AZ aint that Hot

We flew into Phoenix this afternoon and for once we can safely say that San Francisco was hotter than Phoenix.

Upon getting into the hotel (The Mondrian in Scottsdale) we were hoping for sunlight, but there wasn't any. We still headed down to the pool to check out the sites and do the following photo shoot:

We then headed out to dinner with Brittany and Nicole (our ASU ambassadors from last year) and Brittany's husband John who of course was still rockin the blue JS hat with pride:

We ate at Pita Jungle which has some amazing Mediterranean food, including the Red Pepper hummus, of course it has nothing on Blue Dish from San Leandro, CA. Tomorrow we're off to campus to interview 22 spots to try and replace Britt and Nicole, which is going to be tough to do.

See you manana,

J and L

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Tidbits:

Miles traveled today: 678

Jason's hotel room A/C sounds like a : Jet Engine

Highlight of the day: Staying at the Mondrian (Free M&M's in our hotel rooms and the Ukranian woman checking us in at the front desk)

Best meal: Pita Jungle Pasta surprise with chicken

Worst meal/decision: Humpty overeating at the restaurant and throwing down the free bag of M&M's before we left.

Rental car: Some minivan situation

Keep your fingers crossed moment: Jason hopefully won't get a speeding ticket in the mail from the city of Tempe for some hidden camera that took a picture of him on Rural road for driving 11MPH over the speed limit. It was either us or the red SUV next to us, lets hope it's the SUV. Typical tempe.....

Michigan State University

So after some time off for some R&R it's time to do a quick recap of Michigan State, very quick indeed.

We got into Detroit somewhere around 12:30AM then made the hour drive to Howell, MI, which consisted of a hoiday inn and a mcdonalds. Pulled into the HI express crashed for the night then woke up at 7:30 to make the 45 minute drive to East Lansing. Pulled up to the career center in the stadium and saw this fabulous sign:



Interviewed students all morning in the career center which was nicely decorated and had a decent water cooler. Then headed to lunch at Cosi was hands down the Best lunch of thr trip. Phenomenal rasberry mojito lemonade also, they need to bring it to the West Coast.



Interviewed the remaining students in the afternoon then headed over to a little 31 flavors for a well deserved treat. Check out the pic as Humpty spilled a spoonful on the floor (spillcount now is 4):


Jason got a personal tour of the stadium during the day too and stood in the coaches box and took this picture. The whole state of michigan is so flat, he said he was able to see all the way to canada:



Drove to the Lansing airport and caught a flight back to O'Hare yet again. Sat in the same terminal at the same gate and ate the same food, then boarded our flight to SFO. Upon waiting for the flight to take off, the plane's electrical system of course broke, we all had to dismebark and then load up another flight to SFO, total delay time: 4 hours. Made it back into SF around 1:45AM and then somehow made it home for some much needed sleep in our own beds.

We're back on the road next week to THE Arizona State University in Tempe for our final interviewing appearance of the season.

Some quick stats, very quick stats:

Total delayed hours this week: 8

Total hours spent in the state of Michigan vs. Time in the O'Hare airport: Michigan 11, O'Hare: 10

Jason's ice cream choice at 31 flavors: Gold Medal Ribbon and World class chocolate in a waffle cone

Heller: Chocolate rasberry in a cup

Miles traveled back home: 2,314

University of Minnesota

Today we'll start off with a quick recap from last night after we updated. our plane landed in Minneapolis somewhere around 12:00am, of course the gate was broken and couldn't come out to our plane to pick us up so we sat for an extra 15 minutes during which this conversation happened via blackberry messenger:

L: This is so typical
J: This is the story of our lives.
L: How long u think we'll be stuck here?
J: Prob 15-20 min
L: I can kiss doing my taxes tonight goodbye.
J: I can kiss my jeans goodbye because I'm going to pee them.

