heee hawww

posted by popular demand:

i am currently in columbia, tennessee. the home of.... wait for it.... MULE DAY. yes that's right, ladies and gentlemen, mule day. a weekend in which 10,000 mules come to the city (so i'm sure it leaves a nice smell in the air). there are events such as: mule sale, mule driving show, mule pulling, knife auction, draft mule show, and of course the mule and donkey seminar. and the grand marshall is naomi judd. the most exciting thing, i think, seems to be the worlds largest mule. he holds the guiness world record standing at 6 feet 6 inches to his shoulders and his name is shorty. this is by far the most unique event out of anywhere i've ever traveled before.

for more information go to: www.muleday.net

i'm just really glad that it isn't for another week or two and i'm leaving on tuesday.

the king of wishful thinking

so i got a call on wednesday from the ops manager at a hotel in the florida keys. i had applied for a front desk manager position there. so lucky i even got a call! recently all the employers have been skipping over my resume because i don't have technical hotel experience on there. although at my current job thats all that i do! i run the front desk! so anyways i chatted with him about the hotel which used to be a great resort but now is a bit run down. its where the drink the rum runner was invented (so obviously i'll get along with the vibe) but it doesn't seem as if the rooms have been updated at all since that time. and in the mean time, the rooms have seen one too many spring breakers if you know what i mean.

so apparently i impressed the ops manager enough to get a call from the general manager on friday. nailed the phone interview. the manager knows about rosen and asked tons of qualifying questions. basically he was asking me why should i give you the job if you don't have that much experience? among other things i said "if you give me the chance, i will not disappoint you". well i guess he bought it because i have a meeting with him on wednesday. luckily he will be in st. petersburg so i will only have to drive 2 hours there instead of 5.5 to the keys.

still not sure if this job is going to be right for me. pro: florida keys is a nice place to be. con: not in august. pro: once i have this job on my resume, it will be much easier to get any other jobs in a hotel. con: i will be the only manager so i will have to work insane hours- if anyone calls out sick, i will have to work that shift. pro: it would be a little bit of a raise. con: not sure what the living situation is like in they keys (looked on craigslist and saw a ton of trailers for rent- gross). to get a nice place will probably be a bit of money. pro: i will be working at a resort- which looks great on your resume. con: this place is a dump! and i will have to deal with disgruntled guests constantly.

so i haven't made any decisions yet and surely haven't been offered the position yet either. hopefully during this meeting on wednesday i can impress the manager enough. even if i decide not to take this job, he might know other managers or have other positions at other properties that would be right for me.

here's to wishful thinking...

trying not to hold my breath

so i got a call yesterday from one of the MILLIONS of job posting i've submitted online. this one is for an activities director (in other words i'd plan events) an an "active adult" homes community. this would be a great job to put on my resume and could really get me started on my event planning career path. plus the salary range is exactly what i'm looking for, so that doesn't hurt much either.

i chatted with one of the interviewers on the phone today and am quite hopeful i may get called in for an interview. luckily she gave me a deadline date- so if i don't hear back by next wednesday, then i didn't get the job.

i'm just so grateful that #1 i actually got a call or response from one of the jobs i've applied for, #2 that i talked to a human being on the phone and it wasn't some sort of scam (you'd be surprised how many of those online job postings are scams), #3 i have been given a deadline date. most recruiters just say "thank you for your time and we'll get back to you" and they never do.

i'm trying not to get too excited about it because i know if i do i'll just be even more disappointed if i don't get the job.

please pray that i at least get an interview out of this- because i know if i can get my foot in the door that i can prove to these people that i am a hard-working individual who deserves this job!

standing room only

So how many seats / chairs do they provide at each gate at an airport? And who decides how many seats are enough? Because it seems to me that there are never enough and people end up just having to stand around or sit with their backs up against the wall. Then when we go to board the flight its like fighting a mob of people just to get to the gate door. I know different size planes with different capacities fly into these gates but there never seems to be enough seats for half the people on the flight.

I think this would be an interesting study to do. The average percentage of seating provided versus the average number of passengers on each flight.