Rob Biagi CD

Ok, I'm not one to usually spend time advertising something on my blog since I like to spend talking about my family or goofy stuff. However, I wanted to make mention of this in hopes that other families will be blessed as much as mine has been.

Recently, I've stumbled upon a kids CD that is GREAT!! My 2 boys love it because there are songs about God and Jesus but done in a fun, exciting way that they can relate to. Rob Biagi is the guy's name and his info can be found at his website: http://www.robbiagi.com

The songs are really good and I can see how they will be good for years to come. Some are geared to silly, goofy 4 year olds (Jesus, The Soccer Star and The Bug Song) talking about sports, and getting "squashed"!!! But other songs are more of a serious nature to the point that I love listening to them even when the kids aren't around. (Ok, honestly I listen to the Bug Song quite a lot which explains my juvenile mentality!!) Rob does a great job on this CD and you can sense his energy. He has a newer CD out (came out in May) but I have not heard that one. The one we have is the V-I-P to G-O-D one that was his first release (see picture of cover above). Of course, my 2 yr old and 4 yr old love changing the letters up b/c they think it's funny. "I'm a V-I-G to G-O-P" !!! HA HA HA HA Love the GOP reference but I'm not going to start talking politics with my kids just yet!! :)

Anyway, if you have kids, especially little boys, I think you will enjoy this CD. Go to Rob's website and watch the short intro video he has on there. I think he talks about why he writes songs that boys and even DAD's will like!! Stuff about sports, and other things you can grunt about!!

Thanks for listening to my advertisement. More silly stuff about me and my family later on.

God bless you all,

SJ

Yes You Can !

"Yes You Can" ! That's the word we got today at our huge Employee Celebration Broadcast! It's also our new tag line - Sprint, Yes You Can. You'll be hearing more of that soon. It was fascinating to be at this event. For those who haven't heard, Sprint has merged with Nextel (yes those annoying walkie-talkie phones!! Just kidding boss if you are out there in blogland!!) The merger was official Friday afternoon at the close of business. Today was the Employee's Day and that it was. It was really cool to be a part of something so huge and so well put together.

(NOTE TO MY NIECES IN LUBBOCK: Glad you are reading my blog!!!)

One thing I'm finding out is that this new company advertises and promotes much better than my old Company. Sprint (the old version) just never did it like some of the other companies. Sure there was the "Sprint Guy" but that was not as prominent as some of our competitors. Nextel, as you may know, is the title sponsor of NASCAR. Remember back for years it was the Winston Cup Series but NASCAR wanted to go a different direction away from smoking and chose Nextel several years ago. When the merger was announced, this title sponsor issue was one of the first major issues the new Company was going to have to deal with. At this point, they've decided to keep the name "Nextel Cup" for the rest of 2005 and the 2006 season. They will decide later on (in early 2006) on the name of the Cup for 2007 and beyond. The "NEXTEL" brand name still lives on at the new Sprint in the form of the product name of the famous walkie-talkie phones. So your "Nextel phone" could have been bought at a new Sprint store... get it?? I know ... me too. It's a little confusing. So keep your eyes open in early 2006 on some big NASCAR announcement... for those that care.

Now, back to today. There were 6 major locations where live broadcasts would be held. They were: Reston, VA (D.C. area - Nextel Hdqtrs), Kansas City (Sprint Hdqtrs), Dallas/Ft. Worth, Orlando, New York and Irvine, CA (near L.A.). These cities were selected b/c they had the largest concentration of Sprint and Nextel employees. There were other cities who were holding large employee gatherings to watch the broadcast via satellite. And other employees could watch this all via the internet (I still can't explain how a phone call works so don't ask me to explain how all this happens but it does). It was like a big telethon format with lots of "back to you in Reston" and "let's throw it now back to Dallas to see what's going on in Texas". Each of the 6 cities had major executives at each location. In Dallas, we had the Chief Marketing Officer and the Senior VP of our Consumer Division. The CMO made an exciting announcement about Sprint teaming with the NFL again to be the Official Wireless Communications Service Sponsor. For more on that, read here. At the end of his announcement, he threw out a football that I almost caught so that was fun. Some of the crowd on the stage threw out mini footballs and I did catch one of those. Our event was held in the huge hotel ballroom and there were probably 2000+ Sprint and Nextel employees there. Like I said, it was huge!!

They announced some new benefits for the merged company which was cool. Some sad stuff (no longer receiving pension benefits going fwd) but got some good news about our 401k plan. I think I may even end up with some more vacation time so that's great as well. Overall, the benefits are great - can't complain. We got a cool bag, a new t-shirt, a miniature flag with the new logo on it, and some fun "thunder sticks" which are simply loud, inflatable balloons that make alot of noise when you bang them together. Believe me, these will not make it home for my 2 boys to use - no way!

Overall, it was an exciting day. Today was a day for the Employees to celebrate. I think we did it up big and that was exciting. Looking forward to continuing with this new company for years to come. Don't know exactly what the impact will be to my job but I'm putting that in the hands of my upper management and more importantly in the hands of God. For now, I'm just enjoying today and laughing at the fact that I got paid to do all this!! (I was just going to get it out there before many of you made sarcastic comments about it!!)

God bless you all,

SJ