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IMPORTANT: Yet Minerva.

I don't ask for much. But today, I'm asking for your help. I'm not asking for a donation. I'm not asking you to come to my event. And I'm not asking you to VOTE NO on Prop 8. (Although you should)

But what I am asking for is your help in the spread of Minerva. Not actually spreading minerva to people....but spreading the definition of the word.

After over a year of trying to get our definition of the word minerva on urban dictionary.com....we have finally succeeded. Well, technically Jordan succeeded but that is beside the point.

PLEASE HELP ME by clicking this link below and voting THUMBS UP for the definition of "our" Minerva below. And please use the word...you'll thank me later.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Minerva
DISCLAIMER: This website contains some foul language and may not be suitable for viewing in all places.

Thanks!
Steve


1. MINERVA
When someone or something gets "on your nerves". Often used to indicate an extreme dislike or distaste for the subject.

May be shortened in slang by saying 'nerva. Same usage applies.
I don't feel like going to class today, school is Minerva.

Haunted House

It was a good night. A group of my friends decided to set up an adventure into the suburbs to visit a haunted house. I couldn't tell you the last time I went to one. I had a great time. It was good to catch up with everyone and I'll be honest and say I was pretty uncomfortable through the entire "house". I wasn't ever scared...but i'm a jumper...and there were a lot of jump out and scare you moments. My favorite part was crossing a bridge that appeared to be spinning...it was a trip!

Wow!!!!! You HAVE to watch this.

I couldn't tell you the last time a video impressed me this much on the first view. I had no idea Beyonce had a new song OR video. I just saw and heard this for the first time tonight and am out of breath from dancing around my house to it. WOW. This is Get Me Bodied x 4. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Bad news....It won't let me post it. Youtube Beyonce - Single Ladies. You'll be happy you did.

Life is Good

I think it's easier to write when you're angry, pee'ved, elated, sad, shocked or concerned. I'm just good. Work slowed down a "bit", giving me a little extra me time. And that is exactly what I'm doing with my free time. Using it for me. I love my job and I love my friends. But I'm quick to over commit myself to both. I've made a conscious effort to do a few things for myself these next few months. I'm dedicating a minimum of 1 hour a day on studying portugues and i'm taking care of my health by spending a little extra time in the kitchen and at the gym. Nothing major...just an effort.

That's all i got. I'm in a good place and looking forward to where I'm going.

Life is good y'all.

They did it AGAIN.

I hate to be bitter betty or debbie downer but that just sucked. Why do I waste 3/4 of a year on this? I guess I truly love the cubs and believe they can break this curse and win it all. When do you give up?

I know my answer. Never.

So I hurt. So I'm disappointed. I'll get over it. The Cubs will still be there next year and they will still give it their best shot. And I'll be damned if I'm not around to see it!

Next year!

Just in case any of you haven't seen this.

A Time of Change...usually

September almost always enters my life at a time of change. Typically unsolicited and on a large scale when compared to the rest of the months of the year. Change is good, I'm certain of this. However, it is not always something I easily welcome.

i was driving on Lake Shore Drive this afternoon and started thinking about where I am in life...both on a grand scale and on a current state. It's been nearly 5 years since I made the move from Nashville to Chicago. It feels like 10. Wow has my life changed. Sure, I'm still the same crazy Steve i have always been...but I'm in a much more stable place. Bills are paid on time, things run on a schedule and my life makes a little more sense. i'll be the first to admit, I'm still lost but I feel good about the path I'm taking. I'm living and I'm learning. i have a little family of my own including both Winston & Riley and well as the friends that are so special in my life., And who would have thought? For the first time ever...I'm living alone. Life is good.

So here I sit on this first day of Fall. There are some big changes going on around me, but I however, am feeling very constant. And I am happy about that.

Disco Jam!

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My prediction

Quoted from stevegcole.com on July 31, 2008: "I'm addicted. I've only seen 1 weeks worth of the show but I'll make my prediction today so it's in writing. I'm picking you Dan. Don't let me down!" He didn't let me down. Dan is the winner of Big Brother 10 and well deserving of this title. I'm CRAZY JEALOUS he got to experience the game the way he did and look forward to one day having the opportunity myself.

Sorry for the short post. MUST SLEEP.

Conference Call

Another fun day with Ian.

It Doesn't Hurt to Ask

OMG!!! MinervaFree day has turned into a wonderful day! Ms. Brost had purchased me an Alanis Morissette ticket for October 2nd but i thought I couldn't go because of a prior work event. As it's the only time I can see her on this year's tour...I called "just to see" THANK GOD I DID! I'm on cloud nine right now. She is a God to me...and I already know that i'm going to be an emotional little girl when she's performing.

