what's in a year?

My iPhone caught it all. Well some of it. From September 08 to September 09, I just "dumped" my iPhone photos onto Flickr. Take a look back right here.

2 year old + 3 year old = Fun

Tonight's conversation:

Me: Ok, boys what are we going to watch before bed?
Luke: Caillou
Beck: Fairly OddParents
Me: boys pick a number between 1 and 5 (emphasis on the 1 and 5)
Luke: Caillou
Me: nope
Beck: 5
Me: oooo.. good guess, Luke?
Luke: 4
Me: Another good guess! but no, boys a number between 1 and 5, not 4, not 5.
Beck: zero
Me: wrong
Luke: zero
Me: (laughing) still wrong
Beck: 11
Me: No
Luke: 15
Me: boys... let's try this again. A number between 1 and 5 not 4 not 5 let's count (holding up 5 fingers)
Boys: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Me: (wiggling my middle finger) so the number is...?
Beck: 3!
Me: YES!
Luke: (sad) what number is Caillou?

M. David Palmeiro Tournament Winners!

Courtesy of the Tarkio Avalanche, August 27, 2009.



THE BILL SMITH TRUCKING TEAM - Won the M. David Palmeiro Tournament on Saturday, August 22, 2009, at the Tarkio Golf Course. The team finished 20 under par at the end of 18 holes. Left to right are team sponsor, Bill Smith of Tarkio, and team members, Travis Smith, Darrell Smith, Brett Smith and Tyler Smith.

It was yet another fantastic weekend in Tarkio. A big thanks goes out to our sponsor, the foundation board, all volunteers and the golf course management crew. The the course was in great shape. I can't wait to defend the title next year.

Do you remember May 7th?

Rangers fans don't but I bet the Royals' loyal do. Having lost yet another series this past weekend to the Texas Rangers my phone took a text lashing from local friends and co workers.

"Wish we played the hapless Royals more often. AA team at best"

The DFW locals have easily forgotten the 2 of 3 the Royals took from the Rangers in April. What happened? We were good, full of promise. May 7th.... .621 winning percentage, the 4th best record in baseball, batters couldn't touch Greinke, 6 wins in a row. In a row?

Then 80 days of misery, 20 - 48 over than span. Don't do the math it's too ugly. A .294 winning percentage. I remember emailing Royals front office in mid May begging for middle relief, I wouldn't even know where to start now?

Save us please.

looking for a reason to celebrate?

Yesterday, rather quietly, a new player in web searches launched their site. WolframAlpha is certainly interesting. I could spend hours following their "ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable".

Here are a few examples of what I learned in my first 5 minutes on the site. Yesterday Sarah and I celebrated a days of "2"s as it marked 2 years, 2 months and 22 days since we were married. Today, Mom get ready to party down.... you are 20 thousand 800 days old! I bet Dad already had something REAL nice picked out for her.

More useless stuff... Tarkio is at an elevation of 928ft (which is just 7.1 meters shorter than the Eiffel Tower), if I had worked 24/7 at my first job at $3.75 per hour I would have made $32,800 that year.

The information available is endless and unfortunately mostly useless.

Geographical Photos

Flickr has always been my favorite place to post and share photos. Just as with this blog I also struggle with which photos belong on facebook and which ones (if not the same) belong on my old favorite Flickr.

I tend to lead with Flickr and follow with a select few on facebook. I'll leave it up to my friends to tag me with new photos on facebook.

Here's one of several great reasons why I enjoy Flickr. I can map all my photos.... take a look!

My Map (zoom out... then hit GO)

Recent trips to Boston and Cabo have added some much needed diversity.

Where have you gone Joe Dibloggio?

What happened to me? I'm going to state the obvious. I haven't posted to the blog in over a month. I know, lack of posting has happened before but this time it's different. There wasn't a lack of ideas... I've had a few good ones. I even had a "fan" convey their disdain... "at least D Lee still updates his blog".

I've got (uttmmm...) I had no excuses.

This evening I was reading through the hand full of blogs I enjoy and found my answer. Howard Lindzon is one of those smart and funny guys that not only has good ideas.... he conveys them brilliantly on his blog. These are his ideas in my words.

The "new" internet or Internet 2.0 is killing my blog. Facebook, twitter and BrightKite are the leading suspects. They make it so easy to share a thought or idea in less than 140 characters, I usually choose their communication method from my iPhone rather than this one. Sorry Blogger, I still love your t-shirt.

Add to the mix my (fairly) new job and the blog is dying a slow death. I love my job. The old job not so much. With the old one the blog was a great distraction from work, with the new one it's the opposite.

The good news for the blog, it has some company. My golf game crawled into the corner of my garage last August and has replaced it's usual companion sunshine with last thing I every expected my clubs to see; cobwebs.

In my opinion, Howard's closing words are quite poetic... I'll steal and post them below.

Everything and everyone dies. So do passions.

You can’t fight death or lost passion, but at least passion can be revived. I want to blog and golf more, but I won’t force it. Forcing it will only hurt my chances of renewed passion.

seeing things as they should be?

This evening before going out for a quick run Sarah made a short list of household items we needed from Target. The timing of her request was perfect. Tomorrow is our 2nd Anniversary and I had yet to pick up a card for her.

As I randomly searched hundreds of cards for just the right message Luke stood behind me calling out familiar items. First it was "Diego!" then "Mickey Mouse". Then it got a bit interesting, he said "Dad! It's Elmo". I turned to see him holding a card with two wiener dogs on the front. "Good Job, Luke" I told him.

About a minute passes... Luke hollers "Here's Mommy!" then again "Here's Mommy!"

I busted out laughing. I mean a really good belly laugh. So proud of little Luker.

turn the lights out, say goodnight

Sarah's endearing idiosyncrasies are countless. Honestly, it's what makes me enjoy being with her so much.

This evening one of my favorites was taken to entirely new level. Sarah loves to turn the lights on and leave them on. Initially, I'll admit, I found this to be just a tad bit irritating. I'd return home, Sarah would be out running errands and at least 4 lights would be on. Come On! Turn out the lights before you leave. She couldn't have cared less.

As time passed and this continued, I began to find the number of lights left on entertaining. Sometimes on her best days she'd even leave the TV on for me. Maybe this was her way of leaving her "trail of bread crumbs" in the house.

UPDATE: Sarah just interrupted this blog. "Look at this Lighting Storm! It's only happening every few minutes.... Does that mean it's close or far away?" I love being with her. So fun!

Tonight, I returned home to find the front entry light on (she had locked the front door). Inside, I could hear Sarah and Luke upstairs. As I made my way around the downstairs I found 6 lights on (tidying up, I'm sure). Additionally, the TV, both back yard lights and (here's the kicker)..... the oven light were all on.

The bar has certainly been raised. I can't wait to see what she will do next.

times are tough.... time to get better

Here are two great posts from this past week.

The Difference between Panic and Urgency: This one really got me motivated. Brad Feld's final paragraph would be a great pre-game pep talk.

Focusing the Organization: When I ask a friend of mine who's worked 20+ years with IBM what he's doing, his response is always the same. "Running a small business." I love that mindset. Bill Flagg's ideas in this post are easily applied to "my" organization. The requirements he list for goal setting are fantastic.

Remember good ideas are just that, until you take action.

the Tarkio influence

The road to the Super Bowl goes through Tarkio!

At least that is the case for one individual this year. Arizona Cardinal's Defensive Line Coach Ron Aiken worked at Tarkio College from 1982-84.

This great piece of trivia originated in Dallas with Jeff Moore, former Tarkio College head coach, but then (of course) traveled north to my parents who emailed me.

Will someone please create Six Degrees of Tarkio and prove it is the center of the universe?

Hide & Seek

This evening Luke randomly announced "Hide!" and ran into the other room. Wanting to be sure my cell phone or keys didn't go missing for several weeks, I followed him into the next room to investigate.

Attempting not to laugh, I said "Found You"! To which Luke responded, "Help".