On Brielle’s actual birthday we had a quiet dinner at home and then Crystal brought out a few cupcakes she baked and added some whipped cream 🙂
I think she had fun…
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Brielle’s First Birthday
Author: andrewknight
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Brielle In The Bumbo Seat at 4.5 Months
Brielle got strong enough to start holding herself up in the Bumbo seat so I snapped a few pics of her!
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The Birth of Brielle Ann Knight
On January 15th 2014, at 8:12pm we welcomed Brielle Ann Knight to the world! She was 7lbs 5oz and born at Kennestone Hospital.
On December 24, 2013 I became the proud owner of a 2013 Nissan Leaf! I never thought I would own an electric car and even more so a leased one! With all that said, here is how I ended up buying one. We are expecting our first child in January. I currently drive a 2008 BMW 335i coupe while she drives a 2004 Subaru Impreza wagon. The plan was I was going to trade/sell my BMW as we needed 4 doors and she was going to get a used BMW X3, Honda RDX, Volvo XC60, or an Audi Q5 crossover while I would drive her Subaru for a few years. We started test driving some cars this week but had not settled on anything yet.
Slickdeals.net Posts about the “Free Leaf” Deal
I had heard Nissan was offering some good deals but had never considered it until this week when I saw this post on Slickdeals.net:
Georgia Residents: Make Money and Lease a new 2013 Nissan LEAF S for $235/mo with VPP or $259 without VPP
While there are other posts on this, this deal is the best.$235/mo package with $0 down on a 2013 Nissan LEAF S for two years.
The numbers work out so that you get a new (lease) car and get paid money to drive it, because the total lease payments get offset by a $5,000 Georgia state tax credit and gas savings.The Math:
Total Payments: $5,640 (or $235 x 24 months)
State Income Tax Credit: $5,000 (or minimum(20% MSRP, $5k) = min(20% of 29k, $5k) = min($6k, $5k))
Gas Savings: $2,400 (YMMV but for me, it’s at least $100/mo based on $125/mo average gas cost minus added $25/mo electricity bill)
——————————-
Total Profit = $2,400 + $5,000 – $5,640 = $1,760Additional Details
12,000 miles/yr
Does not include the charger package
No ad valorem tax (included in lease payments/price)
Federal tax credit is already baked into the price
No oil changes necessary
YMMV on what maintenance is included in lease – mine came with at least the first 7,500 mi tune up free, but others have found out that additional services cost about $50 for rotations and battery/system tests. Make sure to discuss this with your dealer before signing.
$395 disposition fee at end of lease if you choose to not buy
Contact GA Power (link [georgiapower.com]) about EV plans where evening charging of the LEAF is at a lower rate than daytime usage
Now my curiosity was peaked! Was this really legitimate? After doing some more searching and talking to a few people I realized how crazy this was. I would rather drive a brand new Leaf than the Impreza and if the state of Georgia is willing to basically pay me for the privilege I said to Crystal let’s do it!.
Purchasing the Nissan Leaf
After seeing positive comments on Autonation Nissan in Lithia Springs we headed that way as it is only 6 miles from us. When we got there they had a lot of Leafs on the lot even though they said they sold 13 just yesterday! We found a base S with the charger package in black and took it for a quick test drive. I was VERY impressed and was immediately sold! I had never driven an electric car but I loved how smooth it was.
From the Slickdeals thread, I knew that $259 (non VPP) without the charger package was my target. First offer was $279 with no charger package and $279 down. I decided that I wanted the quick charger so they came back with $279 with charger and $279 down, third and final offer was $279 with charger and $0 down. We then decided to have them appraise the Impreza for a trade and they gave me $3,500 which was a good offer for a 10 year old Subaru with almost 100k miles. So that brought my total lease payment down to $131 a month! Factor in the $150 a month I currently spend on gas and the math looks like: $6,696 payments + $395 turn in fee – $5000 GA tax credit – ~$2,400 in gas savings = $-391. Not as good as VPP but still a nice deal!
