The Wolf is a Production Assistant here in on our Creative Services team. He claims to be part tomato. We fear that he is lying to us. The Wolf actually came to us from our Customer Loyalty Department almost a year ago, many moons indeed. We chose him for his quick wit, archery skills and Photoshop mastery. Upstairs in our Vegas headquarters, adorned upon a wall, is a large graffiti Zappos logo that the Wolf spray painted for our CLT friends. He is a wild beast with a spray paint can, let me tell you.

The Wolf comes from the wilderness, and he shows not his face due to the poaching threat. (He also is just having a bad hair day and forgot to wear his hat, that might have something to do with it) Jenn B. stood up for an interview with this fine man-beast to ask him of his love of Zappos, Pigs and smooth 70's arena rock.

Wolf: We salute you.

The Bridge the Gap Project (BGP) put together a "Sweet & Greet" today in the lunch room of the Henderson office. It ended with a good old fashioned eating contest.

Bryan of Merchandising, Amanda of Customer Loyalty, and Jay of the Content Team sat down in front of a crowd of thousands (slight exaggeration)with three minutes on the clock. Who would be crowned champion of this annual event? (This was actually the first one, and likely the last.) Who would claim the $1 Million prize money? (Prize money not actually awarded.) So
many questions were yet to be answered (many of which were made up by me).

The contestants readied themselves, cupcakes in hand. Last minute coaching advice from their trainers: frosting is filling; don’t eat the wrappers; why are we even doing this?

Ladies and Gentlemen, ready your stomachs! DING, DING! And they're off!

For those of you who know Bryan, you may be thinking, "No Contest! The Bull has it in the bag!" And it seemed – for a time – that you might have been right as Jay from Content was easily vanquished by the ravenous AB from Fashion. But the competition was not without its drama! Oh, no, my
friends. There was a dark horse looming on the horizon (or more accurately,
just to Bryan's right). Amanda from Customer Loyalty surprised the capacity crowd and brought fear to the eyes of even Bryan himself!

As the final buzzer rang, the judges announced the unthinkable! WE HAVE A TIE! Bryan and Amanda had each put down ten cupcakes in the three minute round! The results announced, the crowd shouted its anger! "SUDDEN DEATH" was the chant that echoed throughout the halls (actually, I think I was the only one that said it).

And in a One Minute Sudden Death Overtime, Bryan was able to silence his critics as the underdog Amanda fell behind due to an unexpected improvement in judgment! No such improvement on Bryan’s end, I’m proud to report.

14 and a half cupcakes consumed Merchandising favorite son! That’s 13 and a half more than is legal in most states!

Congratulation to all involved, and THANK YOU to the Bridge the Gap Project,
proving that we’re all on equal ground when it comes to our desires to see people makes fools of themselves!

Ever walked into that red room, next to the huge blue photo room in the middle of the warehouse? Yes? No? Well, I guess you can't necessarily just walk in, unless you have a special badge to get you in...but you can knock anytime! If you haven't, you should stop by sometime and see what we're all about!
Either way, welcome to the Images room! It's where all the color correcting, switching images, and Photoshop magic happens. Enter at your own risk, to the no bully zone with the huge pictures of our faces, and unexplainable drawings on the board. If its real quiet, all you will hear is the ongoing typing and clicking that comes with image processing that is going on!

Beware if you're near the fridge and an awful smell comes out while you wait under the unearthly, airport-like lighting. What can I say? It is what it is! People love all kinds of food, and we need special lighting! If you don't like it, thats cool, we have a punching bag in here somewhere. I say somewhere, because since we had some mannequins move in our room, we don't go on that side of the room much. It's kind of eerie. They're pretty life like, so it looks like headless nude people standing in a group with clear plastic bags over their bodies. Reminds me of the scene in the Silent Hill movie. Yeah...

While visiting, if you have, you may or may not have noticed the little yellow notes stuck to our walls or our computers, with weird little faces drawn on them. Those are drawn by our very own Jon, sometimes we call him Johnny. He's been at Zappos for almost 2 years now. You know he loves it! We always wondered why Jon draws these weird faces, and what they mean to him. So we decided to bother him and ask. We like to put Jon on the spot!

Here are the many faces of Jon!
Many Faces of Jon -Posted April 30th 2008

Next time you come by, you should ask Jon to get your very own post it face! You never know, he could be famous for it some day!

In Celebration of Spring, the Merchandise Planning Team is hosting May Day!

Zapponians have the option to create their own basket full of goodies or buy pre-made baskets at the Maypole. Baskets are $1.00 which includes free delivery to your favorite Zappos friends on May 1st. All proceeds will go the Nevada Children's Cancer Foundation.

Derby is a fun time of year for Kentucky. We have a lot of festivals that start a few weeks before the big day in May. My favorite festival event that has started in the last year is the Happytail Hour! Metro Animal Services (MAS) hosts HappyTail Hour, which is the only "pet inclusive" cocktail event. This event allows people to bring their pets along to have a bite to eat, some good drinks and to socialize. It provides a fun opportunity for the pet loving community to come together to listen to the music, mingle, play games with their dogs and hang out at Waterfront Park. They also have S.P.O.T. (Stop Pet Overpopulation Today), which is MAS's 34-foot mobile adoption unit on hand with adoptable animals! It was great seeing MAS reaching out to the community in this way to help awesome dogs find great, loving homes. I hope many people have a new addition to their family today.

A group of us went out there Monday night, and the weather was really chilly and rainy. Despite the weather, there were a few pet owners who came out anyway to support Metro Animal Services. I'm sure if the weather would have been better, there would have been much more of a turnout. I brought my two dogs, Charley and Molly. Charley is still a puppy at 9 months old, and it was her first time out in public with other dogs! She did very well, and I learned she's afraid to walk over the bridges at the Waterfront park! We had to carry her each time. They had Frisbee games and treats for all of the doggies. There was also a band jamming out some live music.

We walked around and visited other dogs and the Chow Wagon. If you don't know what the Chow Wagon is, I think you're missing out! Everyone should visit this delight if you get a chance at Derby time! Basically it's a lot of booths that serve all kinds of carnival food... All kinds! Corn dogs, BBQ, cotton candy, funnel cakes, frozen custards, frozen lemonade, and so much more! Yummy!

Anyways, back to the dogs! So we walked back to the car all cold and wet, dried the dogs and left. Soon as we pull out of the parking garage, the sun came out, bright as it could be! That was a bummer, but, at least we had a nice drive home! On the way home we passed a couple of the Gallopalooza horse statues that are all over Louisville. I took a picture of one for you! Happy Derby everyone!