Hotel Duval Brings Luxury Boutique to Tallahassee!

Opening in Spring of 2009!

I have to brag a little bit today....

I haven't updated lately because I've been so busy with my new job! I recently accepted the Guest Services Manager position at Hotel Duval in Tallahassee. It is a very promising downtown hotel venture I am extremely excited about! I was really worried about finding a good job when I first moved here because Tallahassee didn't have much in the way of upscale hotels. There was definitely nothing that could be considered luxury. Hotel Duval is EXACTLY what Tallahassee has been missing and I'm very glad to be on the team. It was formerly a Radisson and a Park Plaza but wasn't realizing its full potential because money wasn't being put back into the asset.

Duval Partners stepped in and bought it and has laid out a multi-million dollar renovatation plan to transform the property into a luxury boutique hotel. This is my first opportunity to be on an opening team so I'm really able to apply alot of the creativity to our operating procedures nad problem solving. There is so much resistance to change in properties that are already fully operational. Two of my main initial goals are to secure our AAA four diamond status within 18 months, and to secure our FGLA one palm status before we open for business in March. My passion for sustainable business solutions has landed me the affectionate office nick-name of the "resident hippie" so it seemed only natural when Marc Bauer, my GM, designated me as leader of the "Green Team". Everyone got a chuckle out of my excitement to take on more work load. :) (but JJ is so proud! haha)

Now about the hotel....

The 117 guest rooms and suites are decorated with the use of color theory. Each floor is a different color palette, so the guest has the option at check-in to tell us how they want to feel. The picture above is Energizing Citrus and below is the Refreshing Blue. We also have Serene Greens, Peaceful Neutrals, Uplifting Yellows, and Exhilarating Reds. Isn't that so creative? Everywhere in the hospitality industry you hear about "customizing & personalizing the guest's experience" and so many times that translates to using your ideas and tastes to give the guest something you think/hope they will enjoy. This color theory concept allows us to engage the guest in personalizing their experience and assists us with understanding the motives and goals of their stay. It's truly unique and I think it will be a huge hit.

Our on-site restaurant will be a Shula's 347 which will definitely create a huge draw of both locals and overnighters. If you've never had a Shula's steak, you are missing out. They are wonderful! I can't wait to use my employee discount!

We will also have a cafe serving Starbucks coffee, breakfast, and lunch during the day and serving cocktails at night.

The creme de la creme is the ROOFTOP BAR that overlooks downtown! The views are phenomenal and will no doubt be a very popular spot local hotspot. I'm sure our hotel patrons will also enjoy the convenience of riding an elevator home rather than a taxi!

That's all for now, but I'm sure I'll be posting alot more between about the propety between now and March (and beyond). I think our website is still under construction, but we should have a lot of progress by the first week in January. I'll put the link up when the site is finished.

Here are a few more pics unti then...

This is a view of the lobby. The back of the picture is the LeRoc Lounge and Cafe which will serve Starbucks coffee and breakfast in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, and cocktails at night. The front desk is on the far left and the main entrance will be to the left of the blue picture.

This is a view of one of our Peaceful Neutrals guestrooms as if you were seated in the chaisse lounge. The 37" and 42" LCD flatscreens have a backlighting panel that can double as a nightlight if you choose to use them. The rooms will also have rainmaker shower heads and pebble floors that massage your feet as you shower!

How is this Bank of America's fault?

Republic’s Fired Workers Plan Bank of America Protest (Update1)
By Brian Louis and Kathleen M. Howley

