It’s 6 AM, I’m awake as usual, and it’s raining in Tampa. Me and my perfectly coiffed *eyeroll* hair will be at the Raymond James Stadium by 10. I’m excited to be covering the game, having been shown a great experience by Outback for 5 days previous to this including an insight to their business philosophy (disclaimer: I already knew their business philosophy) a tour and massive tasting at their R&D kitchen, a player event, a beach event, parade and a really great party. Not to mention fabulous food, weather and hospitality from their Social Media team all week.
There will be apprx. 3 more blog posts covering details with pictures and video.
Had an interesting direct message in my twitter box last night. Why does that sound dirty? LOL
A follower on twitter didn’t quite understand what I was doing at Outback Bowl.
For those of you who are confused, I’m happy to clarify.
( By the way, the game starts at 1:00 EST on ABC. The person who tweets me why they love Outback by 2:00 EST with the best answer will get a free $45 Outback GC! Use the #OutbackBowl hashtag and tweet it to @SueanneShirzay. )
Outback knows what their customers want and they do it. If they don’t know, they find out. If they do it wrong, they fix it. I’ll explain this in detail in future posts.
Sounds simple, right? It happens to be the exact same way I do business at Sueanne Shirzay Jewelry and Killer Social. Simpatico business souls. It’s about people.
Gotta run!
Please follow my tweets on twitter as I cover the pre-game and game!
Last night at a Michigan State University and University of Georgia Bowl-off at Splittsville, I got a chance to ask a few truly good sports a question… Thanks, Skyler, Jack, Nate, Ray, Chase and Blake for being so hilarious and such good sports and men with STYLE.
I also gave a $45 gift certificate to a great answer I got on twitter to the same question today.
Another giveaway tomorrow at 5:00 EST ! Follow me on twitter at @SueanneShirzay
You are all winners! Good Luck on Monday at Outback Bowl!
How about you? Which Outback food best describes YOUR personality???
Would you believe I won the Grand Prize trip from Outback Steakhouse to *journo* the Outback Bowl Game and the week of events leading up to the game using Social Media? Well, Hello, I DID! Outback is very generously flying me in to Tampa to cover the festivities from December 28th to January 2.
Oh, yes, and FOOTBALL! Tight ends meet split ends, Manolos meet muscle, baby! Right here.
I will leave no rib on the barbie unturned.
For me, this includes tweeting from @SueanneShirzay , my main twitter account, a little bit from @KillerSocial , because everywhere I go, Killer goes, (it’s a plastic knife, TSA, *wink* ) and of course @SueannesHair , because if I do what it says it won’t strangle me in my sleep,. I’m sure that do-gooder @Whatwedid4love will chime in here and again. My G+ pages will be running amuck amuck, amuck, amuck as well.
I’ll be blogging about Outback Bowl from Does this look good on me?, my style blog and Killer Social, my social media blog, if there is time. I guess this makes me the Sybil of Social Media , or in Aussie, *have my Kangaroos loose in the top paddock*, WOOOOOOT!
Please use this hashtag #OutbackBowl, follow when yammering on Google Plus and Twitter, so you can click on it, see what everybody else is saying and make some bonzer new friends! If there is something you want to know, just tweet me or ask me in the comment section of my blog or G+ page. To follow Outback or Outback Bowl click on the links!
Thank you so much, Dion Roy @DionRoy on twitter, for helping me out with the music for the video. Dion’s music can be found here on iTunes.
This one is for all of you boys and girls who just don’t get it. And for those who DO, but just haven’t found the words.
It’s also a shameless plug for my two shops, Sueanne Shirzay Jewelry and What We Did 4 Love. : ) Ladies, you know what to do. Tape this post to the TV remote. His forehead… iPad… Refrigerator? If you need help shopping, email me at sueanneshirzay3@gmail.com or call. 516 241-5836. Clicking on the photos will also get you to the sites.
