Welcome to my Intern

He's really nice and will bake cookies for you.

I'm talking about Alice Cooper (photo right), according to Phil (photo left).

Let me back up. Phil was my intern this past year and Friday was his last day. Well, OK, he wasn't *my* intern, but I fully claim him because he did such an awesome job and saved *my* you-know-what because I took so much of last year off, courtesy of Bob's liver sabbatical.

Phil came courtesy of Lutheran Volunteer Corps, a kind of Lutheran peace corps if you will. LVC volunteers are placed in various agencies and churches across the country for one year of service. People like me are supposed to provide meaningful projects, supervise, support, etc. Actually what I did is not show up. And my LVC intern flat out took over the LWR Virtual University.

When I tepidly started back to work it was Phil who advised me that it was time to step back into the moderator role with the Virtual U. "People will be happy to hear from you," he encouraged me. Little did either of us know that the guest presenter that month would be announced as our new LWR president a few months later. For that class, Phil had rigged up a way for the presentation to be called in from Zambia. That's right, from a country in central Africa. He has explained it to me numerous times but I still don't get exactly how he pulled that off. And he made so many overall improvements that I am honestly quite nervous as to how I will carry on without Phil.

Even when I was back on the job, Phil put up with working long distance with me. Him being in Baltimore, me being in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Thanks to Phil, I learned the art of instant messenging. We IMed all the time. One way for a telecommuter to connect.

So one day I was IMing Phil about this interview I had heard on the Fresh Aire radio show. That NPR interview program I mentioned before. The interviewee was Alice Cooper -- you know that mascaraed rock singer of my generation who scared the begeebers out of concert-goers by decapitating himself on stage. I found out in that interview that Alice Cooper is a master marketer as he told how he created the character of "Alice Cooper." And how dog gone charming he is. And that he is a PK (pastor's kid) and a devout Christian. It was interesting to chat up the branding genious of a ghoul rocker with a philosophy major. That's how I supervise and guide.

Phil told me the story about his college friend who had home stayed with Alice Cooper during a choir tour. He said that Alice baked cookies for his homestay guests and was totally hospitable to young church choiristers far from home. The 6 degrees of separation theory lives on.

Last year Phil had a job helping former prison convicts to re-enter successfully into society.

So anyway, Phil said it was OK for me to blog about him. The ways that people came through for us during the liver vacation are too much to count. And I will miss Phil. Our new LVCers come in later this month and I will go to Baltimore to train them, or they will train me, or something like that.

Thanks for coming over to the liver blog everyone! Take care.

With love, T