Posts Tagged ‘Fun’

eHarbor names final MVPs of 2009

Friday, December 4th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

We’ve had quite a few MVPs in 2009. MVPs are eHarbor, Inc. employees who go above and beyond their normal job requirements to accomplish something extraordinary. This month, eHarbor’s leaders selected winners for both November and December in preparation for the big announcement on December 10.

On December 10, at the Hawaiian Christmas Party in the Provo City Library, we’ll find out who is the MVP for the whole year. They’ll select someone from all of the MVPs who’ve been named in 2009. But that’s the topic of a whole other blog entry. For now, I’ll talk about November’s and December’s MVPs.

We had one winner for November and two for December. Designer James Gentry is the November MVP, and Developer Matt Walker and Customer-Support Representative David Smith are the December MVPs.

I can’t take credit for writing all of these MVP descriptions. I wrote the one on David while my coworkers Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen wrote the spotlights on Matt and James, respectively. Britnee was actually last month’s MVP. You can read about her in my blog entry, “eHarbor MVP creates 6-month PR plan.”

On with the MVPs!

James Gentry
eHarbor, Inc. MVP James GentryWith hard work and dedication, James has really made an impression on his coworkers and earned the November MVP! Recent changes to the Design team opened up a position for a design manager, which James was unanimously appointed to.

Coworkers say that James “stepped in greatly” with his new promotion and continues to “go above and beyond and is always available to help and give his advice.” This new position enables him to “make sure customers are happy and that our Design team stays happy with their work,” his team leader said.

He loves recording and mixing music, eating peanut butter M&Ms, tacos, watching the shows 30 Rock and Community, and his favorite color is #669900… green.

Matt Walker
eHarbor, Inc. MVP Matt WalkerMatt’s Web-development skills have been valuable to eHarbor for the last three years he’s worked here. Matt’s the recipient, along with David, of the December MVP award for his combination of working hard behind the scenes and being a nice guy.

With the other developers, he’s been keeping things running smoothly throughout the company. He’s also a friendly guy who assists new coworkers around the office. “Matt always does such great work and is always so nice and pleasant to work with!” said one of his nominations.

Matt enjoys programming, which is a good thing since it’s his job, but he also likes to read, write and play video games. His favorite movie is Dead Poets Society and his favorite dessert is chocolate velvet. You can catch him watching Mythbusters and Doctor Who on TV or eating sushi at Sakura.

David Smith
eHarbor, Inc. MVP David SmithDavid works hard to give top-quality customer service to everyone who calls in. He goes the extra mile in helping customers by answering people’s questions thoughtfully and following up to make sure they are satisfied with their custom Internet-marketing solutions. Well done, Dave!

His favorite candy is Reese’s Pieces and his favorite food is gum. Interesting. Like James, his favorite color is green… forest green. For fun, he enjoys working on cars and playing sports, as well as listening to bands like Weezer, Pearl Jam and Saves the Day. His favorite movies are V for Vendetta and Gladiator, and his favorite TV show is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

eHarbor gives back with Food Drive

Monday, November 30th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Starting on November 2, eHarbor, Inc. has been hosting a Food Drive to help the needy in our local Utah County area. Christmas is always such a great time for charity and a spirit of service. Winter isn’t my favorite season of the year, but December might just be my favorite month because of all the awesomeness it contains.

eHarbor, Inc. logoWe have enjoyed an incredibly successful year in 2009, and so of course we want to give back to our community. It’s amazing how fast the time has gone. Can it really be almost 2010? Incredible.

The eHarbor Food Drive will end on December 10. To make it more interesting, we’ve divided the company into two teams: the Turkeys and Cranberries. We’ve all been donating canned items, toiletries, cereals, macaroni and cheese and other nonperishable products to see who can do more good. We’ll see who the winner will be.

Competition is a great thing, isn’t it?

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for fun company updates like this. Check out the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest on Web design, social media and PPC solutions.

eHarbor’s favorite Thanksgiving side dish

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Happy Thanksgiving next week! In that spirit, I’ll simply ask: Stuffing or potatoes? It’s a matter of taste which you prefer at Thanksgiving dinner. At eHarbor, Inc., we have a clear winner in this debate. I sent out a survey last month for the November issue of the eHarbor ePort (our company newsletter) and I got the following results.

