Tonight Baxter is having a slumber party over at our friend Bobbi Jo and Tom Chapman’s apartment. They asked to “borrow” him for the night so they could do a charitable dog walk with him in the morning! It’s win-win for everyone–Baxter gets attention and exercise, the Chapmans get a night with the hound, and we get a night away from the hound! While Baxter was away, we had our second volleyball game of the new season over in Pflugerville for Bart’s ACES league. Lauren and I were teamed up at random with a few others, some who I knew, others I did not. But we are off to a 2-0 start. I’m not much of a volleyball player due to my poor depth perception and uncoordination and lack of knowledge of the rules, plus I find it difficult to draw the line between competitive and social.
Wednesday night was the fifth night of my second karaoke league, and it was Battle of the Sexes night where men had to sing songs by women and vice versa. I spent way too much time debating my song choices, but finally landed on “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Celine Dion, which is kinda cheating because Meat Loaf later covered it and that was the version I was mimicking. In this league it’s no longer just enough to go sing a song, you kinda need to have some sort of shtick–some sort of comedy or gag or costume. All I could think of was bringing along our stuffed beagle and sing to it, adding in a few silly improv lines like “there were nights of endless pleasure, it was more than any laws allow… literally, beastiality is illegal!” For the most part it was well received. Teammate Brian Mego dazzled the crowd with “At Last” by Etta James, all while downing a full beer which is tough to do with so few breaks in the song.
The previous week Brian and I teamed up for Soundtrack night by nailing the Aladdin song “A Whole New World” with Brian doing the part of Princess Jasmine. Later, Brian used a Kermit puppet to perform “Rainbow Connection” from the Muppet Movie. I also performed a critically-acclaimed rendition of Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “Dammit Janet,” doing the parts of both Brad and Janet, rapidly switching costumes in between lines.
At work I (and many others in the department) have officially changed roles. I went from Interactive Merchandising Coordinator to E-mail Marketing Coordinator. My role with the company is now 100% e-mail related. Basically every major e-mail we send out will somehow go through me. That includes everything from promos and newsletters to order confirmation and abandoned cart e-mails. There are way more e-mails going out every day than I ever would have envisioned. Everything runs out of a very complex system called Responsys. In order to get up to speed on the latest revelations of the industry, I will be traveling out to San Francisco with manager Shenea in May for a few days for a Responsys conference. I didn’t expect to ever become a full-time e-mail guy, but I have been told it is a good career step.
Before any of that, we are busy here preparing for our next Austin visitors. For the second straight year on Kate’s spring break, the Rosok family will be flying south to stay with us for a few days next weekend. It just so happens that it’s also Opening Day of the baseball season while they’re here, a perfect opportunity for me and Tim Rosok to spend some bonding time while watching the Twins Tigers game.
I guess that’s about it from here.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 