I'm 33 today. I'm now as old as my wife. I'm so very blessed. I'm out of town this week, but I have had about 20 e-mails wishing me a happy birthday and about 20 phone calls doing the same. My favorite was Madeline's entire Kindergarden class calling and singing happy birthday to me. How many people have that many friends who would take the time to do that? Being out of town on my birthday sucks, but what a way to make up for it. All that, plus my hotel room has two bathrooms (and I just noticed that it has two thermostats).

Tough couple of days with work. I'm in Birmingham with a great group, but just had stuff going on with my team that's been tough this week. Interesting follow-on from my leadership trianing last week.

I'm in Birmingham, AL tonight, staying at a Hilton Hotel out here. Just figured out I've got two different bathrooms in my hotel room. Not quite sure why.

Thanks to Doug for turning me onto this very cool free toolbar at SmartBarXP.com

Just downloaded the demo of X1 after using Scopeware's Vision product. Scopeware was great at finding just about anything, anywhere, but it doesn't work with Outlook 2003's new cached mode, and therefore was wasn't going to work for me. Downside of X1 is that it's not tighltly tied to the tied to outlook, so I can view and e-mail through an internal viewer, but not launch it directly. I ran across X1 while reading this article in Business Week Magazine.

Interesting review on Google's GMail Service.

I've finished my first week in the second round of our "Workout Competition". In short, it's a contest between fifteen guys with points assigned for working out, eating right, drinking water (a gallon a day) and for daily spiritual focus and reflection. This is probably the 6th or 7th time we've done this, each time with different people, and each time with the rules getting even more complex. You can read them here.

Last week was tough, being at training. Only one glass of red wine is allowed per day, and I pretty much blew that most days out in Colorado. The first three days, I was up at 5AM working out, but I petered out after that. I'm traveling again this week, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm in the office all day today, how nice. I'm flying out tomorrow to Kansas City, tomorrow night to Birmingham, Alabama and then back on Friday.

After being in Colorado for a week, my body had pretty much adjusted to Mountain Standard time, which didn't work too well this morning at 6:30 AM EST when my kids gave me an early morning wake up call. There are worse things to be woken up to than three kids, excited to see their dad, and wanting to cuddle.

I got back tonight at about 10:30 from the airport. I'm emotionally and physically drained. I've posted my pictures from the ELP (Emerging Leaders Program) online here. People from my class are uploading their pictures so we can have a common scrapbook to share.

Emily's 3rd birthday party is tomorrow. My family, Cathie's folks and brother, Will, Jess, and the Thompson's are coming.

It snowed last night! Amazing weather out here. Looking out the balcony of my hotel room, I can see the golf course and mountains covered in trees. It's a thick snow that's sticking to all of the trees, creating an amazing picture. As you walked around the Broadmoor, there were tulips and blossoming trees covered with thick show. It was breath-taking. Only problem was that my digital camera battery was drained and I didn't bring the charger. Damn.

We finished out the eveing by having dinner with the entire class, including our instructors. We had drinks, dinner and then moved on to the Golden Bee. The Golden Bee is a Piano Bar and the wait staff runs around throwing these little bee stickesr at everyone. This place was a blast. Most of the class was there, some enjoying yards-o-beer, and everyone singing along with the piano player - from Piano Man to Danny Boy. It was a great cap to the week.

There are a number of people that I plan on connecting with as I travel around over the next few months. It's a pretty amazing connection that was created this week. Intimacy that doesn't exist in any other training that I've been through.

Next week I'm home on Monday, flying to Kansas City on Tuesday and then to Birmingham on Wednesday - Friday. Between the intensity of the class experience, trying to weave work in between and having been gone a seven days already, I'm missing my famly in a huge way.

Yesterday we went orienterring near the Garden of the Gods as a leadership exercise. We created teams, roles, and a great place to practice some of what we'd been learning all week. The Navigator's allow the CCL to use their property at Glen Eyrie It's one of the most beautiful places I've seen.

When we first started out, sleet began to fall. We hiked throughout the mountains with a team, using a compass and map to figure out where we're going and then debriefed throughout on each other's behaviors. The scenery was amazing, and I learned a lot about myself and how I interact with a group. On the way out, our bus driver took us through the Garden of the Gods Park.

Today was an amazing day. Throughout the week, we've received the results of multiple profiles: Meyers Briggs, Values Assesments, FIBRO, and CTI. Today, a lot of that came together. The first half of the day, I received feedback on my actions from a collection of observers. We used a very interesting technique to deliver it, which took some of the perception and analysis out of the picture. The technique dealt with "Situation, Behavior and Impact". The information was delivered, received and then procssed by the individual. The second half of the day was spent doing a one-on-one with a clincial psychologist in the role of an exectuive coach. Imagine 3 and a half hours with a pshrink. I was apprehensive, but thought it was awesome. I'm still processing much of what I heard. I went in hoping for some amazing revelations, and to a degree, I received them, but not the way I thought I would.

Here's my brush with fame: On our cab ride back from dinner last night, we got talking about the movie This is Spinal Tap. Our cab driver over heard our conversation and yelled out, "Hey, I was in that movie". There's a scene in the beginning where an MC introduces the band (see script), yelling "You want it right, direct from hell, Spinal Tap!" Turns, it's him, Patrick Maher. He proceeded to tell us the story of how he got the job, how much he got paid and a bunch of other things about the story. Never got around to how he ended up driving a cab. He was a nice guy with some great stories. On the left is Ben, a crazy bloke from the U.K. who I got to know throughout the class. Great guy, great leader, very intelligent. Likes to be called Frenchie.

We started our first day of class today, as part of Xerox's Emerging Leaders Program. It's a class of 35 high potential people within our company, together for a five day training session on leadership. It's put on by a company called The Center for Creative Leadership and we're at their office in Colorado Springs. The facility is awesome. You can check it out here. Everything is top notch from the facilities, to the food, amentities and instructors. I've never eaten like this at training. In the beginning, the Executive Chef gives the class an oritentation on the types of low fat, balanced protein/carbohydrate meals that they cook. Each day has been things like roast duck, grouper with wasabi sauce, blended vegtables, etc. The class room we're in is surrounded on two walls by glass, and another wall by a two-way mirror for observation. As preparation for this course, we had to fill out a bunch of profiles that they'll be slowing feeding back to us, topped off by some extensive meetings with an Executive Coach. The instructors are excellent and really know their stuff. One of them, Brian, has a very interesting background - starting with playing Major League Baseball, flying F-15'Sin the Air Force and eventually running their leadership and culture program at the Air Force, which was created after the Tail Hook scandal. The other insturctor comes from an academic background, and between the two, they make a great team. Should be an interesting week. Lots of interesting personalities in the class, but it seems like a good group for the most part.

I've stayed in a couple of five star hotels: The Whitney in Washington D.C. and Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel. Both are Motel 6's compared to the Broadmoor. This place is phenomenal. My room is beautiful Marble, the bed has a featherbed on it and my room overlooks the golf course, the pool and the balcony. Words cannot describe the place, I'm in awe.

I flew into Colorado on Saturday night and was met by a friend of mine, Steve Jaszai. I got to know Steve and his family when they went to Crossroads a while back. Steve is a great guy with some great stories to tell. He went to the Air Force Academy, flew B-52 bombers and was a T-37 trainer in the Air Force, prior to moving into the Space Warfare Center. He grew up in Colorado Springs with a cottage right outside Brekenridge. Anyways, Steve and I headed back to his place and had a couple of beers. Colorado Springs is at about 6,500 feet and I couldn't believe how that changes the impact of alcohol on your system. I was ready to hit the sack soon aftewards.

On Sunday we got up early and drove out to Brekenridge via a beautiful scenic drive. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt that morning, ready to ski. As we started getting closer, a storm swept through with high winds, snow and hail. 70 degrees to 10 below wind chill within a few minutes. I bought a coat out there, rented some skis and a helmet and we hit the slopes. For the most part, the skiing sucked. The spring-skiing slush didn't have a chance to thaw out at all, so we were left with high winds, high altitude and michigan-quality skiing (ice base with about 1" of blowing powder). The 12,500 altitude made for an amazing view, but an oxygen mask would have been nice. I great time with Steve - it was amazing watching him ski the bumps. Having grown up out there, there wasn't much he couldn't ski. Not having skiied in 3 years, it took me a few runs to get back in the groove, but once I found it, I remembered how much I love doing it! My heart just came alive as I sped down the hills, carving nice turns on tough runs. Until I wiped out... At least I had a helmet. Reminds me of riding the bus as a kid.

Afterwards, we hiked around Brekenridge a while and then hit the road towards Denver and drove through some amazing scenery, including stoppiong off at Loveland Pass:

We headed to Denver and stopped off at Steve's folks, picked up his kids and headed back to Colorado Springs where he dropped me off at my hotel. I was beat. I fell asleep at 9PM.

What a beautiful Spring day yesterday! Madeline, Riley (my overweight dog) and I went rollerblading down the nearby path. Riley hasn't seen this much exercise in a while.

Emily is in the process of climbing on my back right now, yelling in my ear to help her find more dead lady bugs in our basement. Not sure where they've come from, but they're amusing her to no end. Guess that's what vacation's all about.

I leave tomorrow for Colorado Springs, CO. I'm staying with some friends of ours out there Saturday night and then skiing all day Sunday, until my training starts on Monday.

Wow, are these addictive. Check out Insaniquarium at PopCap Games

This is the cover story of Rolling Stone Magazine entitled The Immortals - The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time. What sets this apart is that the articles are written by their peers, who are also fans. It's got a great photo gallery also.

The kids had a blast at the hotel. The kids were probably most impressed that there was a phone in the bathroom. Nate went in to use the bathroom and came out a few minutes later announcing, "Dad, I tried to call Jess (our roomate) while I was pooping, but I ended up talking to someone else in the hotel." I shared this with Jess and she was honored by the fact that Nate would think of her while pooping.

I love video games, but rarely get a chance to play them. In my spare time this week I've been playing SOCOM Navy Seals, a great military shooter/strategy game. You've got two teams of Navy Seals that you lead on missions. It's got an online mode as well to team up with others.

