Corporatese Gone Wild

   "Ask" is a verb, not a noun; same goes for "solve". You do not make an ask, or suggest a solve. "Calendar" and "bucket" are nouns, not verbs. It's "share", not "share out". Don't ever share out anything… just share it. And I know everyone's dying to turn "gift" into a verb, but could you just say "give"? Why do we have to bastardize the English language for business use when we already have perfectly good words which, as far as I know, never stopped functioning properly? This concludes my PSA.

KCCC Night 2: the Mile & Mile Relay

    I was slotted for the Mile tonight, with fellow flag football player (using the term "player" loosely when referring to myself) Amie B by my side in our heat. We started together and she finished a few seconds ahead of me. She was my rabbit... And a good one at that!

  In the end, I placed 14th in my age group, and 8th in the A division, which will add a couple more points for our team. I completed the run in 7:41 & change. Slower than last year, but not last. I kicked it into high gear in the last 100 m and flew between three girls before they even knew what hit them. Not my best performance ever, but I feel good about it.   (Photos coming soon...)

KCCC Night 1: the 400m dash

   Due to all the new (and faster than me) recruits, I was off the hook tonight and was able to kick back and enjoy watching the runners. Jan, and especially Anique and Allison did awesome, placing 4th and 5th, and earning points for us. I'm hoping they all had enough fun that they'll want to join us again next year and will tell their friends!
  Got a great chance to hang out with Janet and get to know her (and her adorable corgi, Izzy, virtually) better. She's hilarious and I had a blast talking with her all evening.
  Corporate Challenge is so cool because although I've been with the company for nearly—gasp!—14 years (my anniversary is June 11!), the majority of the people I know are in our 1000-strong Creative Division. So it's a great chance for me to meet people from Finance, Inventory Planning, and yes, even HR (although with as much irreverent fun as I have at work, you'd think they'd know all about me already & possibly have me on constant surveillance).
   There's nothing like the experience and adrenaline of hanging out at the track, cheering on your—and everyone else's—team, running your hardest and trying to beat your personal best. We all work hard but it's so enjoyable too. Yes, running is enjoyable, I said it. Not easy for sure, but we have a good time.   (Photos coming soon...)

Shot Put was starting when I arrived at the track

Random Hallmark Moments: Challenging

   I use a Nike+ with my iPod Nano to track my running—mileage, speed, calories—the works! It's very cool. (Thanks, Mom.) If you're on Nike and want to challenge me to a race, I'm "shibarunner." Let's see what we can learn from a couple of recent runs, shall we?

Running alone:

"Running" (yes, in quotes) with two Shiba Inu:

   I do love running with them, but based on these scientific results I am guessing it's not helping me prepare for the KC Corporate Challenge track meet next week... Nor is it helping for Dog-n-Jog on June 12th, come to think of it. I need to tell these mutts to MUSH!

   Speaking of Corporate Challenge, I got suckered into joining the co-ed flag football team, and have unequivocally proven that I. SUCK. AT. FLAG. FOOTBALL. My greatest contribution to the team seems to be trash-talking, which I enjoy very much despite my complete lack of skill. So hopefully in that, I have served an important purpose. Hopefully a better (and safer) purpose than blocking opposing team members by accidentally being in the way and not being capable of moving out of the way fast enough to keep from being trampled, sometimes by my own teammates, for which I also am quite gifted.

   We scrimmaged against a crew from Shook Hardy & Bacon for 2 hours last Thursday, and 2 hours tonight. Through this I have learned that law school better prepares you for sports than art school.
   Our first (and hopefully not last) game is at 6:35 pm tomorrow. It's a fun way to blow a Friday night—or a knee! Wish me luck at getting out with both legs intact, because I want to run track, not be in traction.

KCCC: YOU ARE GOIN' DOWN

   My coworkers are getting saucy... Aaron created greeting cards using Danielle's hilarious photos. They're sitting at the guard station so Hallmarkers can sign them as they're coming in to work, and we're going to mail them to our biggest competitors (Sprint, DST, Cerner & Garmin). My headshot is on the back (wearing my snowboarding helmet and goggles). I think someone is going to get their @** kicked, and it may not be Sprint, DST, Cerner & Garmin!

