Work trip to Dallas

I am on a trip to Dallas to meet with some new clients.I am pretty familiar with the Dallas area since I worked here for 2 years and lived here for almost 2 years. I'm staying in the same hotel I "lived" in when I very first started business consulting with PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998. It's funny that my new client is right across the street from my first consulting client.

I flew in on SWA. They fly into Dallas Love field and not DFW. Well, back in the day SW didn't fly anywhere I needed to go, so I always flew United out of DFW, to Chicago, or Philly, etc. so I knew how to get around from there! So, when I got in last night, and hopped in my rental to head to the hotel, I was in an area I wasn't too familiar with, but I was pretty confident I could get there easily. Come to find out, my Google directions were pretty bad. SO, I end up on the freeway I think will get me where I need to go. I get off the exit for the street the hotel is on, only to find out it's the wrong "part" of the road, I'm about 10 min too far North, so I head back south, I see the sign for the freeway I need and get on...or so I thought. 10 minutes later, I look over to the left and see Dallas - yeah, I'm too far south now! LOL, a 10 min drive to the hotel turned into about 30 min and a tour of Irving Texas. Pretty funny how with no mountains, it's hard to figure out which direction you're going :-D.

Anyway, I made it. The meetings with my client went really well. I was a bit nervous because they haven't been super happy with our service lately, but I took care of business and got things ironed out and it turned out to be really good!

At dinner we all went out to a place called Pappas Bros Steak House. One of the women I was meeting with said it was like a step up from Chili's, which didn't excite me too much. We got there and it was more like a step up from Ruth's Chris! Now I was pretty happy (though the Creme Brulle at Ruth's Chris is WAY better!) Since I was hosting the dinner, I got to pay. I nearly melted the numbers off my AMEX!!! Oh well, I will expense it and enjoy the points ;-)

Over all it was a good business trip. Hopefully, I can find my way to the airport in the morning.!!!

Oh, and when I called Griff last night and told him I was in Texas, he asked, "the big purple place?" I said, what? And he went on to inform me that on his map puzzle of the US, Texas is purple, so yes - the Big Purple Place! :-D

Live from the Jazz game w/Griff!!!

Yeah, we went to the game, and it was a lot of fun for us. We wore our matching D-Will jersies (Griff was getting honks from people on the street, high 5's from strangers, the whole 9-yards! He was a superstar, and loved it!) Unfortunately the Jazz lost but we had a really good time! We got there really early so we could check things out since this is the first time Griff had been to the arena. We got hot dogs and corn dogs and drinks and popcorn (we can't go to an event without popcorn!!!) The game was really exciting and REALLY loud (I'll post a video later, so you can hear). They also gave out free white t-shirts so the place would "white out" - they only had XL so Griff was drowning in his, and it was a little big on me :-D (notice the hats we're wearing? They're the same size! He is his father's son LOL) Anyway, the game didn't start til 8:30pm so by the time the 3rd quarter rolled around, Griff was OUT! How someone can sleep in a place that loud is amazing to me (and he thought the REAL games were loud!), but he snoozed right through the 4th quarter. I practically had to break out the heart defibulators to get him up and he zombie-walked the whole way to the car and was out before I even had his seatbelt buckled! He was SO good, the people around us just loved him. And we had a really good time. As you may be able to tell from the picture above, we were on the very top row of the arena. It was actually pretty cool, the fans up there were awesome - super loud and rowdy, just how I like it!

Anyway, that was our outing for the day - GO JAZZ!!!!!

Trip to Arches and Bryce National Parks

On Thursday April 17, my friend Chris Chang ("Chang," for those of you who have heard me talk about him, or have met him) called me up and said, "let's drive down to Arches and Bryce!" Chang has been trying to get me to go with him for years. I've never been in the mood to make that kind of drive, but for some reason, it sounded good this weekend! SO, Chang flew out (he works for United, so gets to fly super cheap) and we headed out Saturday Morning 4/19. I had it in my head that this trip was a lot shorter than it was, so we ended up on the road for quite a while on this trip but it was pretty cool.

Here are some pics from Bryce - 4/19 (I have a bunch but I REALLY need PhotoShop to fix them up right):

Hoo-Doos (weird name, I just call them Spires)

C'est Moi! (Bryce was PACKED with foreigners! French, German, Japanese, Belgian and Swiss -we think - neither of us recognized the accent???)

Chang

Antelope off the side of the road - this picture does not do justice this small to how close I really was to him. He did not care!

Bryce was very cool, but Arches was AMAZING! I swear, if I had the means I could live in Moab (I'd need a private Cessna, really good wireless internet, solid cell service and a killer mountain bike, and I'd be good!) The wind was UNREAL! I'm not kidding, it neary blew me off a cliff when I was taking this first picture, I have the jammed finger and scraped shin and knee to prove it! Seriously, kids and old people could not go out to where the arch was because of the wind, it was SO strong. Other than that, the day was beautiful, as you can see...

Delicate Arch



Balance Rock






So, we drove a ridiculous amount of time and miles (Probably on the order of 800 miles and 12 hours in-car time) to hit these 2 spots in 2 days, but it was really fun. I don't know if I'd do it so fast again, as I'd want to explore more of both places, but it was cool for what it was!

Griff's day - 4/17/08

We played some Old Maid (Griff was the Old Maid both times :-D ), played some ball with Grandpa H, and then hit Kangaroo Zoo! We were going to Jump On It again, despite our experience last time, he wanted to go - but AGAIN they were closed for a private party. So, we hit Kangaroo Zoo - pics and videos...

that's right!

