Sunrise on Training Day 1 6:00

SPONSOR ME!

It’s official. I signed up to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon on Dec. 5th. But I’m not doing this just for me: I’ll be running with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s Team Challenge to help raise awareness of these two diseases and help them fund raise. Since I know a number of people affected by these diseases, it’s a good motivator to get (and keep) this former non-runner pounding the pavement 4+ days a week.

This is week one of training. There are fifteen more weeks after this to train for running (or mostly running) 13.1 miles. Yep. You read that correctly. 13.1 miles. The farthest I’ve ever run is a 5K — and in a Santa suit. I’m not so much scared of the distance as I am the fact that I’ve challenged myself to run the entire thing. Oh, I’ve walked distances like this before (March of Dimes Walk-A-Thons, hikes, days in theme parks, etc.), just never run them! As an added bonus, maybe my body will give in and let me crack the weight that I’ve been stuck at for the past 3 weeks even with exercising.

And here’s where you come in, my dear readers:

SPONSOR ME!

My goal is to raise $2000 for CCFA, and I’d like to have the majority of that by October 1st. Yes, we have a minimum to raise, but the trade-offs of the clinics, pros, coaches, mentors, race fees, comradeship, and knowing that this will help people that I’m close to make it seem like it’s a small drop in the bucket. Every little bit helps in reaching my goal, so please give whatever fits your budget: $100+ or only $1.

Saturday training started. At 6:30 a.m. I am definitely not a morning person, but I still hauled my tush from my bed and made it out there. If you’re wondering how I’m staying motivated, I’m using DailyMile to track my progress (and you can stalk me on there, too, to make sure I’m staying true!) and have a fabulous team to keep me going. Sure, there will be days that I’ll want to bitch and moan about having to go out, but someone just remind me of why I’m running.

SPONSOR ME!

Thanks!

Future things to look forward to from my quest to run a half marathon: A short video and maybe a sweet donation challenge…

Caress Girls Night Out Las Vegas

Last Friday night, thanks to Caress and Julie, I had the opportunity to participate in a Vegas Girls Night Out. FABULOUS!

As many of you know, I’m not a girly-girl. Sure, I can glam it up if need be, but I’m much more of a jeans and t-shirt girl. That being said, I was so excited to spend the night with the ladies partying the night away. My checking account was happy since I had already purchased a dress from my favorite designer during last month’s shopping trip with Laura (who also kindly allowed me to use the picture!). The night out also forced me to weed out my makeup. The few bottles of nailpolish I owned turned into glue, and I really didn’t trust any of the mascara I owned. Off to the local makeup store on Thursday morning to find they were running a special: buy $18 worth of certain products and receive a free bag of other cosmetics free. Two nail polishes, a mascara, and lipliner later, I’m stocked for the next year or more! Gave myself a mini manicure and pedicure that night after work and managed not to mess up or chip the nails until well after the event. For me, this is a serious feat of accomplishment.

Friday rolls around, and I have two hours to get ready before the limo is to arrive. Showered with the Caress Whipped Soufflé Body Washes with Silky Fragrance Infusion in White Peach Cream, which I love since it doesn’t dry out my skin. This is very, very, very important living here in the desert. Did the normal post-shower things, the makeup, and hair, and still had time to spare.

The limo arrived stocked with Caress Velvet Bliss Body Wash in Blackberry and Vanilla Essence for each of us. We were off to the club for some great times, great music, and great drinks with great friends. I arrived home as the sun was rising, just in time to sleep for 3 hours before getting up for the state library conference. Yeah, it was a fabulous night with the girls!

Thanks again to Caress for sponsoring our Las Vegas Girls’ Night Out!

DISCLOSURE: Please read this for the full disclosure statement.

