A Shout out to my buddy Ollie

I found this on my desktop after Ollie was up for Thanksgiving. I also posted a video I took today while driving Bob's FJ40. I guess with the holidays coming he's been on my mind

Catching up

I'm not much for typing right now but I thought I would at least post some pictures from Thanksgiving and our 30th Birthday weekend in Napa.

Off to Calistoga for the weekend

Jodi and I are off to Calistoga tomorrow for the weekend. We are celebrating our birthdays before the holidays begin. We are staying at the Chanric Inn. We are going to soak our old ass bones in some hot, natural, mineral, therapeutic, healing, anti-aging, make you rich water. Just kidding, but I do feel officially grown up. 30 is a weird age. for some reason I feel old now. When your in your 20's it's still in the same decade as when you graduated college.

Been busy, not much to talk about

I've been busy lately. I guess I don't have much to report on. I was in San Diego for less than 24 hours last week, saw Feist in concert, attended Mona's photo display at Mezzanine replaced the carpet in our office, and saw my parents in Los Gatos.

This weekend we are going to see Ben Harper with our friends Mona and Raven. I should have more to report on.

Party Like a Rockstar, Party Like a Rockstar...

Jodi and I partied like rockstars in Palm Springs this weekend. We were down there for Julie and Mike Williams wedding. Palm Springs is great this time of year, about 85 degrees and only an hour and a half flight. We had some serious pool time on Saturday before the wedding. I'll be honest, wearing a suit in 90 degree weather was about the toughest thing I have done all year. But using my Jedi minds tricks I was able to dig deep and convince myself that it was not that hot. It's a good thing I don't make a habit of carrying microwave popcorn in my pants, because that would have hurt.

Everything about the wedding was top notch, from the appetizers to the band. Jodi and I partied modestly at the wedding. We were so thrilled with ourselves that we decided to sneak off to a restaurant to have a night cap before bed. We had just finished our drinks and stepped onto the sidewalk, when we spotted her. Leading the pack of 25 thirsty wedding goers was the bride, Julie. Before you know it we were whisked up int he post wedding bar tornado.

I'm pretty sure what ensued after this point put a nail in our foreheads the next day. Thank goodness we were smart enough to book a 5 pm flight out the next day.

Kids are Avoiding my House

I've noticed a lot of people decorating their houses with a lot of cute Halloween props this year, like giant blow up pumpkins and other stupid stuff. I think that is sending kids the wrong message. Halloween is not about cute fluffy bunnies, it's about truck loads of candy and scary $&^%. So in honor of what Halloween should be I turned my lawn into a cemetery, complete with body parts, spider webs and a pitchfork. So far I've seen a couple kids peek around the hedges with their eyes the size of golf balls.

Last weekend I put new door seals on the FJ. There is not a rattle in the whole vehicle. I also gave her a little wax and parked her indoors for winter.

This weekend Jodi and I are flying down to Palm Springs for a wedding. It should be a wild time.

My Cat...the Iraqi Warloard

Our cat Mandy has officially shed her house cat persona. Within the past few weeks she has brought us 8 mice, a black bird, and a black squirrel. She mostly brings us these things while they are alive, except for the blackbird head and feathers we found in the house this week.

[cell phone ring]
Me: "Hello?"
Jodi: "Where are you"
Me: "Coming home from the store, why?"
Jodi: "THERE'S A LIVE SQUIRREL IN THE %#@$% HOUSE!"
Me: much laughter....."ok, ok, I'll be right there." Mandy likes to bring like them in the house and play with them. And how she got the squirrel through the cat door I have no idea. It's like she is an Iraqi warlord torturing her victims. I think it's time to get that cat a bell.

This weekend Jodi and I are in Chico for our friends Chris and Becca's wedding. Becca is Jodi's best friend.

Vic, Jodi's father went to school in Chico and has not been to campus since the day he graduated. He was the valedictorian for his class and has said there is a placard with his name on it on campus. Well yesterday he found it and took a picture with the new dean of the department. Thumbs up Vic!

Blues Festival

Yesterday Vic, Peg, Jodi and I went to the San Francisco Blues festival. We met up with our friend Abby and her mom, Sydney. There were no shortage of characters in attendance. It made me think about how crazy this city was back in the 60's. My 2 favorite performances of the day were Eric Bibb and Robert Randolph. Eric Bibb played a single acoustic session which was unreal. He has a great voice and plays a mean guitar. I bought his latest live album off iTunes and it has captivated me all day as I flew out to Indianapolis. Below are two video's from the day and some pictures. My favorite is the video of Jodi rock'n out to Robert Randolph and his slide guitar. I love the flags waving in the background.