The coolest house in town - check the number B-)

Live from the Jazz game!!!

Curt and I went to the last home game of the season, and we were not disappointed! The Jazz took care of business despite some of the worst officiating I've ever seen (and I go to MLS games!!!)

We got seats from a scalper, and they weren't AS good as promised, but they were the least expensive lower bowl tickets we could get our hands on - one guy was trying to sell $130 tickets for $200 each, yeah, whatever.

The crowd was awesome, very loud and into the game the whole time, good to see!!!

This pic is Boozer shooting a 2, he was solid as always, but this was really a team effort, which was really good to see. The Jazz should have a nice run in the playoffs.

Shelves are fixed! I am amazing!!!

No one believed it could be done, but I did it! It took 3 tried and 3 different types of screws (finally went with the dry-wall anchors, since my stud finder lied and I drilled straight into drywall) but the shelves are straight, no sagging! Now, will I be placing bowling balls on the shelves? No. In fact you may be able to make out the little candles and picture frame in the picture, I think that might be the weight limit for them :-D Just kidding, they should be able to take a little more than that, they're actually very solid. Kudos to Ikea and the little guy on the instructions! Next task is to hide the wires from the TV. That'll be fun, I think I'm going to practice on the wires from the Dish in Griff's closet first. ;-)

Ultimate Fighter is BACK!

Yep, my favorite Reality show (wait, don't I say that a lot??? - I'm as bad as Andrea! LOL ) is back!

the Ultimate fighter on Wednesday nights on Spike! This is the show where guys fight it out to get a shot at a contract with the UFC and $100k. This season, instead of the coaches just picking who they want out of the 16 guys who made the show, the guys actually had to fight their way onto the show in elimination bouts. It was pretty cool, and this way there are no wienies getting on the show, which normally happens. There was one knock-out that was so brutal it kinda made me question watching this show (I mean the guy had NO idea where he was even an hour after the bout!), but the rest of the fights were really good. Unfortunately, the one guy from Utah got eliminated pretty easily - maybe he should try "American Idol" or "So, you think you can dance," or something.

The coaches for this season are Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Forrest Griffin (one of my favorite fighters) so it should be pretty cool. At the end of the show, these two are going to fight for the Light Heavyweight title that Rampage now owns. THAT will be awesome.

On a similar note: On the 19th there is a pretty good fight scheduled on Pay-Per-View between Matt Serra and Georges St. Pierre for the Welterweight title, I think I'll get it and invite over whomever wants to come watch it with me. Just let me know if you're interested. B-)

Latest project for Griff's room

Well, thanks to Ikea, I have a lot of projects to do. This is the latest. It's a "bookshelf" for Griff's room. You'll notice it also has some compartments with drawers and doors. These are sold separately and I put these in all on my own, yes, I am that amazing! LOL These pieces of furniture are pretty fun to build. The only thing from Ikea I've had trouble with is the shelves, but I'll get them fixed.

The drawers have some of Griff's clothes in them and he has toys behind the doors. The night light is hidden in one of the compartments, but it still works.

The signed basketballs are on top, they're just cool! Especially the one with Karl and John on it!

21

Went and saw the movie 21. It looked pretty good in previews, and I would say the movie didn't disappoint!

It's the story of some really smart kids from MIT who decide to count cards in Vegas to win big sums of money. I won't give away any of the story but it's pretty good. The language isn't as bad as you might expect, in fact it wasn't that bad at all (this is PG-13). The sex is minimal, the violence is minimal, but the story is good and the movie keeps you engaged most of the time I would say.

Definitely not a kids movie, but a good date movie! I'd give it a solid 3 out of 4 stars. If you see it, I think you may be able to figure out why it doesn't get 4 stars, but the movie is still worth seeing.

Two new favorite Reality Shows!

I've discovered my new favorite reality show - it is - Rock the Cradle! This is the show on MTV where the kids of famous musicians compete to see who has the best music DNA.

The premiere was last night and some of the kids were REALLY good. Eddie Money's daughter Jesse was good, Joe Walsh's daughter Lucy was by far the best I think, and Dee Snyder's kid Jesse Blaze was a real rocker - better than his dad (though Dee really only had one mega-hit, and painted himself up like a blind prostitute, so not too hard I guess)

On the other end, Hammer's Daughter was horrible, Olivia-Newton John's daughter was painful to listen to, I felt really bad for her, Bobby Brown's son wasn't good, and Tom Johnston's (Doobie brothers) daughter was bad.

In the middle, Kenny's son Crosby Loggins was just OK for me dawg, and Al B-Sure's son Lil was average. I think that's everyone. I really think the competition is between Ms Money and Ms Walsh, unless one of the others really comes through with something different than they showed last night.

I will have this one on DVR if you want to check it out.

The other favorite isn't new, but I've only just discovered it in the last 2 months or so. That is Rob and Big. This one kills me, these two guys are so funny and the situations they come up with are hilarious. The way they talk to each other is so funny. Drama, Meaty, and Mini Horse are high quality supporting cast and really hold their own in the show. Definitely worth the half hour on Tueday nights (or just DVR it ;-) )

The Reality show I can NOT get into (sorry ladies) is The Hills. It is just too unwatchable for me. The only funny thing I saw in the episode I did watch part of was Spencer getting the ICE-COLD shoulder from Heidi when he showed up unexpectedly at her parents' house in CO. THAT was uncomfortable and funny and kinda pathetic all at the same time. You do gotta hate Spencer. LOL