Have you ever had one of those Fridays where, your only excuse was "Hey, its Friday man!" That's how it was for us last Friday. Everything was funny, even though it really wasn't. We were all really talkative. Laurie is here from Vegas, and she helped entertain us with her awesome dance moves. Jon drew faces for our Zappos card board cut outs. That was our main team building project.. to get faces for the card board cut outs. Yeah, since it was Friday and all it didn't happen exactly as planned! One of the faces was done by Max. If you know him, you'll know which face was his! I began filming, with no point, and thats pretty much what you'll see! So watch our weird Friday video I put together! Enjoy friends!

Last Saturday a group of us from the images content team decided to go on a team outing. Newport, KY was the place to be! Newport, which is on the levee, has the one and only Newport Aquarium! It's about an hour and 40 minute drive from Louisville, but it's worth the drive, especially if its as beautiful as it was on Saturday!

It was really windy, but it was on the sunny/warm side. Newport Aquarium is right on the Ohio river across from Cincinnati, so you get a beautiful view as well. Once you're inside they have 70 exhibits and 14 galleries featuring an amazing variety of aquatic life from around the world. They have five tunnels you can walk through, surrounded by marine life. And of course....the shark tunnel! All the sharks, beautiful colored fish and sea turtles wind their way all around you when you walk through. The floors are even transparent so you can see them swim under your feet. It was amazing, really!

The Jellyfish exhibit was also very beautiful! We walked into a low lit room with soft music, huge chandelier and big, round, red, velvet seating. The jellyfish were stunning; drifting back and forth, up and down, just like they were at sea. With the lights so low, they were super bright! We saw alligators, lots of turtles, frogs, tons of fish, eels and so much more!

On the way out they have an area where you can pet sand sharks! Erin, Jessie and Kyle were getting their clothes wet because the sharks looked closer than they appeared, so they were leaning in really far not realizing their sleeves were already wet!

After the aquarium, we went to the Hofrauhaus and had some tasty tasty drinks! They were really crowded with parties and Cincinnati was having a baseball game, so it was going to be a long wait before we could eat. We were really hungry, so after we tried some great beer, we walked down the Levee to find some food and found the awesome Claddagh Irish Pub! We ate lots:Cabbage rolls, meatloaf melts, Irish Monte Cristo, and much, much more. It was great tasting food! I will absolutely go there again!

If you ever visit KY, I highly recommend you to go to Newport on the Levee. You will not be let down! I promise!

Here at Zappos.com, our new CLT reps have many hurdles to go through to becoming full time employees, and today we are going to discussing Incubation.

After leaving our fantastic CLT training course, they head to what we call "Incubation." I visualize it as a "training outside of training." It's purpose is to fine tune the skills that you have learned in training and also get you acclimated with the general "ways of the call center floor." They move to the call center building, focus more their acquired skills and work together as
a team. With that being said, here is an account of one of our new employees, Derek Flores, who is currently in Incubation. Take it away, Derek!

"Today is the seventh day in incubation, and let me tell you, we are getting the whole Zappos experience. Our leads are awesome and have done a lot in helping us understand and overcome the various challenges that we will face once we get out onto the floor. First, we
have Jim who is the lead of the morning shift, 6:00-3:00. Then we have Derek (D-Rock) and Abbie who have the later shift, 11-8. Overall, we are very impressed with their knowledge base regarding the questions we have for them. It's kind of hard to stump them, but I am waiting for that one question that will get Jim to say, "Wow, never heard that one before!" I feel that these guys, and girl, are a great fit for our group of unique individuals.

Each day has been very interesting and fun as we are introduced into the Zappos Culture. We are all embracing the core values and are doing so through Core Value Presentations. Each person is paired up with another person within Incubation and assigned a core value to present to the entire class. So far we have had some great presentations, but these couple have stood out in my mind.

Noelle and Liz's group were assigned, Creating Fun with a Little Weirdness and they brought in pipe cleaners and clay for us to make weird little objects. Some people made unique things out of the pipe cleaners and others made really weird objects out of the clay, but it showed each and every one of us that we all can create fun and a little weirdness.

One more presentation I have to write about is Randy and Greg's group. There core value presentation was on Building an Open and Honest Relationships with Communication. They brought in bread, peanut butter and jelly and wanted us to explain to Greg how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, as if he had never made one before. I will let you know that one of us did not tell Greg to use a knife and he stuffed his whole hand into the peanut butter....it was quite a sight. The presentations are good because each group has related the core value to something that we encounter everyday here at Zappos and how we can use them to either help better us or overcome challenges that accompany the job.

Well, so far, so good, with seven days under our belt. Tune in later for more from the wonderful world of Incubation."

Thanks Derek, hang in there!!

Core Value #7: Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
And thats one thing these sisters do best. Not only does Katie and Sarah work for the same awesome company they work in the same crazy department! When they arent jumping around or hanging out with random statues, you can find them working hard in our Finance Dept. I was lucky enough to catch up with them and ask them a few random questions!

What was your favorite childhood show/book?

Sarah: Popples or the Care Bears! We owned everything they made!

Katie: My Little Pony forever and ever!

What do you like about working at Zappos?