Whoa! I just realized that I totally missed the one year anniversary of this blog! I can quickly realize why though -- that was the day after I got in my second car wreck in just eight days. I was rattled. I was tired. I'm a guy. I was thinking of a million other things. I've got excuses, man!
Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday to my Blog.
Hopefully July 12th, 2005 isn't so eventful that I forget the second anniversary.
Wow! My parents got me a new car!
I knew that they were shopping for a car for me, and I knew that I was going to have one ready for me when I got home from Southwestern, but I was completely shocked when I found out what they got. They got me a new 2004 Chrysler Pacifica. I have only seen this car a few times before in person.
I am shocked that they did this, because I was totally wanting and expecting a used car. That is pretty much the family policy, in fact. Also, I was thinking we'd get something more affordable like a Hyundai Sante Fe. Finally, I was thinking that they would purchase something that was cheap and easy to insure considering that I have had two wrecks and a ticket in the last month.
This is shocking.
I guess a lot of it had to do with the following considerations that they discussed with me --
1. They are proud of me for graduating
2. I kept my Jeep alive and running longer than anyone in the family has kept a car since the 80's.
3. I am doing Southwestern, and they realize that it is hard. They are pleased wtih my work ethic out here, and the fact that I was willing to take on and stick with such a huge undertaking.
4. I am going into seminary and they are excited about the prospect of me becoming a pastor.
5. They feel that I may get married sometime soon, and they want me to have a nice car that (knowing how I like to hang onto cars) would last a long time and be useful to someone with a family and (grand)kids.
6. My dad got the car for $22K and only needed to pay about $17K because the insurance on the Jeep.
7. They've noticed that in the past three years or so (ever since I started living with Mike Bonestroo, basically) I've been taking much better care of the Jeep. So, they feel that I will continue to do that with this new car -- especially since I am going to have the title to it in three years.
Final Notes.
OK, I still don't know much about this car. I know that it is "champagne colored." I know that my dad didn't have much choice in the coloring (I told them that I didn't care about color at all but prefer green, silver, and white) or the options package so it has weird options like a 6-CD changer in the console. (I never listened to CDs until about two weeks ago when I started listening to sermons and Audiobooks in the car.)
That is about all I know about the car at this point. I also know some details that I've gleened from the website, but I don't know what specifications my Pacifica has vs. the others.
Anyway, this is totally cool, totally undeserved, and frankly, it all makes me uncomfortable because I'd prefer to have something more economical and low-key. I guess a minivan/SUV crossover is kinda lowkey, but it is still a $30K car...
Whoa!
I am sitting in front of a computer at the public library in Arab. I decided to hop online really quickly because I haven't had much of a chance to do that lately. This week has pretty much sucked because I have been awake past 1AM every night trying to prepare my delivery schedule. I decided yesterday to stop trying, defy Dahnell's demands, and just go to bed earlier (midnight). I did this with a plan in mind.
Today, I came to the Arab library after purchasing a $105 permit and putting down a $200 Deposit on sales tax that I won't get back until January.
The plan was to bring all my stuff needed to get these green cards out to my customers and finish my delivery chart. I have succeeded! It took me an extra two and a half hours working on the sidewalk in front of the library from 9:30AM to 10:00AM when they opened.
Now I am pretty much done with using the Internet here, so I thought I'd blog. I am really sick of this job and I am very happy that it will be over and done with in roughly two weeks. Looking at my delivery schedule makes me happy, because I could finish delivering on Thursday night. Realistically though, I will either help someone else out Friday, try selling all day Friday, or try to catch up with all the people who I missed the first four days.
Clerison bought a second car last week. He told me this Sunday after asking me if I was going home to Fort Myers after Check-out. I told him that I was probably going to Gainesville, because I have no way to get to Fort Myers. Ah ha! Clerison then lets me know that he bought a car, reminds me that his twin brother is going to FGCU and is living in Ft. Myers, and then asks me if I'd be willing to make a little "delivery." Of course! This would br good for both of us. He gets the car to his brother and would, presumably, not even have to pay for gas. I get a ride home at my timing.
Two days later I get a phone call from my parents. They tell me to call them back. I do, and I find out that they bought me a car. That's for another entry though.
