Monday, June 08, 2009

I Have a New Job



I have a new job.

I will be the Public Relations and Events Coordinator at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

This is a world-class, Smithsonian-affiliated museum and I'm excited about the new job. When you work in any new field you learn new things at an amazing rate and I love that. It's thrilling to drop into a new world and learn to navigate it.

I will be finishing things up for the MHA this month. This job has offered tremendous opportunities to be involved in people's lives in meaningful ways. How can you be anything but humbled when you have the chance to help save lives? And humbled I am. I'm also grateful to the people who've made it possible for the MHA to do that work. I want to say a public thank you to the board, volunteers and other organizations I've had the pleasure of working with the past seven years.

The national office at MHA America is one of the best run organizations I've ever seen. Everyone is dedicated to the work and inspired to do their best. I've been so fortunate to be involved in the mental health movement, but it's time for me to do something new and for the MHA locally to be run by someone who wants to do new and exciting things here.

So, that's my big news. I applied for the Cosmosphere job back in April, but it took awhile to go through the process. I'm excited about the job, the people and the new things I'll be learning. I've always wanted to work in a museum and I've always wanted to work in tourism, so I think this will be an extraordinarily good fit. I think we can do some cool things together.

Needless to say, I'll keep you posted.
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Food Coma Caravan



Some friends and I have been on what we call the "Food Coma Caravan." In the front are Greg and Kris. In the back, Sharon, me, Carl and Mark. It's sort of a "whoever can come" event. Mia, Todd and Tara couldn't come this time. And I'm still hoping to go on one with Wayne.

Carl is the organizer. In fact, on this trip I started referring to him as "The Carl," as in "All Hail The Carl," because he finds such cool stuff. He picks a series of locally owned restaurants in an area, finds us a cool locally owned motel/hotel/cabin and we travel in a dot-to-dot method, seeing the sights, punctuated with interesting meals.

We stayed at the Sky-Vue Lodge, which had cabins for rent. "Cabins" in this case means homes. They all came with a view. This was the view out the back door of our cabin this morning.



We've done places in Missouri, Kansas and now Arkansas. Carl has a real knack for planning. He finds cool spots all over the place. He and Kris had been to some of them before, and some of them were new to them, too. But, he finds some gems.

For example, this morning we had breakfast at the Oark General Store, Oark Arkansas - founded in 1890. After breakfast we went to a swinging bridge. Yesterday we visited Fort Smith, Arkansas. The day before we ate at Joe's Pizza and Pasta in Fort Smith, which you don't want to miss Last night we finished off the day with ice cream at the Dairy Dream in Mountainburg. At least that's what the sign on top of the building said. But, as you can see from the photo above, they also have burgers.

One of the highlights of this trip was something Carl couldn't plan. One night as we were coming back, Greg, Sharon and I saw a bear. A BEAR! In the wild. Just going about his business, doing bear things. He was along the roadway, and crossed over it in front of us, then back again. We saw him for probably thirty seconds at least. It was so incredibly cool. I've never seen a bear in the wild. Amazing!

I just adore seeing Carl and Kris - such a great couple - and I don't get to see them often enough. It's always fun to get a group together and see how the mix works. I so appreciate the work Carl does to make the FCC happen. He is the only person I will let plan travel on my behalf. The only one.

All Hail The Carl.

________________

Subscribe for free to Patsy's Ponderings in email or your choice of a reader.

Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, cooking and more. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and other social media sites of your choosing.

All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.