November eHarbor, Inc. pie chart on Thanksgiving dinner

Potatoes, preferably mashed, are the best when it comes to complementing a delicious turkey dinner. If you combine the number of people who want solely potatoes with those who prefer both potatoes and stuffing, you get 65.1 percent of the voters, a clear majority.

I’m not sure what deep-fried Thanksgiving balls are, but someone likes those, too. There you have it. Potatoes go better with Thanksgiving dinner than stuffing for most eHarbor, Inc. employees. So which do you prefer?

This is the second time I’ve posted our monthly poll results. You can find our other pie chart in the blog entry, “The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen.”

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for company updates. Check out the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for insights into free search engine submissions and other Web-design and social-media topics.

The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Do you want to see a pie chart that is full of colors. I mean Full. Of. Colors. You might have seen some colorful pie charts and graphs before, but I’m positive you haven’t seen one this colorful. I’ll show it to you at the end of this blog entry, but first I want to wish you a happy Halloween in two days!

eHarbor Inc. will have its annual Halloween party tomorrow at noon. I wrote about it in a blog entry, “eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents,” a few weeks ago. This will be a fun event. We’ll have a chili cook-off (hence the title of my previous blog entry) with several eHarbor employees vying for the title of best chili. Yum yum.

I think I’m most looking forward to the creative costumes people will wear. We’re having a competition for who wears the most creative costumes.

This is where the colorful pie chart comes in.

Each month, I send out a poll to my fellow eHarbarians to ask them about different topics. I then include the results in pie-chart form in the next issue of the eHarbor ePort, our monthly newsletter. We have another issue coming out at the Halloween party, so I’m excited about that. Anyway, for the October issue, we asked people what was the best Halloween costume they ever wore or saw someone else wearing.

And these are the responses we got.

There were so many different ones that I considered not putting them in a pie chart at all. But it looked so nice I just had to do it. Usually, there’s a clear winner followed by a few other responses. In this one, almost every answer only got one vote, offering a variety of results. Feast your eyes on the creative minds of eHarbor’s employees.

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights into free search engine submissions and other SEO and PPC topics.

October eHarbor, Inc. pie chart on Halloween costumes

eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents

Friday, October 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

On Friday, October 30, 2009, eHarbor, Inc. will host its annual Halloween party. I can’t imagine it being anything but a lot of fun. We’ll have people dressing up in Halloween costumes, decorating the office with plenty of orange and black decorations and, best of all, competing in a Chili Cook-off.

That’s right, we’re going to enjoy some hot chili just in time for the frosty weather that’s bearing down on Utah and probably other parts of the country. Several people have signed up so far for the competition and each of them will bring their chili concoction in on October 30 to serve it at the party. I’m not sure how the dishes will be judged, but the winner will be rewarded for their efforts.

I’m looking forward to the food and the costumes. I’ve never been too interested in dressing up, but I hear some eHarbor employees are quite creative. Last year, one employee dressed up as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter books, and another dressed up as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who famously walked through New York City in the film “Ghostbusters.” It will be fun to see what they come up with this year.

This talk of Halloween costumes reminds me of something I would like to share with you.

Each month in our company newsletter, which we call the eHarbor ePort, I write a comic and someone else illustrates it. In the October 2009 issue, I did one on the upcoming Halloween party. You can find it below. We’ve been doing these comics since February of this year, so maybe I’ll post some of them on the eHarbor Blog for all the world to see. Some of them are pretty funny, if I do say so myself, but others are inside jokes.

If you haven’t seen “The Karate Kid” recently, I highly recommend you check it out. That’s one of my personal favorite movies.

This blog entry has been all over the place. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little bit of my stream of consciousness. Be sure to keep coming back for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights on Web design, SEO, PPC and social media.

October 2009 eHarbor comic

Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on October 6, 2009. The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.


Newton's cradle in motion

eHarbor softball ends fall season

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

After a stunning doubleheader victory to end its regular season the week before, the eHarbor, Inc. softball team played another doubleheader on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 with different results. Those two games were the first two of the fall season’s playoffs and, unfortunately, we lost both and so we won’t be moving on toward the championship.

eHarbor softball players in the dugout

The eHarbarians tried hard in the first game, but the other team proved too strong. We put up an excellent fight in the second game of the night and we almost pulled off a come-from-behind victory, but we came up just short.

This was a crazy season. It started with an impressive win and ended with two stunning victories. You can read about our two wins in my blog entry, “eHarbor softball wins dramatic doubleheader.”