We then had to navigate the worst airport design ever, here is how the rest of the night went:

We landed in the F terminal gate 20, walked 20 gates to where the tram was supposed to be, it was broken, took a moving walkway through 2 more terminals (15 minutes walking), took 1 escalator, walked another terminal and a half cause the other tram was busted, finally took 3 More escalators, caught another tram, took 2 escalators to the car center, walked another mile, took another escalator, found hertz, walked another .5 miles to our car, got in the car then proceeded to drive around in circles for 5 minutes trying to find the exit, ended up back where we started, then finally found some man to show us the exit, left the airport then finally drove the car on the highway in circles waiting for the GPS to work, saw much road work and police car xmas light bonanza, got the GPS to work, drove in more circles found the holiday inn, drove in the wrong direction to a dead end street, realized South Washington street is quite deceiving, made a 3pt turn, realized heller was at a different hotel, found the right direction on washington to go, dropped heller at the nice hotel, jason drove back to the holiday inn, drove in more circles to realize there is no such thing as a hotel parking lot in Minn do to some bizarre city ordinance, talked to the check in man at the HI with a funny tie who promised to give Jason a 8:00AM wake up call, went back to the car to find the public parking garage, drove down a do not enter alley, backed all the way out of it, finally parked the car, went to the lobby and got a room key from funny tie man, went to the hotel room, checked the time 1:53AM, checked email and went to bed at 3:30AM, woke up to blackberry ringing at 8:31AM and realized funny tie man did not hold up his end of the bargain, rushed to get dressed and went to the lobby to yell at the funny tie man to only realize he was either a pigment of Jason's imagination or it was too long of a night.

We arrived at the Carlson Business school at Minnesota and found the building to be one of the nicest we have ever seen. Interviewed 10 gopher faithful up until lunch. Then headed over to the Acadia Cafe to eat. This was quite possibly the best lunch of the month.

Headed back to the career center where all of the employees have Nintendo Wii characters of themselves hanging on their doors. We asked for the staff to make one of us but they did not come through. We interviewed 8 more students then headed over to a BP gas station to load up on junk food and headed back to worst airport ever to catch a flight to Chicago and then another to Detroit where we'll stay in a Holiday Inn in Hawthorn, MI before interviewing at Michigan State manana.

Good night, enjoy sleeping in your beds, we love sleeping in airplanes and drinking Vasa water.

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Stats and tidbits
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Miles traveled: 879

Todays rental car: Kia Spectra that of course smelled terribly.

Number of times in the last 2 weeks Jason has read the April issue of hemispheres magazine on United: 9



Number of times Laurie said she wanted to go to school at the U because of the business building: 6

Funniest airport page we heard: "Paging Gunner slutty to a white courtesy phone...Gunner Slutty please pick up a white courtesy phone."

Weirdest thing we saw: Milky Way flavored tea in the employer lounge at Carlson.

Best billboard of the day:



Check out the size of moon's dome.

Todays snickerdoodle count: 0.5 (someone brought one but said it got smashed in their backpack and didn't want to give it to Jason. It's the thought that counts.

Randomness: Jason was asked to have his bag sniffed in the Minnesota airport by a machine named Fido, the direct quote from the TSA agent was "Sir, can I smell your luggage please?"

Quick shout outs: Chris Miller, Tony Lee, Jason's dad, Uncle Rico, Avi, Teryl, Amy, Tyler Davis, and everyone else who has contacted us and said that the blog makes their workday go by faster.

The Swamp Day 2

Today started off perfectly with pouring rain and thunderstorms in the swamp. Jason was up all night do to the french student dance party happening in the hotel room next to his all night, so the awakening to pouring rain was not the best way to start a day. After navigating the Reitz union parking garage in major chaos, we sat down to start the day of interviews.

We interviewed 26 very qualified applicants for the chance to replace Teryl and Amy all day and heard some interesting stories, made some creative nicknames, and drank 3 bottles of water each.

After seeing Lynne Vaughan at lunch we ate the best food the Reitz union has to offer: Teriyaki bowls and Subway. Teryl came by and said hi while still rocking his JS apparel and pack with pride. After lunch headed back to the rest of the interviews then raced too the airport to make our flight to charlotte with only 3 minutes to spare. We flew to CLT had a 3 hour layover in which we ate some CPK. Unfortunately they were out of chocolate chip cookies so we opted for Oatmeal Raisin, which is quite possibly the worst cookie ever. We boarded our plane to Minneapolis and are scheduled to land around midnight (Yes this is blogging from 36,000 feet). We'll hopefully be picking up another winner of a rental car (its going to be tough to top the stang though) then drive to our lodging to sleep for another 4 hours and do it all over again manana. We've never been to University of Minnesota so we're hoping to find Goldie the Gopher and the best cafeteria food they have to offer.

