October 18, 2009 - Thank you all!!!

Hey there, hi there and hello there to one and all. I can't thank everyone enough for everything over this last week. Turning 25 seemed like it would be just another day in the neighborhood. It was anything but, thanks to Jenny's birthday week, all the family/friends good wishes/gifts from here and back home and my team's 250 balloons in my cubicle:)

Working in a cubicle that has a lid and 250 balloons in it is quite exciting, I don't think many other folks at Aflac have had that experience ... although it's a great one! Work was pretty darn busy last week with 2010 planning and preparing for the Duck Pond next week. It only took 20 meetings to get all of that done;) My team is absolutely awesome though with my birthday and boss's day celebrations to boot. We were called upon quite a bit this week by our VP to prepare reports for executive management since we've gained a reputation as a team the can put together some visually sweetacular documents:) And yes, we finally got all of the performance appraisal material finalized; yahoo!!!

I had a pretty interesting Literacy Alliance meeting this week as treasurer ... I really need to get my head around all of those financial reports. We have our quarterly board meeting this week, which I am thoroughly looking forward to. Also, we had a Young Professionals gathering on Friday where I was recognized for my work on the FUNdraising committee. It looks like the YP has really turned themselves around with new leadership, so I may try to get involved at a small level with the Servant Leadership group. But, the most exciting part of the volunteer work is coming this weekend, starting Friday with the 3 day Live United Youth Camp. Twelve seventh grade students from around the community will come together with volunteers to put on the first annual volunteer camp in Columbus, which was inspired by the United Way camp back home. Instilling a sense of altruism into today's youth will make a huge difference in the future ... I can't wait to post the video for you all next week:)

Emory has been crazy busy this past week as well since Wednesday was my last Econ class and I just got finished up with a ridiculous 19 page final. O, and then my other class of course had a midterm take-home exam in addition to preparation for my new operating systems course which includes a 300 page book (luckily one of my partners had The Goal on CD ... gotta love the 8 hours of driving each week for class:). Lastly, we did have a pretty fun activity on Saturday morning up in Atlanta where the consulting firm Deloitte came and worked with us on hypotheses consulting techniques. Then, the Atlanta Falcons folks came to give us some fan data that we get to analyze and present solutions for the real-world application of the program.

This weekend was fun too with Caden and numerous games of fetch. Friday night Jenny and I went to the new movie Law Abiding Citizen (1.5 thumbs up) and then Saturday we all got together for a haunted walk-about in downtown Columbus, GA. Sunday has been very relaxing knowing that the Iowa Hawkeyes are in the top ten and Packers are back on the winning track.

Pretty busy week ahead I suppose, so I better get back to Transformers to help rejuvenate me before the week begins!

Have a great week all and thanks again for all of the birthday wishes.

Alwayz,

Nate