Gandolph a.k.a. Mitch

hiatus

This blog is on hiatus until Antonia decides she has time and energy to keep it up again. I will notify everyone with a link on my AIM profile when I decide to resume posting.

well alrighty then

And here's your update...

Several interesting things have happened in the world of Antonia since I last really updated. I am sure you want to hear all about them, so let me tell you!

My former horse, Salsa, is getting better each week. She is now rideable, but only low level exercise, lots of walk and some trot, but progress is progress, so everyone is happy. Last night I rode her, as Melissa had her weekly Spanish class, and she was great. Of course, its hard for a horse with such a great temperment as Salsa's not to be nice when you're just walking around for 45 minutes. But that aside, it was great to get on her again. Unfortunately, riding her means that I have left Internet to sit in his stall unridden for another week. I need to get better about making sure I get out to the barn more often. It really is hard to motivate myself to drive out to the barn after work on the one or two days a week that I could actually have time to myself at home. Its so alluring to go home to my apartment after work when I get the chance, since I am away from home so often.

Speaking about home, my kitty has run off again. It has been 6 days now, by far the longest time he's been away by about 3 days. I am really worried, in fact, I am not sure I will see Satch again. I am trying to stay very positive and not actually believe what I just said, but at this point, its a possibility. But a possibility I don't want to think about right now. So, everyone, please cross your fingers that he's just on a really long adventure, and that he will return home soon. I miss my kitty cat, I miss him a lot.

We went to Jeopardy a few weeks ago now. It was pretty cool. It ended up being a little long, and Trav and I were hungry, but it was cool to see what goes on behind the scenes. All in all, an interesting experience that I am glad I got.

The World Beer Festival in Durham was last weekend, that was a boatload of fun. It was wet and rainy and muddy, but I suppose when you've got 4 hours of drinking to do, it stops mattering what the weather conditions are like, and you enjoy yourself despite the humidity, wet and mud. I sure did. We all sure did. And no, I cannot tell you which beer I liked the most, or even most of the breweries that were there. I can tell you that Woodchuck Raspberry Cider is awesome, and I tasted something called Framboise Lambic, which I also liked very very much. Those are not beers as much as alcoholic Raspberry drinks though, so again, no I do not remember the names of the beers I liked best. I do remember that I said hi to a fellow Canadian at the Moosehead Lager stand and he laughed and told me he was just a volunteer from Apex. I felt like a fool. I also ate a giant turkey leg, and it was yummy. I don't remember the taxi ride home. Hell, I should be impressed that I remember anything, and I do. That's pretty cool.

After we got home from the Beer Fest, Stefan had come home to Travis' and Ms. Emily came over. We partied into the night, and ate a ton of pizza. It was a day to remember for sure. On Sunday, Trav and I tried to cook cheese and meat fondues, they were pretty unsuccessful on the whole, which I don't think we truly admitted at the time. The cheese tasted good, but it was way thick and lumpy, not good. The meat fondue broth...um, well lets just say we made a stew with all the meat and veggies instead of trying to eat it fondue style. Ah well, there's always next time.

Tomorrow is Stefan's going away party, he leaves for California next week. I expect tomorrow night will be a ton of fun. I expect next week to be very sad. Don't really have much else to say on that one... :(

Also, another MRPP'er quit yesterday. Marilyn "24" Borash is leaving, and I can't believe it. I was informed today that I am now the 5th most senior employee (incl. management) and the 2nd most senior of the buying staff. And I have been here 4 months.

I think that is all the writing I can muster today. Another update shortly I think. Until then...ciao!

a question

I am not actually sure anyone reads this thing anymore. I'm getting bad about updates, and part of that has to do with the fact that I hear fewer and fewer comments about the posts I make. I think I've made a valiant attempt to keep up a blog. Heck, I did worlds better than I thought I would! Its been almost 8 months or something...

I will continue to update as I have time, but until people pester me for more posts, I don't think this blog will return to its once greatness of 5+ posts a week.

Congrats Heels!

Well heck yeah, the Tar Heels beat the Wolfpack in our away game at Carter Finley Stadium on Monday. Our first win of the year too. Super!!! Go Heels!

Other than that game, which is already fairly low on my list of things I generally get excited about (nope, not really a football fan...) I can't say I did anything extremely exciting this weekend. But it was a very nice, relaxing weekend, which I like.

On Friday I received my VIP tickets to the Jeopardy taping, finally. I think it should be a lot of fun, and I hope I am not proven wrong in that respect. We go Saturday afternoon to watch the 1st taping. Who knows what VIP means...I guess we will find out.

Thursday night's Ad Club Premiere Party was a boatload of fun. Let's just say I had several drinks and I still posess both drink tickets that I was given as I walked in the door. I am fairly certain that everyone else who was drinking took just as much advantage of the fact that they didn't seem to want to take our drink tickets in return for handing us drinks. After some good food, a lot of schmoozing, and an hour of various networks season premiere reels, the stragglers that remained partied it up for almost another 2 hours. Agency folks, TV reps and station managers were hanging around the studio talking about everything from iPods to college rivalries. Next month is a Corona marketing case study (with free Corona!), I think I will be trying to get in on that party too...although I'm wondering if MRPP will catch onto my ploy to get free drinks and stop paying for me to go to these events. ;) Let's hope not...hehe.


