Ferrari + Car Crusher = All in a Day's Work

Well this week was pretty amazing for a variety of reasons, but Thursday stands out as the best (and most interesting) work day.  First I woke up at 5 am and headed from Fort Bradley to Specialized Parts Planet in Rancho Cordova for a series of live shots on Good Day Sacramento.  The idea: have fun, while showing that buying used auto parts from Specialized Parts Planet is more cost effective and better for the environment than buying new parts from the manufacturer. We took a door off a Mercedes that would retail for $800 to $1,000 new, but used it is only about $400.  You can get everything from a tail-light to a hood for almost any car you can think of at Specialized Parts Planet, even Ferrari's.  After playing with cars in reasonably good condition and a 2003 Ferrari for the first few shots we moved on to the main event, the "CRUSHER." The reporter played hang man ("Good Day Sacramento" was the answer) and Tic-Tac-Toe on a few cars before watching them get crunched into a nice "car sandwich."

Once back at the office my task was to find contact information for someone that worked at The White House, after failing to find it on the internet, I did what any reasonable person would do ... I picked up the phone and called.  Much to my surprise, a real person answered (and after less than one ring), asked me the reason I was calling, transferred me to the right person and I got all the information I needed.  It was amazing and super cool.


*Specialized Parts Planet is a client. For those that remember I did PR for them a few months ago and that is how I got my current full-time position.

Real Life

I had the amazing opportunity to not only see Lincoln Brewster in concert, but hear songs from his new CD, "Real Life" and get an advance copy about two weeks before its official release (in Lincoln's words "an official bootleg") on September 28th.  After watching the concert and singing along, all I can say is that there will be a few new worship songs being sung in churches across the country very soon.  The first single, "Reaching for You," may quickly become a classic, while "Real Life" serves as a bio for Lincoln and will be inspirational to many.  Beyond hearing Lincoln, I also experienced a worship night with Matt Redman and Christy Nockles.  Matt Redman may be best known for writing "You Alone Can Rescue" and "Blessed be Your Name" in the wake of September 11th and Nockles for her work with the 268 Generation (Passion Conferences) and "Healing is in Your Hands."

 Photo Credit | @BaysidePictures

Dedication

Today, my youngest nephew, Levi, was dedicated at his church, Central Peninsula Church in Foster City.  It was great to see him, his parents and brother and other family and friends at the after party in Redwood City too.

If you are free this week there is lots going on from a Social Media in Politics seminar on Tuesday night (Sept 21), to concerts at Bayside Thursday and Friday with Matt Redman and Lincoln Brewster.  Lincoln Brewster will also be leading worship at all Bayside services this weekend with music from his new CD, coming out in a few weeks, but you can get a copy early if you come to church.

Reflecting

My last post about this day in history was two years ago. It was a hopeful post about "Greater Things" to come and despite a preacher's initial intentions to burn the Koran, the devastating loss of life and property in San Bruno and an economy still struggling to recover I have to believe that there are truly greater things to come. On this day, we not only remember the thousands who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, but we remember our troops serving around the world, the ones that lost their lives not just protecting our freedom, but the freedom of others, the families affected by loss and we remember to pray.  There is hope in this time of looking back, it is not just a time of mourning, but a time to look ahead, look up and move forward, while never forgetting a day in history that brought a country and a world together.

Camp Bradley - 2010

With an official logo designed and the now required "Free WiFi Hotspot" sign in position, "Camp Bradley" (my parent's house in Sacramento) had one of its largest gatherings of family and friends this Labor Day Weekend.  25 family members plus neighbors and friends arrived to the camp on Saturday with a sense of excitement, joy and a desire to experience the wilderness of Camp Bradley, while enjoying all the comforts that a home in the city has to offer, including flush toilets, nice (clean) showers, a fully stocked kitchen, multiple refrigerators and freezers, a dishwasher, running water, pool, electricity and of course WiFi and 3G coverage.  This year Camp Bradley visitors enjoyed swimming in the lake (pool), the famous ranger presentation (looking at pictures from past events and slides from before some of us were born) incredible food (at least one meal was prepared by each family attending), sleeping in the wilderness (tents in the backyard), satellite TV under the RV awning (well okay, it was under a balcony on a deck), playing in the sandbox, a campfire complete with s'mores (and a few burnt marshmallows) and of course lots of card games, some "Speed Scrabble" and conversation.  We even had time for a field trip to see a neighbors home renovation (kitchen, master bathroom, master closet, ...) and a rare sight for the Camp Bradley neighborhood, an open house.

As a founding member of the Camp Bradley team, I hope to see everyone and a few more (speaking to those of you who were in Maui) back in 2011.

PS: it is important to take note, that those 25 family members are brought together by five brothers, all with the last name Stanley. Of those only one is still alive and after this generation the name may fade away, but the memories and the traditions will remain.

New Beginnings

As many of you saw yesterday, I have accepted a full time position with Augustine & Associates as a Public Relations Specialist.  I have been working with Augustine on a freelance basis for the past two months (you may have seen my posts about Specialized Parts Planet coverage) and based on that work they decided to hire me on full-time.  Although I have been in the office part-time over the last four weeks, today was my first official day (I got to fill out lots of paperwork) and Tuesday will be my first full week of 8 hour days since I was laid off in September. It has been and will continue to be great to be part of a dynamic team of individuals that are truly world-class.

My Job Search Statistics:
659 - e-mails labeled "Jobs" in my Gmail Inbox 
100s - of contacts (and new friends) made at Tweetups and other networking events
100s - of tweets and Facebook status updates
70 - blog posts
24 -  "job search" blog posts
5 -  major resume revisions
4 - oil changes for my Escape (which means about 20,000 miles driven)
3 - news stories about my job search
2 - committees joined
2 - heath insurance providers
1 - week of Bayside's Career Coaching
1 - Social Media Weekend attended

The above are just a few of the statistics I could come up with quickly, behind the numbers there are many people that have been great friends throughout this process, ones who have supported me emotionally, ones who have given me advice about jobs, ones who have sent job openings my way and even a few companies that would have hired me if budgeting would have allowed for it.  All of that said I am incredibly happy to be at Augustine & Associates and I look forward to continuing my career with them for years to come.