That thing weighs a ton... (literally)

A few weekends JP helped several guys move this...

What exactly is this, you ask.  This is a 2,000lb letterpress.  In case you didn't know 2,000lbs = 1 ton.  One of the girls in our church has a letterpress business and just bought this press.  It took many guys working together and an engine lift to get this thing to her house.

I was not there to watch this process, which took at least 5 hours if not more, but there is video footage to prove that this was no easy task!

The Beach!

After busy season, JP's office closed for a Thursday and Friday to give them a long weekend.  JP and I decided to take this opportunity to go to the beach.  We didn't find out about the office closing very far in advance so there were not a lot of places still available.  I have realized that I am somewhat picky about where I stay and everything available just didn't seem up to par.  Until, JP found this little gem.

 

 At just $100 a night, we felt, as JP would say it was a "smokin' deal."

It is the perfect size for 2 people with the top floor being the living space and kitchen and the bottom the bedroom. Instead of the cheesy, cheap looking, brightly colored, beach themed decorations of most of the condos we looked at, this place had classy looking, home like decorations.  As the owner stressed to JP, several items including the comforter are from anthropologie.

It is not located on the beach but that was not really a big deal.  It is directly across the street and there is a private drive on the beach where you can park your car.  It takes just a much time to get to the beach as it would if you were on the 17th floor of a condo on the beach.

The atmosphere was fantastic and very relaxing.  The community was very quiet as well.  It is in a newer development of beach houses and is, in my opinion, Orange Beach's attempt at being like Seaside.

We saw tons of different birds, bunnies, frogs, and this little guy.


 

I think it was a MUCH better place to stay than Sugar Beach, the place we stayed the last time we went to the beach.  We could actually see Sugar Beach from the deck, which we thought was funny.




The owners of the house provided bikes and there was a trail that took you from the community through the State Park.

The community had a very nice lap pool...

that the swimmer of the group

enjoyed using every morning.


JP always insists that we stay in a condo because he wants to have a kitchen.  Although we always go out to eat on vacation, he likes to cook some too.  This time we bought a lot of fresh shrimp for dinner one night and used the leftovers to make shrimp quesadillas for lunch.


Don't worry. We ate out too.  Our two favorite places in Orange Beach are Doc's and The Oyster House (mainly for their peanut butter pie!).

Overall we would highly recommend this cute little house.  If you are ever interested, let me know I can give you the contact information of the owner!

A Tale of Four Projects

So I've been done with my classes for about 3 weeks now, but I still want to document what consumed so much of my time over the past four months.  I'm just a little delayed.....

This past semester I took four classes, and each class had a group project.  Each project took pretty much the entire semester to complete.  One thing I learned was that when you are taking four classes and working, it is hard to find time to have group meetings.  I had several group meetings on Sunday nights and Saturdays.

Ethics
In our ethics class we were required to pick any controversial topic to present.  My group, with much encouragement from me, chose to research and present The Cost of Obesity in America.  I am incredibly interested in this topic so enjoyed the research.  One video we showed was actually a piece ABC Nightline did on the cost of obesity, and the piece was filmed at UAB.  You should watch it, but it will not allow me to embed it so, click HERE to see it.

Project Management
For a project management class, this class was not very well managed!  It was very difficult for us to even figure out what our project was.  This is probably the least noteworthy project of the 4 so I won't say much except that there was a lot of work that went in to completing all the materials necessary for a simulated project.

Social Media
This was an incredibly interesting class and very relevant.  Each group was assigned a real company to work with.  My group worked with a company that was designing a social media game that would based on Facebook (think farmville or mafia wars).  This game is a baseball game and has real-world rewards that include meeting former baseball players such as Dave Winfield.  Our job was to figure out why no one would invest in the game, recommend what changes should be made to attract investors, and research potential investors.  After much research, our group determined that this game had waited too long to get on the market.  If it had been released 2 years ago when it was developed, there was chance for success.  However, in those two years there are many more social games and some that involve baseball.  In fact, just in April 2011 alone 3 baseball social media games were released.  We felt these would really make it difficult for our game to compete, even with our game having real-world rewards.

One of these games, Sega Play! Baseball was similar to our game but was a little more cartoon like.  We felt it would be as competitive with our game.

However, World Series Superstars was absolutely everything our game was and wanted to be.  When I found it, I was like "guys this is our game."  Every recommendation we had made to change our game was already occurring in this game.  We basically felt this game would make it difficult for our game to be successful.

