Megan's Quiz

Okay Megan, I'll bite.

1. Who was your first prom date?
Sean Forrester

2. Who was your first roommate?
Nichole Brezel. Ahhh, good times in Nelson Dorm...

3. What was your first alcoholic drink?
A Strawberry Daquiri wine cooler that Maggie gave me....unless you count the Margarita sips that Maggie's Didad would give me at the annual crawfish boils. :)

4. What was your first job?
Limited Too on University Dr.

5. What was your first car?
1999 Ford Mustang

6. Who was the first person that texted you yesterday?
Derrick Doyle

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning?
My mom. Her phone call woke me up. :)

8. Who was your first grade teacher?
Mrs. Smith. Definitely in my top 3 teachers.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
Boston, Massachusetts with my grandmother and cousin, Allyson in the summer between 4th and 5th grade.

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was with you?
I don't think I ever snuck out of my house....there was really no reason to! My parents pretty much let me do anything I wanted as long as it wasn't dangerous.

11. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends with them?
Elly Burnor. Haven't talked to her since high school. and Maggie Weaver...um yeah!

12. Where was your first sleep over?
Not a clue! Probably at the Weaver's house or Elly's.

13. Who was the first person you talked to this morning?
My mom

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time?
My aunt JoJo's wedding in elementary school sometime. I was so proud to be the flower girl!

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Look at the time and curse the world. I am NOT a morning person.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to?
I think probably Al Denson when I was in 5th grade or so. There might have been one before that, I just don't really remember

17. First tattoo or piercing?
Ears pierced when I was 10. Thats about it.

18. First foreign country you went to?
Brazil my Sophomore year of college. That was when I first caught the travel bug!

19. First crush?
I think my first strong crush was a guy named Allyn Steele (yes, thats how he spelled his name) sometime in elementary school. He liked a girl named Jessie though, so it was VERY upsetting.

20. When was your first detention?
I never had detention. I got lunch detention one time in 6th grade where you couldn't go to the playground after eating and had to clean tables, but I don't remember what for.

21. What was the first state you lived in?
Texas

22. Who was your first kiss with?
I think my first peck kiss was in middle school in the church van but I don't remember who with (wow that sounds so wrong now). First real kiss was my first real boyfriend, Hoyt McMillan Freshman year of High School.

23. Who was the first person to break your heart?
Sean. That was the first guy that things ended badly with.

24. Do you still think about that person?
Not really. My first year of MBA I saw him on TCU campus...he was still in undergrad (he's two years older than me) and I was getting my Masters, so my malicious side was really happy. :)

That was probably more fun for me than for you, but oh well. Its fun to reminisce sometimes!

The thing I DID buy Trey (because it was really cheap....)

After all of the things I didn't buy Trey, I finally found something that fit my budget. At first Trey was really excited about it...

Then he realized there was better stuff that I didn't get him.... But finally decided that it was better than nothing....
Hope you enjoy it, Viking Trey!

P.S. Do you like the empty shelves of my new apartment in the background? Its kind of sad...

Brandon Kennedy

Brandon, do you still read this? If so, I have to say I saw your children last night at Altamesa's VBS and oh. my. goodness. They are entirely too cute to be yours. :)

They definitely did get the Kennedy lack of shyness though! I haven't seen the twins since they were infants and when I was talking to your dad, Madison walked right up to me, showed me her juice, and then insisted I hold her (that was a really tough thing to talk me into, ya know!). Dylan couldn't be outdone so he started talking to me about the show and showing me his shoes. SO CUTE! You've done well.

The Worst Feeling In The World:

Standing at baggage claim and all of a sudden realizing you are the only person left waiting for their luggage and there are no bags coming up the belt anymore. And then realizing that you're in Zurich and this is only your connecting flight....there is no way you're getting home with your stuff.

On another subject, have you ever been in a hotel where the shower is in the middle of the room and not in the bathroom? Well as of today, I have!

Also, I think this hotel might be owned by McDonalds. There is a McDonalds in the lobby and I think they're trying to send subliminal messages through the headboards.

