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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On the eve of the tour I made my tour predictions. How’d I do? Not too shabby! With my first and second place finishers switched and a top 10 finish for Valverde this was my closest prediction ever!

It was a great race this year, except the doping by Ricardo Ricco. In my opinion, the biggest dissapointment was Mark Cavendish not finishing the race, especially after racing so well this tour!

My predictions versus actual
Overall: Cadel Evans / Lotto - 2nd overall
2nd: Carlos Sastre / CSC - 1st overall
3rd: Alejandro Valverde / Caise d'Epargne - 9th overall
11th: George Hincapie / High Road - 35th overall

KOM: Yaroslav Popovych / Lotto - Bernhard Kohl

Sprint: Thor Hushovd - Oscar Freire
2nd: Fabian Cancellara - Thor Hushovd
3rd: Mark Cavendish - Erik Zabel

Team: CSC - CSC

Check out all of 2008 results here. If you follow professional cycling, check out The FredCast, the internet’s premier cycling podcast!

Last week I had the privilege of joining the Manager Tools Effective Manager Conference as an associate of Manager Tools. As a long-time listener and premium member since day one, I was honored that Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne gave me the nod to working with them in San Francisco.

After their first conference last year I considered it the most valuable conference I have ever attended. This time, as part of the Manager Tools team for two days, it was absolutely the highlight of my professional life.

My role was to interject with my thoughts as Mark, Mike and Michael presented on effectively using one on ones, feedback, coaching and delegation. It was my goal to talk about the successes and challenges I’ve had in, and after, the implementation of one on ones, feedback, coaching and delegation. Just the same as last April, the conference was high energy with over 100 other managers who were all passionate about becoming better. At no other conference have I ever seen attendees stay for two hours after the formal close of the conference, digesting more content.
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Last week, in an article written by Record editor Mike Klocke’s, local residents were invited to write in with three things they liked about Stockton, along with one thing they’d like to improve.

Of course, I couldn’t resist chiming in on the subject. Sometimes I feel as Dawn and I are the only ones that actually love living here.

Some of my comments were published in today’s Record, so I thought I would share my entire piece here.

What do I like about Stockton?
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So, how did we spend the last night of my wonderful vacation?

Watching the Stockton Ports beat the Visalia Oaks. We sat in the AARP section (and it was senior citizen night) and met two great couples. One of the men is a retired ObGyn who spent 40 years delivering babies in Stockton... how cool is that!

The game was great, with the Ports taking a 4-0 lead off a pair of two-run homers in the first inning. Just before the the first one, a couple out on a date were asked to pick a player that they thought would hit a double. If that player hit one she would get a bouquet of roses. The young man picked Chris Carter and then got down on his knees and proposed to his girlfriend, whom he met exactly five years ago, at a Ports game! She said yes and everyone applauded. Just a short time later, Carter got up and with two outs, belted a homer to put the Ports up 2-0.

Early in the game, a foul ball came flying toward our section, hit a young boy in the head, bounced and hit a woman in the head and then flew right over me. I got my hand on it but it fell behind me. I couldn’t get over the fact that the ball bounced twice and still flew from about the middle of section 119, about row 5 all the way to section 118, row 10!

The Ports beat the Oaks 4-2 and will face the Oaks again tomorrow. Dawn and the girls will be at that game as well... maybe they’ll do a better job holding on to a ball than I did.

Check out the pics here.

For dinner last night, we went to Iguana Wanna, a new restaraunt in Stockton. They opened for business a little more than a month ago in the space that used to be occupied by Papapavlos (7555 Pacific Ave).

It’s no surprise that we love trying new restaurants but the real treat is trying a new local restaurant.

The layout of the restaurant was the same as it was for Papapavlos but with updated decor and paint. There was no wait and were quickly seated by the window. Our server came right over with chips and salsa and took our drink order. There was no kids menu but he did rattle off some kids items - cheeseburger, burrito, quesadilla.

Dawn and Emily ordered salads which were each very big and served in a tortilla shell with grilled vegetables and shrimp. I ordered the Iguana Spicy Chicken, served with rice and beans. Makenzy stayed simple with a cheesburger and fries. All of the food was very good. Dawn and Emily didn’t care for the sauce on the grilled veggies but I did. The Spicy Chicken was delicious and true to its name. Makenzy ate every bite of her meal so it’s safe to say she enjoyed it.

The prices were very reasonable. All of our entrees were under $10. The service was friendly but they were a little forgetful. When they brought my meal I was asked if I wanted tortillas, I said yes but they never came. There were a few times our server didn’t know something we thought he should: not being sure if they had root beer and not being sure if the salsa had jalapenos (the couple behind us asked that one).

I wanted to ask the server a little about the restaurant but it started to get busy before we left. With only two people working the front of the restaurant I wondered what level of service they would provide.

The one thing that I thought was a little odd was the fact that they had cloth napkins (I like that) and plastic drinking cups (I don’t like that). At $2 for iced tea or soda it would be nice to have the drinks served in a glass.