See you tomorrow from Minn-uh-so-duh.

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Stats:

Nights in Holiday Inns: Jason 2, Laurie 1

Miles traveled today: 1,273

Quotes of the day:

"I'm from a territory not a state." - girl from the virgin islands.

"You don't know anything about disney princess burbery purse wearing pageant girls." - Another UF Interviewee.

Spill count week two: 0 (so far)

Chocolate count: 1 (Utter-deliciousness) see pic:


Random sign of the day:



Yes a maintenance door at the Charlotte airport calling out hearing tests. You had to be there.

Thoughts:

1. Why is all airport food unhealthy and terrible tasting? Trader Joes needs to expand to the airport market.

2. Has anyone had a pizza flavored jelly bean before? Do they really exist?

3. We wish we could go on the roller coaster at the mall of America tomorrow.

4. Bonnaroo countdown: 60 days

5. Rule of thumb, if you are wearing an airplane neck pillow and decide to get up to go to the bathroom, take it off please. You don't need to walk around a plane looking like you were in a car accident and need a neck brace, leave it on the seat then go to the potty.

6. Laurie spells the heisman trophy winners name like so: Tibow. And has no idea who he is or what a heisman trophy is.

7. Forgot to inform everyone that Jason saw a Darryl Isaacs billboard in Indiana last week (reference Kentucky Interviewing 08) and got super excited to see the big hitter.

8. Hopefully we can find more delicious chocolate tomorrow, or a banana, or someother delightful concoction that the "U" has that we don't know about.

9. Johnathan Taylor Thomas also known as JTT is now getting married. Tis a good day for the cast of Home improvement.

Back at the Swamp

After spending the weekend in South Florida, Jason picked up a bright red Mustang and began the drive of the state of Florida. The red mustang was a rare find in the rental car circuit but a must have for the beachside driving.



There's pretty much nothing between Tampa and Gainesville, Jason stopped at the Florida National Cemetary in Bushnell, Florida to honor the veterans.




Upon getting into Gainesivlle and checking into the luxurious H.I., Jason headed out to Leaonardo's 706 with past Student ambassador program alum: Teryl 08, Amy 08, and Stephanie 07 for the best grub in Gainesville. Stephanie decided to order a salad as big as her face:

As for it, that's about it. Heller/Humpty/L-Train's flight got delayed in the CLT, so she got into GNV around 11:45PM ish and is beat, but had to do her taxes with a lack of food. We're excited to get back out at the CRC tomorrow to interview 26 faithful and of course to see the best bookstore manager this side of the Mississippi, the one and only Lynne Vaughan who is the mayor of the Reitz Union and campus, besides Timmy Tebow (there you go Rico).

Snipits from the road:

Miles Driven/Traveled since last writing: 3,123

Nights in Holiday Inn's: 1

Best car to date: Red Mustang

Best new radio station: Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 14

Best snack of the weekend: Black and White cookie from Deli Den in Hollywood, Florida

Most surprising fact: Jason is not on twitter, but his Grandpa is: http://twitter.com/seniorconnext

Weather: 75 degrees and sunny until about 10PM, then rain

Exciting hotel guest story: Upon checkin Jason was greeted by about 25 french college aged men ,talking crazy french and having a dance party on the 4th floor of the H.I., with of course no shirts on.

Average bedtime for Jason over the weekend: 3:57AMish EST (Refuse to adjust to EST)

Worst tasting water of the day: Zephyr Hills (it's a combination of paint, gelatin, and cleaning soloution)

Quote of the day: "I got this pearl bracelet for Easter, it's made by nuns who are against prostitution." Amy Albrecht

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Update coming your way tomorrow night from: Minneapolis, MN

On the road again

After a week off we're both back on the road/air today for another 2 weeks of student ambassador interviewing.

After having phone interviews with probably 250 students last week Jason took off this morning to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to visit his family before the trip to Gainesville on Monday. Laurie went off to Charlotte to visit her parents and Wilbur (their dog) before heading down to GNV on monday also.

We know everyone has missed the blog since the Ted Koppel appearance last week. But don't worry over the next 2 weeks we are taking 16 flights and traveling close to 10,000 miles. Get excited to hear about the delicous airport meals, quality hotel rooms, top rental cars, and more celebrities.