Top 10 Reasons Chicks Dig Jewelry:
1. It always fits. It doesn’t shrink and mock you from the closet like your skinny jeans that you can’t wear anymore do.
Mermaid Necklace from SSJ
2. It makes us feel even more gorgeous than we know we already are
That’s HOT earrings from SSJ
3. It’s sparkly
Sparkly Icicle earrings from SSJ
4. It defines our style
Believe turquoise necklace by Beth Lerner exclusively in WWD4L
5. It makes your ex-wife or ex-girlfriend jealous.
We beotches can be competitive.
I’ve got the Flowah necklace by Tina Tang in WWD4L
6. It brings out our best features .
If worn above the waist, especially .
Mermaid earrings in SSJ
7. It sometimes makes clanky noises so you know we’re approaching… thus giving men ample time to hide their porn.
LEO necklace, part of the zodiac collection in SSJ
8. It comes in pretty pretty rainbow colors. Ahhh rainbows.
This Crush ain’t goin’ away earrings in SSJ
9. It feels good on our skin. But it usually looks a little better than a green seaweed masque.
Let’s Go Laughing earrings in SSJ
10. It symbolizes love if given as a gift. Or guilt. We don’t care.
Just buy us the dang jewelry.
I hope this clears up the mystery… of Why Chicks Dig Jewelry.
Hey! It’s that time again… The weather is changing. Time to look in your closet and make sure you have… awesome boots! I hope this helps. Please feel free to share your boot photos and questions in the comments section if you’re not sure which ones to keep, buy, or donate. : )
I had the wonderful experience of attending an Accessories Council event called *AC Pink Picks*, where they gave me products that will be available for purchase during October for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to share with you. Please take a few minutes to watch my video and share it with others for this very important cause. Thank you!
Here are the products that I show in my video and where you can purchase them. A percentage of all of these products will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Please click on the *Master Keynote* Link, or individual links. It’s 38 Pages of amazing stuff!!
A hurricane? Seriously.
Surely they will cancel or downgrade it, as they always do…
I knew about the upcoming hurricane, Irene, as I drove upstate to 140 conference Hudson Valley on a Monday, earlier in the week.
Right in the middle of the conference, an 5.8 earthquake rolled through, causing a ripple in the floor and quite literally making me feel nauseous. But I recovered. No Puke at 140.
I shakily stood up, looked around at the people around me and said. Wow this is an earthquake. And left the building. Fast.
The week before I had just had a flood in the basement in my south shore Long Island home due to a crazy 10 inches of rain deluge. Insurance claim. Juuust redid the floor Wednesday before the hurricane.
So… when I heard *hurricane*… I sort of thought… *bad things happen in threes* and took it seriously .
I got back from my conference on Wednesday, threw 3 computers and some non-perishables in the car, packed up and left again with a carload of protesting kids (we don’t want to leave our friends and the internet) on Thursday, more than 24 hours before a mandatory evacuation of 300,000 people was ordered from the south shore of Long Island. The husband promised he’d join us Friday.
As my home is directly across the street from the Atlantic, to me this was a no brainer. I could SEE the horror movie tidal wave hitting my house very easily.
What followed was surprising.
I invited family and friends to join me in my upstate home, 3 hours north of the south shore. Safe. Far away from chaos.
and… NOBODY took me up on my offer. Nobody. Many chose not to evacuate at all.
They cited work.
Work wanted them to stay.
How would they get to work.
Being self-employed for 20 years maybe I just do not get it. Don’t you have to be ALIVE to work? I hoped they would change their minds.
I could not ever be the type of employer who would not tell their employees to get the hell out and be safe. Kind of hard to go to work if you’re dead, isn’t it?
Ya think? Hmm. I’m repeating myself. Anyway….
As I saw all of the reports coming in on the local networks and weather channel, I grew even more worried. How many of my friends would be killed due to abject stupidity? This thing was coming right at us.
I told several of my twitter friends where I would be because my house is in a notch upstate with no cell service or for me, internet, and I go up here to disconnect so the only internet is 10 minutes away at an undisclosed location. Ok.. It’s where I get my bagels in Hunter. But I don’t always eat bagels. So I don’t always go online. Now you know.
