We had a wonderful party on Christmas Eve with tons of people and lots of food! Ken, my secret Santa, got me a Callaway ball retriever that telescopes out to almost 6 feet, a box of balls and very cool practice net so I can work on my swing in my back yard without upsetting my neighbors.


Check out the pics here.

I also recorded of couple of videos.





Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you!

Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne, the genius duo behind Manager Tools, have introduced Career Tools.

For those readers that are not familiar with Manager Tools, it is one of the greatest resource for Managers. Actually, it is THE source for managers to learn how to become more effective at work. Their training, delivered through podcasts and conferences, focuses on the nuts and bolts that we can do immediately to be stronger managers.

With Career Tools, they bring the same dedication and expertise they bring to their weekly Manager Tools podcast. These are challenging times in the workforce across the nation and, as many of my friends and former colleagues recently discovered, improving one’s career management and career search toolkit is essential.

If you are looking for work, or will ever be looking for work, you owe it to your self to check out Career Tools. Being prepared is key. If you don’t need help today, you may someday, and the time to improve your skills is now.

I got tagged today by Shelly (aka, the Juggernaut). If you’re a Flickr user, go to the sixth page of your photostream, choose the sixth photo and post to your site.



Ironically, we used this exact same photo just two blog posts ago, after going to the Stockton Thunder opening night for the ’08-’09 season.

I’ve tagged JR and Spaguyswife.

The win streak on pink ice has ended. Tonight was game two of Thunder Goes Pink III, taking on the Victoria Salmon Kings. The near sell out crowd was more energetic then they were on opening night even though there were no real fights and we lost another one.

At the beginning of the game DJ Walker asked cancer survivors in the audience stand up followed by friends and family of people affected by cancer. It was quite an emotional sight when nearly the entire audience of 9,000+ stood up. The Thunder brought out Cameron the Super Fan, a huge favorite in Stockton, who for the first time we can remember, took the mic and spoke to the crowd. He told of how he lost his mother to cancer when he was a teenager and commended the fans for the great support of this great benefit event.



Check out the pics here.

Kudos to the Stockton Thunder folks for putting together another great night of hockey in Stockton!

Just as we did the last couple of years, we went to the opening home game of our Stockton Thunder. Last night they took on the Fresno Falcons.

We sat in section 107, row 9 which is probably my favorite place to sit. The crowd was very energetic and did a lot of screaming - both at our team as well as a lot of trash talking to the Fresno squad. Either my hearing is going south (I doubt it) or the PA in the arena was turned down a bit. They had a band (well, actually, a guy on guitar and another on bass) play the Star Spangled Banner but it was barely audible.

Mike Lalonde scored first putting the Thunder up 1-0. The Falcons, however, would come back and score 3 goals in just under 3 minutes of play to silence the arena a bit.

We eventually added one more goal but eventually fell to the Falcons and suffered our first home opener loss.

What about the fights you ask? Well, there were enough fights to keep everyone entertained for most of the night. The first fight came 7 minutes into the game and put our Garet Hunt against Fresno’s Spencer Carbery.


The second fight of the night came a minute or so later, just as play was resumed and was between Stockton's Milan Maslonka and Fresno's Kyle Hagel.


We also took a few pictures... check them out here.

Also, check out all of posts, videos and pictures from the last three seasons here.

Although our family website is not the place to discuss our political views, I did want to comment on tonight’s final Presidential debate. I watched the entire debate, just as I did the last two and the VP debate. The winner of this final debate? Joe the Plumber, of course!

Here’s the video:


And here’s what some on Twitter are saying about Joe the Plumber:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Plumber


joetheplumber2008.com

Disneyland really is the happiest place on Earth. We planned our vacation to Disneyland and California Adventure many, many months ago. Long before Dawn and I thought the names on our paychecks would be changing, before anyone was using the term “credit crunch” and when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was somewhere north of 12,000. Boy, those were the days!

Obviously, a lot has gone on recently and the timing for our vacation couldn’t have been better! A wonderful week to unplug (a little) and just hang out! We didn’t go alone though... we did have our trusted advisor, Twitter, along for the ride. Specifically, @RMGreg! Greg, a seasoned Disneyland / Disneyworld pro, was tweeting and texting tips and trips of the park... thanks Greg.



We had an absolute awesome time at Disneyland and California Adventure. Makenzy and Dawn rode the Tower of Terror for the first time and Makenzy just loved riding the “big ones” like California Screaming and Space Mountain. Dawn, on the other hand, remembered how much she didn’t like that one as she screamed “I don’t like this” nearly the whole time.

Last time we went to Disneyland we took a night away from the park to have dinner at Medieval Times. This time we went to the Pirate’s Dinner Adventure. We all preferred this one to the horses and the jousting. Dawn, Emily and Makenzy were recruited a couple of times to join in the pirate’s adventure which might be one of the reasons we had more fun.

Check out the pics we took here.

After more than a decade, we got together this weekend with Van and his lovely wife, Christine and their adorable little boy, Evan (although the nickname “mini-Van” fits him well). The Saukams were out in California this week from Colorado so we just had to get together like we did back in the day.



We had an awesome time reminiscing about our high school days as we all took turns telling Christine about all of the crazy times we had. It was great seeing our friend Van again and getting to know his wife and son. We did finally get around to playing a little music and, as no surprise, Van has not lost any ability to sing!

Hanging out with Mike, Shauna, Shawn, Shane and Van (and all the kids that go along with this group) reminded us all that life is about the people we share it with. Great times, great friends.

I posted a few pictures here.

I spent the week in Chicago for work and actually had some fun as well. I got to catch a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, go to the top of the Hancock building and see the enormous Chicago skyline and have real Chicago pizza with Greg, Tonya, Nikolai and Caleb.







Check out the rest of the pics here.

Yesterday, we finally made it back to our favorite beach - Cowell Ranch Beach in Half Moon Bay, California. It was a little over cast but still a beautiful day. As is usually the case, there were hardly any other people on “our beach” the entire day. We had an awesome time just relaxing and just hanging out on the beach.

We took a lot of pictures... here are the ones that made the cut.



Here are some pictures we took here in 2002 and again in 2005.

Recently, on Dancing with Elephants, I heard about a man trying to whittle his personal belongings down to 100 items. Greg and Tonya asked their audience to write in with what 10 things they couldn’t live without. That got me thinking: as a self-professed, but improving, pack-rat, could there be only 10 things with which I couldn’t live?

So, to start, I did a rough inventory of the Outback. For those of you that are new here, that’s the name of our home office / recording studio. Our first home had a separate room in the back yard, which was the whole reason I wanted to buy that house, that served as an office and studio. When my oldest brother, Ken, saw it he instantly christened it the Outback. On a somewhat unrelated note, it was also Ken that gave Emily the nickname she uses today, Emo, the day she was born.

Back to the story. These days, the Outback is inside but still serves, in addition to a home office and recording studio, as my personal junk drawer. While I was up late recently I started counting and cataloging nearly everything in the Outback. Here’s what I came up with so far:

87 shot glasses
9 century patches

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