What an awesome Monday...

Hey Friends,

This blog is likely going to be short, because it's 11 PM and I'm pretty pooped. Although, I am still reeling after the overtime win by the Steelers on Monday Night Football. That makes it 14 straight wins at home on MNF. The Steelers started so slowly, and it looked like their season was in the tank - that's how bad they were playing. Thankfully they turned on the offense in the second half and got some timely turnovers and touchdowns. Once they had momentum it was all over but the cryin'. If you watched the game, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

I'm still not getting much sleep these days. I'm still blaming it on the altitude, but that's really only part of it. I still wrestle with something that happened before I left Edmonton; but at least it's only on my mind when I slow down enough to think. So far I've been pretty busy, so it hasn't been too often. The huddle this morning was also weighing on me quite a bit, but it went really well today. All is in the past, and the events of last week are all but forgotten. Thank God! That was a huge relief. I was listening to calls all day, and I got a chance to meet some more cool people at work. One guy, Mark, was from Massachusetts, and he lived near Springfield (where the basketball hall of fame is) and his neighbour's grandfather was the guy who invented the 3-point line. Haha, how cool is that! Yeah, good times with the peeps at Homestead so far.

For lunch we went out for Chick-fil-A. It's an all chicken fast food place. I highly recommend it if you get a chance to eat there; but, don't bother on Sundays, because the owners are Mormon and all franchises are closed on Sunday! lol. I wish they knew that the Sabbath was made for man, and not the other way around. :P

After work I did the new usual: went to the clubhouse for a run. This time I explored a little, and I found a half basketball court. It had the grippiest (?) floor ever and a basket that I couldn't miss on from just about anywhere. I broke the 8 mph barrier today, which I was stoked about; but I had to alter the routine a little as a compromise. Still, I think 3+ miles is good no matter how I get it done. I was kinda peeved though, because the only TV close to my treadmill was missing the channel button...so I was stuck glancing over at Hannah Montana on the Disney channel. : That was almost enough to make me quit.

After the run I made a light snack and tried to find the football game. The TV at my place is kinda funky too. Every other channel is in Spanish, and there are blank channels mixed throughout. It feels like panning for gold when I channel surf - there's a rare piece of gold surrounded by crap. :P But, I found the game at the start of the second quarter, so it wasn't so bad. It was a funny coincidence that I made Chunky soup for dinner, because that's the official soup/meal of the NFL. I thought it was quite fitting. :)

Anyway friends, that's about all for today. Catch ya on the flip-side!

-Dizzy in Denver

PS - Don't forget to subscribe... ;)

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Hey Friends,

What a relaxing day it's been. I rolled out of bed at about 10 this morning, and was plenty rested. I pretty much lounged around while working on a PowerPoint presentation for work. After that got boring I went to the clubhouse for a run. I'm getting better everyday, hitting at least 3 miles and going at a 2/.5 or 3/.5 pace (that's 2 and 3-minute intervals for every .5 degree speed increase). I haven't hit the 8.0 pace yet, but I'm close.

After the run I went back and threw my swim shorts on and went to the pool. I met a couple fellow tanners there, Jessica and Simca. They gave me the scoop on what's good to do in the area and what's good in Denver too. So far I think I'm ahead of the game in terms of getting connected here. I'm going out with Jessica and her friends sometime this week I think, but definitely making it back to the apartments with plenty of time to sleep. I definitely do not want a repeat of Thursday night...unless it happens on a Friday or Saturday. :)

The sun was great by the pool, with not a cloud in the sky. I laid around for a couple hours, which is something I truly missed doing this summer. After the tanning sesh I made some bacon and eggs for lunch. The other day I bought some Farm Fresh cage-free eggs and some center-cut bacon. I wish I had a better frying pan, because the pan I have here is a bit warped and doesn't heat evenly (I'm sure Erin can attest to what a pain that is). Either way, it was delish! But soooo filling! A nap was definitely in order after that meal.

