Surprise!

So it turns out, I really like Minnesota.

I came to this realization in the last couple days after an awesome and busy weekend. It came to me today driving home through downtown Minneapolis that I've finally, FINALLY started to explore the Twin Cities in the way they deserve. Through High School and College it was always a place to get away to every now and then, a place to kill some time, but always a place of tried and true experiences. We never really branched out.

HOWEVER, since I've been back I've gone to several new bars and restaurants, discovered areas of the city I never really knew existed before, taken advantage of the parks, and actually started to meet some new people. Now not everything I've done was great. There's a particular bar I went to this weekend that was just ridiculous in how trendy it was and how it looked like it belonged in Miami. Solid white walls, DJ in the corner, rooftop bar with trendy drinks and furnishings. Not the worst place, just not my ideal. But much of it has been wonderful. I discovered the lunch deli at Surdyk's (haven't had a chance to check out their wine selection yet but I did have an awesome crab and artichoke melt), I did homework sitting by lake Nikomis, I grabbed tasty treats at Local D'Lish, saw some good stuff at the Guthrie, and so on.

Now This is just a sample really, and I do love the cities. But I'm still ready to get out of here and live somewhere else before I maybe, possibly come back here to settle down. But I now remember why I like home so much.

EDIT: I also forgot how annoying stinky farmland can be. Nothing quite like the shock of passing a poultry farm late at night. EEEEEEEWWWWW.

How time flies when you're doing tedious things

So I spent the entire morning doing nothing but coloring in seats some more, and then spent the afternoon manually de-duping several mailing lists... Not the most fun I've ever had but it'll all be done tomorrow. I suppose that's what I get for having an amazingly awesome weekend! Lots of partying, food, and great friends were involved.

First week -- DONE

So this week started out pretty slow but did not continue in that manner...

After Monday I was excited to get started on some things and begin to gather the information I need to work on some of my ideas. Tuesday was hellishly slow. The main projects they wanted me to start on as they were highest priority, just weren't ready to be handed off. So I had to wait for things to be put together and for the IT woman to come show me what exactly to do. This job is not the greatest, or most fun task, but it's absolutely important. Basically the house was re-scaled. The price points were examined and seats that were partial view were not all priced appropriately, AND they added a Super Premium price point.  SO...the diagram of the house needs to be recolored so that patrons online can look and see what seat they're in and what the price point is in case it's change. The PDF of the house is not designed well, so I have to use Photoshop and color in each seat individually.......yep, super-fun. But it'll get done on Tuesday so no biggie.

Other than that I'm getting excited about some of the PR-type things I'm working on. I had talked to my supervisor about working on some facebook initiatives and writing up a section of a marketing plan that they could then use, or choose to partially use or whatever. When I asked to see their current plan....they don't have one. I was a little shocked that a nearly $9 Million organization doesn't have a written Marketing plan, but they appear to do ok without one. I did get to see the strategic plan. It was three pages and consisted mostly of end goals but no evaluation or objectives or action plans.

I started talking with the Communications Manager on Wednesday about the facebook pages (they have 3) and mentioned to him my discussion with our boss of writing up a plan of some kind and his eyes lit up. 

On Thursday I was invited to sit in on a meeting at a suburban Starbucks to talk with the production company about our ideas for a TV spot for the upcoming season. The basic idea involved having a particular male company member singing in the shower. We spent about an hour brainstorming ideas, most were hilarious (not inappropriate, but hysterical and just pushing the line a bit). There was not a single part of that conversation though that would have happened in Utah, and it made me laugh, a lot. Then on Friday afternoon, on my my co-workers says "It's quiet today. Wy aren't we drinking?" She then went and got a bottle of wine from the fridge and we partook in some libations. Those were my two "you're not in Utah anymore" moments of the week.

Outside of work, I've also been busy. I went to see Kushner's new "the intelligent homosexual...." at the Guthrie Thurs. with Sweeney. It was pretty good, interesting cast, and LONG! We're talking 3.5 hours here.