So, now things are really looking up, and I am psyched, but it is hard to be happy when you feel like dirt because you have a total of roughly 28 hours of sleep so far in the week, including naps taken in the car, which is verboten thus making me feel like dirt all over again.
So, after discussing my feelings of fatigue, exhaustion and guilt, my parents helped out again. They instructed me to go ahead and take the naps, go ahead with the aforementioned library plan, and do things that I need to do to stay healthy, alert and feeling reasonably good. This is my own business after all, and these people really can't make me do anything. I just choose to do it because I want to do it all "right."
So, now I am taking some time to blog, I took some time to get this schedule done so I can go to bed at 10:30 or 11:00 tonight. That should help me feel more normal again on Saturday. Dahnell, feels like dump though, and he takes that out on all who come into contact with him. Additionally, because he feels so bad his sales have plummetted. He is sold on this program more than the managers though, so he beleives that there should be no correlation there and ignores his fatigue as best he can.
Today is Joy's 20th Birthday! Hooray for Joy!
It kinda stinks that we are apart for such a momentous occasion, but these things all happen for a reason. I guess it will just further highlight the sacrifices we made this summer to develop ourselves as people.
Joy, I hope you have a great day today, and don't miss your days of being a teen too much. The twenties are going to be a roaring good time, I'm sure of it!
PS -- I love you, sistah!
Most of my life I have discounted the importance of memorizing anything. I wasn't particularly "good at it" and thus it required a lot of work for me. Now, this always strikes me as strange because I do seem to have a fairly good memory when it comes to several things, but as far as memorizing speeches, songs, bible verses, etc. I am unpracticed and thus unskilled.
Most of my life I have had a Bible readily availble, and more recently I have had the Internet at my fingertips so I could look up any verse or song that I wanted to know.
My Southwestern experience changed all of that.
My attitude toward memorization is completely different now. Suddenly I find myself wishing I had better committed myself to knowing songs that I'd like to sing while on the bookfield, Bible verses I'd like to recite, and... my sales talk, which I still don't know all that well.
Every time I sit down at a house I get all the points across, and I end up talking to the people like they are people instead of reciting the sales talk. Actually, I do end up doing a bit of both, which is good, because when you are reciting your mind is totally free to think and make observations about the customer. When you recite you are relaxed and free to listen more. It is such a great thing to have going for you.
After this summer, I intend to begin committing songs and specific Bible verses to memory every week. I think that this will be challenging for me at first, but I truly believe that it will be worthwhile the next time I don't have my Bible readily available.
One of the best things I've done to make Southwestern a great experience was getting AudioCDs of sermons and now -- books.
I have three sermons series from my chruch in Cape Coral that I've listen to many, many times now, and I now have two books on CD too. I have Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels and an abridged version of The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren.
I just can't say enough how much better it is to do this job when I have something to occupy my mind when I am out selling books. There is no time to be nervous, feel rejected, or deal with any of the other emotional issues that can come up when you are excited about getting to listen to some more interesting stuff.
I also like the idea of truly multi-tasking. This summer I have already read a book and a half, I have written out an exhaustive template for a book I'd like to write this Fall, and now I am over half way done with listening to a book that I will probably listen to a few times over. By the end of this summer I will not only have made a good deal of money, but I will have also listen to a number of books.
This makes me want to come back and do this job again another year all the more. Knowing that I will be able to make really decent money, learn a ton from the life experiences, and learn a lot from books and sermons is really exciting. I wish I had taken advantage of this further at the begining of the summer. Also, now I start to think of my car wrecj as something of a blessing, because I am now in a car with a CD player and that has made all of this possible.
It's strange how things work out.
I've had tons to write about lately, but I've been staying off of the computer most of this week. I've been busy trying to do this job as well as I can and it seems to have paid off a little bit.
Today we went to Decatur again for our weekly meeting. I was feeling kinda chill, because I didn't get enough sleep and I had also not hit any of my (extremely lofty) goals for the week. However, I found out during the course of the meeting that even though I didn't hit my goals... I should still be happy because I did have my best week in sit-downs and in customers, I hit the pacesetter for the third time, and I had the most customers in the 'org' for the week -- 28. I beat out Galen, Kevin and Ketan, who usually dominate the customers and units categories. That was a suprise to everyone in the room and quite the pleasant suprise to me.