Out this week

Sorry Folks, since Friday I have been at salesforce.com events all day. I had all of a few hours at home last night before I was up at 6 to kick off our huge user conference

I just got back from out kickoff party where INXS played. I really enjoyed them, new singer and all. They have so many hit songs, I linked a few in case you forgot. I think I owned this tape as a kid.

• Suicide Blond
  
• Mystify
  
• I need you tonight - If you can make it 3:15 minutes through there is a classic scene you will remember from MTV of the old.
  
• New Sensation
• What you Need
• Never Tear Us Apart
• Pretty Vegas

I think Bob would have dug it. Life will be back to normal after Wednesday

Long Weekend in Tahoe

We hada great weekend in Tahoe with Mike, Kari, and Robbie. Below are some pictures from the weekend. The only bummer is that I got a speeding ticket on the way home. The famous Roseville speed trap got me.

The Robbie Allegri Show

We had Mike and Kari over this weekend and of course Robbie. Robbie gave us quite the photo shoot while we drank too much wine. He has quite the range of expressions and I swear he knows exactly what he's doing. We all had some good laughs while he charmed us.

Catching up, after a long weekend

We spent an extended weekend in the Humboldt Redwoods last weekend with Jodi's parents. Sunday night we stayed in Healdsburg and went wine tasting the next day. Below are some of the pictures.

The FJ got Tunes Today

Today I installed an Amplifier and speakers in the FJ40. I wanted to leave the stock AM radio in the dash for looks so I got creative. It turns out that the stock speaker for the stock stereo was in the glove box, behind the black box in picture 1. Considering this is a lousy place for a speaker, it made a great place for a small amplifier. I swapped the speaker for the amp, and connected a jack for my Ipod. I then installed two speakers in the back facing forward. The result is a stereo that connects to my Ipod, with no disruption to the look of the dash. In fact if you looked in the glove box you wont even see the amp because of the black speaker cover!

Tahoe....a reality check

Jodi and I were in Tahoe last week on vacation with her parents. We did a lot of hiking, biking, partying, domino playing, and relaxing. Tahoe is a great reality check for the working man/woman. I think the highlight of the week for me was a 3 hour mountain bike ride towards Lost Lake on the west shore. Nothing humbles you more than being 7 miles from civilization, in the middle of the forest, with nothing but the wind blowing through the trees. I have embedded a slide show of all the photos below.

FJ40s, Bodega Bay, and Cows

It was a great weekend. Jodi and I headed up to Bodega Bay on Saturday to celebrate our Friend Leslie's Birthday. It just so happened that there was a Land Cruiser Swap Meet in Peteluma, on our way out to Bodega. Most of the Cruisers were supped up for off-roading ,with 6 inch lifts on them and custom setups. It was cool to see what guys were doing with them, but I think I'm headed for more of the stock route. I spent some more time detailing my FJ and she's staring to sparkle. Bodega bay was cool. I've never been there and it reminded me of Half Moon Bay...fog city. I was the DD, and Jodi had a good time partying with a lot of old high school buddies. We spent the night at Jodi's parents house and had an awesome sunset on the way home. This morning we woke up to cows on the lawn at Colliwood. It turns out the calves broke a fence and helped themselves to Vics lawn....priceless. We headed home early this morning. I washed the cars, cleaned the engine compartment an the FJ and took her up to Skyline via back roads. I took a picture of her at the top facing the coastal mountains towards Half Moon Bay.

FJ40 Update

So I am slowly detailing the inside of the Toyota FJ40. In the mean time I ordered a stereo+speakers to replace the AM tuner that is no longer working. I have also ordered new 3 pt. seatbelts for the front seats, and lap belt for the back seats. I also joined a Toyota FJ community called: http://ih8mud.com/ to learn more about the car, and learn best practices. I posted my first message introducing myself, and vaguely explaining how I came to own an FJ40. I got a ton of response back. The cool thing is that people are super impressed with the condition it's in, and I feel like they are all compliments to Bob. Below are some of the comments people have posted.

• "Very nice rig, and Welcome..."
• "I'm truly sorry to hear about your Uncle, but I'm glad you're getting to be the caretaker of the 40. Time to add another lifetime of good memories! Best of luck, and enjoy."
  
• "That's a GREAT looking 40. Not many like that left."
• "Welcome to Mud and nice rig you got yourself there."

