Talking About Social Media Control

Posted on July 2, 2014 by brent

A great part about my job at Coastal Carolina University is that I get to meet with diverse groups on campus about social media. One day it could be with an academic department. One day it could be with athletics. One day it could be with a student service organization. One day it could be a one-on-one session with a Vice President. Not only do I get to talk with a wide range of groups, I also get to talk about a wide range of subjects within social media.

This week I had the privilege of attending the monthly staff meeting of a department on campus. I was asked to speak about the handling of negative social media. You know, I am talking about the non-positive posts, the obscene comments, the spamming links, etc. that any social media program will encounter. This particular group that I was meeting with had a certain episode the month prior that sparked the invitation for me to drop by on that particular morning. With the warm smell of just out of the oven cinnamon rolls and fresh donuts teasing my nostrils (they have breakfast potluck meetings) I delivered my opinion.

My message was a simple one and it centered on one word: Control.

I strongly believe that any person or any group managing the social media campaign of an organization or business should run it in a way that gives them complete control. Critics might challenge this by saying that running a tight ship on social media takes “the voice” away from the audience and makes the social media administrator look like a tyrant. Absolute nonsense. You can run a program that gives the audience complete creative autonomy and an outlet to voice their opinion while still remaining at the steering wheel.

First off, I think all business Facebook pages should have the wall post capability for fans turned off. A Facebook wall is prime real estate marketing territory, one of the most coveted avenues of any business. Money, time, and creative spirit has been poured into the creation and maintenance of that page, thus making the wall sacred. To risk giving someone the chance to write a condemning manifesto wall post for all to see while the page administrator sleeps is not smart.

Secondly, just because you invite your audience to comment on any social media channel doesn’t mean they have a First Amendment right to have whatever toxic filled message they compose stay up. If someone writes something that has a curse word, strays completely off topic, or is self promoting then by all means delete it right away. If the person offends again then ban them. Your social media channels are your marketing tools, they aren’t a platform for people to cuss, ramble on, or promote. There are millions of message boards out there for that purpose.

Finally, run your social outlets in a way that you feel comfortable. Don’t let your audience, a social media “guru”, or a third party dictate how you administer your social program. If you have been trusted to make the social media decisions in an organization then most likely your bosses have faith in you. Honor the folks who provided you with such a crucial responsibility to put the best foot of your organization forward in the social media realm. If that means enabling more privacy settings, deleting a comment, or editing a post you made then so be it.

With my social media responsibilities I do all I can to portray Coastal Carolina in a transparent and humble light. We are not immune to criticisms or suggestions from our audience. If someone has a valid point I will make sure we take the heat. The post will stay up and I will address it in a respectful and apologetic manner for all to see. But that doesn’t mean our social media program is a complete free-for-all for people to hurl mud at anything and everything. That is where the control and comfort level must come in. The best social media administrators will find that fine line between what is acceptable and what isn’t. Don’t Blink.

A World Cup to Remember

Posted on July 1, 2014 by brent

I am sure a million other people are writing their tribute blog posts right this minute about the World Cup run of the United States so I will be brief and try to keep the sappiness to a minimum.

I didn’t get too caught up in the Team USA hysteria. Sure I watched the matches when I could. I enjoyed a few of them from the comfort of my own couch and I got to enjoy the better half of the Germany game with co-workers. Today’s game I returned home from work just as extra time started. But I didn’t set my schedule around the action. I never wore red, white, and blue on match days. I never even tweeted out “Believe.”

So while I never got swept away by the magic of it all I did enjoy the way it united our country for a couple weeks. I mean holy cow, did the World Cup blow up in the U.S. like never before or what? The hysteria of the 2014 World Cup went unmatched from previous years. The way this nation got behind the American team was pretty incredible. Soccer literally led off all the national sports talk radio programs for several days. Although still not accustomed to hearing Mike Golic try to talk like he knew soccer it goes without saying that the tournament in Brazil was the primary focus of the American sports media.

Definitely a bummer that the U.S. failed to advance to the quarterfinal round. If they did survive Belgium today and earned the right to play into this weekend it would have made it one very patriotic Fourth of July holiday. If you can even imagine it, all the insanity that has played out for the past couple weeks would have skyrocketed to even greater levels. This country would have been rocking.

