Changes

In about two weeks I will face some serious changes in my life. I will no longer be enrolled at UVU. This something that I have not experienced since 2003. I will however be enrolled at the University of Phoenix. I know, I know University of Phoenix is not Harvard, or Stanford. It does however work for me with my full time job, and will allow my two little boys to see their Dad. All of this contingent on if I can pass all my classes at UVU. I pretty much have at least one paper to write for every class and I am not looking forward to it at all. Most of them are due next week. None of them are over 5 pages so it should not be that big of a deal.

I never thought I would be sad be done with UVU. I have learned a lot, and will take a lot of great memories with me. I almost feel like an adult now that I am done with school. The thing I am most excited about is being able to come home nearly every day and spend time with my family. It is not a lot of fun to be at school knowing my boys have not seen me all day. I am very lucky to have a decent job even before I graduate as well. I know the job market is not great at the moment and continues to get worse.

Another change that my will hit me is that I am getting a new Sunday school class in January. I have loved every second of my current class. Sure they talk a lot and are loud, but that is all part of the fun. I was the exact same way when I was there age. Looking back, I cant believe how strong they are at this age. I was not as strong in the church as some of them are right now. I hope my kids are. My wife and both hope that our daughters are like the ones in my class, and same goes for the boys in the class.

I am loving my job at Corda Technologies. With a new CEO though big changes are coming as well. I have my seat belt buckled and am ready for the ride of this company. Being that Corda is a small company, I have a great opportunity to make waves in my career. I hope I can rise to the occasion and do the best job possible so I can be at this company for a long time.

Sometime's you just need to write.

Some people do different things to ease their minds. I am just discovering that one of the things that helps me, is to write. This post may be like a journal entry, I will write what ever is on my mind at that second.

I can 't believe that I am going to be done with school in a few months. I still remember my first semester of Jr. High at Canyon View, thinking that I never wanted to attend college, and that I would be just fine without and education. I did not think I have ever been so wrong about something in my entire life. I fully agree with President Hinckley's council that everyone should get as much eduction as the can. I do not think he was only talking about attending a formal University, I think he was talking about always be learning in your life, and looking for opportunities to learn.

Because of his council and the ultra competitive job market, my formal education will not end at UVU. I am going to pursue an MBA at either Minnesota School of Business, or University of Phoenix. I am very excited, and nervous to take on that challenge. Math is not my thing, luckily there will be minimal math in both of the programs. I am very excited for the other classes besides the Accounting class :( . I also like the way that UOP. Has the MBA program set up. The classes are once a week, for 6 weeks, and you only take one class at a time. I wonder if they let you have the summer off? I doubt it. The best part of all is that I can graduate in 18 months. The program is designed for working professionals. Having to provide for a family, this course would really meet my family and my needs. I do also like a lot of the courses at Minnesota School of Business( classes taught at Utah Career College Campus,) there is not a lot of math involved in that program as well. I am leaning towards UOP, but there is still a lot of things I need to decide before.

This semester in school, I am taking three classes, so far I have attended two of them. Both of those classes are PR related(which is my major,) I love them both. One is a PR writing class, and the other is a general PR class. The instructor is Stephyen Whyte. He is great, he has a ton of experience in the field. Most recently he worked someone named, Martha Stewart. He is a great guy that cares about his students learning, and becoming experts in the field.

I also am talking a PR writing class. It is taught Farrah Chase-Dunn. I really like her a lot. She is also an expert writer, and PR genius. She is an instructor that cares more about her students learning the material and just getting rid of them with a C grade. She has worked in the Fashion industry, and worked for Target. She is a cool person as well that gets involved with her students outside of the class room as well.

In short 6 weeks I will be a father of two boys. I am beyond excited about it. I can not wait for Braxton to have a little buddy to play with. He is very interested in babies right now, I think he has been prepared for Boston to come. Amanda and I were really worried that he would have a difficult time adjusting to the Boston, and stealing his time. Braxton is a big time momma's boy, don't get me wrong he loves to play with me, and have me hold him. BUT when there is a choice to have mom or dad hold him, he picks mom 9/10 times. I think that is all for the time being.

Events upcoming.

