"You're gonna be a costume now!"

Unless your head was buried in the sand today, you probably followed the "Balloon Boy" saga with the rest of the country. To recap: There was a 6-year-old boy. In a giant balloon. In the air. Drifting above Colorado. But wait -- he wasn't just "in the air," but 7,000 feet in the air. What a crazy story.

And when I say the world was watching, I mean it. Consider this:

• Within an hour, there were three dedicated Facebook groups
  
• Zazzle created 6,000 related products (shirts, bags, shoes, etc.)
  
• Seven of the top 10 trending Twitter topics were about Balloon Boy
  

This is why I love social media: It's FUN!!! All you have to do is be interesting, relevant and provide value -- even if that value is just entertainment -- and people will latch on. And to think I am lucky enough to be at Blog World 2009 in the midst of this latest social media frenzy. Is it a little more difficult to generate buzz with Internet service and landline telephones? Yes, but I'm up for a challenge :-)

Anyhoo, back to Balloon Boy... Now that our fears have been laid to rest (turns out he was never in the balloon), together we breathed a collective sigh of relief and started creating the inevitable jokes. And here's my favorite:

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We ♥ the NY

Every once in a while, we all encounter big life changes. Most of the time, these changes are along the lines of a move, a marriage, a baby, a graduation, a home purchase or a new career -- but sometimes the change is more like rejoining the singles scene. And you know what? They all deserve recognition! I consider myself a non-discriminating party planner.

So in honor of my friend Ruth beginning a new (totally AWE-SOME!) chapter in her life, we held a reverse bachelorette party this past weekend. Complete with personalized T-shirts, mechanical bull riding, a piano bar, 80s music and two great guys who spent seven hours of their Friday night on call as designated drivers (thank you, thank you, Patrick & Andrew).

And to ratchet up the fun factor even more, we made special T-shirts to wear as our evening attire. (I mean who doesn't love going out in a T-shirt and sneakers?!?!?) But to retain just a little bitta privacy here in cyberspace, I won't get into the meaning behind the T-shirts. Suffice to say they were an adorable idea :-)

The T-shirts

The party participants

Shannon got us on the list for all the bars we wanted to go to

"No, no, no! We do NOT wait in lines!"

I haven't seen a black light since 1993 :-)

Becky ~ not as scared as she looks

Ruth, having some fun

Me, pre-ride

Five seconds later...

Village West Wine Festival

I stopped trying to be "cool" years ago ~ it was obviously a fruitless quest, so I won't even hesitate to admit that I do, on occasion, listen to Star 102.1. Is it the hippest radio station in Kansas City? No. Does it make me play drums on my steering wheel and dance in my seat? No. But one thing it has always done well is fill in while other stations play commercials. Now I can add one more plus to the Star 102 column: Free tickets to the 2009 Village West Wine Festival.

It all started on a dark and stormy day in mid-September... Er, no... It was simply an ordinary morning, and I was listening to the radio. Probably John Mayer. And the DJ came on to announce that she was giving away Village West Wine Festival tickets to the ninth caller.

I ordinarily don't even try for these things because it's always a busy signal. But alas, I really wanted those tickets!!! I had actually thought about going, but at $50 a pop - the day after the Firefly Gala - my better judgment got the best of me. So with absolutely no expectations, I dialed the number. It was busy, so I decided to try one more time. And that's when it happened! WHOOOO HOOOOO!!! I even called my voicemail system just to hold my phone up to the radio and record the 15-second piece :-)

It was such a blast! The weather was spectacularly perfect, there was a band, there was food galore and there were more than 200 types of wine to test. In fact, the one thing that confused me was that each person was handed 20 drink tickets as they walked through the door. That's 2-0. My goodness... I'm not sure anyone could come close to using even half of those, sample size and all. But far be it from me to complain about excess of any sort :-) So long story short, this event is definitely going on my 2010 calendar.

Sam Sam Bo Bam, Banana Fana Fo Fam

Late last January, my friend Angie came over and announced that she had a surprise ~ she was having a baby on Oct. 1! It was so exciting, and I've been lucky to be a part of her life for the past nine months. From hearing an update after each doctors appointment to feeling him practice karate moves on her belly to throwing a shower, it's been an awesome learning experience!

Well imagine my surprise when I woke up on Sept. 20 to a text message saying it had been a big night. I honestly didn't understand for a good three minutes. My first reply, if I remember correctly, was "WHAT?!?! What do you mean?" My belief -- based on my pregnancy expertise (sarcasm) -- was that a first-time mom was never early...

Turns out I was wrong! And on Sept. 20, Samuel made his way into the world with 10 perfect fingers, 10 tiny toes and two loving new parents named Angie and Dave. As you can see, Sam is an adorable little guy, and I can't wait to watch him grow! Spoiling him along the way, of course :-)

A taste of the high life

Visiting new places is fun. But the required travel? Eh, not so much… Economy parking, a trolley to the terminal, check-in, security, a coach seat, waiting on the tarmac, waiting at the luggage carousel. And worse yet, I'm typically stuck in a middle seat wedged between two stinky, overweight men who think they own the armrests.