The whole thing was actually kind of funny, because I wasn't thinking about customer numbers at all this week. Then at the recognitions I was standing up there with just two other guys, and they have this process where they narrow it down to two people and then just one person. I was shocked when I was the last person standing. Everyone was shocked when I was even standing there as one of the final too -- especially the announcer. He made a huge deal about it, which struck a balance between rude, commending, and funny.
This week has been nearly my worst week ever in terms of stats. It got off to a pretty bad start, I was sick for a day and a half of it, and I followed one of the days, so I really can't expect too much, but it was still my second or third lowest week of the summer in terms of strong units.
That doesn't really matter all that much though, because next week I plan to go out and really break some personal records. I am stepping out in faith and setting a goal to break through 250 units in a week next week. I am making it public and asking for prayer. God willing, I will break through this barrier. In the process I will be making $1,000 in one week, which will also be nice.
Every morning on the bookfield and every night during Sales School we do this little thing that we all like to call Execs, which is short for Executive Exercises.
In the morning, we will do execs at our breakfast spots out in the parking lot or in a nearby open area. We will do them in front of roads or highways, we will do them in front of the restaurant's patrons, and on Sundays when we are at a hotel we will do them in the hotel parking lot.
What are these 'execs?'
Well, they start with someone mentioning execs. That person will usually then raise his hand up in the air shout "ohhhhhhh...hhhhh... Ohhhhhh...!" indefinately while running around in a large circle. Everyone else follows this person doing the same exact thing until everyone is present in the circle.
At that point we will start skipping and singing a song. The song goes --
It's a great day to be a bookman.
It's a great day I know.
It's a great day to be a bookman everywhere I go.
Goodbye no-nevers, goodbye doubts and fears
It's a great day to be a bookman -- be of good cheer.
I feel happy. I feel terrific. I feel GREAT!
Then someone will yell out loud "UH-OH!" and we all will chime in "Book Time!" We all sing/chant this in unison four times while doing a very specific rythmic clap that took me a few tries to get down. (I still mess it up on the really sleepy mornings.) After chanting that four to five times someone makes the conductor's sign for stop and everyone goes silent.
After about three beats another iniative-taking individual will jump or dance into the center of the circle and yell/scream out, "Now let me see that funky chicken!" at the top of his voice, and everyone else will yell something like, "What's that you said!?!"
This happens three times with slight variations each time based on the whims of the person in the center of the circle. At the end He will say "I said unh..." and everyone in unison will sing "Oooo, ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; one more time now!! Oooo, ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo; ah ah ah oooo." Or whatever other chant, saying, or sounds that go along with the particular thing that the initiator wanted to "see."
The variations on this are numerous and growing. We come up with new stuff from time to time. I come up with new stuff all the time, because I enjoy execs and I come up with stuff that I think will be fun all the time. Most of the time the stuff I come up with doesn't really pan out, but that is fine because every once and again I'll come up with something really fun and even "classic."
After doing that there are several other execs that we do. Some we only do in a large group on Sundays, but most of the other ones are just thrown in as people remember them. If no one remembers a particular exec it's fine -- it doesn't get done.
At the end of execs we do this thing where we all gather in a circle and get fired up and then we all run off acting like birds, ostriches, video game charaters or bookmen.
It is crazy. It was embarrassing (the first few times.) It is always fun.
I am at the end of one of the longest days of my life. I am thinking that the day is actually a day and two fifths, because it spans much more than 24 hours.
This is a fairly long story so don't start until you have a few spare minutes to keep reading.
I'd have to say that 'the day' started Saturday night after getting home from working my 7:30AM to 9:30PM border war schedule. Instead of going straight home I went to Wal-Mart, because I knew that I'd have about two hours until Dahnell would be back at the HQ and be ready to head out to Memphis, Tennessee. I also felt that I wouldn't have much time to do my Sunday Wal-Mart food and supply run on Sunday.
