, Ben drove some and even my friend Ama tried to kill me while driving a few. Needless to say, I finally got one. So now I am in the Audi club, which isn’t as popular as the BMW and Lexus club in Dallas. It did how ever make me d-bag. I am becoming waaaaay too Dallas now….I live downtown, I have a designer dog, I carry a Prada purse and now I have an Audi. Don’t worry I hate myself too….

And on to Inacceptable by Rinocerose. I bought this album because of the iPod commercial with the song Cubicle. I don’t like this song. Time to skip….

Hardhouse Anthems 3 CD1 by ??? Yeah, I remember when I got into techno, I downloaded anything and everything with techno or House in the title. Needless to say, this was not a good choice.

I Do – Toya …..umm I guess it was good in College…..NEXT

Read My Mind – The Killers. Oh man, I love the Killers and I love this song.

So as I am sure you are all wondering…. the Naked Man is still out there. Oh yes, and he came back to his favorite garage about a week or two ago. Once again, I was on the phone with Mom and taking the dog out for a walk when all of a sudden I hear “Excuse Me…” Thinking it was someone needing directions, I turned around. BIG MISTAKE. There was no car behind me, there was no lost tourist….there was just one completely Naked Man in the parking garage waving his hands…..and junk. He got me. I didn’t think it would happen but he did….he got me. Third times a charm, I guess. Needless to say, I screamed in my mom’s ear. Hung up the phone and called Ben to come help me find him. Mind you my mom is now freaking out as she thinks I am being killed. Good thing I didn’t get killed and also, we never found him…..but I am sure he will be back. I will keep you updated.

Hero – Enrique Iglesias. He is hot, he is Latin and he can sing. Why wouldn’t I download this song? We had a brief love affair for awhile until I couldn’t stand the whining in his songs any longer. :)

Final update: Mary Beth and I finally did it. We started boot camp. Oh man, 5:30 AM is early. Or first week we were pretty pitiful. I am not sure if it was sweat or tears running down our face but man there was a lot of liquid. We figured as the days would go on the workouts wouldn’t be so hard. What were we thinking? We are in week three, I can run farther and for longer but I get my butt kicked every day. I am amazed at all the different exercises these guys can come up with. The craziest thing about the whole thing is we both signed up for another session, for another month. Hopefully this next session will help me get skinny. I guess I should stop eating ice cream, fries and queso…..and not all at once either…

Final Song: Oceans – The Fray. When I discovered Pandora.com and I made my own Fray channel, I was introduced to this song. Love it. Pretty sure I downloaded (legally this time) the day I heard it.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It's a Crazy World We Live In....

....especially when you live in Downtown Dallas.

So last Sunday when I was taking Sylvester outside to do his 'bidness' I was across the street at a big patch of grass. While I was outside waiting for him to finish, I heard some whistling. So ignored it, like I usually do...but it wouldn't stop. So I start looking around for who was whistling and couldn't find anyone. Well, Thank God I had my sunglasses on because there is a parking garage across the street from the grass. I happen to look up towards the garage without moving my head and I saw.......a NAKED MAN.

That's right, NAKED. Well, I guess not completely naked. He had a blue and white tank top on that he had pulled up to his chin. With his other hand, he was holding on to his junk. Since he didn't see that I saw, he kept his stuff covered. Then a big group of people came by and he disappeared.

Fast forward to tonight....

So I get home after having a drink with two of my coworkers and I take Sylvester out again to the patch of grass. I am on the phone with Julie chatting when all of a sudden I look towards the garage and I see my favorite NAKED MAN. Except this time, he left the shirt at home and was completely naked. Well, I guess he was wearing shoes and a ball cap but there was a lot skin to be seen.

So I ask Julie to send me the non emergency number to the Police. When I am about to call, two women walk up to me and start petting my dog. So I dial, the number doesn't work and the women are going gaga over the dog with the crazy naked man behind them in the parking garage. I, of course, want to protect their diginity and tell them in a calm voice that their is a naked man behind them trying to show his junk, so don't turn around. At that time, I call 911. While I am on the phone, my buddy figures out what I am doing and disappears into the garage again.