Even though the World Cup will still go on it is different that our team is now out. The foreign announcers won’t sound as elegant/funny, the National Anthems won’t carry with it as much luster, and the constant updates from Bob Ley and his panel on Sportscenter will grow tiresome. We won’t be counting down the days until the next game, bars won’t be offering viewing party specials, and I won’t be able to generate excitement on our Coastal Carolina social media channels with World Cup inspired promotions and images.

In closing, I want to say good for the game of soccer in this country. The popularity spike and exposure tilt it enjoyed this World Cup is beyond quantifying. I grew up in an area that counted soccer out as an inferior sport played by wimps. Although I never subscribed to that thinking because I played the sport for several years myself I like to think that besides the flopping the game converted a lot of people this go-around. Although Team USA got bounced in the round of 16 I think we can all say that we will always remember the 2014 World Cup. Don’t Blink.

My Trademark Texting Style

Posted on June 30, 2014 by brent

Just like anyone else in this modern era of communication I rely on text messaging…a lot. Also, just like most people, I have my own distinctive style of texting. If you are a close friend of mine, you most likely have a good grasp on how I text. But if you aren’t in my inner circle you probably don’t. No need to worry, I am here tonight to reveal my text messaging playbook. Here are the top five characteristics of a text messaging conversation with Brent Reser.

1. Impeccable Grammar/Spelling: Besides the add-ins and quirks you will see below that don’t abide with normal APA guidelines, I do my very best to text with strong attention to conventional detail. I spell words out, I use commas, and I make sure my sentences have agreement in them. My brother, sister, and I all play a game where if one of us catches the other committing a grammatical or spelling error in a text we send it right back to the violator without even addressing what they said.

I remember the major grammar/spelling rules when texting.

2. Hashtags: It should come as no surprise to most of you that I hashtag the heck out of my text messages. As I work in social media for a living and as I liberally utilize hashtags in my handwritten conversations it only comes naturally that I take the time to incorporate several hashtags in my texts. I don’t do it just to be different though. I firmly believe in hashtags as the best punctuation mark that exists. The ability to summarize and express thoughts with the “pound sign” is a great technological advancement and I make no apologies about using it every chance I get.

Use hashtags as if they were going out of style.

3. Emoticons: As I have wrote about in detail before, I am a sucker for emoticons. In fact, I have come to rely on them even more since I wrote my post on the subject. Just like the hashtag, emoticons do a great job at conveying emotion and thoughts that you otherwise would not receive out of ordinary text. I enjoy using them in large quantities and at random. However, I also take time to place them in clever spots to make the perfect text as well. I absolutely abuse the faces and my general rule of thumb is that if you always at least stick a smiley face at the end of a text you can pretty much say anything you want.

Basically anything can pass if you put a smiley face at the end of it.

4. CAPS: For whatever reason this puzzles people a lot but I usually mix in at least one all caps word in each text I send. I usually fully capitalize either the noun or verb (sometimes both) in many of my texts. It makes my messages stand out and kind of serves as my number one texting trademark.

For every text message I am a big proponent of at least one word in all caps.

5. Question Marks/Repeat Message: Sometimes I am not as patient as I would like. If I send someone a text message and I don’t get a response within five minutes I might pester that individual with a string of 20 question marks. If I am feeling really bored and maybe a little perturbed I will hit copy and paste a few times and fill up the person’s texting screen with question mark galore. If I want to really insult the person’s intelligence I will do the classic repeat text where I send the exact same message back to the person that I had sent five minutes before. Come on, we all know how stupid doing this is as obviously the person received the message the first time. However, it does do the job of getting across a sense of urgency. But in all honesty I don’t really do it because I am on pins and needles and expect an answer right away…rather, I do it just to be a jerk and pull the other person’s chain.

This is a very annoying tactic that should be used sparingly.

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Now don’t you just want to get in a long text messaging conversation with me? If you haven’t already put my number on your block list I will let you know that I am really not that bad. I will keep you entertained and always clearly communicate with while texting. Just please, don’t make me wait longer than five minutes for a response. Don’t Blink..