Thank you Erika for letting me have the night off...it means the world to me!

And THANK YOU MS. BROST!!! I cannot wait!!!!!!

PS - how beautiful is she???

The Minerva-lines Series: Part One - Elbow Etiquette

Where do I begin? I'm thinking this may be the start of a series. I have been lacking on blog updates lately and yesterday's flight got me a little riled up. As you probably know, my job has me on a plane a few times a week or more. Most think this is a huge advantage in a job but these folks have obviously never traveled full time for work. It takes A LOT out of you. Sure, getting to see the world is AWESOME. But honestly, I often don't get to see much more than a convention center, bar and hotel in each of the cities I visit. Maybe if I had a few days in each city this would be a different story. But i'm not that lucky. i'm traveling to work...the play is squeezed in when I have the extra hours and energy.

So let's get to the topic at hand. Elbow Etiquette. I'm sitting in first class at the moment so I'm content on the amount of space I have to myself right now. But yesterday was another story. I was on a small plane, in the window seat, next to a man that smelled like a bloody vagina and he felt that MY space was also his. I'm refraining from going more into detail about this particular subject as today is MinervaFree day and my blood pressure just raised dramatically with the intro of this paragraph.

The elbow rest. It's built for one. One person or one couple. NOT two complete strangers. Sure it's possible to share but it's very difficult to do so without touching the stranger next to you. And unless it's a muscular and masculine man, I have no desire to do such an act. So if only one person's arm can comfortably possess the arm rest, how do you determine who get's that so called pleasure? Is it the first person sitting in the row? the first person to occupy the rest? Or is a discussion needed to work out arm rest "shifts"?

I'm not sure about all of you but the idea of talking to my neighbor is already making me minerva and we can't have that on MinervaFree Day. What do I typically do? I typically take the window seat and mind my own space leaving the arm rest up for grabs. If i need the room and it's available i'll go for the arm placement but even-still I'll just throw my elbow in the bottom corner leaving the remainder of the rest open for my anonymous neighbor. This is the courteous way to handle the situation no? Well there are definite characters who think they own this part of the aircraft. You can guarantee a man in a suit is going to over-claim his portion of the rest and I'm here to put an end to this!!! I have sat quiet too long. I plan on reclaiming the arm rest one flight at a time and I need your help. I'm not sure how we're going to accomplish this but it starts with awareness. So please comment and speak up about this topic. Also, if you have other airline or travel annoyances...please leave them in the comment section. I have a few ideas saved up for the minerva-lines series and plan on sharing them in my next few posts.

Perhaps I can even take a hidden video on a future flight???

Stay Tuned.

New Hampshire

First off, sorry about the lack of bloggin' from my end. It's been a rough couple of weeks with work. I'm not complaining. I still love my job and honestly I feel pretty lucky to be employed right now. I'm starting to know way to many people who have been laid off in the recent months.

So here I am in Manchester, NH. I am up here for a Great Whisk(e)y Debate for work. As I'd prefer not to talk about work all the time...the event went well and gathered some good press. And I was up here for more than 12 hours so I was actually able to relax a little bit yesterday for the first time in a long time. I had no idea what to expect of New Hampshire. Honestly I didn't even know where it was. I new it was in the Northeast, but I didn't know how far North it was. The state is beautiful. I'd give anything to be able to come back in a few weeks when the leaves are all changing as I can only imagine it's absolutely gorgeous.

I'm not sure what else to post. Work has taken over my life for the month of September and I'm just counting down the days until Ms. Brost and I venture off to Brazil. December suddenly doesn't seem so far off. We're going to Rio de Janeiro and Buzios over Christmas and New Years. It's going to be AMAZING! And what better gal to travel with than my big sis?

For those of you in town this weekend. I'm actually flying in Saturday morning and will be at the CMSA awards party from 4-7pm. Hope to catch up with everyone there! (thanks Aaron for not letting me space it....i had completely forgotten.)

What an adventure.

"I'm tired y'all." It's been one of of a trip. As most of you know I was fortunate enough to be sent to Copenhagen, Denmark for work. It was work but it was also an adventure. Talking to you about the work stuff isn't fun so just know that it went well and I did what I traveled there to do. Luckily I had two nights and one evening to explore the city. It was 2nd time traveling overseas and wow does jet lag smack you like a crack whore bitch at Sunday service. Ow.