Business Strategy
This is the capstone class for the MBA program.  We choose a real company, analyze their business, and develop and present a business plan for them.  It is quite the project!  Our business plan ended up being 66 pages long (and was quite expensive to get printed/bound at Kinkos since there was color on every page).
My group chose to do a business plan for Alabama Outdoors in Homewood.  We met with the GM and Operating Partner several times.  Alabama Outdoors actually came under new ownership about a year ago.  This new ownership is doing some really great things especially in the areas of customer service and inventory.  This was an incredibly interesting project since in creating our business plan we used things we had learned from all of our previous classes.

  So there you have it... what I was up to from January-April.

What Grad School Taught Me.

Since I have finished my classes, I have had a chance to think about what I learned in grad school.  Sure, I learned things like Net Present Value and Porter's Five Forces, but who wants to right or a read blog post about those things?  When I look back at my undergrad at Samford, I realized I learned SO much more than what I learned in the classroom, and I think the same can be said for grad school.

So here are the top ten (serious and not so serious) things (in no specific order) I learned during 2 1/2 years of grad school:  

I have enough clothes to go a month without doing laundry.

source

Laundry has never been my thing.  I just. don't. like. it.  So when I would have class several nights a week and homework to do and work, there just wasn't always time to do everything.  One of the things I gladly let slide was laundry.  Ideally I would do laundry once a week and at times it would end up being every other week.  But, this last semester when I was taking 4 classes I went an entire month (or likely more) without doing my laundry.  JP always says I have too many clothes but this time it came in handy!  I'm still having trouble getting back into the laundry routine because it is definitely my least favorite household chore.


Just because you are in grad school doesn't necessarily mean anything.

You'd think people in grad school would know not to do certain things.  For example, by the time you made it through high school and undergrad, you would know not to say DURING a presentation, "um... um... I'm nervous." You'd also think you would know not to write in a paper, "I will be discussing...."  Now for the most part, people acted like you think a grad student would act, but at least once a semester I found myself thinking... really?

Chick-fil-a dominates.

I have always loved Chick-fil-a, however, it was reconfirmed to me the excellence of this restaurant during grad school. When JP's meals were provided for him at work during busy season and I had class almost every night, it was much easier for me to just go to Chick-fil-a, especially since there is one between my apartment and school.  Plus, since their coupons never expire, I had quite a few accumulated.  When I wasn't using a coupon, I typically got {2 piece chicken strip kids meal with a Dr. Pepper refilled once and trade my toy in for ice cream}. I have the price memorized $4.20 since according to financial statements I went there over 10 times during March and April.




Getting off at work at 4:30 = tons of evening time.
When I first started working a real job, I was so exhausted at the end of a day and felt like I had no time once I got home.  Since doing grad school and frequently not getting home until 7:30 or even 10pm, I have realized that getting home at 4:30 results in an incredible amount of time.  I'm still getting used to that!  Usually around 7:30 I look at the clock and think, "wow! I still have so much time before bedtime"

The male gender is not an endangered species.

Samford is notorious for the low number of males compared to females.  Combined with the fact I was a nutrition major, I really was not around guys a lot during undergrad.  Additionally, since graduating being a dietitian has resulted in all female co-workers.  When I started the MBA program, I quickly realized that things had been flip-flopped.  Most of my classes were approximately 75% male.  I was in many groups where I was the only female.  I actually really enjoyed getting to know these guys.  It is quite different listening to guys talk about their wives, families, and futures than it is girls!


Eating at a restaurant alone is no big deal... and can be fun.
Earlier in my life, there is no way I would have ever eaten at a restaurant by myself.  I mean there once was a time I would not even sit on a bench at Samford by myself.  I definitely have gotten over that!  As I mentioned, I frequently went to Chick-fil-a.  Well you better believe I would eat in the restaurant by myself.  I've noticed that at dinner not many people eat by themselves but at lunch there is a much larger percentage to do so.

Stress is overrated.
There are several people in my life who get incredibly stressed when they even have just a little amount of tasks to complete.  Working full time and going to school resulted in a lot of things to do but not a lot of time.  It was much more demanding than undergrad.  I've realized that getting stressed is of no use to me.  I know I will get it done.  I think grad school really stretched me and helped realize how many things I can accomplish.

I have a very supportive husband.