My Boring Week in Myrtle Beach

Posted on June 29, 2014 by brent

This past week was pretty tame for me. No crazy trips or major Southern milestones to brag about. With that said, it was very relaxing and nice. With the getaway weekends I have enjoyed recently and a major adventure coming up this next weekend, I wanted to lay low. However, I still managed to do a few activities and true to my form I now want to write about it. Here are the five low key things I did this past week:

Think Like a Man Too: Earlier in the week Sidney and I went to “Think Like a Man Too” at the Grand 14 theater in Market Common. Although personally not a big Kevin Hart fan and even though I had never seen the first one the fact that the film took place in Las Vegas drew me in. Also, Sidney wanted to see it. If you can handle the very large dose of Kevin Hart (I barely did) chances are you will enjoy the movie. I laughed out loud and thought the film’s crew captured Vegas pretty well. No need to rush to the theater to see it though.

My ticket to “Think Like a Man Too.”

Ramando’s: After eating at seafood houses, BBQ joints, and burger places my first two months in Myrtle Beach I had a craving for some good Italian food. A couple weeks ago I noticed a hole-in-the-wall joint tucked away on one of the busy streets in the city. On Friday night Sidney and I went to go eat there. I didn’t even know the name of the place until we pulled into the parking lot, I just remembered it was an Italian place. Called Ramando’s, we walked past the guy sitting in a lawn chair staring at us in the parking lot and walked inside. A busy and simple restaurant, we got seated at a booth and had an older Italian gentleman with a thick accent wait on us. I had lasagna with minestrone soup and Sidney had manicotti with a salad. We enjoyed our dinners but we both agreed that my lasagna was better than her manicotti.

The Ramando’s sign, my lasagna, and Sidney with her manicotti.

Brant’s Burgers (and) Ice Cream: When we concluded our meal we went across the street to an ice cream parlor called Brant’s. It looked promising to me but when we walked inside I saw that the ice cream was supplied by Edy’s (the same thing as Dreyer’s out west). I personally enjoy the shops that make homemade ice cream but it wasn’t going to stop me from ordering something! I had cake batter ice cream in a fresh waffle cone and Sidney had a vanilla milkshake. Not going to lie, the place was sketchy. The two workers kept peeking outside the window looking at something and the handwritten sign announcing that both restrooms were “out of order” seemed strange. We stayed longer than we wanted as we waited out a huge storm that started right when we walked in.

The storefront of Brant’s and a look at my ice cream.

Early Morning Beach Walk: At the risk of sounding extremely corny, Sidney and I took a long walk on the beach Saturday morning. Strolling along the shore at 5:30 a.m. we almost had the whole beach to ourselves. The sky was breathtaking as the sun rose up into the South Carolina sky. The walk continued to prove to me that I am living in an absolute beautiful part of the country that a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to enjoy.

Me hanging out at the beach on Saturday morning.

Conway Riverfest: Later on Saturday the two of us went to Conway’s early Fourth of July celebration. With vendors set up along the town’s river walk I got to experience a little bit of Conway life outside of the hours I spend on the Coastal Carolina campus. We spent time between the actual festival and various businesses in downtown Conway. A few highlights of Riverfest:
1. We got treated to a very nice fireworks show that took place over the river.
2. I tried deep fried Oreos for the first time.
3. I was able to hang out a little with Sidney’s sister, Courtney.

An image of the fireworks show we enjoyed.

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Fourth of July week is almost here! Besides my excitement of only having a four day work week I have some fun activities planned. Have a wonderful Sunday evening everyone. Don’t Blink.

Not Your Typical Rags to Riches Story

Posted on June 26, 2014 by brent

If you will, please excuse me from my weekly Thursday night rapid fire rundown of random topics to quickly focus on a much more meaningful issue.

Today via the website Outsports.com, a guy named Kenny Dow wrote a piece about coming out as a gay man in the very masculine and testosterone driven industry of athletics. He chronicled his childhood and early professional career living in ultra conservative Montana where he didn’t feel the slightest bit comfortable revealing his true self. You would have thought that as he grew older and more established in the Big Sky state it would have made it easier to share with others his sexual orientation. Not so. Working inside probably the most visible, scrutinized, and tradition ridden office in the state, the University of Montana Athletics Department, Kenny didn’t feel comfortable. When an awesome job opportunity came his way, he got out.

Let me introduce you to Kenny Dow (photo courtesy of outsports.com)

During the last year of his tenure at Grizzly Athletics, Kenny (along with Christie Anderson), served as my mentor(s). As a young intern in the marketing department I looked up to my bosses. I had such an amazing year learning about the business and having an absolute blast. A friendship grew between Kenny and I, one that would really only get stronger as we lived hundreds (and now thousands) of miles apart. When Kenny did announce his departure from Grizzly Athletics I put on hold a fully paid graduate school opportunity to do everything I could to get his job. Stars aligned and I was successful and for my whole time at Grizzly Athletics I poured every ounce of my being toward trying to equal the contributions Kenny made during the time he sat in my chair.

