I had a great Fathers Day today. Dawn and the girls let me sleep in and then made me a great full breakfast, the kind that easily makes you forget about lunch hours later.

After just relaxing around the house most of the day we headed down to Merced to take Dad and Missy to dinner.


We went to Big Bubba’s Bad BBQ for dinner. Well, we thought we were just going to eat dinner. Dad and Missy told us that they had a mechanical bull there but we thought it was just for show. Well, Makenzy and I each ponied up the $4 for a chance to ride the bull.

Check out the videos here:



Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there!

And check out the pics here.

I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to roll around. I couldn’t wait to get home today to update my iPhone to the new 3.0 OS.

I was really looking forward to text forwarding, typing in landscape mode and of course, finally being able to cut, copy and paste, although I must admit, I almost never use cut - I’m more of a copy-paste kind of guy. I was also looking forward to Spotlight. Not being able to search through e-mail has always been a problem for me. More important than searching through e-mail, though, not being able to search the Note field in contacts has always been an issue.

I keep a lot of information in that field and rely on the search feature in Address Book on Mac OS X a lot. Recently, I came across a cool article about twins. I know a few other twins and parents of twins and wanted to forward it. From my iMac, I opened up Address Book and searched for ‘twin’. Since I noted ‘twin’ in the note field for people that are, or have, twins I was able to quickly identify those I wanted to send the link to. Searching for Contacts on the iPhone, however, does not work this way.

I was really hoping that Spotlight on the new 3.0 software would correct this flaw (since Spotlight on my desktop searches that field just fine) but sadly, it did not.

Then I remembered a booth I visited the last time I was at Macworld. Polar Bear Farms was showing off an application for iPhones that had been jailbroken called Search. The write up in iTunes mentioned that it searched the Note field so I spent the $4.99 and got it. Of course, it worked like a champ.

So, kudos to the team over at Polar Bear Farms for filling a void that Apple left with Spotlight on iPhone OS 3.0. They have some other really cool looking apps as well, check them out.

Hopefully, this weekend I’ll be able to pick up a 3G S!

Today, Mike, Manuel, Shawn and I played in the 2nd Annual Stockton Stingrays Golf Tournament, benefiting our local Beep Baseball team. Since it was a scramble tournament, I was feeling pretty good, knowing that my teammates would help carry me. I had a few good shots but the rest of the team shot pretty well.

How’d we finish? Well, if there was a trophy given for the most honest score, we would’ve certainly won it. We can in dead last with 65. It was a great day of golf helping a great group of athletes. Can’t wait ‘til next year.

Check out the pics here.

I’m really starting to think I’m getting old. I’m not feeling old. It’s just that all these kids around me keep getting older. Today we drove down to Modesto to Beverly’s graduation party. I have known Bev since she was a lil’ tike and can’t believe she’s now 18.



Becky & Tom threw an awesome party. It was wonderful seeing them and their family again. It was also great seeing Tina, Ken and (most of) their kids again. I couldn’t help but comment all night on how much all of these kids had grown.

Congratulations Beverly on graduating from high school... we love you and are proud of you. See you all again real soon!

I only took 185 pictures, mostly because I had a lot of willing subjects. I have pared them down to 82 of my favorites... check out the pics here.

I finally got a chance to try out the video on the new T1i.



Check it out here.

I finally got my new toy a couple of weeks ago, a Canon Rebel T1i. After months of shopping around I finally settled on the Canon XSi. Having never shot with a digital SLR before that model seemed to be a great starting point. So, I did what any prudent person would do: I announced my decision on Twitter. Within just a few minutes I had several replies. One of them was from Rich, a friend of mine from Colorado, saying that I should look at the new T1i which would be coming out in just a few weeks.

Given that the T1i, with 15.1 mega pixels, also takes HD video with resolutions up to 1920 x 1080, I decided to delay gratification and order Canon’s newest model. Then, I waited. And waited. And waited. With Canon only saying that its release would be “sometime in May” I was pleasantly surprised when came early in the month.



Along with the kit lens (18-55mm IS) I also picked up a 70-300mm zoom lens and a 60mm macro lens. I would love to give a full review of the camera but there is still so much I don’t know about it. Having only shot with point-and-shoot cameras before I fully recognize the fact that there is a steep learning curve here. What I do know is that I love shooting with it. I love the speed of the camera. Compared to my old S5, I love the ability to shoot when I want to as opposed to waiting for the power cycle, zoom, focus and shutter.