Update 2010-08-21: Julie posted this video about her Caress GNO experience:

Also, another thought about the new Caress Whipped Souffle body wash:

I love the product, and I love the raindrop design of the bottle. I’ve been using this body wash for over a week and it doesn’t dry out my skin.  However, the design of the dispenser lid drives me nuts. When closed, the lid flap sits flus with the rest of the cap, and the dispenser area is recessed. Because of the tiny area that’s recessed for the cap, the body wash often gets caught on the lip or face of the lid, making the area quite messy. My wish would be for just a little bit larger cover so that the body wash made it to my bath pouf instead of on the lid!

Friday! Friday! Friday!

[Please ignore the fact I'm posting this on Saturday.]

The morning starts out with me not being able to get out the front exit of my condo complex. I forgot that they were sealing the through-ways this morning, so flip a U-turn and and go out the back exit. Decide that it’s a Starbucks kind of morning. Stop for an iced chai and an egg & turkey bacon muffin. Chai was good as always, but the muffin quite bland. I think it needed some cheese to make it better!

Got in to work to find out I need to update my boss on the restructuring project by the end of the day. It’s very fortunate that I received comments back from one department a few messages before I read that request. Look over the proposed structure for proposed department and find that this department would like to do one part of the structure different than all of the other departments. It’s time to pull out those marketing skills so that I can keep a basic file structure between the departments, and also find out why. That’s 90% of this restructuring. Why do you want this? Tell me how you would use this. How would you store x? I try to blow holes into the structure as much as possible so that I can defend the structure if need be.

Decided on common terms for the standard folders in each department since the departments were split in what they liked to call them. Also clarified some other needs in another department. That leaves all but two departments finalized. And it’s still a week late. Yay. I hate missing deadlines, especially when it’s out of my hands and due to poor timing.

Other than that, cleaned up the desk. Put away more binders and verified documentation for one smaller element. And that’s the week. Friday! Friday! Friday!

And if you get a chance to see Colin Hay, do it. Still has a great voice, and he still puts on a great show.

A note from Thursday: Had a corporate (partner company) IT guy looking for the OPM. Seemed very new and eager to please since he kept complimenting me on the color of my eyes. Apparently he was somehow quite smitten with me even though I didn’t say more than 10 words to him. I was not smitten with him because my first impression of him was too eager to please everyone and way, way, way too nice to the point of annoyance. As I was leaving for the day, the OPM asked if I wanted the IT guy’s number since he couldn’t stop talking about the blonde haired girl with blue eyes. <sigh> No. Thanks. I’m happy right now with whom I’m seeing. That added to the oddity of the day.

Yeah. Odd, odd, odd, odd day. The entire crew was in super early today, which meant my work area was loud most of the day. My desk is located in the “crew room,” the technician break room. Had the lights turned off on me once because a tech had some down time and wanted to take a nap. Lots of chatter. People were in there from the time I came in until dress rehearsal began.

I’m not used to that.

Normally, it’s a handful of day maintenance people that are in that early. They’re normally very busy that they don’t use the crew room unless there’s a drafting project to be completed. Today, however, I felt like I was on I-15 at rush hour. I’d get up to speed and then have to put the brakes on again because something else came up. That, and the video gods were conspiring against me. I gave up on the video project about 15:00, mostly because I didn’t have the block time or correct tools to work on it. Instead, I opted to bring it home since I know how easy it is on my Mac.

"At Least I Tried" by Hugh MacLeod

There was an impromptu meeting around 13:00. I got some good information on it, although I wish the communication would have been there earlier in the day. On the other hand, I did receive a nice compliment from a coworker today. This person approached me and said, “I could never do your job. I can’t stand chasing after people for information. It’s like you’re the teacher asking the students for their homework and hearing that the dog ate it.” I had a good laugh over that because it’s mostly true. No matter what industry you’re in, documentation somehow becomes a four-letter word loathed by all who hear it.

On the way home, I stopped at In-N-Out Burger to feed my impending inner coder, video editor, and graphics artist. The guy at the window asked if I was a teacher.