I'm on vacation this week, starting yesterday morning at 10:00 am when I got home from the airport. I flew out to a customer's site on Monday and took the 6:15 AM flight home on Tuesday. Last night we had a fun family night. We started off with going out to a "fancy resturant" (Leo's Coney Island). With my traveling and eating out all the time combined with having three little kids, any resturant the kids go to with a waitress is a "Fancy Resturant". We then had "Family Olympics", which consisted of a bunch of events (boys vs. girls) like the WalMart relay race where we raced through the store in teams trying to get a list of items as fast as possible. Emily screamed most of the way, so we felt right at home in WalMart. We topped it off with "Family Movie Night"

We're heading out to the Sterling Inn today, which is a hotel/waterpark. Should be fun.

Maddie and Emily had a "sleepover" the other night. When we went to check on them, this is what we found. Emily has just started trying to sleep in her sibling's room. Most of the times they end up with Emily climbing on top of Nate and Madeline once they've already fallen asleep and waking them up.

This morning, emiliy woke Cathie and I up by climbing on top of Cathie, putting her mouth up to Cathie's ear and telling her "Good morning Momma, I love you!" What a way to wake up!

You gotta check this Chicken out. You can order it around - very weird. Thanks Jon.

Last night I had a bunch of guys over for a Texas no-limit hold 'em party: Bob, Brad, my brothers Jon and Dan, my neighbor Terry, Jake and Eli were there. We did it tournamet style and played until we had a single winner. I came in third place the first game and second place the second round. It was a blast and went from 7AM until about 1AM.

Had a great Easter service at Crossroads today. The guy behind me made me jump when he yelled something odd between verses of a song. Wasn't expecting it.


Cathie's Mom and Dad came over for Easter dinner today and we hung out with them for the afternoon. Cathie made a great pork roast and we watched the kids bounce off the walls on their never ending supply of sugar. We combined the kids easter baskets from us and both grandparents and came up with more candy then you could imagine.

This one goes in the too much information category:
Emily's started potty training. Today she went poop on the toilet for the first time and was really excited. She looked in the toilet afterwards and said "Mom, it looks like a dolphin!" Nate and Madeline were falling all over themselves laughing and both ran down to tell me, between giggles.

My camera arrived today, so here are the pictures from the Founders Day black-tie event that Cathie and I went to down to last week in Kansas City. The picture obove is of "Team XP", which represents the joint partnership between Park University and Xerox Global Services, Inc.

On Thursday night I was sitting at the hotel happy hour with some of my co-workers when we saw these giant keyboard type machines with some kind of antennas sticking out of them carried in one after the other. We also noticed that sitting all around us were older ladies, all wearing sweaters. I leaned over and asked the group next to us what was going on and they proceeded to tell me about the knitting machine convention. Needless to say, I was fascinated. They tried to convince me it wasn't a lazy person's hobby, but I wasn't buying. We then played "Guess the knitting ladies" with them based on who was sitting at the other tables. They would pick a table and we would guess whether they knitted or not. Fun times. I found out you can hook up a computer to one of these machines and feed pictures into them. I asked if I could have a giant afghan made with my face in the middle of it, and the answer was YES! What a great Christmas gift idea for next year!

Cathie and I got back this afternoon from Kansas City. Cathie had flown in on Friday afternoon to attend a black tie event with myself and some of our team on a project a Park University. I got a call from Cathie about 9:15 on Friday morning from the airport. Turns out that when I booked her ticket, I booked it in MY name and not hers and they wouldn't let her use the ticket unless we purchased another ticket for $350. I quickly called Southwest Airline's customer service, explained the situation and added that I was trying to fly my wife in for a romantic getaway, and this wasn't earning me any points, if you know what I mean. The guy understood and changed the ticket over for me.
While in Kansas City, Cathie got a tour of Park University and of some of the nearby highlights. We went back to the hotel, napped, got dressed and headed out to the Founder's Day event. While there, we got to see a world renound concert pianst (make sure you emphasize the T when you pronounce that word) and enjoy each other's company. From there we went over for a post-party at Park's IT Director's home, Sara Freeman. Sara hosted a martini party for a number of her employees and international students along with the joint Park and Xerox team. It was a great time, and I'd post my picture there, if I hadn't left my camera at Sara's home. While there, I had the chance to talk to a number of Sara' s employees that are students as well. Park has a huge international contingent, and many of her employees are from all over the world. Sara acts as the mom-away-from home for these students, and creates such a great culture in her department. The common theme I heard from each of her employees as we talked was about how much Sara cared about each of her employees, to the degree that she regularly opens up her home, loans cars and does anything she can to help them out. What a legacy to leave behind. Computers will rust, love remains.

Great interview with my favorite writer/director, Kevin Smith - creator of such classics as Clerks, Mall Rats and Dogma.

Whether or not you're a Kevin Smith fan, you need to see the movie An Evening with Kevin Smith. It's about three hours of footage from Kevin Smith's college campus tour. In these tours, he does Q&A with college students. Not only is he hilarious, but he's a phenomenal story teller. Well worth adding to your Netflix queue.