AHAHAHAHAHAHA today was SO cool.

I thought I wouldn't get to see Obama because they announced that only 200 people would be randomly selected from 2200 employees and I didn't think I would be a lucky one. Wrong! On Saturday morning I got a call saying my name was picked. I almost pooped myself.

So today, I somehow managed to get a fifth row seat at the speech! I may have budged in front of some people but thats beside the point. Once seated, we all sat there for 3 hours waiting for the president to arrive and it was completely worth it. First the ceo of the company showed up and then the governor of Iowa, several important congressmen, and a bunch of mayors, the king of eastern Iowa, and finally the prince of Persia. They all sat in a section about 20 feet away from me. After a REALLY long time, some official person went up front and took the "Seal of the President of the United States" out of this really nice looking bag and hung it on the front of the podium. A little while later, Obama came jogging into the room waving like a sports star with the typical presidential entrance music and the announcer saying "Ladies and gentlemen, The President of the United States!". He must get really sick of that every time he enters a room. Anyways, he gave his speech and it was good. He knew more about the company than I did. Afterwards, people went up front to shake hands with him and I tried to get there but missed my opportunity by about 1 foot. So close! Oh well, it was still really awesome to be there and I will remember it forever.

Airport-like security at the entrance:

Really serious secret service guy:

Me in front of the podium with the secret service guy lurking in the background:

Mr. President talking about stuff:

So close to a hand shake:

The 2 Most Exciting Things Ever to Happen At Work

These 2 equally exciting things happened within minutes of eachother:

First, I got an email saying that President Obama is going to come and tour the plant on Tuesday. This plant is huge so I most likely will not see him but maybe I will try and wander around and casually bump into him. "Oh, hey there Mr. President, I didn't know you were going to be here today...lets grab lunch and talk policy if I can find time to schedule you in." Fool proof plan. I will make myself sound super busy so then I sound more important to the running of the company and thus to the running nation.

Second, minutes later, I got a phone call from one of the HR people who was in charge of orientation. At the end of the week long event everyone was rewarded with an extremely trendy and completely feminine, long sleeve, button up, denim shirt with a company logo on the breast. It goes with EVERYTHING. Anyways, they didn't have my size so I didn't get one...UNTIL TODAY!!!! The call was that my gorgeous shirt had arrived and I could pick it up. Needless to say, I practically sprinted across the plant to get the one part of my wardrobe that I have been missing.

What a day.

Con Artistry

(1) college students cannot afford to just dish out money. (2) Some stadiums think its fun to overcharge for their track meets (30 dollars a day). That being said, I do not feel bad running a scam to avoid paying for tickets.

Last year, it was not that hard to get into the stadium because they used plastic wristbands and ppl would cut off the extra bit and leave it on the ground. All you had to do was pick one up, situate it on your wrist so that part of it sticks out of your sleeve, and then lazily flash it to security on your way in the gate.

This year, they upped the anti. The athletes had credentials and the fans just had paper tickets. That meant no little wristband clippings to get people in. The stadium had officially challenged us to become more creative.

First we had to study the blueprints of the stadium and memorize the schedule of the security guards. We knew when they had shift changes, when they took their coffee breaks, and which guards would be most forgiving to hardcore felons if we got caught. After months of preparation and getting a tattoo of the blue prints on my body, it was go time. Commence operation "Storm the Stadium".

Mission: Get 5 fans into the stadium for free. Lets call them agents D, K1, K2, H, and J for security.

1201 A trusted contact with an athletic credential enters stadium through gate 1

1202 Contact pockets credential and is thus disguised as a fan

1204 Contact approaches gate 2 and asks for a paper reentry wristband since tickets become invalid once scanned at the initial entry.

1204 Contact meets agents at rendezvous point, slips off wristband and puts on athlete credentials. Agent D slips on wrist band.

1205 Agent D and Contact enter gate 3. A guard asks agent D to see an original ticket. D feigns being rushed and not understanding the demand and just says "Yeah." and hurries through the gate.

1206 Agent D slips off band, heads to gate 2 and gets another band. Contact heads to gate 4 and gets a band there. Agents K1 and J receive these bands and are admitted into the Stadium.

Process is repeated until all agents are in.

It was almost too easy. Bring it on Stadium.

Commercials That Suck

- Clear Eyes: Ben Stein has the most boring voice ever

-Every car commercial ever: lets watch cars drive while an annoying voice shouts about miles per gallon and apr financing.

- Olive Garden: "When you're here, you're family." FALSE. I have been to Olive Garden.

- Shane Company Diamonds: Even more boring than Ben Stein

- Class Action Law Suit Commercials: "Have you taken Alodiphan in the last 7 years and do you now have frequent hernias and or bowel infections???"

- Commercials with annoying jingles: "Nationwide is on you side", "National American University"

- Commercials that make it sound like you will get an amazing career from attending crappy online University's like National American University or Globe College or Minnesota School of Bidness and that you can do it by doing 10 minutes of work whenever you feel like it

- McDonalds: There has never been a good McDonalds commercial made ever in history

- Toothbrush commercials: I don't want to see the nasty yellow plaque and green gobbies getting dislodged from someone's disgusting mouth

Am I missing anything??? Yes. There are millions of terrible commercials that I can't think of right now. In fact, 2389 out of every 2394 commercials are pretty bad.