See Norman!

Be Sure to Check Out My Previous Post: Texas to Oklahoma!

See Norman!

Ohhhh Oklahoma. OHHHHHH Oklahoma. Ever wonder whats in Oklahoma? Well Normans in Oklahoma. That's right, I am in Oklahoma. Well to get technical, I WAS in Oklahoma. But there is a city called Norman, OK and its right outside Oklahoma City where I was staying. Apparently its known for festivals, Bed and Breakfasts and Indian Art. But I'll just take the big sign with my name on it.
So this was my first city on my own, and I was very nervous. If you're wondering why, here's a little insight into what I do. I audit waterpark's, resorts, and pools that use our risk management services. These audits are done randomly and undercover for our clients, and they do not know when we come. When I go, I go in as a guest and video tape the lifeguards with a concealed video camera in order to make sure they are up to standards. After that I test guards on their skills and review the facilities paperwork. Its pretty cool! Now heres a few questions that you are probably wondering:

-So you look like a creeper with a video camera?Yes unfortunately. However a big portion of our training is learning how to conceal the video cameras in order to not get spotted by park employees, but at most to keep their guests at ease.

Oceans of Fun!

-Do guests get upset if they see your camera? Yes... 99% of the time. We carry an auditor ID badge with us at all times in the park, so in the event that a guest confronts us (or most of the time they just start giving us weird looks), I simply explain to them what i'm doing and show them my ID badge and they usually are quite accepting. In the event that a guest is unhappy still, they will usually go to a park official, who will again explain what we do. Unfortunately at that point the cover is blown, however that is still better than getting the cops called!

-Do you get to ride the rides and swim in the pool? Yes and No. There are 2 general rules for this. The first is it must not make the audit any different, by drastically altering our daily timeline. The second is that if it helps you blend in, it is definitely beneficial. Essentially this means be smart about it. Don't go waiting in a line for a slide if its an hour long and will then make the client have to stay an hour later that night. For me, getting in the water depends on a lot of factors. Here are a few: if the weather is nice, if I feel comfortable leaving my items alone (or else I have to pay for a locker), and if swimming laps will make me seem more normal. Its a fine line, but I do have a job to do :)

University of Oklahoma

Moore Tornado Damage

OK, back to Oklahoma (haha, get it?). So Oklahoma City was alright. There were some neat sights. The University of Oklahoma was very impressive, there was a rock climbing gym housed in an old grain elevator, and the Moore tornado damage. Seeing the damage was incredible. It truly made me feel small in this world, over how short of a time something could be destroyed. The cars on the freeway slowed almost to a crawl in this area and that's the only reason that I was able to take photos. Normally I would think that taking photos of this devastation is morally wrong, but despite this I feel that is was important for the world to understand how significant this damage was. My heart goes out to all the families affected by this tragedy.

Tulsa Lightning

The rest of my time in Oklahoma City was pretty uneventful. From there I travelled to Tulsa, OK. Theres not much to say about Tulsa, besides that a killer thunderstom passed through. Pictured is some of the lightning that I was able to capture. From here I travelled to Stillwater, OK and that will be in the next post (yes that's where the TBS and KKY National Headquarters is located!).


For more photos check out the #LyfInFocus-Oklahoma Album!

Be Sure to Check Out my Next Post: Stillwater Station!

Texas to Oklahoma

Be Sure to Check Out My Previous Post: Bucky The Beaver!

Margaret with Bucky

Well now that we have Bucky all buckled up safely into the passenger seat, it was time to leave Texas, on the road to my first audits on my own.

Sky with Bucky

Drive time was looking to be roughly 7 hours. However today, was going to be one of my favorite drive days all summer for one reason, and that was because in the course of my 500 miles, I would get to stop and see 3 friends whom I hadn't seen in about a year each.

My first stop was in Austin, where they're trying to... keep it weird. I didn't fully understand the concept, but I also didn't spend much time in the city. Once I arrived in Austin, I met my friends Sky and Margaret for a nice lunch at a local Chinese food joint. It wasn't bad at all, you cant go wrong with orange chicken. After about an hour, I said my farewells, but not before taking photos with Bucky!

After Austin, I continued on my way up to Dallas, passing by Baylor University. It was a beautiful campus. It was at this point that I decided one of my constant stops would be major colleges and universities. I love seeing the different campus', especially their football stadiums.

So in Dallas I was meeting my friend Andrew for dinner, but before I decided to make a stop and the

Dallas Cowboys Stadium

Cowboys stadium and Six Flags Over Texas. Conveniently they were across the parking lot from each other. Now I don't know how many of you have seen the Dallas Cowboy's stadium, but its massive! the giant glass and metal structure shines in the Sun and has a very intimidating atmosphere to it. Inside they have 2 Jumbotron's that span nearly the entire length of the field! Someday I hope to be able to go inside.

