Personal
I’ll be in Seattle from Feb. 15th – Feb. 20th
Feb 1st
I will be in Seattle from Feb 15th to Feb 20th, 2010 for what is probably my last Microsoft MVP Summit. I plan to visit Whidbey Island one day during this week. I will probably rent a car and head over to the ferry. I live in Oak Harbor (on Whidbey Island) for 2 years back in the early 90s and want to revisit this time around.
If anyone wants to get together on any of these evenings, let me know. I am not 100% sure what the schedule looks like at night, but I am sure we can work something out. I will have most of Monday available and possibly a good portion of Tuesday.
Looking forward to saying goodbye to a bunch of old friends. It should be a blast. Tyler, you better show up somewhere too.
Brett’s ITA State Tournament Video
Nov 15th
Brett was in the 2009 ITA State Tournament yesterday. He is a red belt and he competed against 2 other red belts and 3 senior red belts yesterday. He finished 3rd of 6 in form and he finished 1st of 6 in sparring. He won 5-3, 5-0. 5-1 and had to face his friend Harrison for the gold. Here’s a little video I threw together from the footage. Congrats Brett. We are so proud of you.
Brett at the 2009 ITA State Tournament from Chris Leckness on Vimeo.
Thanksgiving Lunch at my Son’s School.
Nov 13th
Good Times, Bad Food. Ok, it was awful, but some of it tasted like the milk carton my chocolate milk came in. Believe it or not, their steamed veggies were on par with good restaurants. I could have replaced the turkey and dressing with it and been better off. Anyhow, it was about spending some time with the boy, not the food anyway. Good times…
As you can see in my son’s tray, he went traditional with his meal. I tried to get him to turkey up with me.
Halloween 2009 Photos
Nov 1st
I didn’t take many. Meant to take more, but it was busy. We skipped the traditional trick or treaking and went to an event at church. Brittney worked a booth there and Brett scored more candy faster than if we would have done the trick or treat thing.
Brett on the left, Brittney on the right…
Brett climbing the rock wall and on the right, 2 kids dressed up that my wife loved so she gathered them and shot this one. The kid on the left is dressed up as Nick Saban and the right is Mount Cody. The thing is the real Terrence Cody’s chest would be a Nick’s head. Very cute either way.
Nintendo is really beginning to piss me off…
Oct 23rd
Let me preface this rant by saying that I used to be a pretty avid console gamer before I fell into “Everquest” and then “World of Warcraft”. I don’t play either anymore, but I still don’t game a lot on consoles. I have had the Atari, Sega Genesis, The original Nintendo, Playstation, Game Cube, Xbox, Xbox 360, and now my 3rd Wii, YES 3rd. That’s why I am pissed.
When the Wii was released, I ended up getting rid of the Xbox 360 and moving towards the Wii for a better selection of games for my kids. (now 16 and 7) The Wii was great for a while. 6 months later, I got into a situation where it would stop reading disks. I thought initially that my son was ruining the disks with his poor handling, but I realized it wasn’t that. Brand new disk, old scratched disks, whatever… they wouldn’t play. I called Nintendo and they walked me through some stuff to try. All came up empty, so they replaced it with other console. So a week goes by, no Wii for the kids, no biggie. The new one (or probably refurbed) came in and we were back to the races.
3 months after getting the replacement Wii, the same thing started happening again. This time I was sure it wasn’t my son since he started to learn to take care of his games after the 1st incident since I used that opportunity to make him feel as if he caused the problem by leaving disks out everywhere, etc… It happened on a weekend, just after my wife rented a couple games for them. Instead of saying, “wait until monday and I will call Nintendo again”, I said, “F it” and went out and bought another brand new Wii. All was fine once again.
3 months later, AGAIN… the same freaking problem. Being too lazy to call and go through the hassle of swapping, I bought our 3rd Wii. That was 6 months ago. Guess what…
YEP… AGAIN! I am getting really pissed off and it’s taking ever ounce of my control to type clean words instead of what I am feeling right now. I am going to get a little work done here today, but I hope to get a block of time to call Nintendo today. If I can’t find resolve, I have about 50-60 Wii games I will be selling, so watch out here for that announcement. I will probably sell them direct rather than on ebay. If I leave Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360? I am leaning 360 since I have 4-5 games that I forgot I had when we got rid of the 360 initially.
Damn you Nintendo. Make a good product please. Ok, wait, the Wii is a good product, what I mean is make a dependable product. I have talked to others that say they have had this issue too.
Another Photo of Brett (Taekwondo Photo)
Oct 10th
Sorry for spamming my blog with all these, but ya… it’s my kid… I am proud. I snapped a photo of a photo from his class pictures that came out today. He chose the background.
Brett’s Georgia Aquarium Field Trip
Oct 7th
I took off work today to drive 3 hours to Atlanta to see the Georgia Aquarium again. This time is was with about 200 2nd graders, their parents, and their teachers. It was a great, but rushed day. My dad and I went with my son, Brett. Here are a few photos from our adventures. I am also adding a video behind the break as well. It was a short, short video though – I kept forgetting to record some. This was the 1st time I tried my new, cheaper (but HD) video camera out in an environment outside my office.
Thanks Taylorville Primary 2nd grade teachers and Mrs. Holemon for the great field trip.
That’s not me with the dreads btw…
Brett’s Last Fall League Game Photos
Oct 5th
Here are just a few random photos my wife took. Most of them didn’t come out too well but it’s ok, I’ll get more in the spring. (hopefully)
Read on for a few more. If you are looking for the raw team photos, I am linking them at the end of this.
Brett’s Red Belt Testing
Oct 4th
My 7 year old son Brett is almost a Black Belt in Taekwondo. He tested and passed to Red Belt yesterday. He has to test for Senior Red in a few months, then Black Belt. It’s a good thing too. He is getting into baseball more and more and is getting bored with Taekwondo. After he hits black, he plans to quit and start Jin-Jitsu at the same place he’s doing Taekwondo now.
Brett is on the right. Read on for a few more pictures!
Some Photos of Brett
Sep 24th
My daughter Brittney is in a photography class at her school and she’s been snapping photos right and left. I decided to snatch a couple of them for a post. She’s the one taking the photos, so it’s only Brett in the pictures. Click them to make them larger.