All people in this photo used to have an association with Grizzly Athletics. We were all in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for a UCA camp. Christie is on the far left and Kenny and I on the right.

As the marketing director in the Portland State Athletics Department, Kenny turned everything about that place around. He took it from absolutely nothing to an award winning, prideful marketing program. His professional accomplishments at Portland State will go down as nothing short of spectacular. Don’t kid yourself though, the most significant accomplishment during his time in the Rose City wasn’t a professional one…it was a personal one. Encouraged by the openly gay women’s basketball coach Sherri Murrell to be himself, Kenny no longer hid who he was. Portland State accepted him and Kenny couldn’t have felt more comfortable.

Kenny and I in Missoula at the end of 2010.

At around the same time I left for Coastal Carolina, Kenny also left for a different job. Taking another giant leap up the ladder, he took an executive position with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA. Besides now making big marketing decisions for a professional sports team Kenny also gets to make big strides for the LGBT community. The WNBA has launched a large campaign to embrace its gay fan base and Kenny has an instrumental part in executing it. You got to think about this for a couple seconds: A guy who once worked in a place where he felt he couldn’t even come out is now an openly gay executive for a pro team playing an integral part in a national LGBT campaign. Not bad.

Kenny and I in Missoula. We are now literally as far away from each other as you can get in this country,

I am so proud of what Kenny has done both for others and himself. I am also extremely proud to say that he mentored me and has had a major impact on my professional career. You keep succeeding, good sir. Don’t Blink.

Would I Drink a Dr. Skipper/Mt.Breeze/Fountain Mist?

Posted on June 25, 2014 by brent

A couple days ago a co-worker told me about the neat collection his brother had. This guy made it his mission to purchase every generic Dr. Pepper soda he could find. You know what I am talking about, right? The knockoffs of Dr. Pepper that grocery stores or sketchy companies sell such as Dr. Skipper, Dr. Bold, Dr. Thunder, etc. I found this idea absolutely awesome, a truly unique collection that I give this guy two thumbs up for deciding to undertake. Personally I also enjoy checking out the bizarre names that are assigned to impostor products. Since arriving on the east coast my interest has only intensified as I been introduced to whole different lines of second rate brands.

But although I enjoy looking at these silly soda brands I don’t enjoy drinking them. I very rarely consume soft drinks and when I do I prefer a premium brand thank you very much. About 14 months ago I wrote a blog post on generic items I would purchase and generic items I would not purchase. Soda made the NOT list. Even so, back when I was a kid I did drink the rip off sodas that you could get out of your grocery store vending machine for a quarter. And, even then, I could detect the drop in quality. To this day I can still remember the taste of those junior varsity pops. Tonight I want to briefly identify three sodas that actually tasted like the premium brand it was trying to mimic and three brands that missed the mark so bad that it wasn’t even funny.

Similar

Orange Soda – Give me a glass of a carbonated orange drink and call it good. Out of the three sodas I am giving credit to as having a resemblance to the name brand, orange soda by far comes the closest. You could throw three knockoffs in with Fanta, Orange Crush, and Sunkist and chances are I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I think orange pop lacks a signature, expensive ingredient (like real oranges) because you really can’t tell much of a drop off between brands.

Root Beer – In my blog post that I referenced above I said that root beer in the generic version tastes flat. I still stand by that but I think A&W and Mug sometimes taste a little flat too. I could make a root beer float with any type of root beer and I am pretty sure I would be happy.

Lemon-Lime Soda – When it comes to sodas such as 7-UP, Sierra Mist, and Sprite I think the generic versions do a fairly decent job of matching up. I think the lemon-lime taste is pretty universal and easy for companies you have never heard of before to replicate. If I drank soda and if I didn’t care that my friends thought I was a cheapskate I might consider buying an imitator if it meant saving a couple dollars.

Garbage

Mt. Dew – I am listing this soda in its brand name form because I know of no other drink that even comes close to its taste. Whatever competitors Coca-Cola has tried to introduce over the years to battle Mt. Dew have failed. So if Coke can’t succeed you can only imagine what the generic brands come up with. Did you actually imagine something? If you did downgrade that version by 10x and you got what rip off Mt. Dew tastes like. The actual taste of these products is worse than the silly Mountain ________ (insert anything) names they are labeled with. I never tasted an imitator that even entered the ballpark of what Dew tastes like. By a long shot, Mt. Dew wannabes take the cake for tasting nothing like its intended product.

