Yesterday I got snowed in-- in Aspen. I've been here 4 days now and it has been an adventure since the beginning.
I woke up to snow on the morning of my 27th birthday (last Saturday), and my sweet husband managed to get me to the airport with time to spare. I bid goodbye to him and our big furry child and caught my first flight into Denver. It was delayed over an hour because of snow and lack of de-icer. I spent 25 minutes on the phone changing my connecting flight because I was bound to miss it.
I enjoyed all the leg room that accompanies the emergency exit seat and when I arrived in Denver, I found that my connecting flight had been canceled. I located a co-worker who I was traveling with and she told me that she booked seats for us on a shuttle to Denver, which left at 12:30pm. So I had an hour and a half to get my bag and get on the road. No problem, right?
Wrong. I left Denver in a van with 11 other people and nothing but my purse and laptop bag. Captained by a red-headed Kiwi man, we trudged for 6 hours through the ice and snow and traffic until we finally made it to Aspen.
Aspen was ridiculous. We stayed in the Cold Stream Trout Lodge, which is an 8000 square foot log cabin on a little river/stream that's owned by the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller. (We also had dinner at his incredibly gorgeous barn on Saturday night.) The trout lodge featured a moose head over the giant fireplace and a bear rug on the floor. It snowed constantly. We had a chef who cooked us three meals a day, and most of them were made from healthy, organic, local ingredients. I went to a spa on Sunday and got an 80 minute massage. On Monday, we spent a full day talking about visioning and then went and had an incredible dinner together at a different ranch (peach margaritas with tiny chunks of fresh peach in them, wilted kale salad with currant, pine nuts and parmesean, melt-in-your-mouth peppercorn crusted beef tenderloin with cherry port reduction, garlic mashed potatoes and brocollini, chocolate mousse cake and raspberry vanilla cheesecake for dessert. Ridiculous.) and were then entertained for an hour by a bluegrass playing trio of older country gentleman who called themselves Timber Mill. Twirp, Cash & Randy played lots of John Denver songs and a little "Devil Went Down To Georgia", "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and one of the best versions of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" I've ever heard. I'm so sad I didn't get a recording of that one.
Anyway... there was dancing involved, and during one particularly bluegrassy number, we discovered that one of the girls in attendance had spent years as a clogger. After some encouragement, she busted out into this incredible clogging routine and tore it UP. It was incredible and so funny!
I tried to come home on Tuesday, I really did. But the snow was so intense that everyone's flights got cancelled and we ended up back at the lodge for another night. It was good though, because I got to hole up and write on a project I'm working on for almost 4 hours. Wednesday morning, the weather cleared up completely and I made it to the airport by noon. After a non-eventful flight back to Denver and a 6 hour layover in the Denver airport, I made it back to St. Louis, 9pm on Wednesday night.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Surrounded By Snow.
And likely to remain so. I left work at 11:45 yesterday, my office is closed today and we're snowed in! The streets are utterly covered in ice and snow and it's not supposed to let up until tomorrow night.
I told Todd I wanted to re-watch one of three movies on our snow day.
1) Equilibrium
2) The Prestige
3) Australia
Ten minutes after I said that, I realized the common threads:
1) Christian Bale
2) Christian Bale & Hugh Jackman
3) Hugh Jackman
That was unintentional. We haven't watched any of those yet. Instead, we watched Shades of Ray, which is an indie rom-com about interracial relationships, starring Zac Levi, and The Lottery, which is a doc about charter schools vs. public schools in Harlem. Both were really good for totally different reasons. Also, we just got The Mighty Ducks on Netflix (I was in a throwback mood... and I really just wanted to watch D2, but I thought I should watch the original first, since it's been like... almost 20 years.) But I just found out that my office is closed tomorrow too. So there's time. :)
How nice that the week I leave for Aspen is a double snow day week that means I get two days to stay at home with my man.
Wait, did I mention the thing about Aspen? Or the job?
I don't think I did. Well, here's the short version.
In December, I interviewed for a position with an alternate division of the company I've been working temp for. (Barry-Wehmiller is the parent company, Design Group and ControlTech Automation are divisions. Design Group does mostly consulting and engineering from 15 different offices nationwide. St. Louis is the main office. ControlTech does on-site manufacturing of electronic panels for various factories around the country and the world, i.e. Coca-Cola, MillerCoors, Unilever, Pepsi Bottling, Nestle Purina, etc.) I've been an admin assistant at ControlTech for about 4 months now, and back in December, I was told that a new opportunity was opening up at Design Group's corporate office in Clayton. Since they like to fill positions from within, my manager passed my resume on to Design Group and in short, they liked it and asked me to interview for the job. After 2 interviews, 5 meetings with different managers at Design Group, and approximately 5 weeks of waiting through the holiday season-- they offered me the job! On a couple of conditions:
1) That I stay at ControlTech until they find a new admin-- who I will be training.
