We are the world

First things first, I was happy to see the Twins pulled out a win tonight. Don't forget, I'm counting on all of you back home to take care of my boys while I'm gone. They need all of us, no matter what time zone we're in.

Yesterday I learned an important lesson about Seattle: just because it looks close on the map, doesn't mean you can walk there in a short amount of time becuase SEATTLE HAS A BUNCH OF HUGE FREAKIN' HILLS.

Yep. Gave myself about 10 minutes to walk up to the top of Queen Anne from the bottom of Queen Anne. The walk was actually really good, just took waaaaay longer than I thought it would because of the incline. And my calves were on fire by the time I got to the place, so I had to just keep walking around (milling about, milling about), until they started to feel normal again. Point taken.

Today at work one of the honchos from Publicis Groupe (notice the fancy "e," it means he's from our global HQ in Paris) spoke at our all-agency meeting. Now, I've been through my share of agency meetings where the brass gets up in front of everyone and blah, blah, blahs about where things are going, shows new work, etc. But this guy blew me away. He spoke about some of that stuff, but mainly about how the big dogs in Europe are genuinely impressed with our office. And it really hit home all the places there are Publicis agencies. And how incredibly diverse our agency is, just in Seattle alone. They've given us a huge assignment that they've pulled away from the agency in San Francisco that could totally put us on the map, not just within the U.S., but globally as well. It's a huge vote of confidence from them and is pretty exciting. I also had to stand up in front of the whole agency (250 strong) because I'm one of the new kids. Thank god it wasn't like when I started at Colle + McVoy and they called my family ahead of time to get dirt on me so they could embarass me. I still haven't forgiven my sisters for that stunt. Bitches.

I've also decided that Seattle is the Land of Unusual Names. Maybe it's just because I work at an ad agency, but here is just a sampling of the names of people I've met in one week, in no particular order: Randall, Vlad, Nicholae, Mattson, Barrie (a woman), Alistair (Yankees fan, so he sucks) and Gethin. More to come on that front, I'm sure.

They're closing one of the bridges on a major freeway at various times over the next few days so the Blue Angels can practice. I guess they close the bridge to avoid people from stopping on the road and staring at the sky. I thought that was funny, and then kind of sad. Brings the term "gawker's slowdown" to a whole new level.