Well not this time! Because I am moving up in the world :-) Ok, not really. Truth be told, my VP and director are just awesome people who are open to sharing perks from time to time… Like the corporate jet ~ major score!!!

Three months ago my employer was acquired by a company based in Louisiana, and this week the Corporate Communications team had its first teambuilder at headquarters. Although I am technically now under the Brand umbrella, my new position (online & social media manager) kind of straddles the line so I was still invited to participate.

Not only did I get to check another state off my "been there, done that" list, but I also got to travel in style:

Our plane.

Our pilots, who were nice enough to point out interesting landmarks along the way.

Marjie, living it up!

Me, work work working!

Flying into Monroe, La.

Imagine!

• Parking -- 100 feet away from the plane
• Access -- walking directly on without having to show ID or a boarding pass
• Comfort -- leather seats, snacks and beverages waiting, a max of seven passengers
• Speed -- direct flight, car waiting upon arrival

Amazing! How can I ever go back?! Guess I'll find out here in a couple weeks when I go back to Southwest :-)

Scavenger Dash!

A couple months ago, a work friend mentioned that he was signing up for an event called the Scavenger Dash and sent me a link to the Web site. Here's the description:

Teams of two solve twelve clues, have a wild city adventure and complete fun challenges while discovering the city in a different way. An amazing race on a local level, where anyone can participate.

Um yeah ~ sign me UP!! I love fun :-) And my partner in crime, Ruth, loves fun just as much as I do. So we circled the date in red, highlighted in yellow and underlined in black. Then we started brainstorming for a team name. Our final decision was the "Blue Margaritas," a tribute to a variation on our favorite drink that I came up with for Angie's baby shower last month.

And yesterday was the big event. Although the participation was not nearly as high as I anticipated based on the Web site language -- which was something along the lines of "hey we're gonna cap registration at 600 people so hurry and sign up" -- it was still an awesome time, and it's in its first year. We're both planning a repeat next year, though the plan is to WIN! :-)

Our matching outfits.

Me holding the clues.

The mandatory picture after we solved clue #1: If Wile E. Coyote were in the market for a bike, he'd likely shop here as it's his favorite brand. It's that crazy sculpture on the street that we're looking for though. Each of the 12 clues required either a picture of one teammate with an object, a picture of both teammates with an object, to complete a challenge, to retrieve an object or to choose between two tasks.

Clue #11: What is that on Peggy Noland's walls? Bring us back a picture and we'll see.

Scavenger dashing.

More scavenger dashing.

Clue #2: The Scavenger Dash might be today's talk of the town, but there are others. Take a picture sharing a piece of pie at the counter of this famous diner, or return to the finish with an uncooked ear of corn. Clue #12: Bring back a printed item containing the KC Royals logo. We killed two birds with one stone (terrible phrase, by the way...) when we stopped at Constantino's Market for an uncooked ear of corn and the butchers (pictured here) helped us out by providing a sticker they put on uncooked meat packages. For a minute, we were a little nervous that we would have to carry raw meat for two hours... Not it! :-)

Clue #9: There is just one place big enough to checkmate yourself that we know of. One word hint: Books. Picture yourselves as a king or queen. The answer was the rooftop terrace of the Kansas City library. I can't imagine doing this without a smart phone ~ for both Googling and GPS. Fortunately for us, we had two.

Clue #3: Picture yourselves sewing a button with this 15-foot needle in the garment district. It was news to both of us that KC even had a garment district. We learned so much about the city!

Clue #8: Find the City Market Park, then find the Scavenger Dash volunteer for further instruction. Turns out this was a challenge where we each put one end of a knotted rope onto a belt and proceeded to undo the knots. We pretty much rocked.

We ended up coming in 16 out of 25 teams (last stop being at a bar, woot!). Not too shabby considering we didn't realize we could have skipped one of the clues. Anyway, all we got were dog tags that say "We got lost. We got found. Scavenger Dash 2009." My head is so ginormous that it didn't even fit! Ok, truth be told, it was my pony tail that caused problems and I ended up getting it over :-) Good times!

Maria finds a new hobby, take 163

I've always had a very perplexing relationship with hobbies. What starts out with so much promise inevitably loses steam and turns into nothing more than a short-lived fling. And you don't need to think back too far for proof: Photography class (four weeks), kickboxing class (eight weeks), yoga class (one week), swimming (one swim), running (six weeks) and guitar lessons (four weeks). Despite the fact that I would love to have some sort of interest beyond eating and sleeping, I had all but accepted the fact that I am just destined to be a woman without a hobby... A drifter. A vagabond.