2) That I'm okay with not starting in Clayton till March.
3) That I accompany the rest of the marketing/communications peeps from around the US (about 15 of us total) to a weekend conference, February 5-8, at the company lodge in Aspen.
I accepted. :) So this blog now belongs to Design Group STL's newest (and first... and only...) Marketing Coordinator! All my college-going and "hard work, ain't been in vain for nothin." :) I'll be doing internal and external marketing work for Design Group, a lot of work on the website and be working on company re-branding as well. It's going to be a LOT of work. A LOT of organizing and re-prioritizing. Just-- a LOT in general. (I'm praying about all of it already, and I covet your prayers too.) But I am SO excited for the opportunity, and for the trust that the DG executives have placed in me by offering me a place in this company.
And... I'm going to Aspen this weekend. For free. To stay in a lodge and eat dinner with the CEO on Saturday night and get an 80 minute hot stone massage on Sunday, and go to meetings on Monday and Tuesday. For free. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm going to miss my fellas SO much... but again, I'm delighted to have a couple of free days this week to spend cuddled up on the couch with them.
This time last year, I was workin hard at the Arch. And now, every time we drive past it, I'm praising Jesus for his provision. His timing is really pretty awesome. :)
I told Todd I wanted to re-watch one of three movies on our snow day.
1) Equilibrium
2) The Prestige
3) Australia
Ten minutes after I said that, I realized the common threads:
1) Christian Bale
2) Christian Bale & Hugh Jackman
3) Hugh Jackman
That was unintentional. We haven't watched any of those yet. Instead, we watched Shades of Ray, which is an indie rom-com about interracial relationships, starring Zac Levi, and The Lottery, which is a doc about charter schools vs. public schools in Harlem. Both were really good for totally different reasons. Also, we just got The Mighty Ducks on Netflix (I was in a throwback mood... and I really just wanted to watch D2, but I thought I should watch the original first, since it's been like... almost 20 years.) But I just found out that my office is closed tomorrow too. So there's time. :)
How nice that the week I leave for Aspen is a double snow day week that means I get two days to stay at home with my man.
Wait, did I mention the thing about Aspen? Or the job?
I don't think I did. Well, here's the short version.
In December, I interviewed for a position with an alternate division of the company I've been working temp for. (Barry-Wehmiller is the parent company, Design Group and ControlTech Automation are divisions. Design Group does mostly consulting and engineering from 15 different offices nationwide. St. Louis is the main office. ControlTech does on-site manufacturing of electronic panels for various factories around the country and the world, i.e. Coca-Cola, MillerCoors, Unilever, Pepsi Bottling, Nestle Purina, etc.) I've been an admin assistant at ControlTech for about 4 months now, and back in December, I was told that a new opportunity was opening up at Design Group's corporate office in Clayton. Since they like to fill positions from within, my manager passed my resume on to Design Group and in short, they liked it and asked me to interview for the job. After 2 interviews, 5 meetings with different managers at Design Group, and approximately 5 weeks of waiting through the holiday season-- they offered me the job! On a couple of conditions:
1) That I stay at ControlTech until they find a new admin-- who I will be training.
2) That I'm okay with not starting in Clayton till March.
3) That I accompany the rest of the marketing/communications peeps from around the US (about 15 of us total) to a weekend conference, February 5-8, at the company lodge in Aspen.
I accepted. :) So this blog now belongs to Design Group STL's newest (and first... and only...) Marketing Coordinator! All my college-going and "hard work, ain't been in vain for nothin." :) I'll be doing internal and external marketing work for Design Group, a lot of work on the website and be working on company re-branding as well. It's going to be a LOT of work. A LOT of organizing and re-prioritizing. Just-- a LOT in general. (I'm praying about all of it already, and I covet your prayers too.) But I am SO excited for the opportunity, and for the trust that the DG executives have placed in me by offering me a place in this company.
And... I'm going to Aspen this weekend. For free. To stay in a lodge and eat dinner with the CEO on Saturday night and get an 80 minute hot stone massage on Sunday, and go to meetings on Monday and Tuesday. For free. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm going to miss my fellas SO much... but again, I'm delighted to have a couple of free days this week to spend cuddled up on the couch with them.
This time last year, I was workin hard at the Arch. And now, every time we drive past it, I'm praising Jesus for his provision. His timing is really pretty awesome. :)
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