Last night, myself, the photographer heading up the Gala (Abby), and our assistants set up for our art show. We were cutting wires + strings, twisting, tying, hooking, taping and labeling 41 pieces! Once everything was prepared, they had to be displayed on a table, mannequin or in the air without putting anything on the walls!! Eight glorious hours later we had our beautiful presentation ready for the public.

The Gala is a small representation of what the KY Content Team ( which includes both Photo and Imaging Departments) can create in their spare time. We had submissions ranging from paintings + photographs to three dementional pieces such as sculptures and a handmade designer dress!

Our official show opening was today at 3:30, made complete with catered snacks from Lady Fingers Catering, some jazz music, and the rest of the team joining us. The show was a raging success!!

Our hard work payed off and everyone had a great time. Winners will be announced later this month.



For any KY employees reading, and any Vegas employees visiting Kentucky right now, the show will be open until May 9th, so please swing by the training room and take a look at our creations. All we ask is that you please not touch any of the submitted pieces.

ENJOY!

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!

As most of the world knows, the Kentucky Derby is a HUGE deal for KY. Each year, from the kick-off at "Thunder over Louisville" to the "Chow Wagon" and "Hot Air Balloon Race" and all the way to the main event, the actual Derby race, the entire city is in celebration.

Here at Zappos we are no different, having our own mini-version of several events.We spend an entire night dedicated to the festivities. Having some "Kentucky HotBrown" for dinner, with our supervisors and managers serving nachos and cotton candy to the team, followed by our own horse racing (actually hopping), a horse decorating contest, AND a Derby Hat contest!



Each department and shift received a stenciled foam-core horse to cut out and deck-out for display by our break-room. Night shift photo department took an hour of our friday night to enjoy some pizza dinner and decorate our horse.


We decided to focus our horse in the direction of two fashionable and flashy brands, Ed Hardy and Betsy Johnson. All complete with an actual Betsey Johnson jockey and finished off with a pair of New Balance running shoes to win the race. We are very proud of our "Zappotariat" A.K.A. "Betsy Hardy".

Hello world!

This is my first Zappos blog entry, and I am excited to be introducing myself and the photo department to the rest of you, inside, and outside the company. My mission here is to give your hungry eyes a feast of photo department fun. We are a very active group of creative people not only looking to please our vendors and customers, but have a lot of fun in the process.

The core values are held in high regards in our studios. I have been with the company for about 3 years myself, and I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else. As I post more blogs, and you read further, I think you will understand why we all love it so much! ( As if all the other bloggers haven't given you enough reason already!)

Be looking for our department "quotes out of context" (coming soon) for a good laugh!

Do you know what your Zappos Buddies in Kentucky are doing today, April 28? Yes, we are going to get orders out the door super fast. Yes, we are going to play Rock Band at lunch and on breaks. On top of all that, we are off to the races; the Kentucky Derby Festival Bed Races that is. Our team is loading up the bed right now, doing sprints in weighted vests, and watching "Braveheart" on repeat to get psyched up.

Last week, yours truly and a couple others ran the Bed through some time trials. It was the Zappos version of the wind tunnel, also known as Quadrant 3 of the Warehouse. Yours truly is also in the Red Shirt calling out cadence to the others; my not-in-marathon-shape Zappos buddies are pushing with me; and Mindy is piloting this lightning-fast Bed thoroughbred. Team Zappos will give them a run for their money; you can put your $2 bet on that.

Since this is our first year competing in the bed race, we're out to have fun. Next year, watch out UPS! Zappos will rock you!

Z Big Ball of Kentucky was elated to find that someone finally recognized him in the blogosphere; muchas gracias to Maggie M. and her blog post "Who Has the Biggest Ball at Zappos" (http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos/2008/04/24/who-has-the-biggest-ball-at-zappos).

However, he was also very embarrassed at being *UNDER*-represented at a measly 10 pounds. Z Big Ball is proud to represent his Zappos coworkers in Kentucky with the following stats (as gleefully measured on 4/25/08):

• 302 pounds
• 72 and 3/16 inches in Circumference

Z Big Ball would like to extend an invite to all of his Zappos buddies in Las Vegas to stop by and say hi. Pose for a picture with him. And by all means, put on some more rubber bands!

I came across a large rubber band ball during a recent visit to our KY fulfillment center, located right at the entrance of the facility. The ball had to weigh at least ten pounds as it definitely required more than a nudge to get it moving! There are extra rubber bands scattered around the ball if any curious suspects want to try and stretch a rubber band around the ball to make it bigger. I shied away from the opportunity as I was too afraid it was going to break and go flying across the room or hit me in the eye!

With competitive balls on the mind, my thoughts wandered to the name badge balls that we have in the lobbies of both of our office locations in Las Vegas. Luckily for the LV employees these balls require no safety provisions. Every visitor of Zappos places his or her name badge on the balls. It all started back in 2004 at our Warm Springs office with one name badge that had been crumbled and left in a large basket. This name badge ball is currently located at our main building and has become so big it needs a bigger basket!