Apparently the universe thinks I need to be an educator. Training people is actually in my job description, but I don’t think this is what is meant by teacher today.

Since 18:30, I’ve been editing video for work, creating logos for Libraries & Transliteracy’s logo contest, and finally writing this blog post. That makes me a very happy geek.

Halfway through the week, which means tons of meetings from noon until 4:30. Somehow I managed to squeeze lunch in there. The first meeting was the weekly technical meeting. After that the meetings all centered around the file restructure. Got some great advice from two coworkers on keeping the project moving along. Based on the feedback from the people involved, I updated the structure and identified problem areas — and the folder names that will need to be standardized (Works in Progress or Projects and Tasks?). I really wanted to have this segment of the project completed by now. I’ll be satisfied if the entire project is finished (including new file security structures and file movement) by the end of my contract. Crossing my fingers since I don’t like to leave projects unfinished!

Yep. That was the day. It moved too quick to be much more interesting than that!

In other unrelated news, my video poker winning streak broke (nickel and dime games). Thanks to Mr. Man, I’m learning. Still up $7 overall, but no winnings today. I’ll have to try again this weekend.

Cirque du Soleil - Viva Elvis by Kent Kanouse

Tuesday. One day after Monday. Last work day of the dark (dark = no shows) period before a dry tech run and then a dress rehearsal on Thursday at 4 p.m. [All ticket proceeds to benefit Mississippi Community Fund.] Not much has changed in the way of tasks, but I have the added fun of meetings today. I won’t bore you with the minute details like yesterday. Instead, today’s post is the equivalent of a highlight reel.

First thing when I made it into work, I realized that the ceiling tiles had not been fixed. Before I even crack open the laptop, I find a ladder in order to make them right — and less dangerous to walk under. I fix the five misaligned tiles, return the ladder to the carpenters, and continue with the email and ongoing verifying documents task.

Lunch is scarfed down, and work continues until 2:00. A coworker who is participating in the file restructuring (yep. We’re trying to make the file structure reflect the show’s operation and make it easier for the end users — taxonomy, IA, and Ux all rolled into one) meeting shows up (yay! Another set of eyes and ears!), but the other person is delayed due to a show element being returned from a vendor. We get started about a half hour late, but the meeting goes well. One department is now ready to be sent off for final approval.

Schedule the remaining department meetings since no one else got back to me by last night’s deadline. I end up making two “house” calls to avoid the email ping-pong match. One person can have a meeting in a few minutes, but the other I’m not so lucky. He’s leaving for for the day and has a few days off starting tomorrow, so it will need to wait until next week. Another one is left unscheduled because of conflicts, and that will need be sorted out tomorrow. In many ways, this sucks because I wanted to have all of the department document structures solidified by August 1st. Now, I’m not sure that I’ll make that deadline.

On the other hand, my coworker was still here and I had her look at the structures to ask questions and blow holes in the weak sections. She’s a very insightful lady, and extremely good at what she does. A few flaws were found, and she helped figure out some universal names for folders where I was struggling. Yay, teamwork!

And remember the scissors I borrowed from yesterday? Yeah. They broke while I was cutting a sample. Cheap plastic hinges. I owe the props team a bag of candy to help fill their toolbox of sweet magic.

The land of documentation is an odd place. The position is seen as a blessing (Yay! We found the document / drawing / photo that we needed!) or a curse (What? We need to have meetings? We already know where everything is in this pile…). There are days like today where the HTML would look like this if I was coding a web page:

Welcome to the annual foray into Library Day In The Life [LDITL, or #libday5]. Some of you may remember that this happened almost exactly a year ago on this blog as well. This, however, is actually the fifth global installment of LDITL.  Personally, I still work for the same company I did last year, and yes — it’s still a circus. Literally.