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- A fire roared in a trash bin outside the Republic Windows & Doors factory on Chicago’s north side last night, warming supporters who brought coffee, food and sleeping bags to 250 fired workers occupying the building.
Nearby, a protester held a placard: “Bank of America. You got bailed out. We got sold out.”
Workers blame Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. retail bank, for the factory’s Dec. 5 closure after it canceled a line of credit to the manufacturer, whose sales have been gutted by the housing slump. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has received $15 billion from the U.S. Treasury as part of its effort to boost capital, while Merrill Lynch & Co., the securities brokerage it is buying, has gotten $10 billion.
The workers’ union is planning a rally at noon tomorrow at the Bank of America building in downtown Chicago as the factory sit-in becomes the center of the debate over how more than $700 billion in federal funds are used to help the world’s largest economy weather the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Government bailout money should be used to help businesses such as Republic Windows rather than Wall Street firms and global banks, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, which represents the Republic workers, said on its Web site.
“We will continue to occupy the factory until a resolution is reached,” said Leah Fried, a union representative.
‘Absolutely Right’
President-elect Barack Obama, whose home is 12 miles from the factory, in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, said at a Sunday press conference the workers are “absolutely right” to demand their severance and vacation pay.
“These workers, if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments,” said Obama, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat from Illinois last month.
Workers were told the plant was closing three days before the sit-in began, said Ricardo Caceres, 39, who assembled windows for 15 years at Republic. The company gathered everyone in the cafeteria at lunchtime and told them they could come and pick up their final paychecks on Friday, said Caceres, of Chicago. The sit-in began after workers saw they were not being paid for unused vacation time or given severance packages.
‘In Shock’
“Everyone was in shock,” said Caceres, the father of two children.
Richard Gillman, previously a minority shareholder in Republic, bought Republic in 2006 and replaced some of its management. Under Gillman, Republic reduced expenses by 47 percent and boosted productivity by 30 percent, according to a company statement distributed yesterday by Business Wire.
“Despite inheriting a company bloated with overhead and lacking any type of manufacturing discipline and/or productivity, the company made significant improvements only to encounter an unprecedented decline in new-home construction,” the Republic statement said.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich said yesterday that Bank of America won’t get any more state business until it restores the line of credit. The governor and John Harris, his chief of staff, were arrested today by FBI agents on unrelated corruption charges. The two men are scheduled to appear today in federal court in Chicago, according to a statement by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Bank of America has managed the sale of at least $2.1 billion in municipal bonds within the state of Illinois in the past four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Bank of America isn’t empowered to tell a company how to manage its business, spokeswoman Julie Westermann said yesterday. Republic is unable to operate profitably in the current economy, she said.
“Bank of America has worked with the company and shared our concerns about the company’s situation and its operations for the past several months,” she said. “It is unfortunate that the company has been unable to reverse its declining circumstances.”
Republic’s sales tumbled to $40.3 million this year from $52.3 million in 2007 as orders from homebuilders dropped to $6.3 million from $17.9 million, the company said in a statement.
New-home sales in the U.S. fell in October to 433,000 at an annual pace, the lowest level in 17 years, as the credit crunch deprived potential buyers of needed financing, according to the Commerce Department.
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Louis in Chicago at blouis1@bloomberg.net; Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at kmhowley@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: December 9, 2008 11:58 EST

Racial Preferencing Affects FAMU Law School

ORLANDO - The reopening of Florida A&M University's law school five years ago was a political victory for the historically black institution, but one that came with great pressure.
Lawmakers who approved the FAMU law school and another at Florida International University expected the two colleges to take in minority students who might not get into other Florida institutions, and in turn increase the number of black and Hispanic lawyers to serve an increasingly diverse population.

Today, the FIU law school in Miami is one of the state's strongest and most diverse, fully accredited by the American Bar Association, with a bar passage rate among the highest in the state.

FAMU's College of Law in Orlando, on the other hand, has yet to secure full accreditation, and has the worst bar passage rate in the state.
With a key ABA accreditation visit happening this week, administrators find themselves pulled between the mission of diversity and the consequences of admitting lower-caliber students.

Though FAMU's bar passage rate reached 60 percent for the first time, it is the lowest among schools in the state, well below the state average of 80.4 percent. Passage of the bar is required to practice law.

Some say the low bar rates reflect shifting enrollment expectations and political pressures for access and diversity.

"You have to decide if your issue is to educate minority students, and if so, then bar passage is always going to be an issue," said James Douglas, interim law school dean from June 2005 to December 2006. "If you take riskier students, the likelihood for your failure is going to be greater."

Changing strategies

FAMU's enrollment strategy over the years appears to have been muddled, dependent on ever-changing administrations and political pressures to enroll a majority of black students.
The average Law School Admission Test score of incoming students fell from 148 in 2004 to 146 this fall. The average score for incoming public law school students in Florida was 156 this fall.
Early on, when FAMU's average admissions score was higher, critics said the school wasn't enrolling enough black students.

The law school's inaugural graduating class in 2005 was the first FAMU class in which black students did not make up a majority. Enrollment that year was 44 percent white, 36 percent black and 12 percent Hispanic.