Cola – Knockoff colas are bad…real bad. You know how I describe the taste of a cola that isn’t Pepsi or Coke? Dirty tasting. Drinking some of these sodas made me realize why the two giants spend billions both on developing their formula and keeping it a secret. Drinking non-premium cola seriously gave me a headache back when I was younger. Do you want to torture your most hated enemy? Force WARM generic cola down his throat…pretty sure there isn’t a crueler punishment than that.

Dr. Pepper – Not only do knockoff Dr. Peppers taste flat they also taste like crap. With generic brands you lose the smooth taste of DP and replace it with a nasty aftertaste. Besides diet sodas that some people drink as if it kept them young, Dr. Pepper is the second most popular soda that I actually see people live on as their primary liquid. If you were to ever steal the mug or Big Gulp container of someone who is dependent on Dr. Pepper and switched it out with Dr. Shasta I am 95% sure that person would die the moment the fluid touched the lips.

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In summary, don’t drink soda. But if you must, try to stick with something made by Pepsi or Coke. If you are going to fill your body with carbonation and sugar you might as well do it via the companies that actually specialize in it. Don’t Blink.

Celebrating Accents

Posted on June 24, 2014 by brent

I live in a very interesting area. Many people will tell you that Myrtle Beach is a melting pot. Because of the beautiful living conditions and the ocean in our backyards you have people from all over the country converging on this slice of Heaven in South Carolina. A very large number of people migrate here from the northeast. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are a few of the states that are represented very well in Myrtle Beach. With the many different backgrounds in the area you naturally have many different cultures, ideologies, and ways of life.

You also have many different types of accents. In my two months in Myrtle Beach I have enjoyed hearing the wide range of accents that you will hear just from talking to a random sample of ten people you pull off the street. Of course the accent that predominates is your classic Southern accent. But don’t think they are all equal. Depending on what part of the South someone is from will determine the Southern dialect with which they speak. Aside from the multiple Southern accents I am exposed on a daily basis to New York accents, Boston accents, and Midwest accents. You also occasionally run into the boring people like me who are accent neutral and don’t have a distinguishing twang or a special way of saying certain words.

I work each day with people who talk differently than me. I deal with grocery store clerks, maintenance people, and service workers who talk differently than me. I date a girl who talks differently than me. But by this time it has become second nature and accents don’t register with me nearly as much as they once did. Not that in the beginning it ever bothered me it was just different and took a little getting used to.

But back to the girl I mentioned who talks like a true local. My girlfriend Sidney has the sweetest Southern accent you will ever hear. However, she told me that some people wouldn’t always find it as sweet as me. Sidney explained that back when she was in college people from other regions (not mentioning which ones) would call her out on how she talked. These people would mockingly “coach” her to pronounce words like they did, thinking somehow that the way they decided to sound out words constituted the “right” way to talk and thus meant the way Sidney talked was sideways or something. Whenever she would pronounce a word that these people pronounced differently they would interject midsentence and echo the word she just said with their preferred pronunciation.

Nevermind that guests in a state should never try to critique the language of their hosts. Let me take it a big step further and say that no one should ever try to tell someone else that their geographical or personal preference way of speaking is wrong or sounds funny. What an ignorant, egotistical, and insensitive thing to do. I can handle it if you are prideful of where you came from and how you talk but what grounds do you have to believe that your way of speaking is superior to someone else’s? And if for some reason you actually think that, how can you think it is okay to actually vocalize that and tell someone that they are speaking wrongly?

When I was in high school I had a friend who would always call me out on how I pronounced the words such as bag, tag, nag, etc. He thought the only way to speak such words was to use the long “a” sound. He pretty much discredited the way I talked and it drove me nuts. I can only imagine how demeaning it must feel to have your whole accent and pretty much every word you say dismissed as incorrect.

Just like with other differences between humans, we need to celebrate the unique ways Americans speak rather than mock and discredit the ones that differ from us. We were all raised in different areas under different circumstances and the way we sound shouldn’t be held against us. I feel so fortunate that I now live in a place where I get to hear diversity come out of the mouths of the people I interact with on a daily basis. From a place where I used to live where everyone sounded the same I would never want to mute what I now have. Don’t Blink.

