Finally done with my New Hire Orientation!! Yay dance around and keep dancing because I got my FIRST PAYCHECK!! Cue N'Sync 'Just Got Paid' and Rebecca Black's 'Friday'

On the flipside this means I must bid farewell to the days of my youth. No more mid day naps, no more Ellen, no more lunch cocktails. Wait who am I kidding I am a consultant I will still get lunch cocktails. And I don't have tv anyways so me and Ellen meet on twitter. And speaking of social media I have joined 4 sites this week alone! Hit me up on Yammer, Pinterest, Google +, amongst restarting this site. It is really useful though because half of my work focuses on understanding technologies, users, what touchpoints they engage, and how they connect and engage in sites. With so much free time in between training sessions eMarketer, after Forrester, after AdAge research articles were read. Learned some interesting things such as:
People are more likely to click through a video on a website on Wednesday
The day that Facebook experiences the most traffic is Thursday-plannning for the wknd

So our last day in NHO Bootcamp started with presentations to higher level managers and executive members. I presented on the Allstate Teen Driver....which by the way IS SOOOO COOL! They created a digital video format so teens can capture a live video or upload a video of them promising to engage in safe driving practices, which is then in turn approved by their parents and Allstate. Also there are some sweet games such as Street Sluth, Allstate Teen Great Race. Below is the link. If you want to waste some time and want to have a fun and cheesy time please click.

www.allstateteendriver.com/games/

If you are wondering what I would do at Acquity Group, this is a project that I could have been staffed on if I was here a year ago. However, given that the staffing manager is taking a week of vacation starting monday I am pretty sure I will be sitting the bench for at least the first two weeks. So CHICAGO 'pencil me in' as I like to say, I am gonna be in town.

I usually have to be super careful cause I LOVE making plans. And as of now most of my upcoming weekends are booked :-/ This next weekend I am coming home :-). The following [Aug 6-7] Lollapalooza with Nati. Then Becca might be coming the following weekend. The 20-21 is free but I feel like I have something. Then the next weekend is Milwaukee- YAY haven't seen Whitney in forever and the brother and wifey are coming too! Then it's Labor Day with the fam as usual out in boondocks Illinois. However this year will be special we've got a boat dinner cruise planned, my grandpa is turning 80, and I am two hours closer since I now live in Chicago :-o

I need to stop speaking about the future and tell y'all bout the last two nights. So my date went great. He took me to Feast out in Bucktown YUM! And all you need to know if were going out again this next Thursday too but my treat. As a noob to Chicago this is gonna be tough to pick something out- Clark Dog? Joy's Noodles [def an option lol]

Found out yesterday at work that my college buddy was leaving Acquity Group and it was his last day. Sad news for me for now I am a stray NH College kid. After work we went over to Jefferson Tap and had a happy hour with some pitchers of Stella. Needless to say I left with three new college buddies. I was so proud of myself though because I hate riding solo to meet up with people and I hate even more to go to an event where I don't know anyone really that well - makes networking a problem. But I went and had a great time and met a lot of people so props in my book. Afterwards I ran home and headed over to Duffy's to meet with the other new hires where we celebrates the end of bootcamp. $20 all you can eat and drink from 6-11. Let me specify for you readers that the all you can eat was loosely applied. When I visited there sad definition of a buffett they were three ribs and a scoop of mac n cheese. This bar was sooo fratty thought. However when I texted that to Nick autocorrect nicely changed it to this 'this place is so dearth'. Whatever that means? Later on in the evening Nick showed up [plently of interesting stories here but they best be told in first person] and Nati her boyfriend and her brother. We all headed out down the street to Matisse (love this place!) where we preceded to play Connect 4 and Jenga for the rest of the nite. Sounds lame but I actually had a great time. Love my friends.

Well anyways todays a new day and I must prepare. Cubs game in an hour!