KCCC night four: sprint relay

   On tonight's roster were the sprint & distance relays. Although I hadn't originally planned to run either, I was slated for both, as other women dropped out. (How hard can it be, right?) The sprint relay was tough. It was the very first relay I've ever run. I was teamed with Melissa (also a relay virgin), and Aaron & John, who are experienced speed demons. I was hoping to replace myself with someone who was actually fast, but didn't get any takers. Boo. And to add insult to injury, we had to scratch the distance relay tonight, as one of our men was unable to run at the last minute.    I had left work for a dentist appointment, raced home and was racing to get to the race. And there was an accident on 69 Highway and it was at a standstill. By the time I got to the track there were less than 10 minutes remaining before our heat, the first of the night. Awesome—no time to warm up, and no time to practice handing off a baton. I got a crash course from the guys, lined up in lane 5, and we were off! I took the first 100m leg & ran my little heart out, handing off the baton to Melissa. She handed off to John, who blew around the track in no time & handed off to Aaron, our anchor leg. Aaron fought harder than anyone I've ever seen. He was on fire! And he used up every drop he had in the tank. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for us to win, which I felt badly about, wishing I was faster & feeling like I let us down a bit. But my legs did their best given the workout they've had all week. In the overall standings we placed 32nd of 67 teams, almost 16 seconds off the 1st place time. Hey, I was happy just to not have dropped the baton!

KCCC night three: 800m

   I CAME IN THIRD PLACE (in my age group / division) in the 800m run!!! My time was 3:13.530. 8 more points for Hallmark! I had a fight to the end, too, and it was a photo finish with me and another girl. I believe they gave the win to her (grumble grumble). Next time...
    Danielle also had a race for her life: her nemesis for the last few years was neck-in-neck with her for the whole race. In the last 200m they shifted into overdrive and it was incredibly close. A bunch of us from the team were leaning over the fence at the finish line, clapping & screaming for Danielle. And we couldn't tell who won. We worried that nemesis had leaned forward enough that her chest crossed the line first. But much to our deight, Danielle had managed to get her foot across the finish line just ahead of her & took the win. All her training & determination was finally rewarded!
   After that came the 800m relay, which I didn't run this time around. We placed 43rd out of 72 teams, 21 seconds behind the leaders.

KCCC night two: 100m

   Wednesday actually should have been night three, but Tuesday's events were cancelled due to severe thunderstorms. Boo. They were QUITE severe, actually... the rain was coming down so hard that it washed some of my flowers right out of the flowerbeds! Good thing I had cleaned my gutters at 9:30 pm Monday night after the race! (How is it that you have so much more energy right AFTER you've run?! I spent an hour fighting with my heavy ladder & pulling willow branches out of the gutters, came inside, showered & I still couldn't get to sleep.)
   In the 100m I came in 8th place in my age group/division, or 20th overall out of 34 runners. Not bad for a rookie! My time was 16.986, and I earned another point for Hallmark. This week has proved to me that I am more of a sprinter than a distance runner. I like pushing myself as hard as possible for as short a time as possible. LOL
   And I'm pretty sure I'm an adrenaline junkie.

KCCC 5k

I woke up at 5:40 (on a Saturday!) to drive to Shawnee Mission Park (to fight the traffic of thousands of athletes!) for the annual Kansas City Corporate Challenge 5k. The start time for the women's run was 7:00 am (but the start was late!) and the weather was cold (FORTY degrees!) and I was still fighting off a sinus/chest cold (for over a week!). Despite all that (drama) I was determined to do my best, and I came in at 25:37 (25:34 according to my stopwatch). All whining aside, I was pretty happy with my time, and I came in 22nd place in women 35-40, which is a competitive group. Danielle placed first in our division! And if all that wasn't great enough, a group of us met at Panera afterwards and I got a spinach & bacon baked egg souffle. 
(I know, awesome, right?!) Great way to start the day. 

If you need me, I'll be napping.

This was the carb-a-rific dinner I ate Friday night: homemade butternut squash risotto (with shallots & pancetta!), my favorite bruschetta & blackberries for dessert. The risotto was SO GOOD, and I wish I could take credit, but I'm pretty sure it was the pancetta.

guide to management

Yesterday our team was assigned to read an informative article about effective management of your relationship with your boss. Good stuff, right up until I got to this part:

"Since you don't know in advance which questions your boss might ask, be prepared for every contingency. For every HOUR that you'll spend meeting with your boss, you should spend TEN hours making sure you can answer any questions that the boss might ask."

—"How to Manage Your Boss" by Geoffrey James

So here's what that would look like:

(as envisioned by a coworker who shall remain anonymous)