Harmon Hotel by Gunther Hagleitner

8:00 Alarm goes off. One cat decides that he needs to play king of the mountain for five minutes until I make him move so I can get ready for work. The other cat decides that he needs attention. Right. NOW. Meowing and weaving between my legs as I try to retrieve clothing from the closet. Apparently he was trying to tell me he wasn’t feeling well. Yep. Hairball morning. Yay. Clean the mess, shower, and drive to work in humidity (anything above 10% is humid in Las Vegas!).

10:15 Arrive at work. Place the laptop on the dock, and start it up. Realize the external second monitor is not responding. Undock the laptop and reseat it. Success! Read emails and drive replication reports.

10:45 Answer questions regarding the versioning of CAD drawings and their names. Send the manual to the tech who was asking so it’s a point of reference. Also suggest contacting the Vegas CAD Specialist for further help since I’m not trained in that software.

11:00 Receive follow up phone call from a company whose webinar I attended last week. Tell company we’re still in evaluation phase and not looking to buy (truth) to make the phone call quick. Offers to send some white papers to keep on file.

11:05 Turn on Last.fm to keep the motivation going through the document audit. Yep. Still working on updating all the needs for our fire permits. Seven 2″ or 3″ binders full of documents to verify. Currently working on binder four and quickly running out of sheet protectors and binder room again.

12:00 Don the jacket. Why is it that all buildings in Vegas freeze you out in the summer and roast you in the winter? Realize that my laptop is showing a network synchronization error. It’s an IE file… not necessary. Delete. Problem fixed. Back to the audit.

12:30 Try to track down content specialist for one of the element. Need the paint and construction materials from them so I can complete the index and find the necessary supporting documents. The tech has all the info except for one piece. Unfortunately the rest of the department is out on days off (the show is currently dark and transitioning to a new show schedule), so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

13:00 Sift through MSDSs for the show element. Realize that there are way too many different types and mixes of gold paint in the show — 5 types of spray paint, and this doesn’t even include regular brush paints or gold leaf.

13:30 Focus wanes. Decide to eat lunch. Catch up on the morning’s news and some information in the Google Reader. Also explore booking a long weekend in Sedona, AZ.

14:00 Continue the audit. Lose count how many times I’ve run to the printer. I’m single-handedly destroying a forest (hopefully sustainable) and wondering the cost of the toner I’ve been using. Do you know the cost per gallon of black ink? Stuff pages into page protectors.

15:00 Begin assembling the physical binders. Proceed to crash MS Word and Windows Explorer by impatiently trying to do a search for a missing item. Restart the computer.

16:00 More of the same. Realize that someone has thieved my scissors off of my desk when I go to cut a material sample in half. Thief also took my good — and only — mechanical pencil. I work in a semi-private area. The only people who usually come in there are the show crew and cleaning crew. Do a nice, long rant on Twitter regarding said items. Search for the missing items. No luck on the scissors, but I do find the pencil. Borrow a scissor from the props department. The same task carries on until…

18:00 … All of  a sudden it sounds like a windstorm is coming through the room. Realize they’re running the stage lifts, and I think they’re moving pretty close to full speed. It creates a weird airflow, causing the ceiling tiles to rise and fall. Manage to catch the tail end of one of the pressure changes with Qik:

Yep. As you can tell by the aftermath of tiles hanging precariously from the ceiling, it was time to go home. Packed up, locked up things so they didn’t grow legs overnight, and said, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand!” Walked to parking garage and went home.

19:00 Home, dinner, job searching since my contract expires in two months (!), and starting research for two applications. Play with the cats, and write this blog.

Since I work indoors, it was pointless for me to use this product ever day. I ended up using it mostly on weekends when there was much more of a chance of me being exposed to the sun (more than driving in a car). Yep. Garage parking in Vegas so I don’t even have to go outside all that much in order to get to work.

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Liquid Daily Sunblock SPF 70

The product? Sunblock.
The Brand? Neutrogena.
Application area(s)? Face, neck, ears.

