Low Carb What???

Is everything on the path to low-carbdom?

Awesome News!

I may have told some of you about this already, but I am exceedingly proud of myself for having taking it upon me to do a whole lot of extra work and planning and probably not get a whole lot of credit for it, that I had to share....

Back in February, John mentioned to me that Wil Wheaton, (who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek : The Next Generation, starred in Stand By Me, and now the blogger behind www.wilwheaton.net) had a book coming out in the very near future. He also said that we should have him in for a book signing. Well, at first I thought, yeah sure, that would be cool, but Peggy (our event coordinator) would never get it together enough to get someone like Wil in for a signing. Then I realized..... that I could! So I sent Wil a little email...

"I am a supervisor at the new Borders Bookstore in Hollywood, CA (on the corner of Sunset and Vine) and I was wondering if coming in for a talk/signing is something you might be interested in...
I know you probably get hundreds of e-mails like this, but I am interested in widening the scope of the events traditionally offered in our store, and thought you would be a great event for our store!
Let me know if this is something that you would be interested in doing, and I can get the wheels in motion. If not, I understand.
Thanks for your time.
-Julie Verive"

and thought I would never hear anything back....

The very next day, I open my email and in pops an email from Wil -

"Hey Julie,

YES!

I would love to do that. I'm CC-ing my publicity goddess, so she can be in the loop on this, too.

I look forward to talking about this with you further.

Wil"

and I was thrilled. So I continued correspondence with Wil and his "people" at O'Reilly Publishing, and got some ideas, but finally had to pass the official planning off to Peggy, the event coordinator.... Again, thinking nothing would come of it, I forgot about the whole thing for a while....

For some reason, last week I decided to email Peggy to see if she had actually followed up and made a plan with Wil and his "people." I get a response back within hours that basically they had decided to have the event this summer rather than spring because Wil's second book comes out in June/July. So they were thinking about having the event in July, and would I still be interested in hosting?

YES!

I would love to do that!

So it appears that Borders Hollywood will be hosting an afternoon with Wil Wheaton on July 18, 2004 at 2pm - all thanks to me! It is times like these that make me love my job and the opportunities that I have to make a difference in the lives of Greater Los Angeles geeks.

YAY!...I guess....

Well, my phone interview went well, I am being passed on to the LA District Manager for Assistant Manager positions in Beverly Hills, Studio City and Santa Monica. The recruiter seemed impressed with my level of knowledge about Cafe Operations, and it sounds like the job I am currently doing at Borders is really on par with the Assistant Manager positions at strictly coffeehouse establishments.

I still don't know how I feel about the whole thing. I'm excited one minute and anxious the next. Part of me really wants this job, and part of me thinks it would be really stupid to take it. I know a lot of the part of me that wants the job wants it for the bump in pay (I'm assuming there's a bump in pay, I wouldn't take it otherwise) which is not necessarily the best reason to take it. (That's the other part of me arguing back!)

I don't know. Borders has been good to me, and the opportunities are more..... well, more. There are millions more Borders stores with hundreds more positions.... And I've now got two and a half years under my belt - I don't really want to start from nothing again.....

Is a few extra bucks going to make the difference?

Another Opportunity....

So in my support of my wonderful husband, and my attempts to make all of his financial worries go away, I applied for an Assistant Manager position at Peet's Coffee and Tea. I guess they have a new location opening in Pasadena in May, and they are starting to hire for it.

So I have a phone interview tomorrow with the recruiter.... Seems like the same old story, and I'm really trying not to get my hopes up at all, but it could be a really good opportunity.

So I'm going through that whole internal conflict again, about what is best for us now, and what will ultimately end up being better for our future....... Crap like that, it is stressing me out big time.

So, wish me luck - I guess. I'm not sure if I really want it yet.

Summer Concert Series...

In all my life, I have been to a handful of concerts that I really cared about seeing. I still remember the thrill of standing in line for tickets to see Aerosmith at the Shoreline Amphitheater with my mom in 1995, and the excitement of seeing my favorite band (at the time) in real life. Admittedly, we were about 500 billion miles from the stage, and Steven Tyler was nothing more than a bouncing little speck without the aid of the big monitor, but I didn't care!

I went to a few smaller concerts post-Aerosmith that I didn't have much interest in, but ended up being cool (Joe Satriani, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Underworld, They Might Be Giants...) until last summer, when John was dying to see Radiohead live.... The shows were right around the time we were making the big move to Hollywood, so I went for it and bought tickets to the show at the Hollywood Bowl - not really being a fan of Radiohead myself. But they were awesome live, and made me finally appreciate their music!

So here we are, on the cusp of summer 2004, and I find myself wanting to attend another concert this year. There are four people I have always wanted to see live - Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, and Alanis Morissette (yeah, okay, so I have girly taste in music.) Of those four, three will be playing in the Los Angeles area this summer! (I guess Tori is taking a break. ;)

What do I do????

Nothing New...

Shannon Elizabeth came in to work again... The excitement is lessened....

John started his new job today, it seems to have gone okay. I miss him a lot during the day and can't imagine how he manages to keep himself busy through all that time! (Okay, I do, but I don't intend on writing a feature length screenplay anytime soon....)

Easter was very nice, John and I spent all weekend in OC. It was weird, like the trips we used to take down to visit John's family, but without the 5 hours of driving before and after.... I kept dreading the drive home, and then remembering that we live in Hollywood now, wonderful glorious Hollywood.

Easter candy rocks! Now is the time to go to Target and buy it all at 50% off!

Two in a Row!

Today, in the cafe at work, I saw not one, but two celebrities.... Okay, their level of celebrity is maybe not what one might hope to see, but I thought it rather cool....

First, there was a crazy lady with two loud little kids that was buying a bunch of kids books in the cafe.... I recognized her instantly from her role on "Friends" as Ross's girlfriend Julie, Lauren Tom! She's done a ton of voice-acting, and recently appeared in "Bad Santa", but I will always remember her as the one who was dumped by Ross the same day as my high school boyfriend dumped me.

Right behind her in line was a hottie that I knew I had seen somewhere before, and it drove me crazy until I finally figured out who he was... Most well known as Rick from the first season of the hit FOX show "24", Daniel Bess!

Quite an eventful day!

More Like Mediocre Green Day!

Today, in the madness that has become our poor, understaffed cafe, we served soy lattes all around to a group of what appeared to be punked out teenagers, but in actuality, it was the boys of Good Charlotte!

They were actually very nice and polite and I would have had no idea had my coworkers not informed me of who they were!