Weekly Update

I’ve fallen a little behind on my blogging, but I’ll give you guys a quick run through of what I’ve been up to!

Wednesday

Dan and Megan were down in Avalon on vacation with Megan’s family for the week, so since I had the day off I decided to go visit them.  I hadn’t seen them since we were all in Cape May over a month ago so I really missed them!  Megan’s family is really great and always so welcoming.  We had the perfect beach day! It was sunny and warm, with a little bit of a breeze.  Living at the beach has turned me into quite the “beach day” critic, but that day was phenomenal.

 

Thursday

Thursday morning, Jess and Madi came for a visit! We went to the beach for a little while and then headed back home to start getting ready for the real reason they were here: BLAKE SHELTON!  Atlantic City was hosting a free Blake Shelton concert on the beach and they got tickets for it and so did Kelsey and I.  It was so much fun! I’ve never experienced a beach concert but it was awesome! There were so many people there, it was pure chaos.  A lot of people were camping out on the beach since 10 am to get good spots, but we decided we didn’t need to go into the city until 3.  Even though we didn’t get there until 3:30 we still got prime spots for the concert.  We ended up in zone 3 which was as close as you could get without having a “fan zone” pass. Dan and Shay were the opening act and there was even a surprise appearance by Danielle Bradbury because her and Blake are best buds! Afterwards we hung out to see Blake leave and we made friends with some Atlantic City police officers! Blake left in one of the vans we saw, but the windows were really tinted so you couldn’t really see him.  After the concert, there were fireworks, so we watched them from the beach for a little while.  It was such a fun night and I was glad I could spend it with good friends!

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Friday

Friday morning I went to my internship for a few hours before having to go to work.  At my internship, I’m now in the sales and marketing portion of the program.  I worked on updating One Atlantic’s Pinterest page for a while.  This is important because social media is the new way of marketing for businesses.  It is especially important because a lot of people use Pinterest for wedding ideas and since that is our industry, we want to create a strong Pinterest presence to gain attention.  After I finished that, I updated the website by adding tags to all of our photos to create Search Engine Optimization.  This is something I learned about in a few of my Mass Communication classes, so it was cool to actually do it.  Search engine optimization is a way of placing yourself at the top or near the top of search engine results.  We also had a couple come in for tour and information meeting, so I asked Joey if I could sit in on that meeting with her.  They were from New York and were looking at getting married at One Atlantic. After the meeting, they seemed pretty interested and were asking about deposits and wedding dates available so I think they’re probably going to book with us.  I really enjoy working in sales, because it allowed me to use some of my Mass Communications and interpersonal skills to do the social media and speak with the couples.   My favorite part of the internship has been all the face to face interaction I get with the bride and grooms whether it be during the event, tastings, or final detail meetings.

Saturday

My parents came down for the weekend and Saturday was a pretty cloudy/rainy day so it wasn’t a good day for the beach.  Fortunately I had been wanting to do a couple touristy things in the area while I had been down here, so Saturday provided the perfect day for that.   First we went to Lucy the Elephant.  Lucy the Elephant is located in Margate, NJ, which is just a couple beaches south of Atlantic City.  Lucy is a 6 story elephant structure from the 1880s.  I’m not going to talk about the whole history of Lucy, but you can look it at here if you’re interested.  Its a pretty cool thing. While we were there, there were signs posted about them filming for a show, so when we came out of the elephant after our tour, there were people asking us to sign release forms for television.  It ended up being National Geographic filming for a show on human behavior.  Kelsey was interviewed, so watch out for her television debut coming in November!

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After the elephant, we headed into Atlantic City to get some boardwalk food for lunch.  Aunt Cindy hadn’t been to Atlantic City at all yet this summer so she was really anxious to get there.  We walked around for a little while and then drove to the Absecon Lighthouse located at the northern end of Atlantic City.

Sunday

Sunday was the second free concert.  It was Lady Antebellum! I’ve never seen them perform live so I was excited about that.  Alex and Sierra, winners from the third season of X-Factor were the opening act.  I’ve never listened to them but they had some good songs.  Then Lady A came on and they were really good! I love a lot of their songs and they were really personable with the crowd.  Once again, we waited to go into the city until 3:00 and we still managed to get the same spots in Zone 3 as last time.  We were pretty lucky both days!

After the concert, Kelsey got proposed to and married in a matter of seconds

We went and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe after trying to get into two other restaurants that had extremely long waits.  We ordered our food and were sitting there.  A guy walked by with bruschetta and we were looking at his plate longingly and he stopped and asked if it was for our table.  We said, “no but it looks delicious” so he took it to the table it was for and stopped at our table on the way back.  He asked if we wanted some. We both just kinda looked at him like what? and he said “I’m the manager,  I can do what I want” so a few minutes later we were enjoying a plate a of fresh (& free) bruschetta! It was really  good!  Once again, it was a really fun day! I love concerts and was kinda bummed thinking I wouldn’t get to go to any this summer, then these two free concerts happened!