Winter is just around the corner – it’s supposed to snow in many of Utah’s mountains tomorrow – so we’ll probably play softball again in the spring.

You can keep coming to the eHarbor Blog for updates on what our company is up to, as well as the newest updates on ecommerce, Web design and SEO. I also recommend you check out the new Submit Solution blogs. Their themes include:

- Paid Search Advertising

- Search Engine Optimization

- Social Media

- Website Design Services

I’ll see you again soon!

Submit Solution receives tasty website launch party

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The new Submit Solution website is quite amazing, isn’t it? If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to visit www.submitsolution.com right now to see all the great Web design, SEO and other services we provide there.

In fact, Submit Solution’s new website is so cool that we actually held a launch party in its honor on Monday, September 21, 2009. Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen, the other two writers on the four ecommerce blogs on Submit Solution, and I planned a company-wide get-together in which we enjoyed refreshments and gave out prizes. The refreshments were made up of drinks, as well as orange and white donuts, which were shaped like the new Submit Solution logo. See for yourself.

Submit Solution logo made of donuts

Submit Solution logo

That S-shaped group of donuts was one of my favorite parts of the celebration. After that, we held a fun scavenger hunt. Employees had to search the Submit Solution website for clues to lead them to prizes cleverly hidden throughout our eHarbor, Inc. office. We hid clues on Submitsolution.com in the site’s blog tags, image titles and in the text of Web pages.

The prizes people could win by finding and unscrambling the clues included toys, candy bars, eHarbor mugs and Bigler Bucks, which we affectionately named for Oliver Bigler, the CEO and cofounder of eHarbor, Inc. We use Bigler Bucks to buy company products, like pens, mugs and shirts. Our employees enjoyed this friendly competition. Most of them are used to playing foosball, so this scavenger hunt was quite tame in comparison.

You can read more about this website’s great features in my blog entry, “Submit Solution launches updated website with new design features.”

eHarbor softball wins dramatic doubleheader

Monday, September 21st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The eHarbarians’ softball season ended on an incredible high note on Wednesday, September 16, 2009. The eHarbor, Inc. softball team had to play a doubleheader that day, one game after the other, and they came through both times to grab a double victory.

eHarbor softball player batting

Coming off a stellar victory in the first game, our team kept up with the other team in the second game. It was close. We were trailing by one point near the end of the game.

During one play under those dangerous circumstances, one of our runners was declared “Out,” even though the second baseman totally bumbled the ball and didn’t have it in his mitt when the runner slid in under him. Our coach, eHarbor President John Russell, pointed out that serious flaw in the umpire’s call, and he was promptly thrown out of the game. It was quite a sight to see.

After that, things got even more exciting. With little time left, our batters were looking to smash a game-winning hit, but, ironically, all they had to do was stand next to the plate to win. The pitcher must have been really tired or had some crazy strategy because he just kept walking our batters until we scored two runs and won the game. That was awesome!

We ended this season with a record of 3-4. Our post-season begins on Wednesday, September 23 at 6 p.m. Whether we win or lose that game, we’ll play another one that same evening. I’ll let you know how we do. Go eHarbor!

eHarbor softball comes close

Friday, September 11th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The fifth game in eHarbor, Inc.’s fall softball season was an exciting confrontation. On Wednesday, September 2, 2009, our eHarbarians fought hard, scoring 10 runs in a single inning. They enjoyed so much success that coming into the bottom of the second-to-last inning, they had brought their lead to six, with a score of 13-7.

eHarbor, Inc. softball team

Unfortunately, the other team came to life in that inning, scoring an astonishing nine runs. eHarbor got two early outs, but after that the other team just kept hitting solid grounders outside our fielders’ range. It took too long to get the last player out – the damage was done.

Our hitters stepped up to the plate to try to make up lost ground, but they all popped out. The other team won the game 16-13. Boy, that was an exciting game. The eHarbarians tried hard, but victory was just beyond their grasp. Our record this season is now 1-4.

We played our next game on Sept. 9 in Orem, Utah and we also lost. Next week, we’ll have double header and then our regular season will be over. If we can triumph in our last two games, we will hopefully be able to get into the playoffs, as we did in the summer season. You can read about our record-breaking summer season in my blog entry, “eHarbor, Inc. softball ends season in good form.” Stay tuned to the eHarbor Blog to find out how our team does.