...Continued and Tuesday

        A quick recap of Monday.  It was relatively uneventful...I went to breakfast with the majority of the Conrad fam in the morning at the Original House of Pancakes (not to be confused with IHOP).  There were exorbitant amounts of food on the table, and I ate my fair share of the goods.  I don't ever crave sweet things for breakfast and I ordered pancakes with strawberry syrup (never in my life have I had strawberry syrup...but it was pretty good).  I hung around the house for a couple of hours, regaining energy from a long weekend and relaxing before what is already turning into a busy week. 
        There is really only one reason for going back to finish my blog from the weekend before talking about the work week, and that is to share a rather amusing anecdote.  My uncle is level headed and seemingly fearless.  He can put murderers in jail for life, face threats from federal criminals, and deal with extremely high stress situations while showing no sign of fear.  A raised eyebrow is about as much expression as you will get out of him.  So when he came rushing into the house I was sort of shocked!  "BRYSE!!!!" he said with BOTH eyebrows raised, and had to pause to let his jaw return to its upright position before repeating "Bryse...you gotta come see this.  I don't know what it is!  It's a huge animal...What do I do??!!"  This series of words was repeated, in alternating orders as we walked out to the back yard.  Turns out, there was a ferocious possum in the garage.  OK, in all seriousness...it was pretty big, and when it moved I immediately ran to the porch.  When Bobby tried to get it to leave the garage, it had been scared by us and hidden...somewhere.  I look down in the house every once in a while to make sure he didn't crawl in the house, because I noticed I left the door open when I went outside to take a look at the beast.  But really, the expression on Uncle Bobby's face was priceless...I wish it had been caught on camera...that and the scary possum.

FEROCIOUS BEAST, AKA, Possum.  This image is compliments of wikimedia.com (filed as: Awesome Possum, American Possum, but I can assure you that our furry friend was bigger, and whiter.  There was some discussion as to whether or not it was pregnant.

        After that picture, I'm sure it's hard for you to be excited about a good homemade meal, I am afraid of going to sleep tonight-I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing that sucker in my dreams- but I do need to announce that I finally made dinner for Ann and Bobby...and Carrie and little Bobby came to join.  I made a variation of the tomato pasta my mom makes that I love...it was a bit different but still good (I think), parmesan crusted crusted chicken, and cheddar bay biscuits.  The dinner seemed to be an unhealthy hit...if they didn't like it, they were very gracious, and I can appreciate that.  I realize now that I should have taken a picture of the dinner spread to include here, and left the image of the possum out of the post.

TUESDAY

Having a four day work week is not quite like having a four day school week.  When you miss the Monday of school, you get to skip a couple of classes, syllabi are adjusted so that the workload reflects the times you are in class (for the most part), and you generally get to cruise through the week with less stress...at least, that's how my holiday weeks went in college.  Now, a four day week means you have one less day to get the exact same amount of work done.  Can you say wake up call?  Last night I had a to-do list for today running through my head on repeat.  By 9:30 this morning, the receptionist had already called me a worker bee...and that trend continued throughout the day for Sarah and me.  We have a luncheon for Leatherheads who have met half of their sales goal on Thursday at Quail Hollow featuring football legend, Bob Griese and although the site and menu had been locked down prior to our start with CCF, there was still a ton of stuff for us to do today.  I had to get the final count for the guest list, which was changing up until the minute I sent it to Courtney.  We had to arrange for specialized name tags for each type of guest: Leatherhead, Board of Directors, VIP, or guest.  We also had to compile a short bio of Bob Griese for his introduction at the luncheon, come up with a sales update to be presented to the guests, work and rework and meet about and rework again the sales incentives for the Leatherheads, brainstorm centerpieces, and decide on the best way to present the Extra Point passes at the lunch.  Yes, that took pretty much the whole day.  After work, I stopped by the YSPN (Young Sports Professionals Network) social.  The sport world is seeming to get a bit smaller and I'm starting to say hey to people I at least recognize instead of introducing myself to the first person I see...I'm still meeting new people, but feeling a little less lost.  I talked to Chris Clouden, Director of Marketing and Events for the Charlotte Sports Commission for a long time and I think he is going to be a great contact and ally in the Charlotte Sports World.  The Charlotte Sports Commission will be heading up our ACC Night of Legends for the Championship game so I asked him to keep me informed on any planning that goes into the event, and requested to attend some of the planning meetings.  It's another great opportunity to get involved in something that's not directly part of my job (because we have handed much of the responsibility for this particular event over to the commission), and I'm fortunate enough to have the freedom in my work to ask to been involved in the extra stuff. 
        On another note, my car currently sounds like it's been wrapped in bubble wrap and a thousand tiny elfs are running around popping it everytime I have my foot on the gas.  Anyone have any idea what this means??!  It's a little bit troubling.