I love the Leaf
After driving the leaf for two years I became addicted to how quiet and smooth they are. For stop and go Atlanta traffic it is a perfect commuter car. I had charging stations available at work but never used them unless I was needing to make an airport run. The battery did degrade a little, and the range of only 80 miles meant you needed to plan some longer excursions. The only maintenance that was required in two years was new front tires! Literally nothing else. Compare that to my BMW, which was in the shop almost every other month for something.
When it came time to turn in my lease I decided that I wanted to stay electric and I upgraded to a 2013 Tesla Model S CPO
In November of 2013 I joined Carter’s as the Senior Director of International eCommerce. I was recruited to Carter’s by Greg Foglesong who I had worked for at The Home Depot. Greg hired me at Carter’s to lead the international expansion of Carter’s eCommerce business. What made this role so interesting was Carter’s had lots of demand from international consumers on www.carters.com and my role was created to better service these customers locally.
Launching the Canadian Website
The first project I worked on was the launch of our Canadian website www.cartersoshkosh.ca. Canada is Carter’s largest market outside the U.S., so it was a natural first step to take. The site launch was a large and complex project, but it allowed me to work with many different parts of the organization from marketing, and technology to supply chain. In July of 2014, we successfully launched the Canadian eCommerce business. Working on this project was a lot of fun and turned into a huge success for the company!
Carter’s Canada Homepage 12/19/2004Entering the China Market on Tmall
After Canada, the original expansion plan was to enter the European eCommerce market in 2015. As we were planning the European launch, we started to see the huge growth of Alibaba’s Tmall site in China. With China being the #1 country on carters.com we decided to quickly pivot and launch China as our second international eCommerce market!
I have worked on a lot of complex and challenging projects in my career but nothing has come close to the difficulty of entering the China market and leading this initiative for Carter’s. Launching a business on Tmall is challenging in itself, but what made this project so challenging is we were launching our entire business in China. Most other western brands choose to enter China first through brick and mortar retail or wholesale and then launch their eCommerce businesses. We decided that we were going to launch online first which meant there was no existing infrastructure to support the eCommerce business. We had had to start with all the basics like getting the legal entity setup, registering trademarks, establishing bank accounts, and hiring our first employees. In 2014 the world bank ranked China #96 in ease of doing business out of all the global economies and I can confirm it is an extremely difficult environment!
After getting through all the red tape and bureaucracy, we launched the Carter’s website on Tmall on June 1st, 2015. It was a proud moment after an incredible amount of work by the entire Carter’s project team.
The next market is….
In 2016 we looked at a number of other eCommerce markets to enter but decided to not move forward with any of those projects for a variety of different reasons. At the same time, in the Summer of 2016 Carter’s made a very strategic change in my role that would lead to a sharp turn in my career path.
Up until the Summer of 2016, I had continued to report to Greg Foglesong who led the domestic eCommerce business at Carter’s. While I worked for Greg, all the revenue I was responsible for fell under the EVP of International Kevin Corning. This reporting did not make sense strategically and the decision was made to move me and my team under Kevin’s organization.
Kevin has a lot of international business experience having worked overseas in a number of different country GM roles. As a result of this experience, he believed that it is important for the country GM’s to own all channels of their business including eCommerce. In the Fall of 2016, he made the decision to move management of the international eCommerce businesses to Canada and China.
This was the right decision for the business, but a tough one for me personally as my future suddenly became very uncertain. At the same time, the leader of the international wholesale business left the company and I was promoted to Vice President of International managing our international wholesale accounts.
Next: Vice President, International at Carter’s
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Emory MBA Trip: Prague
The Charles River bridge….
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Case-Mate Recession Case for iPhone 3G
In September of 2009 while I was at Case-Mate we launched an innovative product / marketing campaign called “The Recession Case” This is the history of that campaign!
Product Page on Archive.orgProduct Description
Tough times call for tough cases and that’s where the recession case comes in! The recession case lets you keep cash in your pocket without sacrificing on unique design for your beloved iPhone! But just in case one isn’t enough we have the BAILOUT BUNDLE – 10 cases for $7.99!