When I awoke from my nap it was just about time for the Sunday Night Football kickoff. It never ceases to amaze me how much production goes into the NFL. I can't wait to see a Broncos game. I'm trying to get tickets to the Monday Night Football game between Denver and Tampa (apparently a big ticket here in town). I'm looking at $85 and way up to see the game. If that game falls through, then hopefully I can get some tickets for my birthday (Nov 2) when the Dolphins will be in town. That will be a great game for sure. The Bears beat the Eagles tonight, and it went right down to the wire. The CFL isn't like that at all, which is kinda why I prefer NFL.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now, and I'm a little nervous about the "huddle" tomorrow at work. Hopefully this whole blemish at work will soon be a foggy memory. Perhaps I'll post the letter that I wrote to the organization... It's quite wordy for what really shouldn't be a big deal if you look at the context. I guess I'm biased though, and the folks here don't know me yet. We'll see how it goes, and I'll keep you posted.

Oh! Speaking of posted: I put up some pics from my first week here in Denver. They're on Facebook because Blogger doesn't have good photo capabilities. You should check'em out and post comments for me. I really miss everyone back home, and the length of this trip has yet to fully sink in.

Well, that's all for now friends. Have a great Monday!

-Dizzy in Denver

Still Spinning...

Soooo, this little trip has become something much more....controversial. Thursday was an interesting night. It was our trainer's last day in Denver before going back to Menlo Park, and we thought it would be fun to go out and have a fun night in Denver. Yeah...good idea at the time.

It was a really great evening, and I built some good relationships with my co-workers, so I guess it wasn't all bad. We did lose track of time, and ended up missing our train back to the apartments. Fortunately one of our co-workers let us stay at her apartment. The crappy thing was that we had to get up at 6 AM so we could catch the train back to Lone Tree (the suburb we're staying in). By the time we got back to our apartments it was just after 8 AM; leaving us with under an hour to get in for work. No big deal right? That's lots of time. Well, it would have been if we didn't decide to have a quick power nap.

We ended up getting in a few hours late. Still, I didn't think it would be a huge deal, because we were on our own for the day and were to work on building our websites/storefronts. Although I thought there would be zero business impact, I was very very wrong. I am now wading through the fallout of a shock wave that has been sent right on up the corporate food chain, and am embarrassed beyond a level that I never could have comprehended. I'm still a superstar, but my brand (and Intuit's) has been quite tarnished from the whole affair. If you want more details on this whole thing, then you'll have to subscribe to my blog. For now I have to look on the bright side. And this is it: I'm part of the most visible and socialized business case and all eyes were on me before; but now, all those eyes are watching twice as close now. This is a good thing, because when I now blow everyone away with my performance, I know that there are twice as many people who will recognize it. At least, this is my hope.

Well friends, today is a maintenance day for me; filled with laundry and dishes and even PowerPoint too. I think I'm going to post some pics of Denver and the office today, so make sure you check them out. I'll make a link for you all so that they're easy to find. Hmmm...maybe I'll go tan at poolside for a bit today; I think I've earned it. ;)

Ciao for now friends,

-Dizzy in Denver

the ONION...

Hey Friends,

It's been another great day thus far. We went out for lunch today, and Palmer found a copy of the Onion in the restaurant where he bought lunch. For those of you who don't know, the Onion is "America's finest news source." It's hilarious that they make that claim, because the Onion is a satirical paper that fabricates all of it's stories. Here's a few examples of the headlines:

"Department of the exterior opens U.S. national park in Norway."
"Man succumbs to 7-year battle with health insurance."
"Tim Robbins tired of being typecast as relatively tall characters."
"McCain campaign nabs top Obama pun writer."

You get the idea. :)

I just thought I'd share the Onion with you, because it made me laugh and brightened my day - maybe it'll do the same for any of you who could use a little cheer. I'm almost on my way to downtown Denver, and I'm not sure if there will be any more blogging tonight. So I hope you all are having a good night, and make sure you stay tuned for pics; I'll be uploading them when I get some more spare time.