Weekend Update

We had a productive weekend at home. Here is what we accomplished:
Friday Evening:

• Detailing of the FJ40s Interior (The start at least)
• Got all lights and Turn signals working in the FJ
  
• Rode Bikes to Italian dinner

Saturday:

• 4 mile Run
• Finished stone path in front of the house
• Met up with Mike and Kari for burritos and beers

Sunday:

• Mowed and fertilized the lawns
• Jodi got a manicure
• Made 7 Liters of apricot brandy with Mike (his apricot tree is exploding right now)
• Went swimming with Mike and Robbie

For Pictures of the weekend, click on the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/toddjanzen/WeekOfJuly7th

Bob's Memorial

This week we were in Reedley for Bob's Memorial. Bob's Birthday was on the 4th of July so it made for a great tribute. The memorial was held at Dana's daughters home (Brad and Julie), which is out in the country just outside of Kingsburg. What an amazing house and location. It made for a perfect memorial, which I guess Bob had arranged with Brad before departure. The crowd was a mix of friends and family. They played a lot of Beatles music and the food was spot on. Without going into too much detail, the day was just perfect. Bob would have been pleased.
After the memorial many of my parents friends (Martin, Gonzales, Wilikie (sp?)) went to Grandma/Grandpa Hank and Star's home for a swim and fireworks. I got to play pyromaniac and we enjoyed some "safe and sane" fireworks. The next morning we had a big friends and family breakfast, and my dad and I picked up Bob's 1976 Toyota FJ40 LandCruiser from Bob's friend Skip. Skip was generous enough to go through the FJ and replace the belts, hoses, oil, etc. She (the FJ) is beautiful. 78,000 miles and loaded full of memories. Skip thought she would be more than capable of making the trip back to San Mateo, so I decided to drive her back.

Good News:

• The FJ did great and it's safe at home
• I lost 5 lbs driving her

The Bad News:

• It was was 109 coming over Pacheco Pass

All in all it was an amazing experience. I will post more stories later. Here is a link to Bob's Memorial Slide show: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6931041269957552653&hl=en

Rent 'a' Kid(s)

So when your not sure if you should have kids you should babysit for a night. It just so happened that this weekend we had 2 kids to watch. Taylor(7 Mo.), who is Scott & Stacy Reed's daughter, and Robbie(4 Mo.), who is Mike and Kari's Son. Below are some pictures of the weekend. The net net is that we did pretty well, and I say bring it! And no I did not give Robbie a Coors Light to put him to sleep...I gave his dad one.




...Sunday Evening and the cats are catching up on some much missed sleep.

Guess who this is?

My mom sent me some pictures of Bob yesterday and she included a few extras. If you know who this is please comment below. Plus this is a good way to see who even reads this thing. Also, if you are interested in the pictures I have collected for Bob's Memorial click here (191 in total): http://picasaweb.google.com/toddjanzen/PicturesForBobsMemorial

Where do you come from?

A while back (3/29/07) I wrote the entry below but never published it. I've been working 18 hour days all week with little craving for sleep. It's easy to do this, but hard to think of the man who did this his whole life. I felt it was time to publish.

"It's Thursday night, about 9:45 and I'm thinking about Bob. I think it's important every once and a while to sit back and figure out how you came to be. I'm not talking about conception, I'm talking about the personality and soul of who you are. Tonight I would like to talk about a very inspirational side of who I am. For those that know me, or have known me well, you know about my uncle Bob. Bob is todays topic, and Bob is a huge part of me.

Thinking back to my first memory of Bob I guess I just think of Oranges and the the ranch. I know there was Bob before this but this is what I remember. I remember oranges the size of a softballs at Christmas. I remember medium length curly hair, slim build, and a yellow Toyota FJ. I remember a ranch house packed full of every kids dream. I recall a cement pool in the back yard, 2X what a normal pool is wide and deep..."it's called an irrigation pool kid." I think about drum sets, motorcycles, 3 wheelers, racks and stacks of CD's (remember when those first came out?). I think about a TV bigger than anything you had ever seen, 50" plus back when big screens did not exist. I remember a hardwood stove that heated the whole house and a sawed off shotgun above the door.

I Think about dogs of every shape, fur, and size. I Remember Sony, Sam, and Tyson. I Think about climbing ivy in a room with a paisley wrap around couch where you could listen to any song you ever wanted. You could listen, and listen to it loud. I think about my first exposure to Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Animals, 13th Floor Elevator just to name a few. I remember first being introduced to Saturday Night Live, and the best of Eddie Murphy. Bob had an amazing sense of humor and would laugh out loud at many things we watched. I didn't understand a lot of the humor at the time, but I certainly do now. If you come to my house some day you will notice the only DVD's I collect are Concerts and Comedy. You might also notice that my computer hold over 27 days of music which equates to over 9,200 songs....gee, where did that come from? Not to take any credit away from my father who is also the king of big speakers and loud music.

