Happy Hump Day!

Wednesday is a great day, 2nd only to Friday, because it marks the halfway point of the work week and it means the weekend is just around the corner. Last weekend was a good one. I had hoped to spend some quality time on the beach, but oddly enough the weather did not cooperate (unusual for this time of year in SD). So I spent it finishing up my book (The Queen's Fool), working on essays (barely), and deep cleaning my apartment because it had been awhile and I have friends from Virginia coming to town this weekend. The dust bunnies fought a valiant battle, but in the end I was victorious. We had a dinner party at my friends' house Sunday night with all the girls and the food was excellent. I made balsamic vinegrette marinated vegetable skewers for the grill and they turned out really good.

As I said in an earlier post, I've been reaching out to people in sports/media/entertainment related student groups at my target schools and getting some responses. I made a couple phone calls last night. I didn't manage to get in touch with the guy from Wharton, but had a nice half hour conversation with the Sports Business Association Co-Chair from Anderson. He gave me some great information about the club and the program, his experience getting his internship with the Rose Bowl, the Anderson network, classes, etc. Very helpful guy and I'm excited to incorporate some of this stuff into my essays, if Anderson ever gets around to publishing them! I sent a thank you email after the Wharton Info Session to the leader of the media/entertainment breakout session and we've been exchanging emails. He's shared a couple of contacts, a powerpoint presentation from the Entertainment & Sports Marketing class at Wharton, and information about an "experience-based" M&E course that they will be adding in the fall. I'm so happy that I sent that thank you email because he has turned into an excellent source of information.

I've been watching the Democratic National Convention on PBS this week. The coverage is much more comprehensive than the networks, I like the commentary and analysis better, and there's virtually no commercial breaks. It's a shame that the networks didn't televise last night's session because Barack Obama's keynote address was pretty terrific (click the link for a transcript in case you missed it). On the other hand, it's probably to the Dems benefit that the networks did not televise last night because the rest of the speakers pretty much sucked. I consider myself an independent because I don't think either of the major parties get it right. Thanks to my background in economics, I'm fiscally "conservative" because I believe in smaller government and states' rights, yet on matters of civil liberties, reproductive rights, etc. other people would probably label my views as "liberal". Anyway, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, you have to admit that Barack Obama is a talented, charismatic speaker and will be a political force to be reckoned with in the years to come.