The Life I Live

Moving here this summer has opened me up to a lot of new experiences and willingness to put myself out there and try new things. Yesterday Aunt Cindy talked me into attending a yoga class in Rio Grande.  This specific type of yoga was called Bikram yoga or what is known as hot yoga. This past semester at college  I started practicing yoga, but Bikram is a whole other adventure.  Bikram yoga consists of a 90 minute class in a 104 degree room.  The studio we went to had space heaters and fireplaces all throughout the room.  Bikram is made up of 26 poses that are practiced in each class. Bikram has many health benefits one being the releasing your body of toxins through your sweat.  The high temperatures open up your blood vessels and allow better blood and oxygen flow throughout the body.  The class was definitely an experience.   I never knew how much a person could honestly sweat.  The lady next to me was sweating so much that it sounded like it was raining on her mat.  The whole class I had to go to the bathroom really bad, so I was feeling really uncomfortable, but I knew if I left the hot room to go to the bathroom coming back into it would be completely agonizing.  In this case, I decided to lay down for a pose or two until I felt like I could participate again.   After the class, I was feeling slightly nauseous because I didn’t properly hydrate, but I was proud of myself for making it through the whole class.  Aunt Cindy said she’s seen a lot of first timers and I did great.  So since I’ve survived, I can cross Bikram yoga off my bucket list.    While at this class, I also made a nice connection with a woman who planned events for the Olympics in Australia.  She also plans weddings in Cape May and has tons of connections all over the place because of her involvement with the Olympics.  I gave her my name and e-mail and she said she would contact me if she needs any help in Cape May this summer or hears of any good opportunities.  Its really cool how you have the ability to network everywhere you go.

Bikram Yoga class

This morning I went to my internship.  I am now on the third leg of the program which is working with the Banquet manager.  When I got there he had me do “liquor trackers”.  Before an event, the bartenders count how many bottles of each alcohol they have and then they do the same at the end of the night.  I enter this information in a spreadsheet which calculates how much alcohol was consumed at each event, along with the consumed cost for that alcohol.  All this gets added up to see how much that specific event’s alcohol cost.  This is how we keep track of what alcohol is being consumed, how much we spent, and how to better prepare for each event.  After I finished the liquor trackers, I helped Paul with the payroll for all the servers, bartenders, barbacks, and greeters.  Like before, I also copied information onto “The Board” for the upcoming wedding on Saturday.

After this, Paul didn’t have anything for me to do at the time, so I asked one of the sales ladies if she needed anything done.  She gave me approximately 200 business cards and asked me to create a spreadsheet with all their names and e-mail addresses.  The spreadsheet is going to be used in a few months when it’s time to send out information regarding One Atlantic’s holiday parties.  The winter months are usually slow for One Atlantic weddings, so this is when they try to book a lot of corporate events and parties.  After I was finished with the spreadsheet, Paul showed me how to operate the security cameras and time clocks for employees.   So far, the event planning portion has been my favorite part of the internship, so I always check with Daniella and Eileen if they have anything that needs to be done before I leave.  Daniella asked me to help her with a project she was working on.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, couples are not allowed to have the Starry Night lighting fixture up when there is going to be a hora.  Another reason a couple could not have Starry Night would be if they have more than 250 guests.  This is because the normal ceremony space holds 250 people and if a couple has more guests we have to use a larger portion of the ballroom for the ceremony space. This would not allow enough time to switch over the entire ballroom and put up the fixture during the short cocktail hour.  Daniella asked me to go through the folders for all her booked weddings and check information regarding Starry Night, Horas and if they have over 250 guests.  She was creating e-mails to remind the brides of the information regarding Starry Night and its restrictions. After I was finished with this, Daniella allowed me to create a wedding timeline and menu in Reserve for one of her weddings in October.  I’ve seen Eileen and Daniella use Reserve for different aspects of events, but it was really helpful to be able to do it myself.  In addition to weddings and office hours, I’ve been working on One Atlantic’s Pinterest account from home.  Its been really fun to take the pictures and categorize them.

On my way to One Atlantic today, I was walking through the pier and I saw a press conference happening, so I decided to stop and listen for a little while.  It was a DOAC press conference announcing the opening acts for the free Blake Shelton and Lady Antebellum concerts in a month.  Dan and Shay will be opening up for Blake Shelton on July 31st and Alex and Sierra from the X Factor are opening for Lady Antebellum on August 3rd. Kelsey and I have tickets for both concerts so it was exciting to see the announcement live.  The speaker was also providing a lot of valuable information regarding the concert including a map and parking information.

Sand Sculpting World Cup

Today I did something a little different than my usual beach day.  I have seen the Sand Sculpting World Cup being advertised for a couple of weeks now and today was the first day I could get there.  My mom had an extra long weekend this week so she made the trip down to hang out for the weekend so we took on this adventure together!  I was really excited to go see the sculptures and the artists didn’t disappoint.

Every artist worked together to create this sculptor representing Atlantic City

The history of sand sculpting began right here in Atlantic City so its only natural for the World Cup to take place here as well.  Phillip McCord is considered the grandfather of sculpting.  Dating back to 1897 he sculpted near the steel pier which is wear the DO AC Sand Sculpting World Cup event is taking place this year. As years passed, the famous sand sculptors drew large crowds to Atlantic City.  Phillip McCord and other artists spent most of the year sculpting sand into figures and scene representing current events, issues, and interests.  Hotels and postcards started using photos of the sand sculptors to advertise Atlantic City.  After a huge storm in 1944, the sand sculptures were no longer a part of the attractions at Atlantic City.  Although you can’t see them every day along the boardwalk, they still remain a part of Atlantic City’s rich history.

For the 2014 DO AC Sand Sculpting World Cup, 20 of the top sculptors have come to Atlantic City from across the United States and 10 other countries to compete.  There were categories of singles & doubles.  There were also rules and regulations for each sculptor, along with a long list of criteria for judging.

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Afterwards Mom and I headed to the outlets located in downtown Atlantic City and then went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch!  I was so happy to finally be able to spend a day with my mom after working the majority of the time she was here.