Ciao for now friends,

-Dizzy in Denver

Papa John's and Absinthe...

Hey Friends,

It's a bit late already (12:23 AM), so I don't have much time to blog tonight. Today was pretty awesome though; we had free lunch at work (Papa John's) and learned all about Clay Aiken coming out of the closet. haha. Not quite, we learned some other things, like how to get traffic to your website. Anyway, it was a good day at Homestead, but the rest of the day was much more memorable.

After work I went for another run at the clubhouse, and felt absolutely great for the 3 miles I put in. After that, Palmer and I went to the light rail station to catch a ride to Union Station in Denver. The sunset was beautiful across the mountains. When we arrived at Union, when wandered to a place called Rock Bottom (no irony needed here). There we had a nice sampler of some micro-brewed beers, and enjoyed some great food. From there we went to The Pour House, an Irish pub/bar with great people serving honestly. I had a great blueberry martini, and then ventured further with some absinthe. Yeah, 136 proof...black licorice...with fire. We had the best bartender - Captain Curt. He was a great person to conversate with, and we got lots of good Denver tips - particularly regarding the purchase of scalped tickets. You'll see the pics once I post them, but the Pour House was a really cool place to be - even on a Wednesday.
On the way back, Palmer and I got into a nice dialogue about religion and God. Not what I expected, but a stimulating dialogue none the less. Iron sharpens iron, and maybe co-worker sharpens co-worker. We'll see how that goes. I'm still in process on a lot of things, and I certainly welcome the fires of testing. That's really the only way to get to that pure thing you believe.

Well, that's all he wrote for this evening folks. I hope you subscribe to this blog, otherwise this exercise is entirely for my benefit, and you won't get to share in the fun. I can't wait to get back to see your faces and hear your voices; I truly miss them.

Until then,

-Dizzy in Denver

While running...

I was inspired by this Citi Bank commercial while I was running on the treadmill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s_lVOCfUXQ

Every night you sleep, but your dreams are wide awake;
Because ambitions - never sleep,
Aspirations - never sleep,
Goals - never sleep,
Hopes - never sleep,
Opportunities - never sleep,
The World - never sleeps...

So true. It's a restless world when you've got hopes, aspirations, goals, and opportunities.

Where's the rest?

-Dizzy in Denver

Day 2-3

Okay, so I'm a bit behind because I started my blog a bit a day later than planned, so I have to condense 2 days into one blog so I can catch up. Where to begin...

The first day at Homestead was a bit surreal. This whole project has been a bit foggy from day one, and I still don't know what to expect. All I know is that the people I've met so far are really cool. Dean Arcamo, our trainer for week one, is a straight up genuine person who is passionate about helping us learn and get grounded in the ways of Homestead. He reminds a lot of my friend Jon Chung, who is also a really great person to know and befriend. This is cool, because my friend Jon is in Malaysia and I've been missing him a lot lately; so I've really come to appreciate Dean and all that he's doing for us. On Monday we learned some really basic stuff about the CRM, and the history of Homestead. I was really surprised to see how much Intuit and Homestead mesh together on so may levels. The corporate culture is very similar, but I think Homestead may have a bit of an edge on Intuit. It's too early to tell, but so far I think the Homestead model of business is a bit counter intuitive to the way Intuit does things. This isn't bad though, because lets face it, Intuit makes way more money than Homestead; so, we must be doing something right. Either way, I'm anxious to see how much of each company "rubs off" on the other.

The first day of work was great; but, the first day of corporate living was even better. Even though I had to wrestle with Comcast to get my interwebs hooked up, it was a great day (thanks to a Comcast rep named Michael). He told me not to tell you that he was the best (he said it was his secret), but I have to look out for my fellow Mike (it's kinda my secret too...shhhh.). Once my internet was connected I went for a nice hot-sweaty-makeup-run. It felt great to get back on my feet and just go. I love the New Balance commercials, because they capture so much truth about life, even though they're selling shoes (which are great by the way). I can't wait to go get my run on today.

