Carissa

About Me

Buckle up for the “write of your life” with this tenacious, energetic and driven young professional, passionate about social change, travel, art, friendship, sushi and life! Tune in to see life in the fast lane with Carissa, her extraordinary coworkers at the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay and her group of M.E.O.W.’s (Magnificent Empowered Outstanding Women) as they embark on adventurous journeys all over Tampa Bay. Hope they have enough FUEL!  Click on my page for the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious/ October 13, 2009- Last word to sum up my Cadillac SRX adventures with "Big Red": Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Thanks everyone for following along for the smooth ride along bumpy adventures. I am TERRIBLE with goodbyes! So now..............headed to the Mexico border- CATCH ME IF YOU CAN :) Try to keep up with me on Twitter @CarissaCaricato. Adios Amigos y Hasta Luego!!!!!                    READ MORE

Talk about ending on an "Adventure" note!!! bahahahaha/ October 13, 2009- Of course I have to pack a little bit of adventure into my last day in "Big Red" so I do a media story with Bay News 9 on driving the Cadillac SRX to support the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay. Trying my best to look poised in my royal blue heels with my broken pinky toe :) Then, I head to the USF Downtown Center for a luncheon with PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) Tampa Bay chapter coordinated by the USF PRSSA chapter. Great luncheon with a panel of social media experts! Then, as I'm driving back to the Crisis Center, I totally run out of gas! Yep! Still sitting here in the sweltering heat waiting for Cadillac roadside assistance. OnStar was so helpful and friendly and reassuring. So thankful for them!!! I totally didn't do this on purpose to test out OnStar, but sure glad they are there! It's like having a really competent guardian angel watching over me. AND...I am literally 40 feet from a gas station- just my luck! I could push it, but my toe hurts. Okay, someone's here now...wow, that was super fast!READ MORE

Ybor, Girls Inc in Sarasota, and Hoola Monsters/ October 13, 2009- 10/12- Last few field trips in "Big Red" take me to Ybor City for lunch at Samurai Blue with Robin Adkins-Vosler of French West Vaughn public relations. After a busy, busy afternoon at the Crisis Center including a group picture with the Cadillac SRX, I use OnStar to plug in directions to Sarasota for a quick trip to Girls Inc. (And by quick I mean an hour and a half!) Thank God for Onstar; I didn't even need maps or directions, just the name of the location & city! Had a very enjoyable ride all alone with my XM radio to Sarasota, even running one toll accidentally of course because OnStar took me through a toll and I had NO MONEY! Oops, but I think you can run 3 a month with no penalty...I hope :) Girls Inc. is such a SPECIAL place & Stephania does such a great job of teaching these girls how to be smart, bold and strong! The girls even run their own TV show production micro-society that airs on ABC7 every Saturday! How cool is that! Stephania got to ride with me in "Big Red" to downtown Sarasota for a quick tour and a short stop at Hyde Park Steakhouse for $5 small plates...yummy calamari & pizza! Now it's time to race back (obeying the speed limit naturally) to Tampa for hoola hoop class with www.hoolamonsters.com at South Tampa Shapes! Dang OnStar takes me across a toll again so I run #2 for today, again, oops! As I cross over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge (the Crisis Center has 6 crisis phones up there because it's the second highest suicide bridge in the nation), I see a huge disaster which backs up traffic for over 3 hours! I find out on Twitter something terrible happened; a man jumped off the bridge after leaving behind a burning car with a body in the trunk. I immediately got chills and said a prayer for those hurting in the world and all those stuck on the bridge and a prayer of thanks for being safe. Hoola-hooping was a great way to end the night with some cardio, movement meditation & laugh therapy :) I am sooooo sad heading back home for the last time in "Big Red," but so happy to have been given the fun opportunity for adventure! I lovingly park the SRX in my driveway and kiss it goodnight!READ MORE

Why the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay?/ October 13, 2009- By visiting my blogger profile on my Cadillac SRX adventures, you are making a difference! So why am I supporting the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay? Well, besides the fact that I work here as the Director of Marketing, this place is really special and serves over 152,000 people a year, saving lives and saving futures! The Crisis Center's mission is to bring help, hope and healing to people facing serious life challenges or trauma resulting from sexual assault or abuse, violence, financial distress, medical emergency, suicidal thoughts, emotional or situational problems. There is a very good chance someone you know will need one or more of our services in their lifetime, maybe including you. Crises know no favorites, and problems always seem to hunt in packs. The most important number to remember is 2-1-1, where a caring, compassionate & competent crisis counselor (wow, that's a lot of alliteration!) is available 24/7/365 for information & referral, telephone reassurance and crisis counseling. If you are interested in visiting us at the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay for a tour, we welcome you to register at www.crisiscenter.com or by visiting our Facebook fan page!READ MORE

Drum beats, sand, hoola hoops & brownies ;)/ October 11, 2009- 10/11- 6:00pm- My favorite part of the weekend...driving to Drum Circle where all worries fade into the big night sky and happiness floods in with each new crashing wave on the beach and giddiness settles over me as I hoola-hoop in circles in the sand! Armed with blankets, brownies, chocolate milk, Taco Bell quesadillas, my red, white & blue hoola hoop, and friends, we take "Big Red" on a fun field trip to Treasure Island for the sunset beach party where hundreds come every Sunday night.                           We discovered something fun about the Cadillac, that it knows when people in the backseat have seatbelts on and then blinks on the odometer. Well, my friend Greg decided it would be funny to buckle up two empty seatbelts and then un-buckle them to trick the SRX, which it did! So the lights kept blinking the whole way to the beach. We called OnStar, just for fun, to see if they could help us turn the blinky things off, but to no avail. Greg is now grounded.                                        At drum circle, we see the incredibly talented Hoola Monsters performing with lit-up hoola hoops in the dark; they rock my world! Check them out at www.hoolamonsters.com. We take some fun sunset pictures and relax in the sand, listening to the incessant drum beats and battle cries from the dancers. The lightning storm in the distance is better than any fireworks show, hands down! We play soccer in the dark.....AND I BREAK MY PINKY TOE, for the third time this year!!!!!! What a long, adventurous weekend, thanks to Cadillac & "Big Red," the greatest friends ever (especially the MEOWs) and Tampa Bay! Rolling the windows and huge sunroof down and letting the crazy Florida winds whip my long hair around like a Category 5 hurricane, I turn on the XM radio really loud and just drive.READ MORE