Ciao for today!

"quick" synopsis of the past weeks

So I'm getting bad about this blog thing. I really want to be updating it more frequently, but I never seem to get 'round to it when I mean to. Such is life, right?

Well, since I last posted anything, my birthday has come and gone. It was fantabulous. There was a party at Travis' house, which was amazing! I think everyone had a great time, I certainly did. There are some cute pictures too, among a herd of blurry ones. But that just means we were having fun. ;)

My most awesomest birthday present was from Trav himself, an iPod nano! In black. The thing is so very cool. I can now play music in my car, no more radio. Woohoo!!!

I also loved the shot glass Swetal gave me with my name engraved on it. It is very awesome and special. And of course, all my other gifts were wonderful too. I really did have a great birthday.

New tires on my car, new contact lenses, a new featherbed (which came today in the mail, and I can't wait to sleep on) and new jeans. That may sum up my new aquisitions over the past few weeks.

Tonight is Ad Club Premiere Night, at Trailblazers Studios in Raleigh. It is going to be a huge advertising-world schmoozefest, with free catered dinner from Michael Deans, which should be great. And then a viewing of allllll the networks premiere tapes for Fall 2005. I will be in-the-know of anything to watch on TV from now until December. So, after tonight, if you're wondering what's on, forget TV Guide and go straight to your best source of media knowledge...ME!

Anyways, I am slightly nervous about tonight, because I am new to this business, and everyone will know everyone, except for me, and Buzz, the new guy at work here also (oh yeah...did I forget to mention Buzz?! He's interesting, shares my office now, which is strange, but overall, he seems like a very likeable guy).

Since I'm mentioning Buzz, I realized I have also not mentioned our most recent MRPP departure. Yes, another one! (rolling eyes) Kathleen has left the company as of two days ago. They're dropping like flies around here. Good news is that this time, we hired someone else immediately. I have been assured by other people in the ad business that I will love our new employee. So, I have great expectations from her already. And, in the process of another changing of employees here at MRPP, I have regained one of my former accounts, the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. I would rather have regained 123NC.com, but whatever, the GRCVB is a lot easier of an account to manage, so there's that...

Ok, time to get back to work. Have a great and wonderful week y'all. Talk to you soon(er), I hope!

three posts today :o

I just have to mention...its officially September! And I looooooove September, best month of the year. That means fall is just around the corner, cooler weather is on its way, and the autumnal equinox!!! (just kidding on that last one, really don't care so much about the day of the year when day and night are the same length...). But nonetheless, its September, yeah baby.

a quote from the news

Interestingly, since I had mentioned this in my post this morning, a man at the New Orleans Supderdome said to CNN reporters today: "You can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

Terrible. :(

finally, an update

Ok, so its been a little while since I updated last. Except for that last quick post of pictures of that little town in Austria with a funny name...

I am not really sure what has happened since I last posted, so I will try and summarize some things I think are slightly more important than other events in my life.

Piper, the horse I had been riding for the past three months was leased to a girl in Youngsville, NC. Now I will be bumming rides from other nice people out at Oakridge Farm. Primarily for the next few weeks I will be riding Internet, a huge, green (inexperienced, not actually the color green) Selle Francais. He will be quite a workout, he is extremely bouncy, uncoordinated and HUGE, it'll take a lot of getting used to before I actually feel comfortable riding that horse. Soon I may be trying to ride Salsa once a week again too, I love my old horsey soooo much! (I know, I sound like a 5 year old...)

This past Tuesday I met with the WTVD (ABC 11) reps and got all the insider info. on new shows coming out this fall. There are some damn good looking programs I will have to start watching. Look out for Commander-In-Chief with Geena Davis and The Evidence, a mid-season show that should start once football season is over. I also found out that the new season of Desperate Housewives begins September 25th. Woohoo!!! And got given a 2006 Desperate Housewives wall calendar, its pretty fancy. ;)

In other good news, also thanks to my ABC11 rep., I got tickets to the Jeopardy taping when it comes to Raleigh in October. Trav and I are going to see it, and possibly, may get a chance to go to a reception/meet and greet with Alex Trebek. Awesome! I do like me some Jeopardy.

Next Monday is Labor day and my birthday is Friday, which means a nice short week for Antonia. I will be taking a half-day for the 9th, so I guess I will work a total of 3.5 days next week. Haha, it'll make up for the stress I am enduring this week...

Talking about stress, fucking oil prices!!! I have no idea how I, or millions of other Americans who make even less than I do, will be able to afford that stuff. I am not a frivolous spender, but I am going to have to be a total penny pincher to be able to fill up my tank. I am sad, stressed and angry all at the same time. I am deeply saddened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I don't think there is much else to say about that right now, except that it is devastating, and my heart goes out to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by Katrina. I cannot even imagine how people are dealing with things on the Gulf Coast.

