Jamie's Service Project

Jamie's service project for Americorp focused on spreading the positive word about volunteering. She came up with a great idea to have some young students paint a picture about volunteering that would be put on display in the San Angelo art museum. The students also volunteered their time to different organizations around San Angelo. She also had me make a video that can be put up on Youtube and used to spread the accomplishments the students had made. You can see the video below.

Angelo State University Update

I had my first day Thursday at ASU. The first impression ASU made on me was a great one. My new co-workers are all awesome. Two of the student employees who work with me are members of the Beta-Alpha chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha here at ASU. The Lambda Chi chapter here is really strong and its great to see that again. Our office is awesome and has huge windows overlooking one of the disc golf holes from the course that has been built throughout campus. Once I get comfortable and settled in to my position a bit more, maybe I'll be able to get back involved with the fraternity.

Angelo State is a beautiful campus. Picture Iowa State, but smaller. There is even a Stephens Arena, basically Angelo State's Hilton. I'll try to add some pictures of campus when I get a chance to take some.

But being small only brings the ASU community closer. Everyone here seems to know each other. We have great educational programs from what I have learned and my favorite, a ton of student organizations! I love being back on a college campus. ASU is easily the best looking place in San Angelo, and I get to work there. On my third day of work, I got to speak at half court to more than 600 people for Discover ASU. It was a lot of fun to play a role in the admissions team so quickly. It's been a great start to my new career and I look forward to the things to come.

Angelo State University

It's official! For those who haven't heard, I recently received a job offer from Angelo State University. While I was working at AT&T and they were great to me, this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. It was hard to quit AT&T because of how not only the company but all of the employees there treated me. Everyone was awesome to work with and my boss was incredibly understanding and made what could have been a difficult situation (me quitting after just finishing training) into an extremely professional positive experience. I don't have a single negative thing to say about AT&T and hope the best for the individuals I worked with in the future.

As many of you know I applied with Angelo State University back in August when we first moved down here. Unfortunately I didn't get the job offer at that time, but they were interested and said they would keep me in mind if another position opened up. I received a call from them letting me know another position as an Admissions Counselor had opened up and they were interested in me. The wheels went into motion and before I knew it I got the job offer. Everyone is really excited and supportive of my decision to accept the job. I have my first day this Thursday. So to sum it up for everyone, since we have moved here I have sold cars, TVs, cell phones and now I'm going back to college (to work)! I'll put another post on here after my first few days of work, it should be a great new experience.

Austin Marathon and Half Marathon

Today Jamie ran 13.1 miles. Before that the farthest she had run was 7 miles, and yet true to Jamie form, she just went out and did it anyway. We had a blast in Austin and the Half Marathon was an experience she will never forget. Below is a sort of "highlight video" that allows me to write less. Hit Play and Enjoy!

Sock Toss

Here's a video of a game I made up tonight (i don't see myself getting to play it ever again though)... Hang in there its worth it, it ends great!

Our Weekend in Dallas

I decided not to write a long post about what we did. Instead, I made a quick video of a lot of the stuff we did in Dallas this past weekend.

But a quick summary:

Friday we went out with Katherine, a friend of Jamie's from Americorps. She's awesome and showed us this great burger place called Twisted Root. Then she took us to Tuckers' Blues, a Blues bar that was hidden away behind Twisted Root. To get to it you walk around the back of Twisted Root and BAM! out of nowhere there is a door with a Blue neon light (it makes you feel like you know about a secret blues bar). I (Jared) loved it. They played blues and told stories about different classic blues artists before each song. Watch the video below to see what Jamie does during the show! Saturday we stayed at a hotel called, Aloft. The hotel was really retro and cool. We also went to eat at the House of Blues before going to our concert there. The concert was for Bad Fish, a Sublime cover band. We had a great weekend as you can see below. Last but not least we finished it off by Running with the Bulls (sorta).

Catching Up, Thanksgiving to January 17th

WOW! We got busy and haven't updated this in months! I want to write a quick recap from Thanksgiving to now. For the most part everyone knows Michelle and Justin visited us for Thanksgiving. That was awesome. It is extremely surreal whenever someone comes to visit because it can be tough to believe they are really here! We took Justin and Michelle all around San Angelo (the same tour we gave our parents). We had an amazing time with Justin and Michelle.

After Michelle and Justin left we waited for December 23rd, the day we would fly home for Christmas. But until then I (Jared) had an interview with At&t here in San Angelo. The position

was for a new store that will be opening in early March (until then we will be operating out of a kiosk in a the terrible mall of San Angelo). I received a job offer and accepted it.

The position I received is Sales Consultant and I started January 11th. I have three weeks of training.

But more about that later. Jamie was finishing a lot of work up in December because she was going to be really busy when January and February came around.

We had an awesome Christmas. Ten days of family and we couldn't get enough. It was so great to get to see everyone. It was extremely busy though (get ready for a run-on sentence like you've never seen before). We had my family Christmas on Christmas Eve, my mom's side on Christmas day, a Christmas day dinner in Bondurant, my dad's side in Denver, IA on the 26th, Jamie's big family Christmas on the 27th,

went to Denison to have Christmas the 28th, 29th, came back for my mom's birthday on the 30th, went to Webster City for Trisha and Brock's annual ridiculously awesome New Year's Eve party, spent the 1st with our individual families, watched home videos of Jamie and her crazy antics during the day on the 2nd and FINALLY finished the trip with some friends at my place that night.

But like I said even after all of that we still hadn't had enough of our friends and family. It was a great Christmas. (I don't have access to Jamie's pics so these couple will have to do until then).

When we got back to San Angelo we took it really slow for a couple of days. I get to go to Dallas three weekends in a row for training with At&t, and Jamie came with me the first time. At&t rented us a Hyundai Santa Fe with XM radio (awesome) and put us in an amazing room at La Quinta Inn with a living room, french doors to the bedroom and a cool executive style desk. Jamie spent the whole next day shopping at a huge mall in Dallas. We went out that night when we got to Dallas at a restaurant called Snuffers (weird). The food was great! Unfortunately Jamie can't come with me next weekend because she'll be on here way back from Lafayette, Louisiana. She left for Louisiana today and will be helping repair a bunch of houses that are still damaged from Hurricane Katrina. I will get her to write up an entry and post pictures when she gets back.

So that is a summary of what we have been up to lately. We will try to maintain the blog a little better in the future but we are getting busy now so who knows. Thanks for reading!