March 21, 2010 - Spring is here

Hey there, hi there and hello there to everyone on this second day of Spring. Yesterday was indeed the perfect picture day of Spring with 70 degree wonderfulness, then we returned to the Seattle of the South today with rain off and on ... guess I can't complain as another 2 inches of snow fell a couple days ago back home. O ya, happy one year anniversary to the Horman family as well ... hard to believe it's already been one year Brandon and Jessie, don't forget the good times!
With only a three days worth of work at Aflac last week, it flew by quite quickly. We had a couple great brainstorming sessions for our policyholder and account online websites, some great things that I think will truly transform it for our customers ... hopefully it doesn't take too long to accomplish! Additionally, we're in the process of hiring my counter-part on the Future State Claims team. With three interviews down, I think we have some great candidates that will fit in well with the hope of hiring within the next week. I truly enjoy going through the interview process because you can learn so much about people by just listening to their reactions to various situations.
Emory was pretty interesting this week as we got back into the swing of things with class and study time. I was pretty happy with my Marketing midterm, something definitely to post on the fridge ... much better than my accounting exam:) I don't know how, but I'm pretty darn lucky with my group mates again this semester. We met this past weekend and began our work on our two semester long project and yes, we picked Disney as our company to analyze. Who wouldn't want to pick a company that has characters like Tigger and Rafiki? It feels pretty good to be ahead of the eight ball on the project, kind of hard to believe there is only four weeks left in the semester.
Last week also brought the bi-monthly YP meeting where my pals Scott Ferguson from United Way and Mike Veneble from Columbus and the Valley came and talked about the great partnerships we've made over the last year or so. Mike talked about the 5 Under Forty (http://www.columbusandthevalley.com/submissions/5under40/5under40.html).
Then on Thursday I joined a few other YPs, our city's mayor, superintendent, president of the chamber and others for Columbus' Day at the Capitol. We met with our area's dignitaries, heard from the Lieutenant Governor and had our picture taken with the governor. Although it was great to hear about all the great things coming to the community and fratenize with some of the local influential folks ... it was at the same time dissapointing to see the bureaucracy that truly took place in the senate/house chambers. Now I do not claim to know all of the inner-workings of the government, but I do know that whilst we were there for 45-60 minutes in each chamber, not one single thing was caccomplished besides lots of hand shaking, pictures and politicking. One guy even flipped the votes for his two neighbors that were nowhere to be found. Somewhat disheartening to see what really happens on the floor although I hope that once we left is when they truly got to the business. I know the legislators work hard, but less internet surfing and hand shaking would surely allow for more productivity and influence, but heck, guess I can't talk unless I run for office ... ain't no way that's happenin':)!!
Welp, suppose it's time to settle in for the evening with Jenny, Caden and some tasty homemade cookies. My morsel for the week comes from Naomi Williams as I am truly grateful for all of the wonderful opportunities I have been given and continue to receive ... hope you feel the same way, "It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment." Go Panthers, bring home the championship to the University of Northern Iowa!!!
Alwayz,
nate klein