Texas Sky Screamer

Across the street at the Six Flags I got to see their water park, whose slide tower structures almost looked UFO like. I also was able to see a few of the coasters from the road. The Sky Screamer was also running which was pretty cool. If you don't know what those are, think of those spinning swing set carnival rides, and put it on steroids.

Shortly after I met Andrew for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, which was quite delicious! I love Mexican food, and am quite the critic on it, but it was quite enjoyable. Plus getting to catch up with Andrew was nice. After a short tour of his home, and of course a photo with Bucky, I was back on the road for the last 3 hours of my trip.

See Norman!

Night fell shortly after I entered Oklahoma, and arrived right about 10PM. I was staying in a Holiday Inn Express, and it was my first night on my own on the road. While I missed my new friends, it was quite nice having the entire room to myself.

For More Photos Check out the #LyfInFocus-Texas to Oklahoma Album! (The photo quality of these is not my best and I aplogize for this! They get better I promise!)

Stay Tuned for the next post: See Norman!

Bucky The Beaver!

Bucky The Beaver

 Be Sure to Check out My Previous Post:San Antonio!

Bucky The Beaver. Some of you may have seen pictures of him, and a few of you have actually met him. But for the rest of you, you're probably wondering who he is and why there is an entire post about him.

Well Bucky is a Beaver, and he is from Buc-ee's in New Braunfels, TX. Buc-ee's is a small chain of GIANT roadside gas stations/travel stores. These stores are quite incredible, and as soon as I found out that I was in Texas, I knew I had to stop there. Why may you ask did I make stopping at a gas station a top priority? Well that's actually a funny story.

Back in March, one of my friends went to Texas for spring break, and when she returned we talked about how it went... but there was a point in the conversation that turned quite humorous. She said "OMG, I went to the coolest place ever.... but you need to brace for it.... you ready??? It was a gas station!". I just started laughing. I was expecting like getting to see a great white shark in a tank and feed it sheep or something. But she went on to explain how massive this place was, the beaver mascot on everything, and how it was totally worth the hype on the road trip.

Buc-ee's Convenience Store

Inside a Buc-ee's

Well she wasn't kidding! There were about 60 gas pumps, 20 chests of bagged ice outside, and once you walked inside.. WOW. There were 4 main parts to the store. On the right was any soda or snack you could want for the road, the middle was a restaurant (complete with salads, sandwich's, burgers and more!), a fresh jerky counter, and on the left was a gift shop with all sorts of Buc-ee's branded items and other random bits and gobs, and finally tucked into the far back left was a hunting store! This place was incredible. Completely worth the stop and honestly disappointing that I couldn't spend more time there.

Check Out This Video about Buc-ee's!


However, before I left, I picked up a souvenir who became my best friend on the road. I appropriately named him Bucky, and hes ridden in the passenger seat of my car all summer. When you are alone for most of the summer, it is comforting to have someone right there next to me, even if he was a stuffed animal. Some people told me it was OK as long as I didn't talk to him, and if I did talk to him, it was OK as long as he didn't talk back. Well I must have lost it pretty quick because before I was even out of Texas I was having full on conversations with my little buddy.

As the summer progressed and I met friends along the road, I had them take a picture with Bucky. Here are a few of them:

Megan and Bucky

Stella and Bucky

Pam and Mary with Bucky

So Thanks to my little buddy who helped me back it out the other end of the summer with a smile on my face! If you want to see more of Bucky's adventures, check out his own #LyfInFocus Album!

Be sure to check out my next post: Texas to Oklahoma!

San Antonio

Be Sure to Check out My Previous Post:Training/Touring Florida!

So on May 25th, and a 5:30AM call time for the shuttle, we (myself and a few of the other auditors) were off to the Ft. Lauderdale airport for our flight to San Antonio. At this point we had a few more pieces of luggage to tow around with us.

Tram Surfing

Now today's flight was from Ft. Lauderdale to San Antonio, with a connection in Dallas/Ft. Worth. Nothing to long and crazy, however in training we were told the theme for the summer was to "be flexible and ready for change". Little did we know how soon this would all start to come into play.

Upon landing in Dallas, we found our next flight to be cancelled due to intense flooding in San Antonio. It was enough to close roads and halt airport operations. So what was supposed to be a 1.5 hour connection, turned into 7 hours of running from gate to gate trying to make a new flight. Some people would get upset by this... especially when some of us had our first audits planned for this day. But no matter, we had a blast anyways.Pictured here you can see the competition that we called "tram surfing". The goal was to ride the tram as if you were surfing without holding on all the way to the next stop! It was actually a lot of fun and filled about 45 minutes of time for us.