Assuming everything goes well (which hasn't been my luck on the logistics side of things this trip), I will be home at 3:00pm tomorrow! Pray for a smooth and safe trip for me.

Things I Would Have Bought Trey (if I wasn't so cheap...)

Land of Vikings...any wonder that half the things I see make me say "That's something Trey needs"?

Here are a couple of things I would have bought Trey if I wasn't so cheap. :)

1. Viking Masks

2. Lots of little trolls
3. One GIANT troll (Thats right, this guy was for sale!)

Also, here is a picture of the variety show people that I said is Maggie's dream job. They performed again the second night of the conference. :)

Tonight is the Swedish Midsummer, the celebration of the Summer Solstice. It is apparently a bigger holiday here than Christmas is! The city is pretty much deserted because everyone goes out to the country for Midsommer, but there is a traditional festival going on at the Open Air Museum Skansen, so I think I'll head down there pretty soon.

Tomorrow evening I am leaving Stockholm. Its been fun, but I am definitely ready to be home!

Toto, I don't think we're in Texas anymore...

I left Stockholm Monday evening to come out to Tammsvik, the conference center about 30 minutes outside of the city. Things have been very...interesting since I got here.

Maggie's Dream Job
I went to dinner on Monday night and found two people who have Maggie's dream job. By day, they run this place, which is very similar to a bed and breakfast. At night, they do a two person variety show - one man and one woman. In between courses of the meal, they did a medley of songs from different decades: 60's before the first course, an Abba medley before the main course, 80's before dessert, and I ended up leaving before the last act. They had a stage and microphones and lights and everything and sang and danced to songs (90% were Swedish, so I didn't know any of it!) All I could think of the whole time was "Maggie would LOVE this!"

Norwegians, Icelandics, and Danes
After I left dinner, I met up with three Britons who where here with Sabre as well. Two have been to this conference every year and warned me "Stay away from the Norwegian, stay away from the Danes, and REALLY stay away from the Icelandics!" Apparently their drinking makes the Irish look like the picture of sobriety. They also gave me a tip - get a Coke, tell the Scandinavians it was Rum and Coke, and don't really drink it, because if you have an empty glass, it WILL be refilled for you. I took their advice and was extremely glad I did. Those people were partying all night long and when we got up the next morning, they started off the day with another beer! It is crazy!

Caution: Men in Underwear
Bet that headline got your attention! Yesterday was a networking day with different contests for the clients. One was to build a raft that they would row around a course in the lake out of barrells, wood, and rope. They had about an hour to do it, and about halfway through, all of the European men started taking off their clothes, and most ended up in just their underwear! And we're not talking Boxers here, or even Boxer-Briefs. We'll just leave it at that. Can you imagine going to a conference with your coworkers and a bunch of people you don't know and stripping down to basically nothing? I am definitely not in Texas anymore!!

Well, its lunch time, so I'm going to go get something to eat. Tonight there is a boat outing after the conference, so I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories there. Stay tuned!

Blogging From Sweden

As with most of my traveling posts, I was going to start this one out saying "Hello" in the native language....until I realized that I still haven't figured that out here! I have learned not a single word of Swedish so far, which is really unusual for me. I vaguely remember Ryan telling me about calling his friend Jonas and saying "He San" or something like that, but I certainly haven't tried it to confirm it.

This trip has been my most stressful trip ever. I had some extremely close calls on the way over here that almost caused me to miss my connecting flights and almost lost my luggage. Once I got here, I was so exhausted from the past couple weeks and jet lag that I slept from 5:00pm until 6:00am the next morning. But that got me nice and rested for a great day yesterday when I saw most of the good stuff in Stockholm!

I'll make my next post about the actual things I saw, but for now, I'll just leave you with a few observations:

1. I have never seen as many natural blondes in one place in my life. That being said, there are more brunettes than I expected from stereotypes (including the Royal Family here), but there are still a lot of blondes


2. This is the first country I've been in besides America where there is a lot of variety in types of restaurants. It is just like the USA from that aspect - any type of food you crave, there is a restaurant nearby.