So, Tuesday was another great day; jam packed full of info about domains, emails, and other good things like that. We got to listen in on calls again; it's what the Homestead folks call "ride-alongs". There aren't any pods like at Intuit; rather, they have people sitting side-by-side, so they're closer together and less separated. It's cool that way because the person next to you is more of a friend and resource that way, and there's this camaraderie there that is a little different than the Intuit flavor. So far the ride-alongs have been the most helpful in understanding "how it happens". We've learned a bit about the processes and tools to make it happen, but the execution part has been stellar. It seems like there's more respect to the agents than there is for the ones back home (for the most part anyway).

The best part of the day was meeting Bob Olsen. He's kind of a big deal. He used to work for GoDaddy.com, until Justin (CEO of Homestead) lured him to the company with his ideals and attitude. The guy just spit motivation without even blinking. I was pretty stoked to meet him, because it's always so refreshing to meet people who have the same zeal for life as I do. I'm sure he knows how to get Bronco tickets too :) Anyway, that was Tuesday at work.

After we got back to the apartments I went for a walk to get my hair cut. I soon realized that nothing was in close walking distance. 45 minutes later, I arrived at Great Clips. Vicki, I hope you can forgive me, but my hair needed cutting. For those of you who don't know, Vicki is my stylist, and she really is the best at what she does; just an overall super cool person. Anyway, I made the trek to Great Clips, and I really didn't know if I was going to make it out alive. I'm not a big fan of chain haircutting places, because they just don't put the love into a cut like somebody who's getting more money! (Vicki is the exception though, she's good to me and it isn't because of the money). So I have yet to wash my hair since the cut and see what kind of mess I'm working with. I'm nervous even now... I mean come on, I paid $15 for nervousness. Sheesh, I can only imagine what a woman must think when she gets her glory cut.

After I made the long walk back to my place, I ran into Palmer at the corner. I made a detour with him to the 7-11, and got a lovely assortment of US only goods (you'll see once I upload the pics - Kev, you're gonna freak out!). From there we went to the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant, and had some great food and some awesome beer. I had what I call "steak tacos", but I don't really know what the Mexican name was. It was one of those tough pronouncer type dishes. I drank an Agave Wheat draft beer, which was quite nice; and, to finish the meal I had an Agave martini made with some Patron Silver tequila. Very delicious, and very strong. It made the walk home go by quite quickly though. I'm not sure if the altitude was a factor...but let's just go with it and say the thin air made me a bit tipsy. ;)

Here I am now, writing today's blog, about to go for a run or a workout...not sure which will be easier at this point. I think I did a pretty good job of catching up on my blogging, what do you think? I need some feedback so I know what the people want to hear :P Let me know, okay? :)

Cheers friends, until tomorrow,

-Dizzy in Denver

Day 1

Here I am, blogging in Denver. I'm kinda new to this whole blog thing, but it seems easy enough. I guess my goal with this blog is to keep all my friends in the loop while I'm away on business. If you find yourself reading this blog, I hope you'll comment on it so I still feel connected too. So here goes...


I arrived yesterday in Denver at about 5-ish. The trip went really well. Here's a tip for all you travellers out there: fly on Sunday! The airport (YEG) was emptier than a bachelor's fridge (I guess that's me included). The dumb thing about it was that my flight was booked with Air Canada, but it was actually a United Express flight...so all the rules and fees were different. I ended up paying for both of my checked bags! How rude, eh? US customs was even deader. You might think that's a good thing, but when there's nobody around except you and the customs officers and you're asking for an I-94 (multiple entry visa thingy), it gets a little nerve-racking.