We are now offering FREE “Sharpie Script “personalization on the recession case! Just leave “Albertus Medium” selected and you will get your very own personalized recession case! If ordering a bundle we will personalize the first case.
FREE Shipping!
Please note, if you are purchasing the recession case (or Bailout Bundle) alone and select free ground shipping, the cases will ship USPS first class mail and NOT standard ground shipping. USPS first class mail has an estimated delivery time of 5-10 business days. If you are including additional case-mate items with your order the recession cases will ship standard ground with your other items.
3 Different Packages Offered
1 Recession Case – $0.99
The “Bailout Bundle” – 10 Recession Cases for $7.99
The “Stimulus Package” – 25 Recession Cases for $14.99
Sharpie Script Personalization
Product FAQ
Q) Is it waterproof?
A) No, so don’t put it in the dishwasher
Q) Is this case flammable?
A) If you light it on fire it is
Q) Can I use this case to microwave my frozen pizzas?
A) I don’t see why not, although we cant insure quality taste
Q) Will this case make me awesome?
A) I think that goes without saying
Q) Is there a warranty?
A) no, it is cardboard after all
Q) Can I get a paper cut on my ear while using this case?
A) My first guess would be no, but anything is possible, we don’t promote unsafe use of the recession case
Q) How long will the case be sold?
A) as long as it needs to be to get us out of this recession! or while supplies last
Q) Does it come with a screen protector?
A) no we are in a recession!
Q) Is the CM logo impressed on the case?
A) This is known as the “peoples case”
The tech bloggers run with the story
After posting the product page we seeded the product with a few of our favorite bloggers. GearDiary.com was the first to post the below article and it quickly spread to almost every major tech blog.
Gizmodo
Engadget
CrunchGear
Mashable
Cnet
The response was incredible!
In 4 days we sold over 7,000 recession cases and our total site sales and traffic saw a huge spike.
Recession Case on Google
We also got a great boost in our natural search rankings for all of our major keywords like “iPhone case”
The Photo Contest
Once we saw how successful the initial campaign was we decided to keep things going with a photo contest.
Recession Case Dieline Template
Recession Case Photo Contest Entries
Overall the campaign was a huge success and it was a lot of fun to watch how popular it became. I wish I could take credit for the initial idea but that honor goes to Matt Shackleford on our marketing team! Awesome idea Matt!
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St. Martin Trip Report Day 6
We got an early start at 8am this morning and headed to Orient Beach. I had planned on going diving this morning but the trip got canceled so we headed over to Brice’s Paradise for another beautiful day at the beach.
Crystal wanted to go parasailing and since neither of us had done it we thought it would be fun to try. The views of Orient Bay were awesome and we got some great photos. We also have some video but I need to edit out all the wind noise.
After Parasailing we headed to Baywatch for lunch. Crystal had a garlic scallop caesar salad and I had the philly cheese steak. Both were excellent but we will give Brice’s lunch from Monday a slight edge over today’s Baywatch lunch.
After lunch we spent some time swimming in Orient Bay and I was trying to figure out what to do in the afternoon. I could not decide between scuba diving, kitesurfing, or windsurfing! In the end I dusted off the windsurfing cobwebs and rented some gear from Wind-Adventures. The wind was in the 12-14 knot range so I grabbed a 7.4 sail and a 120L board. It was not 100% planing conditions but it was close. I had not done much windsurfing since my time in Aruba 9 years ago but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still remember what I am doing 🙂
I only lasted about 90 minutes before I was totally exhausted but it was just long enough to remind me how much I love (and miss) windsurfing! I really need to get back into it when I am back in Atlanta or get a trip planned to Aruba 🙂
We finished off the day with a swim in the Princess Heights pool. Tomorrow we are going to Anguilla aboard Bluebeard 3 it should be a fun day!