3. If you didn't know where IKEA was from, you would know it as soon as you got here! Everything looks like it came straight out of an IKEA catalog. Even the McDonalds is decorated in those distinctive straight lines and bright colors. Here is a picture of the McDonalds I went in while I was waiting for the Stockholm Tourist Center to open

Well, I'm off. I've got one more major attraction I want to see before I head out to Tammsvik for the conference this evening.

Fire Update

No fire - just fire alarm...read my last post.

Its now 5:33 AM and the fire department has just now gotten the alarms turned off. Apparently this guy didn't just burn something, he burned ALOT because the entire hallway smells like smoke and my apartment smells like smoke. Ugh. Flashbacks to freshman year of college when the dorm room of two girls down the hall from me in Nelson burned to the ground. They had to hire in special crews to get the smoke smell and soot out. Maybe I can at least get some rent money back!

Looking on the bright side, I met several of my neighbors while we were waiting in the parking garage trying to get away from the noise! Had to do it some time, might as well be now. :)

I'm off to bed to try to sleep for another hour or so. Good morning everyone!

4:50 AM

Its 4:50AM and I just learned a very interesting fact about my apartment: if your neighbor burns something, the entire building's Fire Alarm goes off....and doesn't look like its going off any time soon. Fun.

On another note, this is a good time for me to say I'll see you all in a week! I leave for Stockholm today! :)

P.S. - Now I hear the fire trucks! This should be interesting - its the guy 2 doors down from me who is causing the commotion. He burned something REAL bad!

Milk on a shelf?

I am not a morning person. When I have to get up for work, I basically get out of bed with just enough time to get ready, grab a Diet Dr. Pepper to drink in the car and run out the door. Needless to say, not much time for breakfast in there.

Everyone is always talking about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so lately I've been trading in my Dr. Pepper for a Slim-Fast shake...not quite a full breakfast, but definitely an improvement. For the first time today, I've noticed the first ingredient on the list: Fat Free Milk. Now I know that I bought these off of a shelf - not in a refrigerated section. For the past two weeks I've been drinking milk that has been sitting out on a shelf. Does anyone else think that's kinda weird?

Gotta Love the "Reverse Commute" :)

And this is the part of the freeway where the other side had started to clear up! ;)

Why do I love the airline industry again?

Story 1: DFW has been insanely stormy this spring...it seems like every other day we're under severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Along with storms comes flight delays. I was flying to Houston for my old roommate, Deborah's wedding on Wednesday and there was a huge storm that morning so everything was delayed. Luckily, I am platinum on American so the gate agents were quick to find me an earlier flight (AKA a flight that should have left already but was still there because of the delays so actually left at the time I was supposed to leave) but there were people who had been stuck at the airport since that morning (it was 4:00pm). The exact same thing happened on the way home and I was able to actually get home earlier than I was supposed to.

I wish I could say I felt bad about using my privileges to get a confirmed seat on a flight with a 25 person standby list, but I really don't! :) But seriously, why do I love an industry that constantly disappoints customers over things that can't be controlled like the weather?

Story 2: Next Friday, I leave for Stockholm, Sweden to speak at a conference. Yesterday, I got an email from one of our sales directors in Europe saying that we had gotten to the second round on a proposal we submitted to an airline in Norway and wanted to know if I could leave two days earlier to take a meeting in person. I called our corporate travel department and it would cost $2000 to change my ticket to leave two days early. $2000! The original plane ticket only cost $1500! You'd think that working with airlines we'd be able to get some sort of break, but no. (Needless to say, I am not traveling to Norway on Wednesday!)

Why do I love an industry that charges one customer $100 for a ticket and the person sitting right next to them $500 for the exact same product? No other industry could get away with that! (Of course, my company is the one enabling to them to do that, so I guess I can't talk too badly about it! Ha!)

Sometimes I really think I'm crazy to love the airlines as much as I do, but right now I can't imagine working in any other industry. I must just be a glutton for punishment. :)