Denmark was really cool to me. I had no idea what to expect. I did little research and just sorta showed up with a schedule of priorities for work. I had no "must see's" and didn't even know I would be lucky enough to be in a country that pretty much everyone spoke english. And not broken english...they spoke wonderful english for it being their second language. AND WHY CAN'T THE US GET THIS GOING? I met many wonderful people and also spent a lot of my free time on my own. I loved it. The cab rides I took for work were rather pricey because of the distance traveled so I opted to rent a bike from my hotel to explore the city on my off time. I know this sounds odd but for any of you who have been to Copenhagen...navigating the city on your bike is sort of the norm. They have road systems that parallel the streets and it's just REALLY FREAKING COOL! It was honestly the highlight of my trip. I felt so content navigating on a bike in a new country. A great feeling.

Forgive me as I am sleep deprived and sitting at the airport after being in Spain, Belgium and now Denmark all today on zero hours of sleep. No I wasn't doing crack in the bathroom with that crack whore I mentioned earlier...I have a 9 hour flight that boards in about an hour and I'm hoping me and Norma (version Blue Bippy) can sleep together the entire flight hopefully making time go by quickly and getting me back on U.S. time.

So Belgium and Spain huh? I told you it was an adventure. While in Europe I thought taking a few vacation days was a good idea. Sure, most of us take vacation days to "relax" and visit family, friends and/or new places. I wouldn't use the word relax when describing my trip to Madrid. My flight was late arriving in Madrid as there was a plane crash killing over 150 people at the airport I was traveling to. As this accident happened while I was in the air...my flight was not canceled but delayed while in flight. They didn't tell us anything on board and upon arrival I started to realize something was up. As I received my luggage and stepped out of the secure area David was talking with the national news station here in Spain. For those who know David you know something is REALLY WRONG for this event to take place. Needless to say it was a sombre arrival but I arrived safely so I was thankful. What I didn't realized is that David had planned my entire life away and we were on a schedule that was now not being followed to the second. RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately we didn't run fast enough as we ended up postponing plans with his friends and venturing out for food and drinks Eddie and Patsy style. Our waiter thought we were both INSANE as we ordered enough food for a table of 10 spainards (not joking) and devoured it all while pounding our vino. Keep in mind we drank an entire bottle of champagne in a hurry as a celebration of our reunion and a "predrink" if you will to our night. We managed to hit every bar in madrid while sightseeing in between stops and somehow made it home JUST before the sunrise. Y'all tired yet? One would think we'd forgo our plans on day two as we both woke up wasted at the crack of dawn for our "secret journey to an unknown city." Minerva is all i had to say that morning. I could have given a shit about Segovia. But David had pre-purchased train tickets and it had a set departure time. RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (not kidding....we ran up to the train full speed and the doors closed 30 seconds later) Thank God I was still wasted at this point and not hungover as it was already 100 degrees and I was in store for a severe headache that would last all day & night. Segovia was ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL. (Did i just say that?) It was filled with history and incredible architecture and stories. I have pictured above the entrance to the city which was used to carry water from the mountains to the city and was built by hand. (David will certainly correct me if this is not true so check the comments.) I also fell in love with the city cathedral which i'm also going to picture. GORGEOUS!!!!

I'm getting nervous about missing my flight so we now get the cliff notes story of the rest of my adventure. We stayed in on night two despite our plans to meet his friends again and to see the sunset. David felt bad but we both enjoyed the chill night...we watched ab fab and tried to drink 1 glass of wine. It was horrible...expensive...but horrible on a hangover. The final day was spent at the prado museum which was also incredibly impressive and enjoyable. Later we went sightseeing again and had lunch in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood. Afterwards we went home...david took a short nap....i ventured out to starbucks and was forced to speak spanish.....OMG I LOVED IT and we finally met his friends out for drinks....we stayed out until the last minute and I made it in perfect time to the airport which took me to Belgium earlier...now denmark....and soon to chicago.

I'm tired y'all.

No time to edit...i'll proof read later. RUNNNNN!!!!!!

vBlog from Denmark

This just in: Angel Soft Isn't Soft

After a week of being sick and using a plethora of hotel toilet paper. I am here to announce that Angel Soft is NOT soft. I'm just sayin'

I QUIT!!!

So yeah...I QUIT. No more red meat for me until my trip to Brazil which is December 24th. Why am I doing this? I'm not quite sure. It's a number of reasons really. Cows are cute, i enjoy steaks and hamburgers too much and have been eating them too often, i'm turning 30 and my body isn't liking that I eat like a 18 year old and I WANT TO see if I can sacrifice something I love so much for so long. Ultimately I may even try to go vegetarian for a month or so later on down the road just to see if I can do it and if it affects the way I feel and operate.

So wish me luck! This is a HUGE thing for me and i'm going to really have to work not to fail. The picture above was my cajan ribeye from Morton's steakhouse last night. SO GOOD!!!!