After I got back from Wal-Mart the adrenaline was pumping, because I had a lot to do and only an hour-plus to do it all in. Luckily, Dahnell ran a little late and I managed to unpack my rental car, turn it in, unpack my grocieries and pack them into their places, pack my day bag for the trip to Memphis, call in my stats to Mike Yandre, finish my weekly, get my remittances completely ready to submit to Southwestern, and prepare all my checks for the night depository. I had everything packed and ready to go before Dahnell was ready, and when he came home he found me working busily on my paper work, which pleased him.
Dahnell was also happy that I was doing my paperwork, because it meant that he could do his on the trip to Huntsville. He let me drive his car to Huntsville, despite the recent Jeep accident, because that is how they do things here at Southwestern. (I was actually wanting to write a seperate entry about this, but... well... you'll see.) I was doing 100MPH down this extremely empty, straight highway and made it to Huntsville HQ in 50 minutes. Thank goodness, we needed to sleep badly.
Yep, that's right. Instead of going to a hotel and sleeping "Mexican-style" for all of four hours like last time, we got to spend the night at the Huntsville HQ -- mainly because Marie wasn't there, so there was a spare room with a king size bed available.
(Aside: Marie had left Friday morning to go see some Navy people about the Nuclear Engineering position that she will likely take in the Fall of 2005 as a commissioned officer in the Navy. She had to drive from Atlanta to Huntsville Friday morning and then catch a plane to "I don't remember where.")
So, that night was pretty cool, because I got to see their awesome HQ, and I got to finally take a shower -- complete with hot water and water pressure! The showers at our HQ have been offline all week. They are working again now. Praise God!) I also got to talk with Andrew Gordan and Galileo "Gali" Solis for a while. I ended up sleeping in the same bed with Andrew and we woke up four hours later...
Yeah, so we went to sleep around 1:30 after arriving at the HQ at 12:50. We then woke up at 4:45AM and got on the road again ASAP. Yandre drove the other four of us to Memphis, and most of them went to sleep or at least tried. I tried too, but couldn't with the music and stuff, so I read this cool book that Yandre had in his car about Christian masculinity. (I'll get the title on here later, hopefully.) Anyway, Mike got tired eventually and we pulled over at a gas station. He wanted me to drive. I wasn't sure at first, but this is Southwestern. It is time to get me to regain my confidence in driving.
So, I drove as carefully as possible down the highway to Memphis. We made it to Memphis and we were making wrong turns right and left. We finally got off the Interstate though, and we were on the right road, but I immediately noticed that we were headed in the wrong direction. I was told that I should turn around right away. (We were in a hurry to get Mike and Dahnell to their student manager's meeting.) So, I got into the left turning lane at the next intersection, put on my turn signal and waited for the traffic signal. It turned green, and I took a left. Then two cars hit the passenger side of the car one after the other.
It is suprising that they both managed to hit the same spot on the car -- Mike Yandre's door (He was sitting in the back seat; passenger's side.)
Here's more detail as to what happened. I errantly took that left turn. Both cars jumped off the line at the green light. A 76 or 77 year-old woman in a white car hit us first. That stopped her car because we were in a heavily loaded Toyota 4Runner that is like a tank. We kept moving and then a Hispanic guy in an older model Toyota Supra hit the same part of the car.
No one was hurt!
Now, the events at the site of the traffic accident are many and could easily fill another entry. I may even write another entry for them, but I am going to skip to the part where N-Rod (Nick Rodriguez) comes and picks us up and Mike's car is towed, because there is so much more to this day.
OK, so Nick picks us up and we go to the meeting. We walk in very late -- at the tail-end of recognitions. We watched a presentation about the hiring environment for the 2003-2004 year, and then listened to a guest speaker. After that we had one more recognition -- Lunch of Champions -- and then we were dismissed for lunch. I didn't have a ride and knew that five more of us didn't either, so I decided to ask the District Sales Manager, Brian Ross, for one. I figured it was a ballsy move that would pay off, if for no other reason than to reward my boldness. So, Yandre and I rode with B. Ross to Neely's, which is this Nationally renowned Bar-B-Q restaurant in Memphis. SW had reserved us a huge room, and set up an all-you-can-eat catering-style buffet of this awesome Bar-B-Q -- all for $10 after tip and everything (no cost if you won lunch of champions.)