I was amazed at the concern I was hearing in my twitter DMS and my texts on my phone went crazy as I came into cell service range. Where are you?! Did you leave? Please tell me you left. Run, Sueanne, RUNNN!!!
I made two trips to the grocery store because it was still unclear which of my family and friends would be joining me, if at all, and I was preparing for several days without electricity or water. Nobody at the store looked worried. They all have generators. I heard someone say *Oh, it’ll just be a little rain, so what?*
And we settled in to wait. I realized I left early but I’m not a big fan of traffic, and sure enough, when the Husband arrived Friday evening he assured me there was a mass exodus going on and the 3 hour drive took him almost 6. He told me the family wouldn’t be coming and we hoped they would use common sense and at least get to high ground. I made a ton of jewelry. It helped me take my mind off worrying a little bit. Not much.
We watched the news coverage and saw that the eye of the storm was probably going to hit our home, and mentally prepared ourselves to lose everything. I was sorry I hadn’t put more in the car, like passports and birth certificates. I kept thinking my kids wouldn’t be able to go to their new schools because I had no I.D. for them. Weird stuff like that. That’s what goes through your head.
We finally lost power at about 9:30 A.M. as we saw the footage of waves crashing into our town and the reporters being pummeled by wind 2 hours before the brunt of it was actually even supposed to hit. It was a sad moment as I realized that there would be loss of property and potentially life in the town that I love, and I would have no way to know what had happened. Our phone lines also went dead. We were now totally cut off.
We went about our business and didn’t let the kids see that we were worried. It was raining buckets in our upstate location but we didn’t feel like we were in any danger, except maybe a tree falling on our house. We watched the wind whip through the trees and ate. The kerosene cooktop still worked if you lit a match.
It seemed like it would never stop raining. All day it rained. We realized we were now going to have to deal with another problem. Flooding of the towns surrounding us. The elevation of my little burb isn’t usually a problem. Then the basement started flooding… about 6 inches. The sump pump didn’t work because there was no power. Nothing was ruined. The boiler is elevated. As a bonus we had a ton of water with which to flush the toilet with. YAY!!! Life was sweet.
We set out for a walk the next morning, which was a beautiful day, to inspect the damage and saw that several small bridges on our street that connected the road to homes were totally washed out. We were assured that nobody was trapped.
Then we got in the car and took a ride down rte. 214. That’s the video at the beginning at the blog. There was no cell service or electricity in Hunter either. Or Phoenicia. We heard the village of Windham was totally washed out when a dam broke. Sad stuff.
As the day went on we heard reports from all over New York on the AM radio. That was the only connection to the rest of the world other than talking to everybody we ran into in the neighborhood. What a mess. New Jersey seemed to be hit hardest and it seemed almost every road we take to go between upstate and downstate NY was closed. We had no idea what had happened to our home and if it was even standing. We were going to be stuck for a while. And we had no way to communicate. No phones were working. And of course, my hair would potentially look like crap for days on end.
Later that day, we finally found very kind merchants who were letting people use their phones to call their families and let them know you were ok. Thank you Ruth Gale Realty and The lady at the Pharmacy. You are very kind and generous people. We were so sad to see our favorite restaurant, Brios, was severely damaged in Phoenicia.
Finally, on Tuesday, two days after the hurricane, we packed up the car and took the long way out of town, about 45 minutes out of our way, because that was the only way out due to washed out roads and bridges.
As I drove into our South shore town, I was relieved to see almost no damage. Wow. Amazing. I still have not driven into the surrounding towns but I’m hearing some homes got flooded. I have not heard of any deaths here, and I’m so glad everyone is safe as I know there has been loss of life in this storm and river flooding and power outages continue to be a huge, huge problem.
I’m very thankful to the media and local governments for doing a fantastic job in warning people about this disaster and hope the relief efforts are as successful.