Bill Miller BBQ

By that evening we made it into San Antonio and were able to pick up our rental cars and head to the hotel. We all ended up splitting 2 rooms and hung out at the hotel pool to relax before our next day of auditing. Next to the hotel, we got our first taste of Texas Bar-B-Que. OK, I guess Bill Miller isn't really the best BBQ experience, but it was actually pretty good for fast food BBQ, and cheap!

San Antonio River Walk

The Alamo

After a day of auditing, we all then decided to spend the day downtown touring the city a bit before we all had to say our farewells for the summer. Our main two stops were the Alamo, and the San Antonio River walk.

The Alamo was actually pretty cool! A great landmark of Texas history, and truly something we couldn't miss... plus it was free! The building was quite beautiful and was well maintained. There are no photos of the inside as it is not allowed.

The River walk was cool, but honestly really gross. The water was a murky brown, and I'm pretty sure if you swam in it you would mutate into some type of river monster.

Schlitterbahn, New Braunfels

That night, we had to take a trip out to New Braunfels to pick up some summer equipment. And as a true water park enthusiast I couldn't pass up a quick stop at Mecca... hem hem.... Schlitterbahn. So I didn't get to go inside as they were closed, but I got to peek over the fence and get some cool photos! It was definitely worth the stop.




For All The Photos, Check out the #LyfInFocus-San Antonio Album!

Stay Tuned for the Next Post: Bucky the Beaver!

Training/Touring Florida

Be Sure to Check out My Previous Post: Welcome to Florida!!

Welcome Back!

So I left off with the closing of my first day in the sunshine state.

A little E&A in the morning

Auditor training started the next afternoon, and we were given details on what the week would look like for us. In short, we would train every day from 8AM-10PM from Sunday-Friday. It was a packed week filled with a lot of activity and different training sessions, but our jobs are very detail oriented so understanding is key. Only really thing for you to note, is that our opportunities to explore Ft. Lauderdale were very much non-existent as the summer was fast approaching and we had a lot of work to do.

Morning Clouds

The Florida weather was very interesting. Warm and humid everyday, with temperatures usually in the upper 80s, with frequent thunderstorms. But the cloud cover was nice, and made for some really beautiful morning photos with the sun rays.

We had a little bit of "on-the job" training too which allowed us to spend some time poolside at some local facilities. We were paired in these audits which made them a little more comfortable for our first time. I also ask you now to please excuse any in-park photos I take that may feature other guests. Sometimes those were the only photos I could take without looking to conspicuous.

Jaxon's Ice Cream Parlour

Inside Jaxon's

On Thursday night we went to a famous ice-cream parlour named "Jaxon's". It has been featured on the Travel Channel, the Food Network, and in countless newspapers and magazines. The store has an eclectic collection of roadsigns, old amusement park memorabilia, and candy

But their real fame comes from the GIANT portions of whatever you order. The smallest you can order is 2 scoops (equivalent to 4 normal scoops) and you get to choose from nearly 50 different flavors. They offered regular food as well, but we had just missed the dinner cutoff.




The different combinations of famous ice cream sundae classics were endless.

But the pinnacle of all of their selections, is what they lovingly call "the Kitchen Sink". It is a giant trough of Ice Cream, costing 12.95 per person (with a minimum of 4 people). It was quite the creation. Those who challenge the sink, doomed to certain defeat.

 

On our final night in Florida, we all went out to a nice restaurant to celebrate the completion of training and to wish us all off on a safe and adventurous summer at Brio Tuscan Grille. We enjoyed a good wine selection with our delicious meals. It was great to relax in good company before we all had to say farewell. It never ceases to amaze me at in just a week you can make such good friends with people that you have never met before.


The sad part was that for the most part, I would most likely never see some of these people again, but the friendships I assure you continued throughout the summer as we all leaned on one another through texts and Google Hangouts to help us laugh and stay lively as we traveled alone.

All in all, it was a phenomenal start to what was sure to be a crazy summer. I thank those who gave me this opportunity, as now writing at the end of the summer, I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Be Sure to check out all of the Photos from Florida over in the #LyfInFocus-Florida Album!

Stay tuned for Wednesdays Update: San Antonio!

Welcome to Florida!

Be Sure to Check out My Previous Post: My #LyfInFocus!

May 18th, 2013. It was a date stuck in my mind, a day that I had been looking forward to for months.
Departure to Ft. Lauderdale to start my summer adventure!

Bags All Packed!

Waiting to Leave Indy

I had graduated a week before and was taking a week to say my goodbyes to the friends that I had made during my 5 years at Purdue University.  I had my bags packed for days before I had to leave, knowing that soon enough I would be living out of a small collection of suitcases for 3 months. But lets be honest, as sad as I was to leave my second home, I couldn't wait for my adventure to begin!