After lunch we all waddled over to this skating rink that was next door. Everyone did personal conferences and a lot of us rented skates and skated. I made telephone calls instead of skating though, because of the accident that was entirely my fault. There was no pie-ing today though. This may have had something to do with the fact that our org (finally) lost combined with the fact that our org leader's car was just in a serious accident and is now seriously messed up. It may have been that they had no pies around though. Who knows? They didn't tell me, and I even asked, of course.
After all that was done people started heading out -- except for the five of us in the car accident. We didn't have a way to head out. Yandre was working on that though and called every rental car company in town. Finally he had gotten a list of prices and availability and such and got Danny Wilkins to drive him and Yo over to the rental place.
This is where the next big frustration comes into the picture. Mike didn't have major credit card. So, he called me and asked if I did. I did so they came and picked me up. They were in a hurry and yelled at me to get in the car and we rushed back to National Rental car. I left my wallet on my bag after I had checked it to make sure I had the appropriate card. So, we drove another 20 minutes back to the skating rink and got my wallet. Then we drove back to the rental place. When we got there we found out that my credit card wouldn't work for me because it was in my mother's name. Even though I managed to rent a car with it twice already. However, the lady tells us that Budget Car Rental will take debit cards, which is what Mike Yandre had initially tried to use. Frustration!
OK, so we circle around the Memphis airport again -- twice. We did it twice, because Danny saw the spikes at the entrance to the Budget facility and refused to believe it was the entrance. At the second time around I had to get out of the car and ask someone to come tell him he could drive through. So, I do that and we go in and talk to this guy at Budget. He tries his best to help us out, but still Mike and I don't have the right combination to unlock a rental car. I have a major credit card, but it's not in my name, and I have a card with a social security number. Mike has a debit card in his name, but he has no SSN printed on any of his picture IDs. This is all OK, but Mike and I aren't 25 so, they can't help us after all. So, we go to some other rental place. Similar, but different problems. Finally, someone tells us that a passport would work and one of us realizes that Gali has a passport because he is from Panama.
They then drop me back off at the skating rink (where I manage to nap for a while, and I don't even take naps -- I'm just that tired!) and they pick up Gali to go get a one-way car rental. I am napping for a while until Dahnell notices and decides to wake me up. He always does stuff like this. I think he doesn't like me to get sleep or something. He wakes me up to ask if I am done with any and all possible work. I answer yes to most things until he thinks up something for me to do to work ahead and suggests I do that. I didn't want to, but I couldn't go back to sleep at that point so I do eventually anyway.
As we're working Andrew mentions to me that the manager and his wife/gf are grilling out in the back of the skate park and offered to give us hamburgers for free. So, we get cheeseburgers over at the snack counter and he lets us have 20oz bottles of the beverage of our choice. I choose Sprite: Berry Clear and my night is made.
Finally, Gali and Yandre come back in a rental car -- a Ford Taurus. They grab some food and we pack and leave. As all that is happening someone at the skating rink lets me borrow his Sprint picture phone and I call my Dad again. This time I get him, and I break the news to him. He was much less pleased. He had just gotten in to Indianapolis (I think) and had some travel issues too and was not happy with his thought that my insurance company might drop me now.
We then all pile into the Taurus, which is incredibly uncomfortable for the three of us in the back. That makes sleeping very difficult, but we eventually pull it off from time to time. With Yandre and Gali driving us back to Huntsville.
Wait, one more problem. We get sorta lost again, and again it is somewhat my fault and somewhat Yandre's fault. He left his Atlas in the 4Runner, so we relied on my memory. This caused us to make a loop around Memphis on I-240. Finally we got off at the right place and the rest of my memory worked well enough to get us to Huntsville.
It was well after 2AM at that point and Dahnell and I still had to drive back to Scottsboro. At first Dahnell was wanting to do it back to back, despite my thought that we should stay the night at Yandre's HQ and just do it in the morning. Dahnell is pretty stubborn though, and even after Yandre and I strongly suggested we stay the night Dahnell persisted. Finally, he found himself a way to back down though. He heard Blake would be home so he thought it would be cool to stay the night for a chance to see Blake in person. That didn't happen, but I did get some more rest.
