Dallas!

Howdy y'all. I'm in the great state of TX right now. Back in my old stomping grounds, ready to launch my project tomorrow! I'm excited, I'm nervous, it's weird being here without Blondie... All of it, welling up.

Last week was good, short week but a good week. Blondie and I spent last Sunday watching some Breaking Bad episodes. What an amazing show right? I'm at the point where I hate Walter White, but then I love Walter White. I think Jesse is a big baby and I want to slap him, but he lends some humanity to the show. And Saul is just flat out heart for me.

I was only in the office last week on Monday and Tuesday - both were extremely busy days as I have 2 projects launching this week. I was heads down in a lot of manual labor on both days, and ended up having to work until almost 9 pm on Tuesday night to get things done for one of my projects. But then it was Wednesday morning and off to the airport to fly to Dallas for work from Wed - Fri. The trip down was nice as there was a group from my office flying to a different site on Wed and our gates were just 2 apart and the flights were only 15 mins difference. So I showed up at LaGuardia and it felt like a normal morning at work.

My flight to DFW was nice - empty plane and I literally slept the entire way down. We landed (I flew with a coworker) and then it was off for launch and a shower, before heading out to our site for a night with the team. It actually ended up being really funny because we were about halfway through what we had planned that night when one of the guys on the site team was like "oh hey, skunk in the building". I thought it was a weird joke, but they really had a skunk in the building. I got so tickled (not a rat? not a roach?) and ended up getting a good picture of it. They kicked us out early so animal control could come in (the skunk sprayed after we left), and then my coworker and I went for a nice dinner.

Thurs and Fri were a lot of manual labor - my back was so stiff and the top of my foot was completely bruised when everything was done. But the team is really nice here in DFW, so it made the days go so fast. Thurs night dinner was at a tex-mex place, where we imbibed in some margaritas and fajitas and then I crashed out in my hotel room watching football to end my night. And then Friday - ugh. The weather turned on Thurs night and it was pouring all day long on Friday - I had a flight back to NY that night and I had geared my attitude to be ready to stay in DFW for the weekend.

But the flight ended up going really well! It started weird - someone asked to switch seats with me as I was sitting by their friend. I said sure, and we went to switch and pissed the flight attendant off - she asked us to wait until everyone was seated. So we did. I did NOT want to get kicked off the flight so I made sure I was super polite. Then when she came through for drink service, she gave me a bourbon for free. AND THEN, the guy I had switched seats with sent me a whiskey to thank me! Seriously - one of the best flights. Ever.

Blondie and I took it easy on Saturday - we went to the gym, and then I got a pedicure before meeting Blondie for lunch at our local mexican restaurant. Afterwards, it was a trip to the pet store and then home to finish off the Breaking Bad eps we had. We ordered in dinner on Saturday night and then caught up on the new seasons of New Girl, Mindy Project and Sleepy Hollow, before watching Cloud Atlas to end the night.

Today it was an early flight back to DFW (36 hours in NYC - so worth it). My flight ended up being full but with an empty first class section so I got upgraded (woot!) A few whiskeys on the plane and then it was time to meet up with coworker who had flown in from CA. We spent the afternoon watching football, and I'm now in my hotel room watching TV and eating some gummies.

This week will be good - I'm in DFW until Wed night and then I'm back in NYC for less than 24 hrs before flying back to Arkansas for MG's wedding. I have 2 launches this week - I'm in DFW for both, but one of my launches is actually back in NYC. We had a conflict so a coworker has to cover my NYC launch for me. After this week - that's it. All of my projects are launched. BUT, I am ready for some new ones.

All right folks. Off to relax in my hotel bed and gear up for tomorrow. Hope everyone had a great week!

--K

Well hello there. Where the hell have you been?

I'm back people. Put your party hats on and prepare for a recap. Of all the lame-o things I've been up to.

1) My Project - I left off my last blog post right before a trip out to my NJ site - I ended up having to do 3 days in a row there, but it was worth it as we cranked through a ton of manual stuff that needed to be done. When I left that Thurs, I felt super confident for the launch that was coming up 2 weeks later. And then I got back from my KY trip, and walked into a shit storm. We worked with a 3rd party vendor for some of the stuff we did - and they advised us to go in a certain route on a piece of the project. Which did not work out for us - and it was discovered the week after KY (the week before launch). Everything escalated out on that Wed, and we came up with a plan on Thurs morning that was an "impossible plan" - meaning none of us thought we could get done what we needed to get done in the short timeframe left (Tues launch, Labor Day weekend coming up). BUT WE DID IT. We moved mountains, and got shit done - things that normally take 2 weeks we did in 1.5 days. I had to actually labor on Labor Day - meaning I went out to NJ and worked all day at the project site; but it was worth it. As the following day we actually LAUNCHED MY PROJECT!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy and proud of everything that I did on this thing - the NJ site team sent several extremely nice emails to my boss about what a great job they thought I did; they kept saying I saved the project (while I definitely had a major hand in getting everything fixed, there were a lot of other people that had to help also). And the launch went really well - better than any other launch we've had at the company. And on the first full day of use of the product (that Wed after launch), someone stopped me on site and told me they had never had such an exciting day on the job.