 One of the reasons I think I was able to handle all I had to do without getting stressed was the fact that JP was very supportive.  He would take care of dinner when I had class late and would frequently do laundry.  I my one breakdown of the program was when my computer started acting up and wouldn't let me finish my project that was do the next day.  He dropped what he was doing to take me to the Samford computer lab.  He always had an encouraging word, and even when he was busy with CPA exam, school, or work he continued to be supportive.


Full time work + Full time student = very limited social life.
Throughout the MBA program I found it was a little more difficult to be social.  Then, when I started taking four classes it became absolutely impossible.  Luckily I made a lot of friends in the business school and enjoyed the time I spent with them and am actually sad that I do not get to see them.  However, now that I have more time, I am very thankful for the time I have to spend with friends.


I really do enjoy school.
On the way to my last class I texted JP, "I'm probably the only person in the history of the world that teared up on their way to their last class." I really do enjoy learning and like the school environment. Although it does interfere with social life and free time, I know that taking just one class at a time would have hardly interfered.  I'm hanging my hat up for now, but am making no commitments to not returning.  However, I really have not had any time without school, so who knows I might like it!  But then again, I can totally see myself as the "old" person in the class.

Long Time No Blog

It's been quite a while, 50 days to be exact, since this blog has had something new to say.  I'm sure you are getting tired of Roman Raspberry Goodness so here is something new to read... if you are still in fact following.  Here are the highlights of what has been going on in our life... personally, locally, and worldwide.  Think of this post as a table of contents as many future posts will further highlight some of these events.  So when you see something highlighted there is a strong possibility you will be reading more about it later.

From the last post on March 15 through April 18 our life was consumed completely with work and school.  JP was working almost 80 hour weeks with busy season, and I was working on four very time consuming school projects as well as a test thrown in every now and again. Really there was not much worth blogging about during those 28 days.  We did manage to have some fun on Sundays in between my multiple group meetings.  We enjoyed exploring new neighborhoods by foot and spent one rainy Sunday using a Groupon at Kringler's European Bakery and Cafe.  My Mom's love of Nutella influenced my breakfast choice of Nutella Blintzes with Bananas.  That is right... homemade crepes filled with Nutella.  Yum!

April 18 was quite a significant day for us as busy season ended, and I completed my last ever presentation for the MBA program.  On April 25 I attended my last class ever and walked out of the UAB Business School for the last time as an MBA student.  As time consuming as it was, I really enjoyed my life as a grad student and learned a whole lot in the process.

To celebrate I took two days off of work to devote to shopping and laundry.  Ann Taylor Loft is my new go to store.  Following these two days, JP and I headed down to the beach (I wish I could express the way JP says "the beach" through writing but I can't) where we stayed in a cute cottage and ate very good food.

 
Once we returned from the beach it seems like so much has happened personally and in the news.
Monday April 25: Last Class

Tuesday April 26: JP surprised me the night after my last class and took me to GianMarco's, a place we have been meaning to go to for four years, for a wonderful three course meal.  Here we are after our meal.

Wednesday April 27: Approximately 211 tornadoes swept across the Southeast including a large part of Alabama.  The Birmingham area was directly impacted as was Tuscaloosa and the Huntsville/Decatur area (where I am from) with many areas being completely destroyed.  This day alone was the deadliest single day for tornadoes since March 18, 1925.  Although the storms did not directly cause any major issues for us, we have been able to see the results and know many who were significantly impacted.

Thursday April 28: Our home group attended the Birmingham Baron's game.  We questioned whether or not we should attend due to the previous days occurence, but after discussion we decided since that was our normal meeting night, we had already planned to go, and there was no form of help we could have been providing at that time we would continue with our plans.  JP and I did go through some heavy storm damage on our way there.

Friday April 29:  These two people got married...

taken from here as is the next picture

...and a lot of people watched (ok a lot is an understatement).

Saturday April 30: JP assisted in the move of a 2,000 lb letterpress.

from here and check out the store this letterpress belongs to

 

Sunday May 1: Late that night (I didn't find out until the next morning), it was reported that the man responsible for the September 11 attacks was killed by in Pakistan by US Navy Seals.  Of course, there are already conspiracy theories being developed regarding this situation.

So with the tornadoes, the wedding, and the bin Laden death the news stations have been having a heyday. 

As for us, we are getting used to actually having time to do something besides work or school. (Although JP will be taking some Masters of Accounting classes in May and June).  So, hopefully there will be some blog worthy material, and you will not have to go 50 days before you see something besides this post!