Melting Pot, Sweet Sylvia, NSHMBAA

Winter has officially landed in the Twin Cities...and it's still early October??? When I returned from NY a couple weeks ago, there was a frost advisory for the next day. And then this weekend, there's snow (yes, I'm not joking...when I woke up Saturday morning there was snow covering the top of the buildings and the trees...fortunately it didn't stick to the ground). It's going to be a looooooooooonnnnngggg winter. The past couple of weeks have been busy, which is why I'm overdue for an update. The week after I returned from NY, I worked late every night from Monday through Wednesday (my analyst has been out for two weeks now so I have been working overtime to keep on top of everything). Then on Thursday night, Erin and I went to a wine tasting at Sorella's Wine store in Minneapolis. Erin was caught in traffic so I got there a good 30 minutes before her. By the time she arrived I think I was on tasting number 6 (I counted that I tried 11 different wines over the course of the evening). My favorite tasting was a 2008 Moscato and Veuve Cliquot (which I love - the tasting was just an excuse for me to have some for free). There was a drawing at the end of the event and little ole me who rarely wins anything, won two tickets to "The Affair" which is part of the Chocolate Extravaganza that I went to last year (oh, I think I blogged about it...can we say heavenly??? And now I get to go for free and bring a friend!!!). I'll be going with Erin (no surprise there). After the tasting, we met up with my friend Jjais and one of my soror friends LaShea, for dinner at the Melting Pot. Y'all know I love that place - we stayed there so long, we closed the place down. It was a 3 course menu (cheese, entree, and dessert) for $30 for Restaurant Week, and of course I asked our waiter for my extra plate of pound cake when dessert came out. It was so yummy. Saturday night, I met up with Erin and Jjais to go to another tasting...this time, it was desserts. This local black woman who goes by the name of Sweet Sylvia, was having a tasting to launch her bakery business and it was open to the public. I found out through Erin (apparently she got the same email I got from North Star Soul, but I never got around to checking my email...I've been really bad about getting through emails these days). The tasting was even more heavenly than the Melting Pot. That woman can bake. She had so many desserts out for the tasting: about 4 different varieties of cookies, mini sweet potato cupcakes, regular size banana cupcakes, and chocolate cupcakes, passionfruit cheesecake, sweet potato cheesecake, lemon bars, pecan bars, chocolate covered strawberries....oh goodness, for a sweet tooth like me, it was pure insanity. My favorite items were the mini sweet potato cupcakes, and the sweet potato cheesecake. It took me halfway through the event to realize that the full size cupcakes were supposed to be tasters of her cakes (since they weren't listed on her menu). Those did me in (yes I had one of both the banana and the chocolate) otherwise I would have been tasting all night. So now I'm trying to figure out what type of event I can have so I can order some of those cupcakes (I would feel too guilty ordering them just to have in the house for me to eat...I'd devour them in 2 days tops). The crazy thing was that Sweet Sylvia wasn't taking orders that night. She could have gotten a ton of business if she were. Instead, you had to follow up on her website (she doesn't have a freestanding store) - if you're curious, check her out at: http://www.sylveelicious.com (fyi, it requires flash). After the dessert tasting, we were supposed to go to dinner at the Mall of America before going to see Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself. But we were all so full from the tasting that we ended up going to Crave at the mall, and ordering drinks and appetizers. I had never been to Crave but it was quite an atmosphere. There was a live band performing - these three ladies singing old showtunes, they were actually quite entertaining. The wait for tables was insane so we sat at the bar and ordered food there, except the bartender forgot to order my food (Erin and I ordered the same thing but he only put one order in). Then as it turned out, there were out of my order so they couldn't even make me another one. So he told me to order whatever I wanted on the house (so long as it was under $35). If I had more time, I would've went to town but since the movie was starting in less than 30 minutes, I just ordered some $5 fried crab wraps from the late night happy hour menu, since he said they could be done in 5 minutes. I guess since my food order was so cheap compared to what I initially ordered, he also comped my drink. Nice. Afterward, we saw the movie, and I won't say much about it in case you haven't seen it. But it was quite moving, and if you're prone to crying in movies - this one can easily take you there. Overall I thought it was one of Tyler Perry's best movies, but go see it for yourself if you haven't already. You can tell he's trying to move away from the 100% comedy formula and really stand behind key messages.
