Hola Familia---

We are alive, and still living out of a hotel. We realized today that in our one month of married life, the most time we've spent in one location is right here in the Hampton Inn in Chicopee Massachusetts, with a grand total of 8 days.

I've been working for a couple of weeks. It's alright. It's a bit stressful to be gone from 8-6 and coming home and having so much still to do, but I'm sure I'll adjust. (Maybe the break between graduation and work is to blame.) In my first week of work in Ohio, I went on a 3 day business trip to Indiana. I didn't contribute much, but listened. I decided that "sticky paper" has its own language (coating, MSI--million square inches, fasson, etc). I'm slowly learning.

I'll try to explain simply what Avery Dennison does, and how I fit into the picture. (Now that I finally know.) There are four divisions of A.D. 1)office products, which everyone knows them for. 2)Retail tags (we make all of the clothing labels for many companies, including gap, old navy, and banana republic) 3)bulk rolls of adhesive (that other companies buy to print labels for things like shampoo, semi trucks, billboards, etc). 4) miscellaneous things like reflective roadsigns and license plates.

I work in Fasson Roll North America--which is all the bulk adhesive rolls for north america. More specifically, I help determine (or will help determine--I haven't actually started) which products to offer and how. For example, some products can be ordered in any width the customer wants, and other products can only be bought as the entire roll. It's a little supply chain, and a little bit of the marketing side as well.

For this month I'm doing lean sigma training at a plant in massachusetts that makes notebooks and labels to sell at places like walmart and staples. When I walk in every morning I see orange and pink note books coming off the lines and being stacked into boxes. it's fun to see a factory so colorful.

To reward you all for reading that boring part, I'll tell you what made me laugh for about 15 minutes. I saw on Hyrum's facebook page that someone called him "count". I asked him why, and he said, "you know, count dracula from sesame street." I still didn't get it. Then he said, "He calls me that because he thinks I look like him." I couldn't stop laughing, and looking at the picture, maybe you guys see it too: