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!
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.
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
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.
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!