In the end, I would definetly recommend Iguana Wanna. The food was good, the prices were good and the service was ok. Check out the other reviews on Yelp.

After returning home from camping, I finally downloaded iTunes 7.7 and iPhone 2.0. Even though I’m not getting the new 3G iPhone I have been really looking forward to the new software.

I had just won a $50 gift card from Stacey over at Pill’s Place so I decided to get an iTunes card, just in time for the opening of the App Store (and the purchase of Alan Jackson’s Good Time).

In addition to the App Store, 2.0 has some new features, such as the ability to do a screen shot (Jason Tucker explains how). Now I can easily show the applications I’ve downloaded.



So far, my favorite apps are:
Remote - now I can control my iTunes from my iPhone... awesome!
Guitar Toolkit - A great portable guitar tuner
Where To? - An app that shows nearby restaurants, attractions, etc.
Super Monkey Ball - fun game, kids will probably play more than I do
Fuel Gauge (MPG) - helps me track my gas mileage
Tetris - amazing game for the iPhone, a must have!
AOL Radio - I know, it’s AOL, but the interface is beautiful and the music choices are great!

I was also thrilled to see the push services work. Since I rely heavily on iCal and Address Book (and, oh yeah, Mail) I can now go about my day no longer worrying that I may double book myself. Another new feature I really like is the way passwords are masked. Now, the last character is left un-masked until the next character is typed - very helpful when I fat-finger a password and forget what I’ve already typed.

So, thanks Stacey, for letting me go wild on the App Store!

Do you have an iPhone? What are some your favorite apps? E-mail me (mb@mattbeckwith.com) or post your favorites in the comments section.

Today, we went to Grace’s in Sacramento to see Lori and Tim who were visiting from Florida. We all had a good time swimming and catching up with the cousins and other family. It was great to see Lori and her little son. Of course, I use the term, little, loosely given the fact that he is 6 feet tall!



We were also treated to Lee and his wonderful resonator guitar. After playing and singing Happy Birthday to everyone with a July birthday, we all sang The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel and a couple of others. Then Lee played a couple of new originals. Here’s a small clip of one of his songs.



Click here for the other pics from today.

This year, we joined the Deckos and the Havenses at good ol’ Folsom Lake - Beals Point to be exact. Having last been here in 2002 we were looking forward to the combined camp sites - especially since the Deckos were actually camping in tents and the lil’ ones are older now.



To say the first day was hot would be a major understatement. The local newspapers had called it the hottest day of the year. With the mercury soaring to 110 degrees right about the time we arrived at camp and started to set up we weren’t doubting that one bit. There was still a pretty bad haze in the air from all of the local fires and we thought we’d not see blue skies for days.

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Happy Independence Day! To start the holiday I met Mike and Harold for the annual 4th of July Linden ride. It was perfect weather, not hot at all and just a little wind. Once we got back to Lodi I headed home for a quick pit stop before riding out to Manteca. After 80 miles I couldn’t wait to jump in pool!

The kids swam most of the day while I repeatedly got my butt kicked in ping pong (well, except for the game I played against Bruce). After some hackey sack and then a great dinner of hot dogs, beer brats and hot links we drove to watch the fireworks. Even though we were only a mile or so away from the Field of Dreams, the fireworks were a dud, too low to really see so we went back and blew up the arsenal we bought from the local fireworks stand earlier in the day.

Shortly after 11 PM, I jumped back on my bike for the 23 mile ride back home. Ok, I didn’t really ride home last night, but everything else really happened!

Check out the pictures here.

It’s July, so that means it’s time for my Tour de France predictions. After the debacle that was the ’06 Tour I vowed to never again follow the race. All I’ve proven by doing that is that I am weak; I still love le Tour. In 2006 I predicted that Floyd Landis would take the final yellow jersey - which he did, until he was officially stripped of the title for the final time last week.

The ’08 Tour would’ve been a lot more fun to pick had Astana been given the opportunity to race. Plus, with some of my favorite riders like Boonen and Mayo out for ’08, this year’s Tour de France is a tough one to call. Add to that the fact that I am horrible at picking winners and you have the recipe for failure... until this year!

It is without hesitation that I make the following predicitons for the 2008 Tour de France.


Overall: Cadel Evans / Lotto
2nd: Carlos Sastre / CSC
3rd: Alejandro Valverde / Caise d'Epargne
11th: George Hincapie / High Road

KOM: Yaroslav Popovych / Lotto

Sprint: Thor Hushovd
2nd: Fabian Cancellara
3rd: Mark Cavendish

Team: CSC

During the next few weeks, I’ll be following the tour from a few sites:
http://www.letour.fr/us/homepage_courseTDF.html
http://www.versus.com/tdf/
http://twitter.com/DailyTour

If you have an opinion, I’d love to hear it. Feel free to make a comment on this post or send me an e-mail. Come back on July 21, 2008 and see how I did. I’m sure Cadel Evans will be wearing the maillot jaune in the end.