This last little while has been very busy for me at work. September 11th is coming up sooner than expected. That is the day of our Best Buddies Day. I am the project manager for that, and I have been working the event for about 1 month now, and am realizing how detail oriented event planners have to be. Luckily I have a lot of support for this event. I am also going to be helping with the Black Tie Dinner for our Convention in October. The theme of the Convention is.... Yeah right like I would go public with that and lose my job. I am not as dumb as I look. I am really starting to get the hang of things in the PR department and am feeling more comfortable  every day. I have also started to play soccer in the mornings with some guys from my department. I am also getting the hang of things on the soccer field as well. I have not scored a goal yet, once I do I will surely post that and a ceremony will be held in my honor later that morning, so says Carson. Things are going well at work. The Tophams are also up for the Holiday weekend. They are some of our best friends. We love spending time with them. That is all for right now. 

Fun Things

This past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to do some pretty things with my internship here. This week we had a lot things to do with the XanGo Cup. On Wednesday, I got to go to my first press conference. We announced that we were renewing our jersey sponsorship with Real Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun to see how they are put together. One of the really fun things that I noticed is that Bob knew what the Founders were going to say before the they said it. I am sure Bob helped them know the questions and have responses ready for them. On Saturday was the actual game VS. Club America. Before the game there was plenty things to do. I had to be at the stadium at 1 to help put a single on every chair in the entire stadium. There are 20,000 chairs at Rio Tinto Stadium, so needless to say it took some time to do that. We had a good group of volunteers that really did a great job. We got done doing that at about 4:30. After that we waited for some leaders coming from Mexico, they were going to be filmed and have dinner inside the Budweiser room. The were so excited to be there to watch the match it was really a lot of fun to feel their energy. At about 5:35 I finally got to relax and sit down. My wife was not able to attend the game because she was at Tage's birthday party. So I was all by my lonesome self. It was not that bad, I wish my wife would have been there however for the halftime show, because I was the star. Well my and Austin Gunn a co-worker here. We got to be in the Zorb Ball and be pushed around for halftime. We were the bowling ball and we got to knock over some pins for charity it was a lot of fun.We threw out some t-shirts and had a lot of fun. Currently I am working on a magazine article for Obtainer. They are a very popular magazine in Europe. The story has come together so far very well. I am waiting for my second review from my boss, I will post the story once Obtainer prints it.

Where has the time gone?

Wow have I fallen behind a ton. Things are still going really well at the internship. My big project for the semester is going to be the Best Buddies day for our corporate offices. I will be in charge of the entire project. It will be about September 4th is the planned day. We normally have around 300-400 people that come to it. I am really excited to plan and execute the game plan for the event. I gained valuable experience in event planning from my work with the food&care coalition last semester. I will really use that experience with this project. One cool thing that I got to be a part was we recently had our new PR firm for the United States come in. Publicis was the name of the firm. It was a really good opportunity for me to be around PR pros. I was really impressed with these guys. They all ready some great ideas how we can improve our PR efforts in the United States. It was also a great opportunity to meet a lot of our founders, and executives. Through this I have gained a lot of confidence in the people around me. The company really does have the best talent in the industry with us. I really think my two bosses are some of the best minds in PR. I all ready have learned so much from Jeff and Bob. It would be a dream come true to work these two great minds full time. I guess that is not up to me at this moment. This journal thing has not worked at so well. But I will repent and do better.

Falling Behind

I have missed a couple of days. I have been working on a report with the department. This was one report that I was excited to write about. Though I can not say what the topic was, I will just say that I had a fun time writing it. I am very excited for the weekend. We are going up to Midway for a good long weekend. Hopefully I can relax a little bit. We are going up with my in-laws. I do actually enjoy spending time with them. That is all for right now.

Day 4

Yesterday was the best day so far. They definitely put me to work. I got to help with a case study we are doing about the company newsletter. It was very interesting to hear people's thoughts and opinions on the magazine. In the next couple of days, I am going to have the opportunity to write a report on what I found from the focus groups that I got to observe. I really feel like I am becoming part of the department. Everyone has been really nice to me. Although I am still the intern I have not gotten a lot of the normal stuff most college interns get. It just goes to show how great of a company XanGo really is, and how great the corporate communications department really is. The rest of the day I helped Jeff with a project on the Goodness website will be. The rest of the day I read newspapers and tried to find XanGo in the news.