Well, another Halloween has come and gone. Next is Thanksgiving, Christmas and then New Years... it'll be here before you know it.

This year, I was Jack, as in Jack in the Box. I had a great time playing the part at work and then at the school for the annual trick-or-treat festivities. Thankfully, Mike was there to help me pass out candy to the kids because I had a hard time seeing most of them.

Here I am resting at the end of a long night. Yes, believe it or not, that's Hannah Montana on the far right!


One of the coolest part of the night was on my way. I went through the drive through at In-n-Out and they noticed my Jack head in the back seat. I simply said, "Sometimes, even I need a real burger!"

Next year's plan? Well, I've got some ideas....

Check out today's pics here.

Welcome to California... we have earthquakes. Tonight, as we were sitting in the family room I felt some shaking. I actually thought it was Sashi (our dog) bumping my chair. I was the only one in the house that felt it but we got calls from Dawn's mom and Mike saying they both felt it.



Check out the USGS site or the local news story.

Halloween is almost here... so what better time to cut into the gourds!

Mike, Shauna, Rachel and Chris joined in the fun and brought their pumpkins over to carve as well. Any guesses which one is mine?



Want to see last year's pumpkins? Check them out here.

Check out the pics here.

The Stockton Arena was rockin' tonight when we were joined by 8,640 or so of our closest friends for the first Thunder home game of the season. Tonight, our Thunder squared off against the Alaska Aces in a contest that saw not a single fight (boo hoo!).



Thunder scored first near the end of the first period and followed it up with a second goal that saw a few Aces players collide into the goalie. It was like a traffic accident being taken apart piece by piece. After a few minutes, when the officials awarded Stockton with the goal, the arena went psycho!

Neither team scored in the second period but Alaska did manage to get a couple of goals in the final period in regulation to tie the contest at 2. Rohlfs ended the sudden death match at 2:10 into OT with a sweet shot. We may be 2-3, but at least we won our home opener.

For tonight's game, we set in section 114, row 5. It was nice to be a little closer and see some pucks go flying as well as really hearing the glass pounding, but sitting this close made it hard to see down on the other end of the ice.

Check out pics here. I took a lot of video but no fights and no goals. I did manage to hit record just after the game winning goal went in... check it out on YouTube here.

If you want to take a retro look back... check out the 2006 Stockton Thunder home opener or check out all of our posts on the Thunder here.

Months after we were first teased with demonstrations of the next release of Mac OS X, Leopard was unleashed today. I arrived at the Apple Retail Store about 4:30 and waited with a bunch of other Mac faithful. The best part was seeing the reaction on the faces of the passers by asking what we were standing in line for. Just as the Apple website countdown clock hit zero (we were all verifying on our iPhones) the doors flung open to enormous applause from the gang of Apple employees. As they cheered and high-fived us, we piled into the store to claim our copy of Leopard.



Now for a couple of observations. Leopard was not the only thing flying off the shelves. It's no secret that Apple retail stores are sales powerhouses (see Apple Stores Now More Profitable Than Tiffany's Per Square Foot) and anyone at an OS launch day can easily see why. Anecdotcally, nearly half of the people I saw snatching up Leopard were also buying external hard-drives. I recommended the LaCie Big Disk 1TB drive to a fellow shopper but they sold out of all of them in just a few minutes. Gone, too, were the 500GB LaCie drives among most other high capacity external hard-drives. The cool thing was to see just how many new Mac users there were joining in on the fun of a new OS launch.

Two hours versus twenty? Waiting on line for the iPhone was great fun, but doesn't come close to the excitement of the Leopard launch. Sure, it might've been because we got my iPhone at an AT&T store but I still think the excitement of the crowd was still higher today. I mean, the iPhone is cool because it is a phone and it has the look and feel of Mac OS X... but Leopard is Mac OS X!

Well, I just glanced over to the PowerBook and see that the installation is complete... time to get to work. I opted for an erase + clean install on that computer. Later this weekend - the iMacs get the upgrade.

Rock on Leopard!

Did you get Leopard? Waiting on the fence? Mac-curious? Check out the greatest Mac podcast on the net - Typical Mac User.

Check out some pics here.

Wow, Emily is 14! We are starting to feel like we might be getting close, someday, to, actually, perhaps, getting (gulp) old.

Happy birthday honey! What'd she get from us? Tickets to see Gwen Stefani... rock on!



Check out the pics here.

Another year, another trip to the Del'Osso Family Farms Pumpkin Maze. I know... it's really a corn maze, but they call it a pumpkin maze. Mike, Shauna, Chris, Rachel, Maryssa, Shawn, Shawn jr, Natalie, Megen, Ken, KC, Jim, Junior, and Melissa joined Dawn and I and the girls for a trek through the maze. Dawn, Melissa, Emily, Shauna, Maryssa and Makenzy got out in just about 20 minutes while it took the rest of us just under an hour to find our way out. The maze seemed trickier this year - with a perimeter maze and one through the center. There were also three "bridges" which let us see over the top of the 20 acre field (not that it helped much as all I saw was corn!).



The haunted house was a lot better this year as they only let in small groups at a time. It kept the entrance completely dark and added to the fright. There were also a couple of new twists in the house this year, one of my favorites being the bathroom scene. Both times we went through in the afternoon, we had to physically push Emily and Maryssa through that part. Let's just say it was reminiscent of the Saw movies. Dawn and Emily went back in the evening for another walk through the haunted house and said they changed it up a little from earlier in the day.

Check out our pics here.

Happy birthday Angelo! We had a great time at Micke's Grove park in Lodi. Chris, Joe and I got robbed playing football, but that's cool... we'll get 'em next time!





Check out our pics here.

Did Stockton really need a new pizza restaurant? We might be a little biased (we love pizza) but I think the answer is a resounding "yes"! Stockton has had the reputation of "restaurant killer" for sometime. Gone are the days of Shannons, the Hatch Cover, Bella Vista, the original (and we would argue, better) Cancun, even Red Robin couldn't last in Stockton.

Through the years, we've seen too many restaurants come and go. Tonight, we ate at one that might just buck the trend.



Cibo di Vino opened recently on the Miracle Mile, right next door to the Empire Theatre. Although there are other items on the menu other than pizza, it was, of course, the pizza that brought us. The service was great. We had reservations and got right in but would have waited under the name, Jessica Alba or Billy Bob Thornton - very funny. After we were seated, our waiter came by to take our drink order. Cibo di Vino had a great selection of wines and Dawn and I each enjoyed a "flight of three" sampler. The pizza was awesome - I would rate it right up there with Michael's and Dante's. Great wine, great service, great atmosphere, and great pizza.

Our first restaurant review earns 5 rolling pins!



Check them out online - cibodivino.com.

Read the recent article in the Record.

Visit them for yourself:
1825 Pacific Ave, Stockton, California 95204