OK that was long and a bit detailed. Hopefully the next week will afford a bit more time for more updates and not just one huge one.

Day One!

Alright, so I started today at my internship. Being Monday we had decided I'd show up at 2:00pm so as to give my supervisor time to get into her monday. So I met up with Lisa for lunch and then proceeded to work.

I walked into an awesome old warehouse building in the Warehouse district and found the office of my supervisor, Lani. She gave me a tour of the offices and introduced me to a vast number of people whose names I will not remember for a while. But then a bit later we had a Communications and Marketing dept. meeting. This is where the real fun came in!

We spent about an hour in this meeting with a total of seven people. Now this group of people is very relaxed and comfortable with each other. There was much laughter and much friendly bickering, so of course I felt right at home. We discussed briefly where I'm coming from, what I'm looking for, and what they have for me to work on. Then we progressed to what they termed their "sensitivity list." This term worried me at first expecting a list of rules for what was/was not appropriate for the office. Instead it was basically a list of people's food allergies and likes/dislikes. Some of them were quite interesting like horse meat and meat in jellies. I was astonished at how many of them (including myself) have a strong dislike for Mayo! We also discussed interest in alcohol. Coming from Utah I'm still adjusting to real beer and I have a feeling that they will help me with this.

My favorite part of the meeting was when the Executive Assistant to the President walked by and poked her head in saying: "Woah, you guys are laughing this much and having so much fun and there's not even an empty bottle of wine on the table!?" My other high point of the day was when my supervisor says: "you don't have to stay past 5. I know how much you're getting paid." and then as she left her office at 5:02: "Rule Number 1: Don't stay past 5!" Needless to say, I got the picture. Tomorrow will be fun as I get to know the group more...

So I got some good ideas, I have lots of questions to start my day off with tomorrow, but I won't bore you with those now

This is an adjustment.

Well, I've finally gotten a little settled at home where I'll be spending the next three months or so. *GULP*

I've been sick since the second day of my trip home and have spent lots of time recovering (i.e. laying in bed or on the couch watching terribly cheesy television). But we turned in the moving truck today and got me mostly settled in my room and my stuff kinda stashed around the house. So of the four bedrooms in our house I've  landed in the tiny room which I lived in from about 1995-1999. It's small. BUT! It comes with all these perks: an old barrel/nightstand, a framed photo of an American flag, a closet half full of my moms old clothes, a painting my grandmother did of Santa Clause, and a taxidermied deer head named Bosco. 

So yeah, I've got a week to spend looking for a car before I start my internship on the 18th. I'm really excited to get going on that and will be looking over every inch of their website and any press coverage I can find. Also the opera is in a super cool area of Minneapolis and my friend from St. Olaf works at a gallery down the street, so there will much mischief at lunch with Lisa!

All of you minnesotans may not want to read the following: So far, being home is less than ideal, and I'm very much feeling like I need to get out of here come August. We'll see how that goes.

Road Trip!!

So.... commencement was on Saturday. Then I packed, loaded up a moving truck, and left Utah at 10:30 AM on Wednesday May 6th. I headed up Interstate 15 then East on 80 through its crazy-awesome desert and on through some serious mountains before hitting Denver. Leaving the Denver area at dark, I headed Northeast on 76 and stopped in Ogallala NE, which is officially my new favorite town name.

Waking up the next morning I departed for the trek across Nebraska around 8:30 AM. Made it home in two days!! ROCK. The odd part was that it was just so suddenly flat. The sun went down as I hit Denver so I couldn't see the terrain for that stretch to Ogallala, then when I woke up it was all flatness of Nebraska. And boy does that make for an interesting drive. But I made it through Nebraska, Iowa, and home to Red Wing by 8:00.

So what got me through it? Musicals! I listened to every musical I had at least once, usually more. I had a few, got some recommendations from people and had a total of 10 musicals to fill my days of travel. 

Road trip is done, now for unloading the truck and getting over this nasty sickness I've got. Boo!