Jaminfrog

Moving to a new office, as I’m doing this week, is a good opportunity to clean out the old stuff and start fresh. In the past few days I’ve discovered that I didn’t need about 90% of the old scribbled meeting notes and other junk collected over the past three years and filed haphazardly away at my desk. And there’s a few other things that I’m getting rid of that have created some conversation at work.

“Ineptitude”
My “de-motivational” poster from Despair.com doesn’t fit with my new decorating theme of Zen Mascots, so it’s up for grabs. It reads, “Ineptitude: If you can’t learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.” I offered it to my suite-mates, but there were no takers at first. Then Amanda called out, “Cavin — that poster is perfect for you!” Ouch! (For the record, though, Cavin is whatever the exact opposite of inept is; Amanda was just kidding.)

Peanut butter
Over the past couple years I’ve been taking lunches and dinners to work from time to time. A few months ago, Chelsea suggested that I take a loaf of bread and peanut butter and jelly to keep at the office since that would make for an easy meal before my evening classes. I did indeed enjoy a few PB&Js, but my preference for other things like spaghetti, or enchiladas, or Chick-Fil-A eventually led to the peanut butter jar being pushed out of sight and out of mind. So when I uncovered it the other day, imagine my surprise when no one in the office was interested in taking it off my hands! It hasn’t even expired yet.

Knick-knacks
My new Zen Mascots theme calls for simplicity, which means most of the knick-knacks that decorated my old desk must go. These include:

• A talking plush “Mr. Bigglesworth” hairless cat toy, inspired by the Austin Powers movies, that says things like “we don’t gnaw on our kitty.”
• A small TCU horned frog doll. Yes, it is a mascot, but it is not Zen.
• One three-year old can of Play-Doh. Unlike the peanut butter, it had passed its expiration date.
• A lava lamp. Goes with more of a dorm room theme than Zen Mascots.
• Cranium game. I’m not getting rid of this one completely, just not displaying it in the new digs.
• And so forth.

So let me know quick if you want any of this stuff — except the peanut butter. I’m holding on to it until at least February 17, 2009.

Chelsea’s off in sunny California this week, taking a class on the Series 7 exam for her new job. To prepare she made a stack of several hundred notecards with new vocabulary words she has to learn for this test. But she began the class today by learning a couple of terms that weren’t in her book.

“There are two kinds of people in this world,” her flamboyant instructor declared. “Dot people and ish people.”

“I myself am an ish person,” she continued. “So when I say this class will start at 8 every morning, I really mean it will start at 8-ish.”

“If you’re a dot person, you need to know this so you won’t get frustrated when you show up at 8 on the dot and I’m not here.”

That got me thinking - since I am most definitely an ish person, why do I strive to fight my very nature…my ish-ness, something that’s at the core of my being, to become a dot person?

Would life be better if I just came to peace with the fact that I’m an ish person and explained that to all the people I live and work around? (I’m pretty sure most of them know that already.) Or are we ish people grossly inconsiderate of the poor dots who always sit around waiting for us?

How about you? Are you a dot person or an ish person?

Hi there! It’s me — your son/brother/spouse/friend/co-worker/acquaintance who hasn’t written in a while. So to make up for it, here’s everything I really intended to tell you about for the past month, but didn’t, in an easier-to-read condensed version. It’s like those old school Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, but of my life.

I was an American Airlines statistic last week when I was supposed to fly to DC for an SMU alumni event, but the five flights I tried to get on to make it there in time all got canceled because of their impromptu safety inspections. You always see those shots on TV of people in airports laying on cots or standing in long lines. Lucky for me there was no laying on cots involved, but I did stand in a lot of lines. Some other SMU folks got stranded in DC for an extra day and had to put up with a day of sightseeing and staying at the Ritz-Carlton. The horror!

We’re moving into a new building at work in the next month or two, and I am obsessed with the fact that I will have an office. With a door. Not that I will close the door ever, but still! We’ve decided that now is the time for me to get rid of my Despair.com demotivational poster in my current cubicle and create a Grown Up Office. Chel was kind enough to give me a painting of a horned frog to serve as the centerpiece. Add to that a water wall (or maybe just a little desk-sized water fountain) and the theme will be Contemporary Zen Mascots. Now I just need to find a good painting of a mustang to ensure equal representation.

I officially became an Apple Fanboy after I had a slight problem with my iPhone where a little swath of pixels on the screen was dimmer than the rest. I took it to my friendly neighborhood Apple store, and one of their “Geniuses” (isn’t that a better name than “Technical Support Person”?) agreed that I needed a replacement phone. So he gave me one, for free. I suppose I should be annoyed that my first phone weirded out, but instead I’m just amazed at Apple’s great customer service.

We still haven’t resolved the automobile situation following Chelsea’s accident. We asked GM to take a look at the car because we were concerned the accident was caused by the rear differential locking up. They finally sent an inspector out, and we’re waiting for the final report from Detroit. We just want to make sure the car is safe before we sell it, and alert GM if they’re doing something wrong in their recall service. For now we’re carpooling it to work, which is actually nice because Chel and I get to spend Commute Time together.

We’re going back to Padre over Memorial Day Weekend! This time, instead of pulling an all-nighter to drive the 13 hours from Dallas, we’re going to fly. I’m really looking forward to some beach bumming after finals are over and before work gets really crazy this summer.

And speaking of finals…I’m really not looking forward to them this semester. I’ve got some major catching-up to do over the next couple of weeks so I can be prepared. I wish Reader’s Digest made Condensed Books of all the cases I still need to read.

So this is what I would have written about over the past month. What’s up with you, my friendly reader?

Chel started a new job this week at Merrill Lynch, and the schedule adjustment has been rough on all of us. Especially Sinatra the Siamese cat.

