New Camera

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!

Asparagus Festival 2009

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.

Earth Day at Victory Park

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).

Makenzy's Track Meet

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.

LinkedIn Does Not A Network Make

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 maintain my address book with religious devotion. People are, after all, how and why the world works. I treasure my family, my friends, my colleagues and people in general. I keep up to date contact details and reach out to everyone I know every few months or so. It is a practice that has given me great joy through the years.

I take great pride in maintaing my personal and professional networks. Staying in contact with people has proven valuable 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 5 tips for using LinkedIn:

1. 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.

2. Don’t discriminate. LinkedIn represents only 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.

3. 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!

4. 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.

5. Stay in contact. My Mother, being in business for herself most of her life, planted the seeds for this practice early in my life. She taught me that staying in contact is the most important rule in building relationships. Make a point to reach out to your contacts regularly. My goal is to reach out to everyone every 3 months. Admittedly, I fall a little behind from time to time but would never dream of letting 6 months or more go without sending out a quick e-mail, phone call or card (yes, hand written cards rock). If you value your relationships, stay in contact. My trick: schedule time on your calendar to follow up. After years of doing this, it comes natural and the rewards are immense.

Networking, as a term, gets a bad rap. Building relationships is about sharing and adding value.

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

Easter 2009

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.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

Happy birthday Elizabeth.

Another cousin turns 7!

Check out the other pics here.

Party Pardee Century

Yesterday, just like in 2007, I rode the Party Pardee Century with Mike and his son Spencer. Howard Park in Ione greeted us with chilly temperatures. It was 29 degrees when we pulled in and probably didn’t get much above 30 for the first hour on the road. I dressed appropriately for the ride, meaning that I froze for nearly the entire first hour. My face was so cold I would have surely sounded drunk if you tried to carry on a conversation with me. I can deal with cold feet and legs. What made the first hour and a half tough was that my hands were frozen. Even though I was wearing long gloves, I felt like I had ice blocks on the ends of my hands. I rode 5 miles or so sitting up with my hands held tightly under my armpits. It helped a lot and allowed me to eventually to use my shifters. I also stayed in a lower gear then normal and tried to keep my cadence over 110 until I got warm.

The Sacramento Bike Hikers sure know how to put on a great century. This year’s theme was Puttin’ On The Ritz. Almost all of their volunteers wore top hats and they had costumed volunteers at all the rest stops. The check-in was very smooth and fast. They had tons of great food at the start and even better food at the rest stops. My favorite item was some concotion made with fresh blackberries and cream cheese. They had that sitting next to the container of Nutella spread. I grabbed a couple of quarter-bagels and slapped some of each on them. There were also a ton of fresh fruit and plenty of water, cytomax and lemonade. At every rest stop the volunteers were very friendly and supportive.

As for the ride, I was reminded why this is my favorite metric century anywhere! The route treats us to some of the best views in the foothills and by the Lake Camanche and Pardee Reservoir. Then there are the hills. That’s why I love this ride. This is not an easy ride-in-the-park metric century. With 4200 feet of climbing, it’s a good challenge for this early in the year. I still ride a triple and I was able to stay in my center ring over all of the climbs. Near the end of the day, on the last climb, I was tempted to pop down to my little ring but alas, I persisted up the hill without it.

Mike and Spencer rode very well. Spencer had not ridden in months and probably hadn’t climbed since the last time we did this ride. His strength continues to amaze me! Mike, the best riding partner a guy could ask for, fought the hills and came out victorious. Although he will tell you that he suffered (duh, we all did) through the hills he still made it to each peak and still ended the day strong! As he always does, Mike was there with plenty of encouragement and just a little bit of smack-talk.

The other thing I love about doing rides like these is the people. Riding all day and “talking shop” with a bunch of other cyclists is a great way to spend the day. At the last stop I ran into David who I met at last years Sunrise Century and of course Allan, the guy with the music. At the end of the day, as we packing up, I asked a passer-by to take our picture (the one above). The guy that took our picture just happened to be a guy that I found on Twitter the night before (@smflash). What are the odds!?!

Stats: 65 miles 4:51:00 on bike 13.4 MPH 4200’ of climbing 2 sunburned legs

Great job Bike Hikers! You put on another great event. See you next year!

Check out the pics here.

Pedaling Paths Century

Today I rode the Pedaling Paths to Independence metric century. Long name, but great ride. In its inaguraul year, this ride was put on by the Community Center for the Blind and started at Linden Elementary school.

My riding partner Mike picked me up at 7:30 and we drove out to Linden where we met up with Mike aka, “Death Ride” - a name he earned from me after riding in the Death Ride after only training for three weeks! We hit the road at 8:50 and headed straight into a gnarly head wind.

The first rest stop came a bit too soon, at mile 12 in Farmington. We stopped for a minute and then took off ahead of Death Ride. He passed us a few minutes later and we never saw on the route again. Our route took us out to Milton Road and back up near the town of Jenny Lind. We were both pretty happy that we had a pretty decent stretch of road with a tail wind.

The flyer said there was 1,300 feet of climbing. Didn’t sound like a lot but given how early it was in the riding season, that 1,300 was plenty!

The rest stops were stocked very well and the volunteers did an excellent job making sure everyone had what they needed. We met a lot of other great cyclist that came from all over northern California to ride this new century. I kept gawking at all of the new bikes and gear I saw and by the end of the day Mike convinced me I needed a new bike (not going to happen!).

As for the cars out on the road - many were courteous, some were not. There was a lot of cars that flew by us without giving us an extra inch of room. Luckily, from what we heard, there were no accidents out on the course.

We got back to Linden about 2:00 and had a great lunch from DaVinci’s. Again, the volunteers did an excellent job making sure there was plenty of food and drinks to go around. Pleasantly, and unlike many rides I’ve done, they did not skimp on the portions either. After a half-day on a bike I was hungry and they were glad to fill me up.

Overall, the ride was excellent! The course was challenging and interesting. The volunteers were friendly and accomodating. These guys did a great job on the first try. I will certainly be adding this ride as my regular early season metric century!

Stats 67.31 miles 4:46:17 on bike Fair amount of climbing Google map of route

My trusty steed!

Check out the rest of the pics here.

Tour of California

This morning we drove out to Davis to catch the start of Stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California. It was horribly windy and cold in Stockton and the weather only got worse as we got into Davis. We arrived at the Mondavi center about 10 o’clock and took the double decker bus downtown. Even though it was raining and cold, the atmosphere was great with cycling fans everywhere. I can’t believe we live this close to Davis and have never been there. There were tons of people on bikes, even a parade of people riding penny-farthings. I was really wishing I would’ve brought mine.

The girls got a chance to write chalk messages for Lance and each scored a box of yellow Livestrong chalk.

We stood in the rain for an hour and a half until the race started. Unlike when the race started in Stockton, we did not actually see any of the big named riders until they took off out of the gate.

The weather made it difficult to take many pictures although we did manage to snap a few. Check them out here.