We planned to wake up at 5AM, and Yandre and Dahnell told me not to worry about anything and to just go to sleep -- they'd wake me up. That was a laugh. Marie ends up bouncing into my room fresh out of the shower with just her towel on at 6AM sharp. "Wake up guys!" Somehow I managed to launch out of bed with tons of energy and Marie bolts to her room.
That was kinda fun, because I ended up having the chance to run into the living room / HQ office and waking up Yandre and Dahnell. I enjoyed turning the tables on them like that, but I doubt they noticed and I sure didn't rub it in any!
Next, Yandre and I sit down and exchange a bit of information and finally talk about the insurance situation while Dahnell is getting ready. We finish that. I tell him and Marie goodbye and meet Dahnell out in his car. We then drive for over an hour to Scottsboro (I got some more sleep then! woohoo!) and got to our HQ a little after 7AM. More rushing! We were a flurry of activity trying to take showers (Thanks, God! They were working again.) We also had tons of stuff to do, and by 7:44AM I was renting the car again from the lady across the street and demoing her to get my first knock in.
Now, I am still at the HQ. I was making calls to the insurance company, Mike Yandre, Southwestern, Joy, and the city of Memphis (about my ticket -- they didn't put the cost of the find on the ticket nor did they enter the ticket into the compauter. Another plus -- they put Georgia down as my licensing state.) Now I am doing laundry, still making calls, and waiting on call-backs. Soon, I'm going to have to get back out into the book field though. Again, with minimal sleep. Oh well, this week will most certainly be my best week of the summer. There's a pony out there waiting for me somewhere. I'm sure of it.
I still haven't gotten ahold of Joy. Hopefully reading this is not the first time she hears about all of this. If so -- I'm sorry! I tried to reach you a lot!
The funniest thing about all this is that I am now positive that I want to come back and do Southwestern next summer. I have definately had a great number of life experiences in an environment that was very positive and practically loving. Everyone is incredibly forgiving of everything except for laziness and apathy, and they are all out here supporting me and everyone else. So, even though I am not going to be coming home with as much of a profit as I would have liked at the end of this summer I will still be coming home with a lot more confidence about being able to handle the world and the things that it throws at us all. Finally, I will be coming home with a lot more faith, trust and reliance on God.
I am running into people all the time -- all day long. Every once in a while I run into people who have been in sales before. I've even run into people who are currently in sales. I thought I'd go ahead and start a list of different companies that deal in personal sales and offer only straight commssion or very little other than commission to their sales members.
Avon -- Cosmetics
Mary Kay -- Cosmetics
Kirby Vacuums -- Vacuum Cleaners
Southwestern -- Educational books and Bibles
Cutco -- Knives
Townehome -- Cookware
More on the way...
I found out that I was accepted to Reformed Theological Seminary this past Thursday. I am pretty excited about that. Finally, I am getting deeper and deeper into learning things that I am really and truly interested in learning about. How can they call this college!?!
Today I was planning on writing a blog entry on how very much I love having my Jeep. It is so very ironic though, because less than 20 minutes after I had made the plan and set it into my memory so I wouldn't forget it I ended up flipping my Jeep on a gravel road.
The reasons I love my Jeep were growing and growing this summer. It got me out of everything, it handled (addition -- almost) all of my poor driving and kept on going, it looked good even after having been through quite a bit, and it was like a home away from home in Alabama. I loved to just turn back and look at my Jeep in all these different driveways while I'd wait for Ms. Jones or whoever to answer the door. It would make me happy to see this car that I've grown so used to seeing sitting there waiting for me no matter what happened at the door.
Now that Jeep is gone. Certainly, I might be able to have it repaired and get it back in one piece in a few weeks to a month, but I doubt it.
I remember just a few hours ago admiring how beautiful the Jeep looked even with its windshield and hood crushed on the slate gravel. I decided to go ahead and take some pictures of it in its last moments. That made me wish once again this summer that I had a better camera than I do. I am lucky to have a camera to use at all though.
Truthfully, I very well might be lucky to be alive.