At this point the ladies are 'safe' and they leave. I call Julie to give her an update when I see a cop across the street in front of my apartment complex. So I grab the dog and run over to the cop. I start talking to the cop and telling him about my NM situation. He tells me, "Well, I would go look for him but someone in this apartment complex tried to commit suicide, so I guess I need to stay here. I mean she is alright but I need to stay here." So my new cop friend calls 4 of his bike cop friends over. They get my story and investigate the parking garage. All while my original cop friends and I watch as the girl who ate too many pills is being taken away in an ambulance.

So yeah, that was my night when I got home today. Naked Guy and crazy girl all in 20 minutes. Needless to say, I guess I will be investing in some Mace to either spray at NM or in my own eyes so I don't have to see his junk.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

INVEST!!!!

Have you ever wanted to invest in a bar/restaurant and didn’t really have enough money to be considered? Well, now is your chance…if you want. Ben and Zymology are in some dire need of investors and since I don’t have a big wad of cash to give him, I figured I could form my own investment group…as in we all chip in any amount of money to the group and we will invest from there. Then once it comes time to actually earn some money back we can divvy up our earnings amongst the group by how much you invested.

I really don’t know if this will work but I figured it was worth a shot. If you are interested or know anyone else who is interested, let me know.

Also, if you are big money bags and want to be your own investor, I can contact Ben and have him send the actual business plan rather than my email. 

I also hear investments are a good Tax write off for next year….

On a more serious note, I appreciate everyone’s support of Zymology over these past couple of weeks. I am hoping that he will come up with the funds that he needs to keep open…at least until the summer months where he has a fighting chance. Please do not feel obligated to give any money if you can’t, I just figured I would try my hardest to help him out.

Thanks again!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Happenings...

Ok so I figure I should let you in on some updates....

First, remember when I posted that Mary Beth and I were going to work our butts off before Darrah's wedding? Ha! Didn't happen. We did really well for a couple of weeks and then the holidays came, and then the awesome food and vacation punched our Work Out dreams in the face. We did talk about working out, we just never did it.

Then of course there was the article I read about how you can change your life in 30 days. I was gung ho to do sit ups, push ups, paint my nails and wash my face. What I learned...I hate painting my nails. It was a waste of time. I would pick at the paint all day long and curse my nails. Nail painting...lasted one week. I figured I would be awesome with the sit ups, push ups and face washing...but after trying to do drunk push ups at 2 AM quite a few times. I gave up. I lasted two weeks. So, I never changed my life because I didn't give it time.

Now we come to the Lent contract. Mary Beth and I gave up candy, fast food and fried food (all with loop holes mind you) and shockingly enough....We did it! We went the entire 40 days without any of the things we gave up. So you can rest assured the first thing I ate Easter morning was some chocolate my mom brought. Then it was off to brunch where I had some fried food. Then to celebrate, Mary Beth and I went to lunch today and celebrated with more fried food. So yay for us, we finally stuck to something. :)

Best Moment of Today: You would think my best moment of today would have been Mary Beth and I's awesome lunch or pint night at Ben's...but it wasn't. It happened at work. On one of the rare moments that I didn't have my headphones in, I picked up on a conversation next to me. My coworkers were talking about something and somehow it came up that a psuedo invoice was needed. Except I didn't hear psuedo.....I heard PAH SWADE O. Oh yes! It was great....if that wasn't funny enough, when my other coworker corrected the girl for her incorrect pronunciation, she said "Well, it is Spanish so...." Really? Is it because it ends in O? Now I know I haven't been in a Spanish class in a while, but I am pretty sure Pah Swade O wasn't a word I learned. I guess I will have to ask V.

Sylvester: He is pretty much the devil. A cute devil, but the devil nonetheless. His favorite game is to bite your toes as you walk or make the most pitiful whimper while you sleep. Good times. He is lucky he is cute. I just wish his needle teeth weren't so sharp.

Up and coming: Since Mary Beth and I can't be motivated on our own to work out, we have decided to join a boot camp. So starting in May we will be waking up super early and working out at 5:30 AM. So if you live near Victory Park, I apologize beforehand for the high pitched bawling, uncontrolable cussing and neverending complaining you will hear so early in morning. Wish us good luck. We will be torturing ourselves for an entire month, 3 times a week.....at 5:30 AM. Ugh, what have I done....

Monday, April 6, 2009

Meet Sylvester!!!

Say Hello to our new puppy...

From Sylvester


From Sylvester


From Sylvester


From Sylvester