Wild BOOOOOOOOOAR!

My favorite show on the Food Network (one of the random cable channels I get without having cable) is Iron Chef America and by FAR my favorite part of the show is the crazy host. I love it when at the beginning, he announces to everyone what the secret ingredient is, and he says it like he is the announcer for a World Cup soccer match and they've just scored a goal to win the whole thing! Today's secret ingredient is WILD BOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!! The other day the secret ingredient was OOOOOYYYYYSTERS!!!!!! So funny.

Did somebody say London?

Couple things:
Week 2 of my job is even better than week 1. It is such a great opportunity. There is really no brand awareness of this company here in the US, so I have such potential to take it really big. I'm so excited. I met the group marketing manager today from London and she said "oh, we'll definitely get you out there!" Sweetness!!

As Jiggie (maggie and Jimmy for those of you who aren't up on the celebrity name combos) commented on the last post, we had dinner and drinks in NYC in celebration of their engagement last night. They went to the Colbert Report and then I met them late after. Congrats again!

I have a new favorite show. It's called Flipping Out on bravo. It's a really stupid show about this high maintenance guy who flips houses in California and all his ridiculous staff. I love it. Not as good as Shaq's Big Challenge, but it's good.

My new thing is working out at lunch. Actually, my dream has almost come true to combine my love of working out and my hatred of doing laundry. I rented a locker at the NY Sports Club near my office and if you do that, and sign up for the laundry service, they will take your dirty, sweaty gym clothes out of your locker, wash, fluff, fold and put them back in your locker!! Today, I left the office at 12:45, was on the treadmill by 1:00, did 25 minutes, showered, got dressed, grabbed a salad at hale and hearty and was back at my desk by 2. I love it.

Bedtime, I haven't had the opportunity to get 9 hours of sleep since I started working again . It's been a rough transition. :)

A Wedding!

Got a call from my cousin Jimmy today. He's getting married!!! He has been dating a great gal, Maggie since last year and last night he proposed. We couldn't be more excited to have her in the family. So next year is going to be full of weddings, 2 cousin weddings and one friend wedding. Megan and Hugh in the Bahamas in February, Lisa and Joe in Green Bay in and Jimmy and Maggie in DC! yay for love! <3

New job

Well, I wanted to let everyone know that I officially have a new job. I started work today at Vividas USA, an online video company that is based in London as marketing manager. I'm really excited about the opportunity and I'm also happy to be back to work after my 4 month vacation! What a great experience though to be able to take a few months off during the best time of the year in NY. Anyway, I'll write a bit more about what my job is all about as soon as I know, but I'm back to work, and happy!!

What a week

I just spent the greatest week at my Aunt MB's lake house in Dowagiac, Michigan and I know I've said it many times before, but I really have an amazing family, both sides, this trip it was the Keegans. The night I got there my cousin Steve and Auntie Margo picked me up at the airport in Kalamazoo and then we were back at the house in about 45 minutes. MB has 2 houses right next to each other and at the peak, we had more than 30 people staying between both houses. We did tons of relaxing in the sun, water sports, ate great food and spent some really great family time. There's something about being with a group of people, having a wonderful time and knowing that each one of them genuinely wants you to be there and vice versa. I always leave and think, wow, this really is a remarkable family.

Here is everyone who was there!! First starting with the people who are actually related to me by family: Aunt MB (the serious hostess with the mostess!!) cousins Steve & Colleen; Aunt Beth & Uncle Kevin, cousins Kim and husband Casey (and their baby, she's hasn't made her debut yet though!), Sean, Trish, Daniel; Aunt Margo & Uncle Mike, cousin Jimmy. Then, the reason everyone was there was because my Aunt Beth's nephew Brian got married in chicago the weekend before so everyone came to the lake after that. So everyone from that family who was there is: NANA, the coolest 90 year old I know. Aunt Jo and Uncle Stewart, cousins Caroline, Jimmy and his wife Laura and baby Jack (He's only 3 months old!!!), Kathleen and her husband Toby and their baby Neeva (She's only 3 months old too!!!!); Uncle Jed and cousin Lauren; Uncle Rich and Aunt Peggy, cousins Megan, Michael and Charlie.

Thanks again MB, for an amazing week! Can't wait to get back!

Final update

My bag has been located in NY and is "en route" to me on their delivery truck!! I'm not counting on an early arrival here though. I'm glad it's found but this is a perfect example of why the airlines are in such bad shape. Imagine where this bag would be had I not 1. heard the mope (perfect descriptive word courtesy of MB) baggage handler say they were going to put my bag on the Cincinnati flight and 2. Called every hour on the hour and directed their "trace" of my bag. It might have been lost forever!! So now I get to stay at my apartment for who knows how long and wait for it. So meanwhile, I'll write more about my trip. Stay tuned...

