campfire anthems

today at 5:30 pm i will conclude my first year in the advertising industry.  looking back i can’t even remember all the things i’ve learned or cool stuff that i got to do.  i can say, however, that my first year was a really successful time.  over the last year for work i got to travel across the country, i’ve designed ads for major print publications (local and national), i’ve had work featured in a very well-known international magazine — and by accomplishing these things i was able to buy a house and really start my life.  below is my favorite piece i’ve done over the year.  its a two-page spread in dupont registry of fine homes.

so now i look toward tomorrow.  what will year two bring?  what is in store for me?  i’d like to think that my future is limitless, but i guess that’s really up to no one but me.

how long have you been with your job?  what’s your favorite thing about it?  is there anything you can’t stand about it?

today is my first day back at work since i’ve been on vacation.  its monday.  i have to work late tonight.

now if that isn’t a triple threat of misery to start the week off with i don’t know what is.  at least i’m busy and can make the most of it.

i have a huge ad due today at 5:00 pm. its the biggest ad i’ve done and its in a national glossy, full color magazine. its kind of a big deal. i’ve been fighting deadlines and working with very little information/pictures. a company we hired flew some aerial photography and sent me the proofs late in the afternoon. i picked the one that was going to be best for the ad to show all the property and this is what i had to work with.

as you can see it was a little hazy up there that day. this didn’t really leave me with a good photo to use for my ad so i did a little color editing, added some highlights and shadows, corrected the hue, and added some photo filters to rebuild the aerial so that i could use it.  here is what i came up with.

not bad huh?

this was the plane i was up in friday morning.  it felt like someone picked me up under my armpits and shook me for 2 hours.  and it was raining.  bad.  and we flew into the storm instead of around it.  and i hate flying in small aircrafts.

cue ozzy osbourne music…

classic rock fans will get that.  i digress.  i’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit during my tenure with brenmar advertising.  i’ve flown more times in the past year than i had in the rest of my life combined.  i honestly can’t say i’m a huge fan of airplanes.  that being said, no amount of flying could prepare me for what i will be doing today.  in less than two hours i will be taking off in a cessna to take aerial photography for some real estate that my company is selling.  now that sounds cool right?  i won’t even hesitate to say that i’m a bit nervous.  i wonder if i should even eat breakfast, with all the circling we will be doing.  this isn’t going to be a typical roller coaster ride, that’s for sure.  i just hope i don’t end up like this guy.

today is the last day my direct supervisor will be here.  he is going to be gone for almost two weeks on vacation, which means i’m now in charge of a lot of things that i don’t know if i’m ready for.  later this afternoon, after our bellies are full from lunch and i probably won’t be retaining information, i am getting a crash course on how to back up the servers.  he is going to teach me how to rebuild a server in case it crashes due to a power failure in the building.  i don’t know anything about servers, but i do know that i don’t want anything drastic to happen around here because i don’t want to learn with a trial by fire.

a lot is riding on me over these next two weeks.   i can really show my company what i’m made of and what kind of leader i am.  there is definitely going to be a lot of pressure on me while he is gone but just think of me like a lump of coal.  given enough pressure i might just pop out a diamond.  maybe it will be something else.  let’s hope not

as most of you know i was in new mexico last week on a business trip. sorry i didn’t get to write a lot last week, but i was pretty much busy from the time i woke up until the time i went to bed at night. as always, i will spare you of all the details of my trip and just highlight some of the fun stuff. let’s start with photos. i will include a brief caption with each.

this was our view from the airport rental car parking lot.

out the windshield leaving el paso, texas.

out the windshield entering new mexico.

its a cactus. its hard to see but there are little yellow flowers on it.

i believe this was a complete set of armor from a 16th century warrior.

the rest of the gear.

this is why they send me on these trips.

i could really write 3 or 4 pages on my trip. it was so incredible to watch the items we were selling. some of it i thought was garbage, but some of it was really cool stuff. it was a long week and i worked my butt off, but it was a huge accomplishment for our company, especially during this slump. it was fun to be away from the office but i’m so glad to be back. now i have to play catch up and make up for the time i lost if i can. stay tuned.

1) it is right outside the caverns and there are millions of bats. huge, freakin’ bats.

2) there is/are cactus everywhere.

3) if you are male and not wearing a cowboy hat, there might be something wrong with you.

i am sitting in my smoky smelling hotel room in white’s city, new mexico. it was a very interesting experience to get here. i got to the airport this morning and met up with megan from church. who knew that i would find a friend to help pass the time. she was going to st. louis so i sat with her and had some breakfast. my initial flight left tampa, and boy did i have a winner next to me. this lady told me that she had just taken vicodin, valium, and zanex…which was a cocktail of doom for me. she kept passing out and laying her head on my shoulder. i had my mac out, watching some ufc during the flight, and she decided to get some coffee. i knew this was going to be a bad situation.

she spilled her coffee on me and my laptop. luckily i cleaned it up quickly before it seeped into my keyboard. i took this photo to capture the moment.

she then decides that it would now be a good time to cry hysterically until we arrived in houston, where she finally got off the plane. 2o minutes later, and a new cabin full of people, we departed for dallas. we arrived an hour later and sat again, while people got off and got on. from here it is a little blurry. i slept an hour and a half until we finally got to el paso, where we gathered our bags and jumped into rental cars.

i was riding shotgun in a brand new toyota camry. i’m not going to say how fast we were going, but i will say that it was 149 miles to our hotel in new mexico, and we made it in 1 hour and 15 minutes. you do the math.

so here i sit. waiting on the rest of the crew to get here so we can establish our fight plan. i’ll check back tomorrow night.

here we are again.  monday.  back in the office working our 8 hour days and earning a living.  i had a really great 3 day holiday weekend and feel like i finally caught up on some much needed rest and relaxation.  i got a couple chances to sleep in.  i got to hang out with some really good friends.  most importantly, i got to free myself from the stress of the week.

its funny how one extra day off of work can energize you so significantly.  now i’m counting down again.  this time, however, its not for a 3 day weekend.  5 work days and i’m leaving for a week long business trip.  its going to be crazy but really fun as well.

i learned 2 things while slumming around my house the past 3 days.  the first is that i can’t wait until september when i take a full week off and go on vacation.  i can only imagine how much better i will feel.  the second is that we all need 3 day weekends more often.  it should be a business law.  now if only we could make that happen….