I knew there was nothing to worry about, but I was still shaking like a leaf when I gave the customs girl my well-crafted-lawyer-letter. I couldn't quite hear the questions she was asking me, so I kinda fumbled with some of the answers. I thought "great, she must think I have an eight-ball in my a#%. I'm screwed." That's about when her Geiger counter went off. She looked at me with suspicious eyes... I looked back with puppy-dog eyes, hoping to neutralize her. She asked if I had any medical procedures recently; I said no. Then she leaves her booth and questions everyone in the room. Talk about a confidence booster; I thought for sure I was going to be denied entry. So she comes back to her booth, and tells me to come with her to "the processing room." I didn't care what she called it, to me it might as well been the rape room; I clinched a little. I was 80% sure I was going to be violated; thank God I was wrong.

I just waited in a side room for 5-10 minutes, and then another officer gave me my passport with my I-94 stapled in it, and sent me on my way - quite courteously too (what a change). All in all, it was a quick process, but I ended up waiting almost 2 hours at the gate. We caught a good jet stream and landed in Denver a bit early.

The airport in Denver is pretty cool; it kinda reminded me of Disneyland. When you get off the plane you go to a lower transportation level and wait for an LRT to pick you up and take you to the baggage claim. I really wish I knew that at the time =P The signage is practically non-existent, and everyone is wandering around like lemmings or being herded like cattle...okay, maybe it's more like rustled - they were rustled up like cattle. After a little bit of wandering, mixed with some instinct and a little prayer -we found our baggage claim! :) (There's like over a hundred baggage claims). We also found our co-worker who went the day before Ryan and I. So off we went...to hunt the car. 25 minutes later...we reach the outer parking lot, and stop for water and snacks to take us the rest of the way. Haha, just kidding - there was no water and snacks. Finally we got to our awesome SUV (thanks rental place for overbooking your mid-size vehicles and upgrading us to a brand new Chevy).

From then on it felt like I had arrived. The air is thin here, and I started to feel light-headed and a little dizzy within hours (hence the name of the blog). We dropped off our stuff at our amazing apartments (stay tuned for pics), and went out to buy some essentials. By this time we needed some food pretty badly, so we ate at Via Baci, this classic Italian pizza place that makes almost everything from scratch. Yum! From there we went across the parking lot to Super Target to buy groceries.

So here's my deal with Target: I get mesmerized there. This happens to me in the regular Targets, so imagine me in a Super Target. Yeah, I pretty much became retarded for however long we were in there (I not only lost track of time, but also lost all concept of time). Really though, how can you not get lost in a place that has almost a dozen different types of Mini-Wheats?? I'm sure I spent a good 45 minutes in the cereal aisle. Here's the flavors I can remember: blueberry muffin, strawberry delight, vanilla yogurt creme, maple sugar, cinnamon streusal, brown sugar, vanilla frosted, regular, and.... I think that's it. Oh, but those were the regular size Mini-Wheats; they also had an assortment of bite-size Mini-Wheats. I wanted to get the blueberry muffin kind, but I couldn't discriminate against any of the other flavors - they all looked sooo good. So I ended up getting Wheaties (how can you go wrong with the breakfast of champions?). That's one thing I absolutely love about the States - they have a huge selection of everything. Oddly enough, they had no All Bran Buds (my fave). I was pretty choked at the time, but that subsided when I found the organic milk and the Tropicana orange juice (Mmmm...). I bought everything with my credit card, because I didn't grab any US funds before I left, and I had to sign using a stylus and some touch screen. How hurting is that? Have you ever used those things? I'm sure it was me who signed, but the signature looked like the scribblings of a little child. I don't think signing for stuff means anything anymore. Anyway... that was the "in a nutshell" version of the adventure out to Denver.

I'm absolutely loving it here. It's nice to get away and have some solitude. I can't wait to see how the rest of this trip unfolds; and I hope you can't wait to read about it. :)

Ciao for now,

Dizzy in Denver