So that was two weeks ago. This past week was consumed with work, and NSHMBAA (the annual National Society of Hispanic MBA's conference that was in Minneapolis this week). Since my analyst is still out (we think he is returning Tuesday), any night that I wasn't volunteering with NSHMBAA, I was working late. I signed up to volunteer for 12 hours at the conference, which granted me access to many of the events as well as a ticket to the closing gala. Except I ended up not really taking advantage of the perks b/c I was working so much and was exhausted by the end of the week. I showed up to volunteer Monday night to stuff conference bags and ended up working only 1 hour of a 4 hour shift. They told us that since we finished early, if we were signed up to volunteer the next day, we would receive credit for the hours but did not need to show up (that applied to me b/c I was supposed to volunteer Tuesday as well). So I got credit for 8 hours of work, when I only did 1. I showed up again on Thursday night and that night, they put me to work. I stood for 3 hours at the entrance to the Corporate Networking Reception, scanning badges for every attendee. While my feet were killing me by the end of the night, the nice thing was that I got to see many of the attendees. While I was standing there, I ran into all types of folks I knew: former Wharton classmates, sorors, a Bronx buddy, and about a gazillion Target people that I know from different activities. A divisional (who I actually interviewed with when I was applying for my internship) came to the door and didn't have his badge. He leaned in my ear and said "hey, I signed the checks for half of this stuff, I think that warrants me admission." I just cracked up, b/c I'm sure he was right. He was the sponsor for the entire internship program when I was an intern, and he is also one of the diversity business partners, so I let him on in. While I enjoyed volunteering and networking, interacting with certain members of the NSHMBAA staff drove me crazy. I have never seen an event of that magnitude be so unorganized. On Monday night when I arrived, I walked around the convention center for a good 15 minutes trying to find out where the volunteers were b/c the room they told us to meet at was empty. I eventually found a group of volunteers and together we all walked around trying to find out where we were supposed to be. Finally, we ran into a staff person who told us that there was a room change. And the new room was at the opposite end of the convention center. Really??? A note on the door would have been nice but I kept that comment to myself. Then, Thursday evening when I was working the door of the networking reception, the two ladies running that event (I later found out one of them was the national events coordinator - she really needs to be fired) were a hot mess. First of all they kept barking orders (something I don't take too kindly to, so of course I was biting my tongue the whole night), then they would give us direction like "no one is allowed to enter before 7pm" or "no one is allowed entry without a badge", then two seconds later you would see them letting in people that they knew prior to 7pm or without a badge. And of course then people standing outside want to know why they aren't being let in or why an exception was made for someone else, just contributing to unnecessary drama. The kicker though was that after 8pm, there were very few new people coming in so the girl that I was working with asked if we could stop working the door since the event was winding down anyway. The coordinator told her "not yet, a few more minutes." 30 minutes later, I went and asked her myself, and she said "what time is it?" then walked off down the hall, not returning for 5 minutes. Then when she did return, she avoided us like the plague and went back in the event through the other door to socialize. Really? If the answer is no, at least have the decency to say so. Finally, around 9pm she came over and told the guys who were working the second door that they could leave, then she came over to us and asked for our scanners. The dum dum that I was working with had the nerve to ask "is there anything else you need us to do?" The lady responded "well, are you supposed to be working the door for the 9:30 event?" I just looked at that girl and shook my head. I walked away with the guys, and got my bag, and began my exit. As I was walking out, I ran into her and they had her posted her up by the room for the 9:30 event (mind you our initial shift was only supposed to go until 10pm and that event was going until 11:30). She had this confused look on her face and I asked if they had her working that event too. Her response was that she didn't know b/c she asked the coordinator and the woman just walked off. I was thinking, that definitely would have been my cue to take my behind home, but the girl looked like she was too scared to leave. I just shook my head again and told her to have a good night. There was no way I was working another minute under those unorganized ladies. So anyway, I did try to make the MLT breakfast Saturday morning but it started at 7am and by the time I got there at 8:30 it was winding down. I went by the convention center and briefly checked out the Career Expo. I mainly wanted to stop by the Wharton table and see if one of my recruiter friends was at the Ohio State table. Unfortunately, no one was at the Wharton table and I never did find the OSU table. Apparently the parties Friday night had folks rolling in late (c'mon people, can we be a little professional - you know folks are waiting to talk to you??!!) I wasn't really looking to speak with any companies but I was hoping to get a contact at Liz Claiborne - they didn't even have a table at the fair. So I stayed for about 5 minutes, chitchatted with one of my sorors who was there on behalf of her company, then left. I had plans of going to the gala last night, but I was too exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep, which is exactly what I did. Ok, that's enough writing for now...I'm about to go take care of my Sunday errands. Later y'all