"They weren't attracting a large number of minority students at first," said Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, a FAMU graduate. "Some of the criteria we had set out when we created the school were not being followed."

Today FAMU's enrollment is 50 percent black, 27 percent white and 14.5 percent Hispanic. At FIU, 41 percent of law school students are Hispanic, 43 percent are non-Hispanic white, and 8 percent are black.

Admissions data suggests FAMU changed course after inaugural dean Percy Luney left in June 2005, admitting lower-caliber students.

Between 2002 and 2005, FAMU accepted 11 students with scores below 140 on the LSAT. The test is scored on a scale of 120 to 180. But in 2006, FAMU accepted 49 such students - 20 percent of the incoming class.

The same year, law schools at Florida State and FIU accepted no students with scores below 140. The University of Florida accepted one.

"There's no question that the correlation is overwhelming," said Richard H. Sander, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who has studied the relationship between LSATs and bar passage.

According to an analysis by Sander and another researcher, students with 140 LSATs pass the bar less than half the time, while students with 150 LSAT scores pass about 75 percent of the time.

Given its current student profile, FAMU faces a "very uphill" battle to achieve high bar passage rates, Sander said.

Turbulent past

The FAMU law school was born out of racial discrimination. Virgil Hawkins, a black
schoolteacher from Daytona Beach, was denied admission in 1949 to the UF law school, where administrators insisted statutes required UF remain a whites-only institution. As Hawkins fought the decision, white lawmakers tried to undercut his efforts by creating a law school at FAMU.

It opened in 1951, with five students and four faculty members. Over the next 17 years, it would graduate 57 students, among them Sen. Arthenia Joyner and U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.
FAMU's professors were paid less than any other law school faculty in the country, yet students' bar performance surpassed the national average.

But in 1968, politicians and university leaders responded to court-ordered desegregation by phasing out funding for the law school and opening a new one at neighboring FSU.

"It was like they were snatching our soul away from us," 1968 graduate Howard Gore Knight told the Tallahassee Democrat in 1994.

Alumni and FAMU administrators fought for decades to get the law school back. And in 2000, the Legislature agreed to reopen the school as part of a deal that created a law school at FIU and a medical school at FSU.

The FAMU law school opened in Orlando in 2002.

Competing missions

Officials trying to balance access with academic success know they're in a vise.

In a panel discussion on law school diversity earlier this year, interim dean Ruth Witherspoon said she felt squeezed by competing expectations. The Legislature wants the school to reach capacity by next year, she said. Meanwhile, the community expects a majority of students to be black.

"How do you meet those expectations? Well, that means you have to begin to take risks," Witherspoon said, according to the Florida Bar News. "How low can you go on the LSAT score and still have people able to demonstrate strong academic abilities and still be able to pass the bar exam?"

Some observers say the school's first dean, Luney, tried to minimize the risk by being more selective. But he faced backlash from FAMU supporters and the black community when the student body was not majority black.

Others say the school's growth also factors into its bar struggles. The law school was slated for 600 students, according to news reports after its creation. But a few years later, FAMU's budget requests show a planned enrollment of 750 by fall 2008.

It's unclear who determined the capacity and the timeline, and on what criteria.
"That is not coming from the Legislature, I can guarantee you that," said Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee, a longtime FAMU supporter.

Leonard Strickman, FIU's law school dean, has a "slow and steady" mantra for his school's growth.

"It takes a while to grow your reputation, so if you've got 200 students rather than 100 students, it's going to be that much harder to place students in internships and jobs," he said.
In two years, FIU's law school will be at full capacity: 600 students.
Support needed

Critics say FAMU's bar passage woes also reflect its failure to support students with low LSAT scores and incoming GPAs. Students and faculty complain of a lack of administrative stability and support. Even key supporters agree there's a problem.

"FAMU, unlike the other schools, has had a void in leadership, and that means you don't have anybody there to lead the faculty," said Sen. Lawson. "A good dean is going to determine whether the faculty is really equipped to prepare those students. FAMU hasn't had anyone."
Incoming dean LeRoy Pernell is well-aware of the need for better academic support.

"You have to look at the quality of the instruction to make sure they are prepared for the bar," Pernell said. "I think we have a good program in place, but we need to make it better."

Relaxation

Relaxation is an often neglected, but highly integral part of a productive lifestyle. These are some of my favorite quotes on the subject.


"Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise to noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, while the birds sang or flitted noiseless through the house until by sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller' s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any of the work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works."

- Henry David Thoreau
Walden

Deny children -- or anyone else -- the chance to do "nothing," and we may be denying them the chance to do "something" -- to find and do any work that is truly important to themselves or to someone else.

- John Holt

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it."

-Sydney J. Harris

"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."

Ovid

And he [the Lord] said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind and earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

-- I Kings 19: 11-12 (KJV)

In America, we hurry--which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent in the same coach he started in--the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!

-Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad

Refreshing and Thought Provoking

This movie seems to be a much needed piece of the Hollywood Entertainment puzzle. Movies are so often guilty of glamorizing adultery, fornication, and "living for yourself in the moment". It is of immeasurable value to have a movie that advocates working on your marriage rather than walking away from it. I can't wait to see it and will try to remember to post my thoughts and review commentary afterwards.

Voulez Vou....

To break out of the ordinary and try something new? Be spontaneous. Here is a list of ideas for Tallahassee....

To go Bowling, mini golf, play pool, darts, air hockey?

Go fishing and have a picnic?

Play paddleball at the beach if its sunny!

Invite people over and have a game night! Think catch phrase, balderdash, cranium, (maybe drunk twister?) Chips and salsa! Mmmm…. Everybody brings a different snack!

Make a gourmet dinner of foods we've never heard of?

Bake an apple pie !

Ultimate Frisbee, tennis, kayaking, raketball, something active?

Visit a local (or not so local) winery/vineyard?

Movies at the dollar theatre? (or the $1.25 theater I should say)

Maybe try the new comedy club?

Find a new restaurant? Something family owned with lots of cultural flair!

Such Creativity!

I love everything about this specialty cake vendor...


Charm City Cakes - Baltimore

What I do for a living

I am regularly asked what exactly it is I do for a living… and there is a big difference between the corporate side of meeting planning, and the hotel side of meeting planning. On the hotel side, this letter is a hilarious and not too far fetched representation of my job...

Dear Meeting Planner:

I am a convention services manager. I have unlimited resources at my disposal. I always keep at least ten meeting rooms under my desk and it is a policy here to automatically make reservations and tee times for your Board of Directors when you sign a contract.

I can make any of my meeting rooms larger or smaller, depending on your needs. I will naturally remove any supporting pillars from your meeting space and will install windows in every room as needed.

The "ocean view" is not scheduled to arrive until the second day of your program and for this I sincerely apologize. We will, however, move the hotel two feet to the left to accommodate your request by the end of your general session today. I can only throw myself at your mercy and grovel at your feet.

I completely agree that it is inconceivable that we should have any other groups booked into the hotel during the program.

The additional breakout rooms that you added this morning should be built no later than Wednesday. Naturally, it will be no problem to turn your session for 800 persons into a hollow square for 150 with rear projection, simultaneous Japanese translation, and satellite hook-up during your fifteen-minute coffee break.

Unfortunately, due to space constraints and the fact that your final program bears no resemblance whatsoever to your contracted space, we will have to suspend your lunch buffet from the ceiling above your session and suck the gravity out of the ballroom.

We have located the boxes that you sent last month under your mother's maiden name at the hotel down the street, and again our apologies for not having found them sooner.

In answer to all your questions, it is, of course, understood that I am aware of all or your speaker's requirements and will set up an overhead, LCD projector, dual slide projectors, two slide projectors, two screens, a laser printer, podium and mic, two table mics, six aisle mics, a head table and red and blue M and M's in each room at no charge, just in case you need them. We will automatically adjust the temperature in the room every fifteen minutes.

It goes without saying that an AV tech, engineer, baby sitter, and myself will be underneath your head table during the duration of your event just in case you need anything else. It has been great working with you and I can't wait to see you again......really!

Forever yours,

Your CSM

Goals of Blogging

I have decided to start blogging. I'm aiming for a collection of thoughts, theories and ideas I find interesting. Who knows where that will take me. I would like to avoid the common notion of blogging as a way to record my mundane day to day activities and emotions in a public forum style "diary". That's what facebook is for. (Joking)

In all seriousness, I'm glad to have an online scrapbook of sorts to collect the things that interest me. Hopefully you will enjoy it too.

And already, I have adopted a style of writing that implies the world will read this on a regular basis...How blogger-esque of me.