burlington, vermont

is one of the cutest effing cities ever. i just love the whole new england area--there is so much history in the buildings and the city and yet--they have done such an incredible job maintaining it. it's not ugly and old and decrepit. it's charming, historical, and old movie happy.

and can i just say the food was actually incredible? even to my standards? we're not talking authentic--but authentic or not--GREAT flavoring and original concepts and a very pleasing presentation.

the team meeting held no big surprises given the current economic woes and further dour forecasts. but it's nice to know that we are still up as a team and as a company. for how long--i'm not sure--but it's my job to help stave it off for a little bit longer--so let's hope i continue to have good news to write.

one of the bigger downers is--we are asked to reduce our spending abit and be more cost-conscious in these times.

to that end--i believe we spent quite a bit of money on alcohol in response. i think the coming months should be really interesting for our team, our company, and of course, the greater economy, country and world.

i wish i had the patience to blog about everything that went on these past 3 days--but i really don't. suffice to say--a lot happened!

after being around the entire national team during different meetings--i always thought in my head--my east coast team--was probably the loudest, wildest, drunkest, and most gregarious of all the teams. after comparing notes with the other groups--it was confirmed.

it's funny how my team actually BOASTS about it. hilarious. and getting to know people from the other teams--they really are a more sedate and serious sort. but it's all good--we're the highest achieving group as well. i'm proud to be on this team. i have a crazy team leader that leads the craziness and it's good.

work hard, play hard.

i can't drink like they can and i was still under the weather--but i held up my part well enough. though 3 drinks and drunk still is no good considering the team leader had about 10 and was probably doing as well as i was the next day.

but before the bar hopping started--there was dinner and the comedy club our second night there. i'm not sure the comedy would have been so funny if i was more sober--but by the time we were there? i was plastered. i was dying the entire time and the comedians actually all walked by us and kept saying "you guys were great." just to us.

there was this one joke about going to the bathroom and thinking there was a monster hiding behind the bathroom curtains that i was dying about. come to find out both me and my team leader always flip the curtains REAL FAST to see if anything is hiding behind there. freakin hilarious. we were literally on our knees on the floor of the place laughing together. all the while people walking by us either laughing at us, with us, or shaking their heads thinking, "fuckin drunks."

but i had fun--and that's all that matters!