I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and shoot with it yet but have taken some shots, posted to Flickr of course. Stay tuned for more!

Nothing says April in Stockton quite like the Asparagus Festival. We headed out Saturday late morning, just after they opened and made our way to the main stage to watch the Deep Fried Asparagus Eating competition. This is always a crowd favorite and once again, was a sanctioned International Federation of Competitive Eating event.

We also ate a lot of asparagus and had a great time visiting all of the booths. I even tried the hole-in-one challenge. Of course, I didn’t qualify. Overall, it was another awesome year at the Asparagus Festival.


Check out the rest of the pics here.

The best thing about the Earth Day festivities at Victory Park this afternoon was seeing Snap Jackson & The Knock On Wood Players perform. They weren’t on stage, just playing their tunes for anyone that would stop by. These guys have an awesome sound and put on a great show, even for just playing in the park. They have some shows coming up soon in the area so I will definitely have to check them out again!



Check them out on MySpace and go see them live (schedule is on their site).

Today was Makenzy’s first track meet, held at my old high school. She competed in the standing long jump, 100 and 400 meter races. She did very well, especially since it was her first event.


Check out the pics here.

I had a conversation with Dawn tonight about “networking” and using LinkedIn. My wife, with her wonderful honesty, reminded me I have some pretty strong opinions about this subject. Our conversation reminded of me of my own axiom: just because you're on LinkedIn doesn't mean you're building your network or even "networking".    

I have been on LinkedIn for a couple of years now and have found it to be a very helpful tool to keep track of all of the career movement out there. When I am looking to hire someone, or want to make a referral to a hiring manager or recruiter, LinkedIn is often the first place I visit. On many occasions, I have also been able to connect with people of whom I had lost track.

LinkedIn is a tool for gathering your contacts' info. It is not, however, the only one.  I use an application on my Mac that has proven to be a great tool for maintaining contact info.  Nothing high tech here. It's called Address Book and comes, with little fanfare, on every Mac.  For those on Windows machines, I guess you could use Outlook or build your own in Excel or Access.

I take great pride in maintaing my personal and professional networks. Staying in contact with people has proven valuable many, many times. Add to that the fact that most would call me a pretty “social” person; I genuinely enjoy meeting and spending time with people. Every success I have had in my career is thanks to lessons I have learned from other people. Learning new things and growing starts with building and maintaining a strong network.


To help you build your network, here are my tips for using LinkedIn:

Share your contact information. I am happy to share my work and personal e-mail addresses, work, home and cell phone numbers with anyone in my network. If you are not willing to share all of your contact details with someone, you have no business sending them an invite on LinkedIn.

Don’t discriminate. LinkedIn only represents a small percentage of what would be considered my professional network. I believe in building my professional network indiscriminately; I don’t just focus on those that are on LinkedIn, thus my reason for using Address Book. As a rule, I never send a “join LinkedIn” invite to people that I know that aren’t on LinkedIn. Chances are, they know about it already and I don’t need LinkedIn to stay in touch with them.

Personalize your introduction and invitation request. “Because you are a person I trust...” and “I'd like to add you to my professional network...” is code word for “You’re not important enough to me to take the time to write a personal note.” Okay, I admit, that’s a bit much, but is it really that hard to customize that message? If you get a link request from me I promise you’ll get a customized note, and my contact info!

Building meaningful relationships starts by adding value.  Your professional network is not there for you to feed on. Look for ways you can contribute to others.  Check in with people, ask how you can help. Make meeting new people a priority. And please, when you do, stick your hand out and introduce yourself.

Need help building your network, check out the Manager Tools podcast episode on the subject.

If you want to link with me, you know where to find me.

Another Easter, another visit by the Texas Beckwiths. JR, Megan, Wynter and Audrey came out again this year and spent easter with us. Once again, we had all of the brothers and sister in the same house at the same time. Of course, that means we had the opportunity to take the same picture we took in 2007.

Yes, it does seem that I am wearing the same hat and shirt. Check out the rest of the 2009 Easter pictures here.