Campaigns is going to kill me. Wish me luck.

So another week has passed. The campaigns countdown is now at 14 days until we present.

Long Time No Blog

So it's been about a week and a half since my last post. I know, what a slacker! It has been a busy week and a half so I can forgive myself and you should too.

Campaigns - The Devil's Class

Well, maybe calling it the devil's class is a little bit extreme. But I would like to think that it is still quite difficult. And to imagine that what we accomplish in 4 1/2 months, many agencies get only 5 weeks to do.

Campaigns is still going strong even with the road bumps that I will not go into. You know the other team may be spying on us. Our client, the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety, is attempting to increase seat belt usage from the current rate of about 70% to around 84%. In the world of advertising if a client already has 70% of the market share that is a freak of nature. Very rarely does that happen.

Die Berliner Schule

The Berliner Schule (or Berlin School) is a film retrospective at The Ross that featured 12 German films from the past 5 years. A rare sight in the United States, let alone the Midwest, the retrospective offered Lincolnites a look into contemporary German film. Even though my schedule has been predominately filled with Campaigns-related meetings, I did find time to partake in some of the films. Of the films in the retrospective, I have so far viewed "Schläfer" (Sleeper) directed by Benjamin Heisenberg and Hotel directed by Jessica Hausner.

I found the topic of Schläfer interesting as it was not from an American perspective. Two university students are working in a chemistry lab, one is Algerian and the other is German. The German is sought by the German Intelligence Service to observe the Algerian, whom they consider to be a sleeper for a terrorist organization. Again the whole movie was interesting because of the German perspective on terrorism.

The second film I viewed was Hotel. Overall it was quite dull. It attempted to be a suspense/horror film but I didn't see it. Granted it was not a cookie cutter Hollywood production (which I like about foreign film) but it still missed the mark.I hope to take in at least three more films before the retrospective ends on Thursday.

Although not part of the retrospective, I also watched, Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others) at the Ross which won the Academy Award for best foreign picture last February. This film was an amazing and somber look at the dark side of the GDR (East Germany), most prominently the Stasi or East German Secret Police. A top pick that I recommend to put in your NetFlix queue.

My Uncle's Wedding

On 24 March, my Uncle Dennis got married. Dennis, my mom's youngest brother, married Tina in a small ceremony in Glenvil, Nebraska. Below are some pictures from the event. I hope to upload the rest of them to Flickr soon but at the moment am hard pressed for time.

Grandma and Grandpa Fike with their three kids and their spouses.


The sharing of cake as man and wife or the smashing of cake, you be the judge.


Aaron, my brother and his girlfriend Jamie (or is it Jaime?) I am not sure but people spell my name wrong so I can too.


In addition to Dennis and Tina's wedding, my grandparents also celebrated their wedding anniversary.

Campaigns...

Rocks My Socks Off
I am going on 11 hours at Kopeli Coffee working on Campaigns. Not really sure why I am coherent and making sense right now but I am trying damn it.

American Consumption: In Visuals

Running the Numbers An American Self-Portrait "This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on."

So looking through my feed reader I stumbled across this post from Kevin Burton's Feed Blog on March 13. Since I have been studying and researching the role of Germany on the environment, this is an interesting visual way to see just how much we consume in America.

Via

Nels has a job

So the biggest news I have received in the last week finally just hit me. And I thought I should share it with the blogosphere. I will be employed FULL TIME starting May 21. Last Thursday, I accepted a job with Lambriar Vet Supply in their marketing department.

Click here to go to their site.

So now all I have left to do is pass my last four classes and walk across the stage and receive my diploma. Sounds easy, huh? Yeah, not so much. One of those classes happens to be Campaigns, my capstone advertising class. We are tasked with creating an integrated marketing plan complete with all ads produced. As co-creative director, my counterpart and I have about three weeks to complete this daunting task!!!

And it is not like I am freaking out or anything!?!

Summer Germany Photos

Photos from my first Germany trip

Here are some photos from the trip to Germany this summer. We were in Germany from June 22 to July 2. We visited both Berlin and Dresden in eastern Germany and were fortunate to be over there while Germany was hosting the FIFA World Cup. We saw many historical landmarks including museums, castles, the Berlin Wall, the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) museum and ingested many sausages, doeners kebaps, pretzels and of course good German wheat beer.

The group's first night in Berlin. We had dinner at 12 Apostels, an Italian place with pizzas the size of my head for about $9. We got to meet Frauke's (our professor) mom, sister and nephew and also sampled our first German beer.

A large football (soccer ball for you Americans :-)), that housed the World Cup trophy, was built in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Paris Square near Untern Den Linden in Berlin.

The German flag flying over the Reichstag, the German parliament building. The building was almost completely destroyed during the war but has been rebuilt as the center of government since reunification in 1990. On top of the building, where this picture was taken, is an observation deck and large dome. The entire building is powered by solar energy captured by the dome.

Nels and Kate during our second to last night in Berlin. We gave Frauke a fond farewell as she left for Hannover by train the following morning and we left the next day after the quarterfinals match between Deutschland and Argentina.

Nels and Jenny at an Imbiss or "snack bar' outside our hotel in Dresden. The owners were an Asian couple that had a little son that kept the girls occupied, he was a little ham.

Me standing besides the Elbe river near the Alt Stadt (Old City) of Dresden. After this picture was taken we witnessed a protest outside the Saxony State Building. Dresden is the capital of the state of Saxony.

Finally...Consistent Internet Access!

Today is Monday and I am back in Lincoln after a week of Spring Break. I spent the break in good ole Fairbury occupying myself with many naps and lounging around. The parents decided last fall that their computer was too old and slow so they decided to save money and stop getting Internet service. So I was away from the blogosphere and the internets for almost 10 WHOLE DAYS. Talk about deprivation.

Also my project for Interactive Technology, creating a blog for PetSupplies4Less, is turning out to require more on site work than I have available. So this blog will be my main project.

So let the posting begin!