Week #2!

My first official week on the job has passed, and I am getting the hang of things a little more!  I am not spending any more time setting up any passwords, printers, or accounts but instead actually working on events for the summer.  

Highlights of my work this week include:

Meeting with David Leavy, 

Chief Communications Officer and SEVP, Corporate Marketing and Affairs

David Leavy leads global communications and marketing strategy for Discovery Communications, overseeing the company's centralized corporate communications and marketing functions, including corporate messaging, promotion and research activities around the world. He also is responsible for corporate affairs, government relations and public policy, internal communications, corporate social responsibility, talent relations, media planning and partnerships, research and consumer insights, and Discovery Creative, the company's in-house creative services group.

Prior to joining Discovery, Leavy served as Senior Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesman for the National Security Council and Deputy White House Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In that position, Leavy handled all press issues relating to foreign policy and chaired the Interagency Public Affairs Working Group that coordinated the Clinton Administration's long range strategic messaging on international policy. Leavy developed the communications strategies for NATO's military action in Kosovo, the State Visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, U.S. military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan, as well as the Senate's ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

David sat down with all of the interns in his department to personally get to know us all while also giving us some pointers on how to make this the best internship experience.  I was amazed at how personal he was and astonished listening to all of his amazing stories about different points in his career.  He was a huge inspiration and motivator for me and made me realize how big this opportunity is but yet at the same time he helped me understand that I have all the tools needed to succeed within Discovery.  I think Mr. Leavy serves as a great model for leadership in the fact that he treats everyone on his team the same, whether you are one of his top executives or just the summer intern, he wants to help you succeed in the company because that is what is going to make the company stronger. 

NCTA Cable Show

Over three days, more than 10,000 attendees learned about new advances in interactive video applications, saw breakthrough technologies that are changing the way people communicate online, gained fresh insight into multi-screen content delivery strategies and heard industry leaders talk about their investment and product development priorities for 2014 and beyond.

WOW!  Seeing the Cable show was so amazing!  The different exhibits and booths were neat to see and fun to learn about how everything is all set up.  Even though I may be a little bias, I thought Discovery's booth was the best!

I got to help with a lot of different things during the show, from helping set up to getting lunch to helping prepare for camera shoots and interviews, I was able to see it all!  Below, I was on the side as "security" making sure nobody stepped in their shot.  This is a photo of Discovery Communication's CEO, David Zaslov, getting interviewed.

  Can you find me?

What about now? Well let me give you a little hint, I am between two Global Event full-time employees.  Looking at the picture, just right of me is the head of the Global Events staff, Jeff Kaplan and to the left is the leader of trade shows, the one and only Jereme Macready.  To the very right of the photo is David Leavy, who I mentioned earlier in this blog post.  

Even though our booth was spectacular, the other network booths were pretty cool, especially the ones where I got to meet some of my favorite TV show personalities!

 HGTV's Property Brothers

 The cartoon gang... including Scooby!

 Pawn Stars

Troy from Swamp People

Destination America's Red, White, and You Events

These events are set for Union Beach, New Jersey and Fayetteville, North Carolina on July 3rd and July 4th.  I have been spending time contacting and communicating with food truck vendors while also contracting executive trailers (bathrooms) and face painters/airbrush tattoo artists.  I am extremely excited for these events!  We are going to have Pitmasters handing out free barbecue and of course an AMAZING fireworks show!

Highlights of my weekend include:

On Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early to check out the Eastern Market festivities.  Unfortunately, I arrived to the Metro station (my only mode of transport) to find that it is closed for track work.  Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?! I had not planned for this... I knew exactly how I was supposed to get to the Eastern Market via Metro, not any other way!  So after a small little fit and freak-out session and after about 10 minutes of failing to persuade the workers to try to let me ride the metro that was not currently running, I found the nearest shuttle that was taking people to the nearest working Metro stop.  I had calculated my trip to Eastern Market to be about a half hour but because of my detour, it took me over two hours!!! UGH!  But when I FINALLY got to the market, it was worth the wait!

There was cooking demonstrations... and lots of different vendors!

I made sure to get a freshly fried maple bacon donut along with mini powdered donuts!

After my Eastern Market adventure, I met up with an my friend from Pi Phi that also lives in Silver Spring that is working on Capital Hill.  She had some girls that work for Nebraska Senators over to her apartment to hang out before we headed back downtown DC for the night.  Later in the night we ordered "We the Pizza"... my second time eating this pizza, and I am not complaining!  I found out that night that the owner actually was a winner on "Top Chef"... explains why the pizza is sooo good!

On the way home, I had my first horrible taxi experience!  As we were approaching Union station to get in line to get a taxi, the taxi driver was yelling for anyone heading towards Takoma Park and Silver Spring.  Excitedly, we ran towards him and hopped in his cab!  After getting in, we found out that there was already a passenger waiting to go to Takoma Park.  I had no clue what was going on as we started to head off towards our destination.  A couple minutes into the ride,we asked how this was going to work, and the driver told us he was going to have the lady pay for her fare and then he would keep the fare running as he took us to our destination.  One problem: he is going out of his way to go to Takoma Park, so our cab fare would have been less if it was just us.  This cab was trying to scam us!  The first lady was upset too because she is paying for her far as she was forced to be squeezed in with the other riders that she didn't invite to join her.  When complaining, the cab driver crazily threatened to drop us all off on the side of the road or take us to the cops.  Woah now!  After a long heated debate, the first lady was dropped off and then we were dropped off but there is a current complaint pending... I will finish this story in a couple of weeks!

The next day I headed to explore Takoma Park.  I decided this would be my best option with the Metro being closed.  I wasn't really feeling like another 2+ hour trip somewhere!

Takoma Park was having their Farmer's Market on Sunday and they had a lot of cute little shops as well!

Overall, I had a fun weekend but I definitely missed my family.  It was hard missing Father's Day and hearing about all the fun my family was having without me... I miss being able to attend the College World Series and just enjoying "family time" but I know I will get to see everyone before I know it!

Happy Father's Day Dad :)