For me, I’m used to getting at least two phone calls during the day, asking me how my day is going or sharing something big that’s happened. Those have gone away now that she’s learning the ropes at a new company and new industry (securities lending, if that means anything to you).

But it’s been really tough on Sinatra, and we think he’s taken it out on himself. A typical day in Chel’s previous job meant she woke up around 7, then spent 30-45 minutes of quality cuddle time in bed with the kitty. Now that she’s in the finance world, she has to be at the office at 7:30, which means she wakes up at 6 and hustles out the door with no cat time.

The new schedule started on Monday, and when we got home on Wednesday we noticed a strange spot on Sinatra’s neck. We watched it for a couple days and decided to take him to our friendly neighborhood vet this morning because we were afraid it was ringworm or something crazy like that.

“No, this little infected spot is behavioral,” our vet told us. “He did this to himself. Has anything changed in your life lately?”

Yep, the new job. The vet gave us some antibiotics and cream, advised Chelsea not to quit her job to stay home with the cat, and assured us that everything would be fine in a week or two once Sinatra gets used to the schedule.

So I guess I just have to remind myself of that, too. Sinatra misses his morning cuddle time; I miss those phone calls. We just don’t need to beat ourselves up over it. 

I’m not really doing resolutions this year, but here’s what I would like to accomplish in 2008:

• Lose 20 lbs. Chel tells me that to do this, I need to ask, “What would the 200-lb. version of me do?” whenever I am making a choice about whether to eat that candy bar or not. I am thinking about getting that printed on one of those little Lance Armstrong-style wrist bracelets, like this: WW200lb.VOMD?
• Save more and give more. Thanks to our trusty family budget.
• Travel. This goal is somewhat contrary to the saving and giving goal, but we’re going to head to the beach again at some point(s) this year.
• Get some more A’s and B’s. I need to get my studying rear in gear much earlier in the semester than I did this past fall.
• Be a good husband, family member, friend and colleague.

At SMU, we wanted to send out a year-end reminder to ask non-donors to make a gift before Dec. 31. We’ve tried the tear-jerker with the alma mater playing in the background and boring stuff like that before, so this time we were able to stretch the boundaries a little bit and speak to why people really give this time of year (besides the goodness of their hearts) — the tax deduction!

I never thought we’d see a day when I could work Britney Spears into a giving solicitation, but I had to jump at the chance while I could.

Check it out and let me know what you think! Everybody in our e-marketing department had a big hand in this — James played the part of Professor E.Z. Deduction, Katy designed it, Bill worked the Flash magic and Cavin helped pull it all together in the end. Oh yeah, and I supplied the fake professor accent using a little hand-held voice recorder.

Some random observations on where I’ve been for more than a month…

Law school is back in session and I really like all my classes. At the last minute I dropped the Income Tax class I signed up for last spring and got the last open seat in Real Estate Transactions. I’ve heard from the folks in Income Tax that their class is all about accounting and formulas, so I’m glad I’ve postponed that experience for a while. (Hey, I was an ad-pr major, remember! I don’t do math.)

Work has been pretty busy and we’ve finished two big projects and a bunch of other little ones. SMU is in the quiet phase of a capital fundraising campaign that will officially kick off next year some time, and there’s no better way to be “quiet” about something than to build a big website with video, charts and graphs…so we did! That site was about a year in the making, but we ended up building most of it the day or two before it launched.  I’m proud we pulled it all together somehow. We also launched an online version of our alumni magazine, so if you ever want to read good stories about SMU, head over that way.

I learned the location of a school zone in our neighborhood last week when I got a speeding ticket. I had just dropped off some movies at our local Blockbuster when I turned from the side road onto Davis Street and merrily began driving away. Then I spotted the cop, who was simultaneously spotting me in a black convertible, going 38 in a 20. The big flashing school zone sign was about a block back the road before where I turned. Luckily there were no kids endangered, just a friendly Dallas County Constable with a radar gun who also observed that I have neglected to change my address on my license. $454 later, I have learned my lesson. I will never go back to that Blockbuster in the morning!

Other than that, I’ve just done a lot of reading for school, a lot of hanging out, a little traveling, and a lot of not posting anything to this site. I’ve got more stories to tell, so I’m picking up the whole blogging thing and will be back around here more frequently. Off to work now — but on the lookout for school zones.

I’m about to celebrate my two-year anniversary with SMU. I really love the people I get to work with, and I’m learning a lot about marketing, Web geekery, managing people, working with vendors, and navigating the higher education environment.

Today was a big milestone because we launched a new alumni section of our Web site. This project has been going on in some form for three whole years…in other words, a year before I became a pony. It’s had various stops and starts due to changes in staff, changes in direction, roadblocks put up by vendors — you know, the usual work stuff.

The blessing and the curse of working in online marketing is that the good projects are never really done — they just keep evolving. So we’ll get up tomorrow and keep making little changes. But it was a proud moment today when we actually flipped the switch.

Update: I got the video fixed…so in case you didn’t get to see it, take a look!

SMU may be testing out the old tenet that all publicity is good publicity, with all the coverage we’ve gotten lately about supposed faculty discontent over the prospect of landing George W. Bush’s presidential library. But this publicity was taken to a new level yesterday with our appearance on The Colbert Report, one of my personal faves. Makes me proud to be a Mustang!

Katy at work shared this cartoon with a few of us, and I thought it was worth posting.

I’m sure Kath might have some first-hand experience! I, too, can identify…but I’m afraid that I’ve been a bad creative critic more than I’ve been the victim of one. This relates well to one of my as-yet-unwritten 2007 resolutions: to reduce my overanalyzing of the stuff we do at work.