Last Weekend

Last weekend I went up to San Jose for my cousin Nathan's wedding. I felt a little old and out of the loop when the pastor (my little cousin and the little brother of the groom) said that Nathan was worried a few years ago that he wasn't married since Rechenmachers marry young. Nathan is younger than me. Hhmmm.... I think only the Rechenmachers in my uncle's family marry young. Now I feel better!



Anyway, this is my favorite picture of the day. My great grandma Minnie and my little cousin Calvin before the ceremony.

Weekends

I love weekends...when I have something to do. When I do not have something to do, I just relax, and I like that too. But I LOVE weekends when I have something to do, or someone to see. I am so excited that the Goddess Divine will be visiting me. And it makes me think of all the other people I know should be visiting... Yes, shark, I am talking to you! Let's plan something!

Everyday

So I have recently rediscovered many things from my past. Things that I had forgotten about. Apparently in my past I have been asked on several occasions to write an essay describing myself. Must have been college or scholarship applications. Anyway, the funny (and by funny, I mean mildly interesting) thing is that everytime I am asked to write a description of myself, I create something completely different. So I was wondering, what makes me describe myself differently on different days? Is it the day? Is it my mood? Is it the weather? What if I wrote a description of myself everyday for one hundred days? How different would they be? Would it be like the videos that people make of the pictures that they take of themselves everyday? (If you don't know what I am talking about, follow this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a7082PYcSk&feature=related ). Would there be subtle differences in what I write? Would there be big differences. I want to know.

Here is who I am today.

Today I am lucky!
I am lucky to have a job. I am lucky to have a good job. I am lucky to have good friends (Goddess Divine, I am so eager for the first weekend in April.) I am lucky to have good family that also qualify as friends (Shark, time for us to make time to be in each other's presence). I am lucky to have a fabulous apartment with fabulous neighbors. I am lucky to live in LA where the winter is colder than I would prefer, but let's face it, it is pretty ideal. I am lucky to be a Bruin. I am lucky to be healthy. I am lucky to have red wine in front of me. I am lucky to have a fireplace that makes me happy even if the corners of my fireplace aren't real corners.
Today I am lucky!

The New Place

I am loving the new place more everyday as I am slowly making it my own. Pictures on the wall and a new couch help out a lot! There is still a long way to go, but the little steps are making me happy.

The new fabulous couch facing the old fabulous fireplace. I didn't do my homework sufficiently when I went to buy the couch and when they delivered it, I thought it wouldn't ever fit in the apartment. Luckily, with some help from a visitor, I found a way to make it fit, that is just perfect!

My fabulous desk that my dad bought for me about seven years ago. Which means that I have been without it for about five years. Unacceptable! I do not know how I ever lived without it. The bulletin board I bought this weekend, and the James Dean calendar is just a standard in my life, as some of you might already know. Yes, I am drinking wine while I work. No, I am not ashamed to be drinking alone. I think it is very classy to drink wine alone, especially since I ate crackers with brie while I was drinking. Notice the tiny little laptop that my company issued me to use, it is what the doctors have to sign when I give them samples. Actually almost everything on the desk is from my company, laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer.... Yeah, I scored with a super job. If you hear me complaining, call me out!

G-d*!#@ right it's a beautiful day!

G-d*!#@ right it's a beautiful day!

-Mr. E's Beautiful Blues

Have you ever wondered what makes a day beautiful? What makes us notice the beautiful days? I have felt before that all my days off were beautiful. But with my new job, I have noticed that I should appreciate the fact that I am outside and available to appreciate the beautiful days more often. I am not restricted to an office.

Today is a beautiful day. I woke up and it was raining but in near distance I could see some blue sky. Now the sun is shining, the sky is so blue with fabulous cumulous clouds and the wind is blowing.

Training

So, like I mentioned before I was anxious about going to Texas for training becuase I frequently talk smack about Texans and Texas in general. I thought that if Texas had any idea about my attitude, it would be mean to me when I got there. Thankfully Texas was completely oblivious and was very nice to me. I spent most of my time with my team. The LA district has 10 Territory Managers and one District Manager. I was very much hoping that when I got to Texas I would find my assigned roommate was one of my LA teammates. I figured that I needed extra time to bond with my teammates since I will rarely see them in my daily life. I ended up with a roommate from Atlanta. She was absolutely the most fun. We got along fabulously and a District Manager from the South even mentioned that we were obviously the best roommate matchup ever! Spending so much time with my team, I was so glad to not have a roommate from LA, but I got along so well with my roommate that I am sad that she is in Atlanta and not here to chill with.

Me and the best roomie ever

The days in training were spent trying to stay awake reviewing everything we learned the week before in Home Study. Training, roleplay, etc is always hard for me to take seriously. And now that I am out in the field I wish I had given more effort to mastering all the information. That is always my style. Why do I never learn?

Besides the classroom training, the two weeks included lots of schmoozing with the C-level executives. I met the CEO several times, chatted with him, and even pulled a silly maneuver to make him remember me and my partner in crime from LA. The silly maneuver is kind of a long story...
It starts at least a year ago when the Goddess Divine told me about a girl she met who had a tattoo of a mustache on the inside of her index finger so she always had a disguise ready and available. Mel and I were speaking about the need for a disguise at lunch one day and I told her the story of the mustache tattoo. We decided that we would draw mustaches on our fingers that night when we went to Billy Bob's. It was one of the silliest things I have ever done, and lots of coworkers were laughing at us. Mel and I decided that we would need a picture of ourselves in the our disguises and the CEO. He will never forget us now...hopefully. To protect his identity, I cannot post that picture, but here we are...

I think our manager was only mildly entertained by our mustaches, but as the evening wore on she succumbed and requested a mustache of her own. Ok, maybe she did not request, maybe she finally agreed to our strong suggestions.

The other best part of my trip to Texas was the Ohio part. Some of my favorite cousins (clearly not my All Time Favorite Cousin, you know who you are) happened to be in Texas. Lee, Josie and Reuben came to see me the last night I was in town. Luckily they picked a restaurant right across the street from my hotel to have dinner and I met them just in time to see and hear some of the worst karaoke ever! Then we went over to The Flying Saucer and happened to catch some much better entertainment.

So that was it...my trip to Texas. I might remember more interesting things later.

Company Intranet

So when we were in training, my new company took mugshots to put on the company website. When my team went to get our pictures taken, the CEO was standing there watching and chatting with us. He told us that he was going to personally preview all the pictures and have pictures retaken if they were not to his liking. He is a young, cool professional, and I am glad to work in a company of young, mature accomplished people. Anyway....here is my shot.





It makes me giggle. I am not sure why.

Home Again

I survived! Texas was not mean to me. I met many many cool new people and I am so very excited to be working for my new company. Actually, I am still wondering how I got so lucky to received this opportunity.
But even after the awesome learning/social time in Texas I was very ready to come home. It felt like I had not been home in years. Yesterday evening when I was speeding down the 405, I finally felt like I was home again and I was happy.
Now I am home and I have sooo much work to do to prepare for Monday. I am so excited and so nervous!