Having never been to Florida before, all that stuck in my mind was that's where Disney World was. Most people think spring break, parties in Miami, and endless beaches. This probably sounds ridiculous but I never really connected beaches to Florida until I was flying over the ocean. The everglades from the sky were incredible. Just the area that they take up was massive.

But with landing, I made my way to my hotel which was a Courtyard by Marriott.

A quick note on Marriott's. Purdue's Hospitality Program has a big partnership with Marriott, being that we have an entire building that was partially funded by them. In our classes we learned a lot about their corporate structures and philosophies. So I have a deep appreciation for them.

They have a few different hotel levels in their non-resort chains, that all cater to a specific type of clientele. In short they are:
Fairfield Inn & Suites: Business Travelers, sometimes a fridge/microwave. Standard Room. Free Breakfast.
Courtyard: Business Travelers, fridge/microwave. Slightly larger rooms. Cafe with Starbucks. Often small conference facilities.
Town place Inn & Suites/Spring hill Suites: Extended stay  businessman Suite Style Rooms with Kitchenette. Free Breakfast.
Residence Inn: Families. Think of a small apartment. Free Breakfast.

I'll touch on these more as I experience them throughout the summer.

In any case, we were staying in a Courtyard. The lobby was wonderful and had lots of couches and table space throughout the week.

But back to the glitz and the glamor of Florida.

Once I was checked in and a few of the other Auditors showed up, we traveled down to the beach to

Restaurant Menu

get some dinner. We ate at "Aruba Beach Cafe", a locally recommended restaurant. It was O.K. at best. A very noisy bar/restaurant, the servers were rude, and relatively inattentive to our parties needs.

Now as you will learn throughout my postings, I'm a bit of a service snob, but only because its not hard to deliver good service. I only ask for 3 things: Smile, be courteous, and don't let me glass go dry without noticing. Do these and I will tip well (usually around 20%), fail on these and you can watch your tip waste away. For all you waiters/waitresses who are thinking "but servers make less than minimum wave and depend on tips to make a living", then just do your  job. A tip, or better said "gratuity" is my way of rewarding you for doing a good job and allowing me to enjoy my dining experience.

In any case, the beach was nice and smelling the salty air was a "breath of fresh air" after Indiana for so long.

Coming Up Next: Training Week/Touring Florida!

My #LyfInFocus!

Well here it is! What you've all been waiting for.... OK, most of you most likely have not been sitting on the edge of your seat for the last 4 month for this. But regardless, I'm glad that you're here!

Norman, OK

This summer has taken me close to 16,000 driving miles all across the United States. Yes, I said driving. I met so many people from so many different places, each with a unique story to tell. Some day's have been harder than others, but all together it has been a rewarding experience. Honestly the most difficult part has been not being able to post about what I've been doing or where I have been. I'm not Facebook addicted (well, maybe a little bit), but it has definitely been uplifting to give it a break for a few months. Now that is not to mean that I haven't been keeping tabs on the latest gossip or what everyone else has been up to (I need something to keep me entertained) However that's not what you are all here for.

Posts will normally come up on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. If I am not able to get one up, I'll do my best to get a new one up as soon as I can. Sometimes things come up, and you all can just deal with it ;)

Conception, MO

Here are a few things that I will promise you in the up and coming posts:
-Stories of the unique, and not so unique places that I have been.
-Plenty of pictures.
-Reviews of different hotels and restaurants from around the country.
-My perspective on different theme parks/water parks that I have been to.

Somethings that you wont see:
-My top 10 list of worst roadside bathrooms.
-The worlds largest ball of yarn (Only because I didn't see it...)
-Schrödinger's cat.
-How different parks performed (none of your business!)

Disney's California Adventure; Anaheim, CA

But as a reader I ask a few things of you!
-Please comment!! I like to know what you think. And it stimulates conversation amongst other readers.
-Ask questions!! I'll do my best to answer them as thoroughly as possible... and someone else may have the same question. Some people say there is no such thing as a stupid question, I disagree. But sometimes the stupid questions are the best questions.
-Don't hate!! We all have opinions, but I would appreciate it if we can keep negative ones off this page.


A few other notes. This blog is run through Blogger, which is a Google site. However no Google log-in is required for viewing and commenting. All comments will be reviewed before being displayed. Feel Free to subscribe to email updates on the right hand side. Its the fastest way to know when new posts go up!




This is viewable on a mobile device, and it seems to work pretty well. No apps or downloads required.

Being that the technical side of this site is not run by me... if technical difficulties come up, there isn't much I can do on my end. However still let me know if you have issues and I will try to solve them.

Well I hope you all enjoy reading about my journey! Stay tuned for Mondays Post: Florida!