I got back to NYC on that Wed late afternoon and headed straight to the bar - I have never been so tense about a project, starting that Wed before when everything blew up and up until Wed full day of use was over. I had slept maybe 3 hours a night, tossing and turning and worrying about everything. And it literally felt like a massive weight had been lifted. So I had my coworker drop me at my local bar and I spent a few hours in there celebrating before Blondie joined me.

I ended up going out to the NJ project one day last week also - just sitting with a couple of the teams there and working with them so they had a better understanding of everything we were doing. While I was there, I ended up talking to a few of the people actively using the product and was able to bring back a lot of suggestions on things we can do better / areas we need to ramp up more heavily on (while the launch went awesome, there are always things that you can change to make things better - this is true for anything. ever.)

In addition, I was actually stopped by the president and the CTO of the company after we did our launch and I was back in the office to thank me for everything, and telling me they had heard nothing but praise about how I dealt with everything. I'm hoping I don't jinx myself but I am really happy about this and I'm totally psyched to launch my next project in 8 days. :)

2) KY! Blondie and I flew out on the Thurs night after my first NJ trip to KY. Our flight was delayed so we didn't get in until almost 1 am, which meant we didn't get to see anyone until Friday. That was ok though because everyone showed up super early at my parental unit's house as we took a massive bus up to Kings Island to hang out for the day. It was SO GOOD seeing everyone - my uncle had even flown in for the trip which was a surprise to me. My nieces are super cute and super growing up fast. I got to ride a bunch of kiddie land rides with them - the youngest niece who has always been slightly terrified of me, actually seemed to take to me this year; she actually came up and took my hand at Kings Island and drug me with her to ride a ride.

That Saturday we were in KY, I went shopping early morning with my mom, sis, and Mr Pooh - and then we made a beer run and were drinking and playing cards by 11:30 am. My nieces stayed with Mrs Pooh's family that day which gave us an adult day - it mostly involved drinking heavily and playing cards / board games all afternoon. And eating. A LOT. And then Sunday we met up with BFF TT and her man for drunk Sunday - my whole family came and we all met up for mexican and margaritas, before taking the party back to Mr and Mrs Pooh's house. I made the nieces laugh by chasing them around the house and giving them raspberries (I'm guessing this is the last year I can do it to my oldest niece - after that, it might be just kind of gross). We ended up back at my sis's house, eating chicken wings and drinking beer - it was around midnight that I said goodbye to most of the family and TT.

Our flight back to NY had us getting up at 4:30 am on Monday - it was the worst, most hungover, flight I've ever been on - I'm not sure how I didn't throw up. And then traffic coming into NY was a major bitch, so we ended up walking across most of the island to get to the subway / office respectively. And then I walked into the shit storm with my NJ project. And that ended the fun.

3) 9/11 - Living in NYC on 9/11 is both the best and the worst. My street has a fire station which lost the *entire station* when 9/11 happened - every year they do a motorcycle run down to the WTC for the 9/11 ceremonies - they block off the street and take over with everyone coming to celebrate the lives of the men that died that day. I ended up having to go out to NJ that day, and coming back to the city that afternoon, we drove over the GWB - they have the biggest american flag hanging from the bridge right now and you can see Freedom Tower from the bridge, it was just a very powerful moment.

4) Upcoming travel - and here we go again. I'm off to Harlem on Monday morning, and then leave on Wed to go to DFW until Friday night. I'm back for 2 days before leaving for DFW again for 3 days. And then I'm back and off to Harlem for the day. Then ALL MY PROJECTS ARE LAUNCHED!

Toss into this mix a bunch of personal travel - Arkansas in 2 weeks for MG's wedding, Poughkeepsie in 3 weeks for Yippers wedding, Vegas in 4 weeks for our 10 year anniversary (giving me status for the year on my airline) followed by 3 days in Salem, then a down week, then mom and sis are in for the weekend, and then it's my birthday weekend.

And.... spent.

That's the highlights - certainly not everything that has happened, but the highlights. And back to our regularly scheduled blogging next week.

--K