We also have a second Zappos office in Las Vegas where they too have created their own name badge ball. It is less than a year old, so the circumference of this ball pales in comparison to the others. But, if I took actual measurements and did some projections, I would say they are off to a strong start!

This ball thing seems to be a reoccurring theme here at
Zappos so one must ask, “Who has the biggest ball of them all?”



KY Fulfillment Center Ball

2300 Building Badge Ball

2280 Building Badge Ball

In my opinion Kentucky
wins the “Biggest Ball” contest. Please cast your votes.

Salutations, rapturous readers! I hope this merry missive from yours truly finds you reasonably chirpy! There was no wayI could let the week come to an end without one last update, as there was a boat-load of stuff that happened in Zappos.com's HR and Training teams since last we spoke!

So much culture, so little time…

Much of that boat-load had something to do with Jamie N., Zappos' resident Cruise Ship Coordinator! Also called “JamStar!” by those who know her best, she creates and coordinates myriad and momentous employee-related events, activities, and programs…kind of like Julie from the Love Boat, but without that 80's perm and with a bit more of an edge.

Our 4th Annual Zappos Employee Picnic was the largest to date, and ridiculously successful…


The calm before the crazy.

Kris Z. and Angela M. realizing they’re clearly outclassed. (Not that there’s anything classy about Bryan T.’s utter abandonment of all civility…)

L to R: Steve P., Mark G., Steve H., Fred M., Meghan B., and Eileen L. Winners of the Team Challenge!

...and JamStar just couldn’t resist making some mischief along the way:

“Ever since HR’s very own Dave H. won the typing contest, there have been vicious rumors aboutHR rigging results. Some of us decided to fight back. We held a raffle at the picnic, drew the winners yesterday, and sent the following email:

---

Congratulations to the following folks lucky enough to win a prize in the Picnic Raffle:

• 1 Play Station 3 (Valued at $400) = Dave W. from HR
• 1 Stainless Barbeque Grill Station (Valued at $200) = Drew K. from HR
• 2 Flip Video Camera (Valued at $155 each) = Rebecca R. and Hollie D. from HR
• 1 Espresso Coffee Maker (Valued at $100) = Christa F. from HR
• 2 Polaroid Digital Camera (Valued at $90 each) = Jacob P. and Rosalind S. from HR
• 1 Margarita Madness Machine (Valued at $80) = Eric V. from HR
• 1 Shell Gift Card (Valued at $50) = Heaven T. from HR

Wow, it looks like HR really swept the grand prizes. Luck of the draw I guess.

---

“Phones started to ring, inboxes started to blow up. It was great! Just some of the comments: Cheaters!...Jamie, that's statistically a little suspicious…this is gonna really upset people that everyone in HR won and no one else, wow…rofl!...You should send a follow-up picture of HR loading everything into someone's trunk.

“We let the team off the hook and sent the list of the real winners out. This caused another flood of emails: THAT WAS GREAT!!!... You guys are too much!... Here we all were with out mouths agape, when we got your second email…You punks!... You should have heard the grumbling goin on over here!!... Nice trick. LOL”

PS: For those of you questioning whether Dave H. actually won the typing contest last week, he's happy to go mano a mano with anyone doubting his skills. You name the time and place.

Meanwhile, the trail-blazing Training team was having an out of this world Las Vegas Encounter! Super Trainer,
Adrienne “Abductee” C. probes into greater detail for us: “Remember the exchange student program in high school? Zappos does! Every 3 weeks or so, we fly 5-10 employees from the fulfillment center (our warehouse) in Shepherdsville, Kentucky out to Vegas, put them up at the local Station Casinos hotel, and give them rental cars to run wild around town!

“They spend a week with us in our corporate office learning how the ‘other side’ lives and works. They visit
different departments and get to do some hands on stuff. Before this group left to go home, they wanted to do a parade around the office. You know how much we love parades!http://blogs.zappos.com/!!

“Sharing their Kentucky-ness by bringing the Derby to us Vegans!"

“A Vegas trip isn’t complete without visiting the sign!”

Some parting notes: Jobs@zappos! For all my friends!

Have any ideas on how this crazy, kooky thing we call a blog could evolve? They don’t even need to be good ones! Have a burning question, or a need to wax philosophical? Need some sage advice? I’m here for you, citizens of the interweb!

Coming Soon:

• How HR’s Monthly Outing Literally Rocked!
• Random Rozzy Thoughts (yer gonna love this)
• The Benches Are Here!!!!! (or, “Why We Love Rozzy and Rebecca L.”)

Catch y’all on the flip side, and remember: “We gotta find that troll!”
~Ddroo!

Hello from your Kentucky HR team!!

We decided to celebrate the Friday before Easter in style.... comfortable style that is.;) We dressed in our finest pajamas and broke out the easter egg dye! The outcome were some very creative and fancy looking eggs and a very laid back HR group!