Peanut Butter and Bread Disappearing Into Thin Air

Posted on June 23, 2014 by brent

Yesterday I performed my Sunday ritual of going to Wal-Mart to stock up on groceries for the week. As I practiced my tips for succeeding as a shopper in a hostile Wally World environment I zoomed down the bread aisle. But before getting to the loaves of bread themselves I stopped at the peanut butter located to my right. I grabbed a medium sized jar of Wal-Mart’s generic Great Value brand. I then walked a few feet and scoured to my left where I picked out my usual Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal bread. I then returned to my cart at the end of the aisle, threw my items inside, and continued the little shopping that I had left to do. I then checked out, walked through the parking lot of hell, and went on with my day.

When I returned home to drop off my groceries I didn’t think twice about conducting a check of my inventory. I rushed to put the items away, making sure the things that needed to go in the fridge or freezer got there but not paying much more attention to anything other than that.

Fast forward about five hours later. It was time for me to perform yet another one of my boring rituals…I am talking about the making of my lunch for the next day. As is well documented I labor for about a minute and a half each night as I slather peanut butter on a piece of bread and put another piece on top of it to make the perfect PB sandwich. Only this time around my routine came to a crashing halt. I opened the fridge to get my fresh loaf of bread (yes, I keep my bread in the fridge) but much to my surprise there was no bread to be found. Thinking I might have just stored it with my peanut butter in the cupboard I quickly checked there and found not just the absence of bread but the absence of peanut butter too.

As I entered into minor freak out mode I looked inside all kitchen cupboards, on my dining room table, and back in my refrigerator. I fruitlessly checked my freezer, my kitchen drawers, and even the Wal-Mart bags from that afternoon, hoping that the peanut butter and bread somehow managed to hideout in the corner of one. I even went out to my car and checked to make sure that I didn’t leave a lone bag in there. With the writing on the wall that I must have not picked up my bag of peanut butter and bread at the checkout stand I did two things. First, I cursed Wal-Mart for having the worst checking out/bagging system in the world. More than once I have left groceries in the bagging area because it is so darn easy to do so with the way bags rotate. Secondly, I called Wal-Mart to claim my items.

Yesterday I shopped at the Conway Wal-Mart located right by Coastal Carolina. I told the person who answered my call my predicament and she transferred me to customer service. The next lady who picked up the phone was sympathetic to my situation and said she would check the log of items left behind by customers at checkout that day, a log that probably numbered around a thousand pages since it is so easy to do. When she came back on the phone she said my items were not listed. However, she kindly remarked, if I brought my receipt in with the missing items listed she could take care of me. After becoming frustrated because I couldn’t find the receipt in the plastic bags a light popped in my head to check the shorts I wore earlier that day to the store. Sure enough my receipt was in one of the pockets. But while the receipt itself was there, something that should have been on it was not.

That’s right, on my receipt there was absolutely no record of peanut butter or bread. Things started to get weird. Earlier that afternoon I walked down that aisle and picked up peanut butter and bread. I am 100% positive. I can still replay the stroll I took to get those particular items perfectly. I still remember which particular jar and loaf I picked, the prices, and how they felt in my hands. I remember dropping the items in my cart. These are my top five scenarios for what possibly could have happened:

1. I put the items in the wrong cart.
2. There was a hole in my cart and the peanut butter and bread fell out.
3. In a true coincidence the Wal-Mart employee bagged the peanut butter and bread without ringing it up (which explains why it didn’t show up on the receipt) but with somehow me still not having the presence of mind to pick it up.
4. My mom, who hates the idea of me eating a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every single day, teleported from Washington State to the Wal-Mart I was in and snatched the contents out of my cart when I wasn’t looking.
5. The nice woman at the checkout stand had read my blog before and knew how I trash Wal-Mart so in an act of revenge she decided to slyly leave out my two most coveted items.

After those scenarios my other suspicions start to get a little more farfetched so I won’t even go there.

Seriously though, what happened?! Not only is my mind perplexed but it forced me into a late night trip to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store by my apartment to insure that I could eat lunch today. If you have any ideas on what may have transpired I would love to hear it. I hope to never be in this situation again. Don’t Blink.

