#garver

Dear Gus & Magnus,

Day 2 of my Kansas City communication strategy meeting. Best part was visiting our downtown office in the Crossroads Arts District. Not that I'm going to be transferred ever, but I like to keep a list -- no surprise there -- of the offices I would choose to transfer to, should I be forced to decide. Current list:

Downtown Kansas City (city/proximity to home/work space)

Greenville, South Carolina (city)

Fayetteville, Arkansas (city/proximity to home/vibe)

Ridgeland, Mississippi (vibe/proximity to home)

Downtown Dallas (work space/vibe)

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

I left the house before 5 o'clock this morning to get on the road to Fayetteville for a photoshoot that lasted all day. I didn't get home until after bedtime. I didn't take a decent photo today, but Bryan snapped this one of me when I was standing in to get our lighting right. I'm blown away by how gray my sideburns are getting.

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

Today was a whirlwind. Click here for a more detailed explanation, but the short version is that I started the day physically and mentally exhausted, never felt rehearsed enough despite spending all day at the venue. But somehow the show went well anyway. I was shocked that Brock gave the Video Team the President's Cup this year -- something that was a total surprise to me and I was stunned by -- but I was even more caught off guard that Aunt Laura arranged for Mom and Nene to be at the show. They took this picture of Mom with me on the big screen in the background and sent it to me as the show wound down, but I didn't look at my phone until after I walked off stage and saw them in person. I legitimately thought my mind was hallucinating because their presence didn't make sense. Hallucination or not, I collapsed into Mom's arms, completely emotionally and physically spent and relieved to have my person when I needed her.

I'm grateful they came, I'm grateful Laura made it happen without my finding out -- I would've stumbled on stage had I known they were there -- and I'm grateful Yiayia kept you both so they could be there. Today was an absolutely unexpected embarrassment of riches.

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

The Video Team and I spent the day making a promotional video for an event we have in our Ridgeland office. The event is called the Garver Rib & Roll, but I wrote a script in which an employee thinks it's called the Garver Ribbon Roll, and of course, shenanigans ensue. It's going to be a good video, but filming took way longer than I had hoped it would, and we accidently broke a $1,400 video monitor, which made the process a little more difficult. We got back to little rock after midnight, making for a really long day.

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

I left this morning for Ridgeland so I could go to the event we made the video invitation for last month -- the guy pointing is the clown from that video. Our employees smoked ribs and baked cinnamon rolls and clients came to judge. I ate a decent helping and felt like crap. When Magnus goes to daycare next week, I'm going to make a plan to eat better and get in shape.

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

I met with the ARS board at lunch today and told them I'm putting the reading series on hiatus until I can get some more help in executing the things I want to execute. I haven't had the time to commit to ARS and as a result, less people have shown up and the reading experience has suffered -- things I'm not prepared to tolerate. I'm not ending the series -- we still have programming scheduled through April -- but I'm not scheduling anything new until it becomes a well-oiled machine again. We had so much momentum when the pandemic hit and I want to get that back.

This afternoon at work, we filmed a video in which I get to play the role of company anchorman, which is a direction I've been headed to for a while. This was a one-off, but I have plans to transition my daily announcement into a daily newscast and today was the biggest step toward that so far.

Dad.

Dear Gus & Magnus,

Winter Storm Mara has hit Texas and threatened to hit Little Rock last night, so about half the team opted out of our planned retreat. This is the group who stayed the course. We ended up making the retreat less about overall Comm Team initiatives and instead about this year's Summit.

Dad.

Grapevine, Texas. 2.1.2023 - 3.18pm.