March 29, 2009 - Great bachelor party weekend

Hey there, hi there and hello there.  Wow that week went by fast, but I guess they all do now a days!  A big happy birthday is also due to my aunt Carolyn, Mr. Jeff Glau and my pooch pal Solomon!  Also you will see pictured here the soon to be Mr. Rick and Whitney Parsons as of this upcoming weekend!  O yes, Blake I heard you did a great job this past weekend with the vocals, so I hope someone post it up on YouTube for me to see:)

It was one of those wonderfully busy weeks at Aflac again last week with 22 work meetings ... holy schnikes, and that doesn't even count the lunch meeting that were had every day.  I did thoroughly enjoy it though because the bulk of the week was focused on the future of Online Services and preparing our Future State presentation. Our team has worked together for the last couple of months to put together the 3-5 year plan for the department and I presented the final product to everyone on the PIC team on Tuesday.  After some changes, I presented it again on Friday to our new VP and everyone enjoyed it.  Those were both trial runs for our Executive VP presentation this week, which should be pretty exciting!  Tomorrow begins my week long Six Sigma Green Belt training for process improvement and quality enhancement.  It's going to be a pretty fun class and will be something that will be very useful in the future of my career.

Outside of work was pretty solid this week as well.  It started off with a motivational turnaround over the internet.  The CSU SIFE team we've been trying to get up and off the ground was having second thoughts about presenting and wanting to pull out of Regional

 Competition (which is tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed) so I proposed to them that we bring an Aflac SIFE Alumni crew on Monday night and hammer it out ... and that we did.  They went from having not a single thing for a presentation (including Annual Report, script and power point) to being up in Atlanta right now with a solid presentation.  I hope they do well, as I'm sure they will.  That was a very fulfilling feeling knowing that we helped them to turn it around in less than a week ... phew.  I even worked with them to put on a pretty cool energy forum for small businesses with my contacts at Georgia Power.  The experts taught the couple of companies that joined about the benefits of efficient energy and let them know about new technologies down the road.

I also introduced Rick (the bachelor whom you'll hear about later:) to some folks at United Way as we attempt to replicate the volunteer youth camp from Cedar Rapids.  It looks like with everything going on, they're wanting to hold off and do it right in the fall, which will be amazing!  O yes, and how could I forget about the ol' En Fuego team.  We had a great practice this week and I was supposed to miss a couple games this weekend while I was celebrating a

 bachelor party, but Mother Nature must want me to coach because she made it rain ... literally!  So, we've got a couple chances this week to pull off that first W ... wish us luck.

The reason I was supposed to miss the games was for the big bachelor party of Ricky Parsons Junior Junior (pictured here).  A few of us from the Aflac crew went down to meet some of Rick's old pals for a weekend in Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The intention was to go down on Friday night, have a great time that evening (which we did) and go sky diving on Saturday morning (which we did NOT).  Of course I had this very same luck when Jenny and I went to go hang gliding, dang wind.  So, instead we did some 

putt putt golf action, hanging out at the pool and chillaxin' at the hotel.  

Yes, Eddie did have to climb on my shoulders in the middle of the CVS to get a cooler for the festivities.  Saturday night we all headed out on the casino cruise for a night of fun on the waves.  

I found that I could definitely be in the Navy or maybe even a pirate, because the massive waves had no affect on my ability to lose money at the poker and roulette tables!  We had a big group Texas hold-em tourney that was a blast, followed by some 21 and the cheapest roulette tables in the place.  I left $40 down, but got a free meal and all the orange juice I could handle:)  

It was a great weekend and next Saturday we will do it all over again for Rick and Whitney's wedding ... should be a great time.  (pictured to the left is also my first experience with oysters ... mmmm, gooooood!)

O yes, and this week also began my house hunting trip here in Columbus.  As some of you may have heard, I was not accepted into either of the doctoral programs I applied for (those denial letters are sure good motivation on the cube walls;).  That being said, my girlfriend Jenny and I have talked it out and it looks like she will be moving down in the next couple of months so we can cut down on our phone bill:)  Just kidding, but it will be a great time and the time is now to be looking into some homes with a big tax credit and the lowest rates since the cavemen, so I will try and take some pictures to keep you posted.  Cross your fingers for a good find, yes honey, one with a big garage:)

Until next time, have a wondermous week.

Alwayz,

Nate