Weekend Escape to Wilmington, North Carolina

Posted on June 22, 2014 by brent

This weekend I had the opportunity to once again resume my “Southern Exploration Tour” as Sidney and I dashed out of town on a weekend getaway to Wilmington, North Carolina. Although most people told me that I had to visit Charleston the second town that always came up was Wilmington. With Charleston crossed off the to-do list from two weeks ago it was time to set my eyes on the city located in that other Carolina state.

Sidney was nice enough to drive to Wilmington. We traveled high class in her brand new 2014 Toyota RAV4 XLE.

On Saturday at around noon Sidney and I made the short ninety minute drive from Myrtle Beach to Wilmington. We were warmly welcomed at the home of Kendra and Josh, the couple who we were fortunate enough to celebrate their one year anniversary with when the four of us made the trip to Charleston. Josh is a member of the Coast Guard and Wilmington serves as the home port for the USCGC Diligence, a ship under the branch’s watch. To have a place to stay and people more than eager to show us around helped to insure that it was going to be a great weekend.

Sidney and I in the beautiful city of Wilmington on Saturday.

We arrived at the house of Kendra and Josh and after meeting the animals and taking a tour we drove right to the heart of downtown Wilmington. We walked down the main street, then along the water, and finally up into a restaurant called The George. Situated right on the riverfront we sat on the restaurant’s deck that overlooked the Cape Fear River. We ate lunch, enjoyed the view, and plotted what we would do for the duration of our stay. After we concluded our meal we went back to the streets of downtown and after checking out a really cool magic/novelty store with a real life wizard outside to greet us (no joke) we ducked into an ice cream parlor. Called Kilwin’s Ice Cream, Chocolates, and Fudge we waited in a decent line to get waffle cones. Once we had our ice cream we sat on a couple benches next to a horsedrawn carriage and enjoyed. With the humidity high and after subjecting ourselves to the wonderful smell inside of Kilwin’s (nothing smells better than an ice cream parlor) the ice cream tasted wonderful. It tasted so great in fact that after I finished my peanut butter chocolate waffle cone I ate the rest of Sidney’s cake batter cone.

Clockwise: A real life wizard outside the magic store, the horsedrawn carriage, inside Kilwin’s, Sid and I with our ice cream, and a view of the water walkway.

We then got back into the car and went on a little ride. Wilmington is home to four beach communities including Fort Fisher, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach. We drove through all four and I personally got a kick out of seeing the brightly colored houses that give these communities such personality. We got out at a random spot at Fort Fisher and enjoyed the view of the ocean and the high winds that provided some relief during the humid day. After a couple hours touring these little pieces of paradise we drove back to the house where the girls showered and Josh and I watched Sportscenter and the World Cup.

Sidney and I at Fort Fisher.

Once Sidney and Kendra finished getting ready we went back downtown to enjoy the nightlife of Wilmington. The downtown district in Wilmington is awesome. Small and charming you got several options all within walking distance to pick your poison and have a blast. After starting at a little joint called the Liquid Room while we waited out the dinner rush we moved to a place called Front Street Brewery. This place had it going on. Packed and festive we waited about twenty minutes and then got ushered up the eclectic building’s steep stairs to our table. I scarfed down a very interesting take on Shepherds Pie and enjoyed the atmosphere. We then hit up a few more places including a location where I finally got to play cornhole! Sid and I played against Kendra and Josh before switching it up and going boys against girls. It was a lot of fun. With the area really bumping we stopped while we were ahead and went home for the night.

This was the Shepherd’s Pie I devoured at Front Street Brewery.

Early in the morning Sidney and I said goodbye to Kendra and Josh and hit the road back to Myrtle Beach. However, on the way out of town we got to go through the main part of the city and get a glimpse of the everyday, non-tourist perspective of Wilmington life. It put a fitting end to our experience.

I snapped this photo on our way out of town today. I really enjoyed Wilmington.

Some of my readers might freak out at this but I actually liked Wilmington more than Charleston. It was more intimate and less upscale, two things that appeal to me. Just like Charleston you had the history and the water but I just felt more at home in Wilmington. I am very thankful to Kendra and Josh for serving as wonderful hosts and to Sidney for taking me. I can’t wait to see where we go next! Don’t Blink.

Putt Putt to Social Media to Ice Cream

Posted on June 19, 2014 by brent

By this time it is tradition. Thursday has become my multi topic, totally random post day and that won’t change this evening. So without wasting anymore of your precious time let’s get right to tonight’s five topics.