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St. Martin Trip Report Day 5
We got an early start this morning since we had a boat to catch at 9am. We left Princess Heights at 8am. It usually takes us about 20 minutes to get to Simpson Bay.  Today I felt like I was back in Atlanta rush hour traffic and it took us 45 minutes! We made it through the traffic jam and stopped at La Sucriere in Simpson Bay to grab some croissants and chocolate crosissants. Crystal had been looking forward to these all week and they did not disappoint!
We arrived at the Lady C floating dock to board the Bluebeard 3 Heineken Boat for our day sail to Prickly Pear. Prickly Pear is a small uninhabited island located off the west coast of St. Maarten with a stunning beach and crystal clear water:
The sail over is just under 2 hours and the seas were pretty calm so it was awesome to just sit up on deck with the breeze bowing and take in the beautiful scenery:
When we got to Prickly Pear we went snorkeling and saw lots of great fish including a blowfish, stingray, and baby sand shark. We also saw a huge school of fish swimming in unison that was pretty cool. Unfortunately we missed the sea turtles and baracuda that a few other people reported seeing. Last year we made the mistake of snorkeling without shirts on and we both got REALLY bad sun burns. We did not make that mistake again this year and came armed with my windsurfing lycra shirts and SPF 50! Glad to report that there was no sunburn for us this year although it looked like lots of other people on the boat made the same mistake we did last year.
After snorkeling, we had a great lunch on Prickly Pear and spent some time walking the beautiful beach. On last year’s return sail we had a drunk teenager go overboard! I am glad to report that this year’s trip did not provide that kind of excitement! The crew of Bluebeard 3 does a fantastic job at taking care of everybody on board and it was another great day. We highly recommend this trip to anyone visiting St. Martin.
After getting back to Simpson Bay we headed to Skip Jacks for dinner. We got a table on the water over looking Simpson Lagoon. I ordered grouper stuffed with crab and Crystal ordered shrimp linguini in a white cream sauce. Both dishes were outstanding and the total bill came to $53. I put this meal in a tie with our dinner at Big Fish on Sunday for our best meal on the island. We might have to make a 2nd trip back to Skip Jacks.
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St. Martin Trip Report Day 4
We got a really late start today and woke up around  10 am 🙂 I think we both have been catching up on a lot of sleep from the last couple of months. I love being on island time! I don’t wear a watch and I have nothing to do but relax. We had breakfast on our balcony again this morning which is always a great start to the day!
We did not have a plan for today but since we had a great time at Orient on Saturday we decided to go back to Brice’s Paradise. We grabbed two chairs on the water and spent the morning reading. Crystal finished her 1st book but I am still working on Buffet’s book. Baywatch is closed on monday’s  so we needed a different option for lunch. There was a young lady next to us who ordered a huge salad from the Brice menu and it looked great. After seeing her salad we decided to stay and eat.  Crystal ordered the same chicken salad the young lady had and I ordered the italian panini. Both were excellent! Total bill was: $38 (They are 1/1 for euro’s/dollars) .
Orient was much busier today as a Royal Carribbean was in port so half the beach was cruise ship passengers. I prefer lighter crowds but they do provide some good people watching. We both agreed that there needs to be a rule:  your husband’s swimwear can NOT contain LESS fabric than your wife. We saw many violations of that rule today 🙂
We packed up around 5:30 and headed over to Grand Case for an early dinner. There was no traffic tonight since they had opened up the new parking lot. We cruised up and down main street and settled on Le Soleil. We got a table overlooking the water and the sunset was beautiful:
Le Soleil has some great reviews on Trip Advisor and for location and service I agree with all of them. Â I can’t imagine a better location on the island for dinner. Crystal ordered the Seafood mixed grill & I had the daily special which was a seafood/meat mixed grill. I enjoyed the meal but it was not fantastic. The red snapper was very good but the rest of the meat was lacking flavor. Crystal agreed and thought it was “good” but not great. Total bill was 50 euro’s or $72 with the 1.4 exchange rate.
Tomorrow we are doing a day sail trip to Prickly Pear on the Heineken Boat