In my opinion, this would be a great time for Bush to save face, pull the troops out of Iraq and say they are needed back home in America. I have 100% faith in the fact that no such thing will happen, but it would be nice. Although, at this point, just pulling out is probably not really the thing to do, but the troops have got to leave someday (maybe it would have been a good time back when Bush declared the war "over" more than 2 years ago). The hypocrisy of it all....*sigh*

Ok, I have definitely wasted way too much of my workday writing this post. But it's Thursday, tomorrow is TGIF, and then the freakin' weekend kids!

CIAO!!!

a town in austria

Hahaha

sadness

Well this week marks the going-away of no less than THREE beloved creatures I have come to know, like and depend upon over the past few months.

This afternoon my partner at MRPP leaves for her new job in Texas. I am pretty sad Beth is leaving, she is so young and intelligent, I had a lot to learn from her. She was the only person who really took the time out of her day to sit down and try to really teach me valuable information and knowledge that I will need to excel in the world of media. She is always upbeat and smiling and will be sorely missed around the office.

Tomorrow, Brent, our intern leaves. Another very sad departure, although one that was actually known would be coming, as he has to return to college to begin his junior year at ECU. He was the only person remotely close to my age in the office, and I can't believe he won't be around to have good silly conversations with.

The third "creature" who will be departing from my life in the next week is Piper, the horse I have been riding 2-3 times a week for the past 3 months. Piper is moving to Youngsville, NC with a girl who seems like she is going to give Piper a wonderful new home. As much as I resented Piper last week for giving me the awful bruise that is turning all sorts of beautiful colors on my leg right now, I will miss her too, she was usually fun to ride and definitely helped me get back in shape after the lengthly hiatus I took from riding in my last couple of years at college.

Life goes on of course, and I hope to stay in touch with Beth and Brent, but nothing makes for a good blog entry like feelings of loss and despair. (I am milding joking about this, as I am in quite a good mood, but things are definitely going to change and I mean it whole-heartedly when I say I will deeply miss both of the coworkers I have gotten to know the best at MRPP).

In wonderful news, its already Thursday afternoon, tomorrow is Friday, and then the weekend shall be upon us!

well holy crap

After my initial 48 posts on this blog of mine, Mr. Aaron Strauch finally got around to updating his! (http://unconfirmedreports.blogspot.com)

Not to be outdone, I will now write a new post, just to prove what real bloggers are supposed to do when they agree to start a blog. (I am just kidding Aaron, I know things have been crazy and I wish you the best of luck in Chicago!!!)

I do have to say that it can be hard to keep up with this blog of mine sometimes...nonetheless, I do enjoy it and will continue making a-go of this thing for a while to come.

In the past few weeks the most notable thing that has happened may have been house-sitting for Bill, my former horse trainer, for a week. I stayed out at his house next to the farm and looked after the dog and cat. Nothing tremendously exciting, but a little stray from my ordinary day-to-day life. On the Friday, Travis came out and rode a horse, that was fun.

Oh yeah, and I finally got the air-conditioning in my old volvo fixed. I am totally loving that!

This past week was Cara's birthday. I visited for a short while on Wednesday, and then took her to dinner Friday at Flying Burrito, we had a good time.

On Thursday Swetal came to the barn with me to watch me ride. Piper was horrible, she kicked me, and I have never been kicked by a horse before in my life. After kicking, she was a beast to ride, trying to take off after the jumps, I decided to stop jumping her before her anger turned into bucking. Afterwards, Swetal and I went to hang out with Sarah at the Brown's house across the street, where she is house-sitting for the week.

Saw Dukes of Hazzard on Sunday...which was definitely entertaining despite the horrible reviews it got.

Um...I think that might be a very short synopsis of my life recently. Work, work, riding, work, playing on the weekends. Good stuff, I'm happy, nothing more to report. :)

another quiz...or three

Your Power Color Is Red-Orange

At Your Highest: You are warm, sensitive, and focused on your personal growth. At Your Lowest: You become defensive and critical if you feel attacked. In Love: You are loyal - but you demand the respect you deserve. How You're Attractive: You are very affectionate and inspire trust. Your Eternal Question: "Am I Respected?"

What's Your Power Color?

*Interesting, I just happen to be wearing red-orange today, but I would have to say its definitely not a power day...

Your IQ Is 110

Your Logical Intelligence is Above Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Exceptional Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Above Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

*Damn Straight ;)

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

*well thats very interesting...

for someone with decision problems...

I really don't deal with change well, in fact it upsets me a lot. Ridiculous, but I can't help it.

i forgot to mention...

Harry Potter, book 6, comes out today. Tonight at midnight that is. I am almost crazy enough to go and get it then...except not. I am very excited though. They better not sell out, I want that book this weekend.

Check this out: I'm a gryffindor.