Want to drive a tractor? Want to ride a 3 wheeler? How about using a chain saw or shooting a 22? That is what I got to do on the Ranch. I remember asking my parents to stay at Bob's house like I was begging to stay the night at a best friends. It's funny but when I'm at Jodi's parents house, her grandpa is always nervous when I take his 4 wheeler out. In the back of my head I'm always thinking, "I've been riding these things since I was 8, when they had 3 wheels, and really killed people!"

Think back to when you were between the ages of 5 and 14. Before you read on try and think of a memory from this time in your life.

This was my Chocolate factory, I am Charlie, and Bob was my Willie Wonka."

In Memory of Robert D. Janzen 7/4/1946 - 6/2/2007

One Cute Family

This is Robbie, or Robert, named after Mike's uncle Bob. I think he looks like Mike's dad. I know one thing for sure, Mike couldn't wait to take a picture of him on a motorcycle. Check that box off at 3 Months old.

Got A Promotion

I got a long awaited promotion this week. I finally got a Sr. in front of my title. I am now officially a Sr. Sales Engineer. What does this mean? This means there are two more letters and a period in front of my previous title....plus a pay increase.

Besides that it's been another heads down week. Jodi and I have recently created a travel map online to track all the places we have been this year. You can get to this by clicking on the travel map link on the right or here: Travel Map. Jodi if off to Europe again this Sunday for two weeks.

More Milage

This week I felt like I was on tour or something. I logged 5,836 air miles this week between San Diego, Tampa Florida, and Denver Colorado. I must be some valued customer with United because I managed to land the middle seat towards the back of the plane on every flight that I had. I definitely have this travel thing down. Here are my tips for survival:

• Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. If you have to go to the airport strait from a meeting, put your shorts and sandals at the top of your suit case. Pull a super man in the bathroom, and get out of business ware. You'll enjoy your flight more and you get through security faster without having to untie the shoes, take off the belt, the jacket, etc.
• Check your bags if you can. I know we all want our bags with us but it is so much less hassle just to check them and forget about them.
• "Hey jackass you are not special." If you hear some salty old fart in the security line say some thing like, "I'm not taking off my shoes....grumble, grumble, these don't have metal in them..." your response needs to be the following. "Excuse me Sir, If you are not planning on taking your shoes off, can I go ahead of you because I have a flight to catch.
• Buy yourself some noise canceling headphones. You don't have to buy the expensive Bose ones. My mom bought Jodi and I a set from Sharper Image for Christmas and they are awesome. You will actually be able to hear the movie or the music, with half the volume. Jet noise can also be very fatiguing, so they are very worth it.
• Bring your own Entertainment. Magazines, Books, Ipods, computer, games....just do it. a 4-5 hour flight can be a long time in the air. It's good to have a variety of things to do. Also, if you have an Ipod, download Podcasts. These are basically like downloading a free radio show. I am currently listening to Between the lines (a tech podcast), The economist, and Business week.

That's all for now. Off to Jodi's parents house for the weekend.

Updates

Not much is new in my boring life besides a head cold that needs to go away. No doubt I caught it on my flight back from Miami last week. I figured I would update people on what others are doing.

Dave: My buddy. Still kicking a$$ and taking names. Dave's primary job is an investigator for the SCPD. In his spare time he is proud member of the swat team, featured below (Second from the left). Dave is also a suburbanite extraordinaire currently going through a remodel and hitting his water main 3 times in the past few months. Does this look like the kind of guy who uses gentle digging techniques while turning up his front yard? I DON'T THINK SO!

Mai-Anh Ngyen: Friend and former roommate from San Francisco. Mai-Anh just contacted me today to let me know that she just had a baby, My Lan. Mai-Anh is currently living in Beaumaris on the Isle of Anglesey, in North Wales, just a few miles away from where her husband Maher teaches. Maher is currently the head of the School of Chemistry at the Univeristy of Wales, in Bangor. I think it's safe to say at this point that this power couples new daughter will be an international force to be reckoned with. This will be the girl who shows up to your child's spelling bee, and before it even starts you give your kid the "it's alright to come in second place" speech. Anyway, I am super excited for them and I hear that they may be coming back to SF soon. Jodi and I look very forward to having a glass of wine over some long over due conversation with them. You can check out her blog here: http://lifeinbeaumaris.blogspot.com/