Although it’s super lightweight, for my fair skin it was too lightweight. I would sweat it off out here in the 110º Vegas heat in about a half hour and still receive a nice little burn. Mind you, I’m so pale that I’m out in the sun for 15 minutes without protection and I receive a nice burn. So I was constantly reapplying. And reapplying. I used the remains of the first bottle during 3 days at the pool, and am almost done with the second bottle a few weeks later. I’d rather have a cream sunblock than a liquid since it would hold up to my active lifestyle much better.

I’m still unsettled that sunblock needs to have little balls inside of it to help mix the formula. I know that since it’s on the market it’s safe, but all I can think of every time I hear those balls rattle is that these chemicals really can’t be good to place on my body, especially around my eyes, nose, and mouth. That’s something that I never got over from my initial reaction.

I’ve been able to tolerate the smell.

I’m sure for every day use under makeup it’s great, but I’m not a huge makeup wearer, and my facial moisturizer already contains SPF 20. My skin is also very sensitive. The week that I added the additional sunscreen, my skin became much more flakey around my nose and I had a small break-out on my chin.

Personally, I would not purchase this sunblock again, but please try it for yourself since each person’s skin is different. You can find a $2 coupon Neutrogena UltraSheer® Liquid Daily Sunblock here.

On a scale of FTL to Meh to FTW, it receives a Meh/FTL for the fact that it’s not long-lasting.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

I’m not much of a makeup person. My normal routine consists of moisturizer, eyeliner, eye shadow, and tinted lip moisturizer. So when Klout offered a chance to receive Covergirl’s Smoky ShadowBlast and ShineBlast Lip Gloss, I said sure. I’m always willing to try another brand and see if it can outperform my current favorites. Here’s my experience over the last 6 weeks:

The product? Eye shadow.
The Brand? Covergirl
Application area(s)? Eyes.

I’ve used stick eye shadows in the past, and found them easy to apply and long lasting. The Smoky ShadowBlast is actually an exception to those experiences. I’ve used the shadow a few times a week since receiving it the beginning of June. Initially, the lighter, rounded tip color did not want to adhere to my eyelid. I scrubbed it on the back of my hand until I could see some color. Since then, it is okay when I apply it, but I still have to use a bit more pressure than I like to around my eyes. The opposite side with the dark eye shadow is wedged to help get into the crease of your eye and along the lash line. I wasn’t too impressed with this design either. This did go on much smoother than the light color.  I think the entire product is simply too big to give a lady enough control and precision to apply it. The first time I used it, I had smears all over the place. Color-wise, I used the Silver Sky shade which I really liked for a dark, night-time look. If I continue using Smoky ShadowBlast, I’m certainly going to be using brushes for application.

On a scale of FTL to Meh to FTW, it’s a definite FTL.

The product? Lip gloss.
The Brand? Covergirl
Application area(s)? Lips.

The big claim to fame on the ShineBlast Lip Gloss? The new curved applicator. Which was rough. And pointy. Overall, the applicator quite frankly sucks. Other than that, the lip gloss is your run-of-the-mill formula. Not too sticky, not too heavy, pleasant fruity aroma and (accidental) taste. The Sparkler shade worked well with my skin tone for summer, but they have a number of shades from which to choose.

On a scale of FTL to Meh to FTW, it’s a Meh due to the applicator and nothing groundbreaking about the product.

A few months ago I received a new freebie. I received two bottles of Neutrogena UltraSheer® Liquid Daily Sunblock from  Tidal Labs and in return I agreed to give two blog posts. Here’s the initial reaction post:

Neutrogena UltraSheer® Liquid Daily Sunblock Week 1

Here are my initial reactions.

Pros:

• Lightweight
• non-greasy,
• high SPF (70),
• easy to apply

Cons:

• Even though the packaging claims “waterproof,” it’s more like water resistant since it’s so light and easy to wipe off;
• not a fan of the scent;
• the fact that you need to shake it to mix it and it includes some type of mixing ball in it.