Holy mother of airline gods

My bag DID go on the Delta flight to Cincinnati JUST like I told them it did and THEN it went to Atlanta and THEN it went to NY. But the dipshit (pardon my language but it is appropriate) bag handler in South Bend put a new Delta tag on it without telling anyone at Continental about the new number!! So the bag might be sitting in New York with a new tag on it with no way for Continental to tell it's mine. Great. Just great. So now we are back in contact with South Bend to get the new tag #. F$%#^*%§¶∞¢£§^^#@(*^%¶•§¢∞£™¶£∞®¢¶£§•œ¶ª¶ª¶∞∞ª£§¢ª¡º!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Significant progress

So I just called back again for the 4th time as I assured them I would be doing and I get a lovely woman named Jane on the phone. She looks up my file and immediately puts me on hold (I wouldn't want to talk to me either). Then after about ten minutes she comes back on and says, are you still there? We may have figured out what happened to your bag. I just need to make a few more phone calls so hold on just a few more minutes. Now THAT'S progress! I don't even have to yell at her and she immediately starts making the phone calls. If this bag is in Cincinnati, I swear....

baggage update

So, last night I called and there is no sign of the bag. I tried again first thing this morning and was also told that there was no sign of it and to call back in 2 hours. I'm starting to get mad here. So I called again about 25 minutes ago (I know this because I'm still on the phone) and got a woman named Jennifer on the phone. I decided I was taking this investigation over because I'm not waiting for them to wait for their "computers to be updated" for me to get an update. So first I ask for a supervisor, no supervisors available until tomorrow. Figures. So then I said, South Bend is a small airport. There are a handful of airports where this bag could be, cut your rehearsed speech to me and start calling around to them. She starts with LaGuardia. Obviously it's not there so I said, ok so it hasn't been tagged anywhere else and the last we saw of it was in South Bend? Yes, maam. According to the records. I say, ok, great. Let's start there. Please check with South Bend. Jennifer calls over to South Bend and says she's only getting a busy signal. I say I can hold until they get off the phone. Then she comes back and says that the phone is just ringing and ringing. I say, again, I can hold until someone picks up. It's Sunday, I have all kinds of minutes to waste. Then she comes back with some real progress. She has reached someone in South Bend and my bag is not there. She even double checked the area and it definitely went out on SOME flight from South Bend. Now we're getting somewhere. SO, that means that it is most likely in Cleveland or Cincinnati. She starts to give me a little more resistance to my investigation by saying, well it's probably on the ramp in Cleveland and we don't scan them in there until they arrive in New York. It wouldn't be in the baggage room. I say, well surely someone has access and can eyeball the ramp in Cleveland, look for the red bags and give them a little check to see if they are mine. Please call over there. She reluctantly acquiesces and gives Cleveland a ring. We run into a snag, she reaches the baggage counter in Cleveland but they are all out working a flight and are not available to check. That's fine, I won't hold up Cleveland air traffic to get them to look for my bag. Jennifer assures me that they will check when they come in and double checks the phone number they have on file for me for them to call back when they get in. So that's where we are now. In return, I assure Jennifer that I would be calling back shortly if I didn't hear from them. :) Ah, so much fun.

World's smallest plane

So I just flew back from an AWESOME week at my Aunt MB's lake house (more about that in a bit) and had a ridiculous flight experience. I flew from South Bend, IN, the closest airport to the house through Cleveland and to New York. The plane going from South Bend to Cleveland was literally the smallest plane I've ever been on. There was one row of seats on each side and 3 in the back and there were only about 6 rows. It didn't even have jets. Propellers, and not turbo props like I've had on flights out west, but no jets, wind em up propellers. REALLY small. Now, because the plane was so small the luggage compartment was immediately behind me (i also had the worst seat ever because I booked late and have no status on Continental, but that's not important right now) and as they're loading the bags in I can hear everything the baggage handlers say. They get everyone else's in and I see two left on their cart, mine and someone else's that was headed to Denver. I hear the baggage handlers say "Ok, send LaGuardia and Denver to Cincinnati." Now, this really doesn't make any sense to me but I figure maybe because it's the world's smallest plane, we might be overweight and because there was no flight attendant (seriously, I could SEE the pilots and look out the front window the whole time!!) for me to tell that my bag was being sent to Cincinnati, there was really nothing I could do but hope that there are other flights going out to NY from Cincinnati and they will be able to get it there.
Well, I get to NY safe and sound and sure enough, no bag. So then I go to Continental baggage services and ask them what they thought about it and they said, well we don't fly from Cincinnati to New York so that wouldn't make ANY sense. Great. I file the whole deal with the baggage serivces and called for my status when I got home. Still no sign of it, but they think that maybe it ended up on the Delta flight to Cincinnati that left at almost the exact same time as I did from South Bend. That plane was a jet, maybe even had 10 rows. I'm SURE they had room for it! grrr, so now I wait for it.
updates and a wrap of my week tomorrow....

ANOTHER mini helmet!!

So, my friends Brian and Julia have been here visiting me for the last 2 days and we've had SUCH a great time. Today we went to the Yankees game and as if I needed another reason to like the Yankees over the Mets, I walked up to the Carvel stand and ordered a hot fudge sundae in a helmet, exactly as I had at Shea, but the nice Carvel worker at Yankee stadium made no mention of 200 degree hot fudge. He nicely poured me a hot fudge sundae in a mini Yankee helmet. And, as you can see from these pictures, the Yankees helmet was not cracked by the SCALDING temperature of the hot fudge. It was WELL WORTH it though. The hot fudge was DEEEEEEELICIOUS and yet again, we had lots of fun taking pictures with the mini helmet.

Now that's what I call music

Ok, I just saw a commercial for Now 25!! Last I remember, we were on about Now 5! How did I miss 6-24?!?