Have a great weekend and save up your energy for the next 2 weeks of madness, we sure will.

J and L


P.S. Let's avoid snickerdoodles the next week, L needs chocolate.

JanSport out

The Penn State University

After a previous long day of travel we finally made it out to Penn State where we were slated to interview 23 people throughout the day.

The one highlight from late last night is that todays rental car was quite the gem/upgrade/hook up, A brand new Nissan Xterra which is unheard of in the rental car world. We started early in the morning in the same interview rooms we were in exactly a year ago. We new it was going to be a tough task to replace Little Jason and Aileen but it had to be done. The interview rooms at Penn State are tough because they have huge windows that look out upon a beautiful day in happy valley so its tough to keep your mind in the game. Right before our lunch break we had a surprise interviewee show up dressed to the nines:

Little Jason Chottiner our PSU ambassador last year Came back to defend his title. We took Little Jason out to lunch in the cafe at the Smeal college of business which ended up to be pretty good. Of course a meal isn't complete without Laurie spilling something, which happened to be a salad today:

After interviewing all day we took off to Theta Chi so Laurie could experience a frat house for the first time in her life, she did and there were no stories. We then race to the airport and barely made our flight to DC. We landed in the dulles airport yet again, ate some dinner then watched our flight to sfo break 3 times and we finally arrived home at about 2:00am.

The recaps:

Worst looking meal of the day: Lo-Mein wraps in the business school. Why would you want to wrap a chinese noodle dish up in a burrito?

Random story of the day: One of our interviewees got hit by a car being driven by legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno (Joe-Pa) her freshmen year at college. We later found out that Joe-Pa seems to have hit half the student body with his car.

Best quote of the day: "You have to hire me I'm the whole package, I survived an infectious disease."

Snickerdoodle count day 2: 3, please no more cookies for Jason they're taking a toll. Laurie does like chocolate though:

Celebrity sighting number 1: Ted Koppel in the Washington DC airport:

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Quick stats for you to chew on:

Number of Flights the last 2 days: 6 (All on United)

Miles traveled: 5,321

Number of things spilled by Laurie: 3 (H20 in DC airport, resumes on car in Indy, salad at PSU)

Number of interviews: 48

Number of Dulles airport stops for Laurie in 2 days: 3

Snickercount: 4

Celebrity sighting count: 1

Holiday Inn count: 0...for now

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Goodnight JanSport faithful, be back next week with a quick recap before our trip to Florida for some more interviews April 11th.

University of Indiana

Somewhere in the backwoods on indy

We arrived into Bloomington, IN late last night in proper style. What does proper style mean? Of Course a Chevy HHR another typical average american rental car.

Pure HHR excitement

Upon arriving into B-Town we went out to dinner with The Broderick (www.myspace.com/thebroderickband ) who won our battle of the bands contest. We went to a restaurant called The Farm and Jason had some amazing lemongrass beef. After dinner Jason cruised around B-Town with his cousin Jen who is a senior at IU. She took him to her sorority mansion where he witnessed some pretty good acoustic music from Stephanie Demar (www.myspace.com/stephaniedemar)

Demar rockin out

This morning we got up and headed over to the Kelly school of business to interview 25 students for the ever popular student ambassador position. Went out to lunch with Eric, Alex and Max plus Molly from The Broderick and had some pretty decent sandwiches at Dagwoods or something like that.

Laurie's first lunch date with the Broderick

After interviewing more students after lunch we made the drive to Indianapolis. Of course the 50 mile vicinity surrounding the Indy airport has no gas stations so we spent a good half hour searching for a gallon of gas to fill up our rental cars. We barely made our flight to Washington DC ate a tasty Wolfgang Puck salad on the plane plus a Qdoba burrito for humpty.

Wolfgang lookin good at 35,000 feet

Next we hopped on another amazing prop plane for the flight to State College where we'll interview 23 nittany lions to replace jason and aileen from last year.

Flight to the promise land

Highlights:

- Received 1 tasty snickerdoodle cookie today, only 1.

- Heller left all the resumes on top of her car and drove away today this is what happened:


- 1 Tyler Davis shout out from a fan in Indiana

- We're both going to open a gas station metropolis by the indy airport if our JanSport jobs don't pan out.

See you tomorrow from Paternoville/Happy Valley/ State College/ Sticky bun university