Putt Putt Odyssey Continues: This week Sidney and I have tackled a couple more putt putt courses in Myrtle Beach. On Sunday early in the evening we battled the heat and played at Captain Hook’s Adventure Golf. The two of us played a very competitive round on the Peter Pan themed course but when we concluded the 18th hole I had secured a one stroke victory.

I barely hung on for a close victory over Sidney at the Captain Hook course.

On Tuesday night we played under the lights at Shipwreck Adventure Golf. This was by far the toughest miniature golf course I had ever played on. Making the difficulty level seem a little harder was that play was backed up and it seemed like we had a crowd watching us each time we played our hole. However, I performed just a little bit better under the pressure and really infuriated Sid by defeating her for the third straight time on our putt putt tour.

Playing putt putt under the lights is a cool experience. Shipwreck is a tough course!

#CCUSocialMedia T-Shirts: Last Thursday I picked up our brand new social media t-shirts. When I actually opened the boxes on Friday morning I took a look at the teal shirts with white print and was instantly pleased. Turns out the rest of Teal Nation felt the same way. I got Chauncey to model the shirt for us and when I posted the photos on our social media outlets our audience expressed their instant love for them. On the front the shirt has a three dimensional hashtag with “CCU” right in the middle of it and the words “Social Media” underneath. On the back it has our handle (@CCUChanticleers) up top and our classic athenaeum logo underneath. This week I have given the shirts away to people who participate in our social media contests and I have watched our engagement soar. Don’t you wish you had one?

Chauncey helps me out and models the t-shirts last Friday (left)……..I add a classy twist to the t-shirt as I passed out chap stick/pens to incoming freshmen today.

1,200+ Comments Later: Speaking of social media, yesterday I introduced a fun little promotion on our Facebook page that took off rather quickly. At 2:30 p.m. I took a photo of a stack of stickers on my desk. I then posted it on our CCU Facebook page and asked our audience to guess how many made up the stack. Immediately after posting it I went off to a meeting. When I returned about 45 minutes later I checked the page and saw that we had 537 responses! As I had set the end of the contest for 5 p.m. I had no idea how many responses we would receive in the next hour and forty-five minutes. When the deadline rolled around we had 1,262 guesses. Out of that large amount six people correctly guessed the number of stickers…210! All six were sent #CCUSocialMedia t-shirts this morning.

This post generated over 1,200 responses.

Premium Ice Cream for Cheap: I tweeted about this earlier during the week but I have a new favorite brand of ice cream that isn’t Ben & Jerry’s but just as good and super cheap! If you have never tried Breyer’s before you don’t know what you are missing. The ice cream itself tastes great and it is loaded with whatever it says on the carton (i.e. brownies, strawberries, Oreos, etc). Right now I have two flavors in my freezer, cookie dough and strawberry cheesecake. Both taste heavenly and do wonders to combat the southern heat. But the kicker is the price. You can purchase a carton at Wal-Mart for under $3! Most places you can’t even get a generic tub of vanilla for that amount. A pint of Ben and Jerry’s will run you over $5 at most places and of course it has half the amount of product that the Breyer’s carton has. I encourage you to try it!

Currently I have cartons of both Strawberry Cheesecake and Mrs. Fields Cookie Dough Breyers ice cream in my refrigerator.

Not Very Good Ice Cream for An Arm and a Leg: One year ago I wrote about my fascination with the ice cream man. Although the products offered and the prices demanded are ridiculous I was obsessed with the ice cream truck when I was growing up. Although to a much lesser degree these days, I still have a special place in my heart for a vehicle that plays music and sells popsicles. So it might come as little surprise that I have taken quick notice of the ice cream man around Myrtle Beach. Let’s just say things are a bit different down here than where I am from. The ice cream men in these parts ride motorized bikes with trailer freezers attached. For someone who has never seen it done quite that way before I definitely got a laugh out of it. Although my ice cream man purchasing days ended about 15 years ago I might need to flag down one of these dudes on a bike and pay the exorbitant price for a fudgesicle…it will just make me feel that much more intertwined with the southern culture.

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Summer officially begins this weekend with Saturday marking the longest day of the year. Sidney and I have a little getaway planned to mark the changing of the seasons so if I don’t write tomorrow or Saturday you can expect to hear the details of where we went on Sunday night. As always, thank you for your readership. Don’t Blink.

Don't Blink

By Brent Reser

Author Archives: brent