But then I learned about a business in Overland Park called The Bead Shop that offers classes to make rings, bracelets, metalwork, glass charms, earrings, etc. Better yet? You sign up for one class at a time, and they each last about three hours. Three hours. Now that is a commitment this self-diagnosed ADD sufferer can make!

So today I took a class called Soldered Glass Charms with Ruth and Becky. I had no idea what that meant going in -- shoot, I didn't even pronounce "soldered" right (It's not soul-der?!) -- but it turned out to be pretty crafty cool. And of course I documented the entire thing... Lucky readers :-)

Destination: Portland

France? Check. Germany? Check. Spain? Check. Italy? Check. England? Check.

I've been to many places in my life, but for some reason, the left half of the United States has eluded me. Until three years ago, Salina was actually the furthest west I had ever been. But since that time, I've been to Denver, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

This weekend, I added another destination to my left-hand list: Portland! And just to clarify, that would be Oregon, not Maine -- apparently there's a lot of confusion with that...

Patrick had a work conference starting in Portland starting today, so we decided to go out a few days early to enjoy everything Portland has to offer. From biking and '80s arcades to Oreo & peanut butter-covered doughnuts and the Portland Saturday Market, it was a great trip. So much so that I won't even dwell on the layover delay that put me into KCI at 12:23 a.m. See? I won't even mention it ;-)

Get that baby boy Dunn!

While a lot of people I know started families several years ago, my closest group of friends has not been lumped into that category. But now my friend Angie is pregnant with her first baby and due on Oct. 1!

This weekend, I had the privilege of co-hosting Angie's shower. Besides the fact that I forgot to make arrangements for lots of pictures of the guests, I think it went well. People had fun, food was plentiful, blue was everywhere -- including the margaritas, which I perfected after two nights of experimentation ;-) -- and baby Dunn got tons of goodies. I think he has enough clothes that he won't even wear anything twice for at least the first 14 months!

Unfortunately, I have to call him "Boy" because Angie is being all top secret about his name. I just hope I don't get into the habit... This is a risk, Angie! There is a .0975 percent chance that I'll have to call him Boy for the rest of his life. Or I'll be like "What's his name? Check his collar."

Ok well I think I've now fulfilled my promise to Angie to blog, so here are the pictures. Peace, I'm out!

Angie with Trish and me (co-hosts)

Angie and Trish

Blue margaritas (which made for uber funny blue smiles)

Foooooooood!

Diaper cakes made by Karree (left) and me (right)

Homemade cupcakes. I did nothing but stir and pour. Angie and Ruth get all the credit for the fabulous ganache and decoration!

Angie opening all her presents (and me writing down the goods for tracking purposes)

Baby Jeopardy. Ruth and I spent SO much time on this game! But it pretty much rocked :-)

Presents!

Cupcakes

Ultimate? Ultimate what?

A couple months ago, my friend Betsy asked if I wanted to join an ultimate league this summer. “Ultimate what?” I asked, intrigued and thinking that any activity preceded by the adjective ultimate must be all sorts of awesome… It turns out “ultimate” is short for ultimate Frisbee. The Frisbee part of the name is removed because it’s a trademark.

I agreed, thinking it sounded like a lot of fun – mostly reminiscing about all the times I tossed a Frisbee around as a kid. But ultimate is nothing like that… The best way I can describe ultimate is like a mix of football and soccer. Each team has seven players, and we play on a big field on the outskirts of Kansas City. The goal is to score points by tossing the Frisbee down the field to different players on the team until you get to the end zone, and you can’t move you have the Frisbee or else you’ll be called for traveling. We play man-on-man defense, so I suppose it’s kind of like basketball, too. In any case, it’s a killer workout involving tons of sprints. And it’s hot. None of which I was thinking about when I signed up :-)

This is week four, and my team is undefeated! I get absolutely no credit for that, although I was tossed the Frisbee one time tonight AND CAUGHT IT!! That’s a big damn deal because last week I was my first opportunity, and I missed it. I’m there pretty much just there as a token female… It’s kind of a male-dominated sport, so they need one or two females on the field at any time. There are actually four girls on the team of 15, but there’s never more than two playing at any one time – and two of the girls were “Bettys” during college, meaning they played ultimate at the college level.

I’m very fortunate that my team (median age being somewhere in the lower 20s) is fun and not focused solely on being competitive. I mean they want to win, and most of the players have years of experience, but they don’t get upset when something goes wrong or a 20-year-old girl I'm guarding leaves me in the dust. I still don’t quite understand the rules, but I run around like a chicken with its head chopped off and nobody has noticed so far. Mwahaha (evil laugh)... I figure I have six more weeks to learn before the big tournament.

Here’s a picture of some of the team chilling after the game. It was pretty grueling tonight with the humidity out of control and a heat index over 100, but we still rocked. Bonus points!