Jodi: The Wifey Wife: Jodi left yesterday on an airplane to Germany. It turns out she left me for a lederhosen wearing yodeler from Berlin. Here is the wallet size photo she sent me of her new life. Just kidding. Jodi is in Europe for two weeks managing a clinical trial for her company. She'll be in and out or the OR (operating room) with doctors from Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Now I know this all sounds glamorous but imagine this. A patient laying on a table in the OR about to receive a life extending surgery. Now imagine that patient fully awake, with a doctor, who is looking at you trying to figure out how to use the device in his hand. In a nut shell that sums up what she will be doing. Easy on the Spaten baby!

Pictures from Hawaii

I posted some pictures on Flickr from our Hawaii trip

Click here to take a look

Back to Work

Jodi and I just got back this morning on a red eye from Hawaii, courtesy of my company. We had an amazing 5 star time. Tomorrow I'm back on a plane to Seattle till Friday. I'll post pictures when I get back.

Babies, Babies, Babies

Babies are the new black. Last year was wedding season, this year it's baby season. From Top to bottom, left to right we have Robert Allegri (Parents Mike and Kari Allegri), Taylor Reed (Parents Stacy and Scott Reed), Julia Bilal (Parents Rick and Beth Bilal), JT and Charlie Sullivan (Parents Matt and Nicki Sullivan - Nicki is Kari's sister), and Hannah Buller (Parents Randy and Laura Buller- Randy is my cousin). I'm sure I screwed up a name of two in there, and I'm sure someone will call me out on it.

The best thing about having all these babies pop up around you is you get to watch different parenting techniques in action. for example, Robbie Allegri is being prepped for a life of action and excitement. When go over to Mike and Kari's house I try and be quiet. Kari stops me right away and says, "be as loud as you want, we want him to be used to that and to be able to sleep through it." I say "brilliant." In the case of Julia (who was over here last night) she likes music. I think I could handle a kid that likes to listen to music 24/7. I will tell you though I had a little gut check this morning when I was vacuuming up cheerios under the table. At first I was like, "how cute," and then reality hit (intra monologue) "Todd you idiot, it's only cute cause your not doing this every day."

Now to address the FAQ's
Q: when are you having a baby
A: not in discussion at this point

Brass, Babies, Beer, and Blizzards

It has been a while since I have had the time to sit down and write. It's 7:30 on Saturday and my schedule is all messed up from being in South Carolina this week. Before I talk about that that let's start from the top.

Brass: Last week was my companies fiscal end. In sales this is a big deal because this is when the books close for the year and we report to wall street what we did. Needless to say it's a busy time. On a personal note I had a very good year. I hate to toot my own horn but lately I feel like nobody notices so here goes. As a sales engineer there are not a whole lot of black and white metrics that we are measured by. For sales people it's easy, either you brought in money or you didn't. The 2 metrics they somewhat track us against is number of deals closed and revenue brought to the company. Does this make a great sales engineer? Who is to say, but it's a goal none the less and I was striving to be close to the top. I'm happy to say I hit my goal and I was the number 1 SE in North American for revenue in our small and mid size accounts. I did get some nice recognition if front of the company this week and it felt good. Sales Engineers don't get a lot of recognition period so it was nice. I will say that it's someone else's turn this year. I worked my a$$ off to get there, traveled a lot, late nights, red eye flights, etc. We have some newly hired young guns that are just liking their chops to take the top, time to share the wealth. On a side note Forbes ranked our company the third fastest growing tech company behind Google. This will be an interesting year.

Babies: My best friend Mike Allegri and his wife Kari had their baby last Friday. To everyones surprise it was a baby boy. They named him Robert Allegri, but for now they are calling him Robbie. I had the privilege of spending some time with them in the hospital last Friday night and holding him. He was not even 12 hours old. It was an amazing experience, one which I will remember forever. I can tell Mike is excited and can't wait for him to do things other than eat, sleep, and poop.

Beer: So naturally with all these great things happening there has been some beer drinking. I can't wait for the weekends so there is nothing to celebrate. In the last week there was 1) Year end, 2) year beginning 3) Baby born 4) successful meeting in South Carolina. I'm a little partied out.

Blizzards: Jodi and I have been racking up the air miles lately. This year alone we have seen Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Kalamazoo Michigan, and Charleston South Carolina. I was in Seattle two weeks ago when some light snow shut the whole town down. I had to stay a couple of extra days but Seattle is a blast so it was not a problem. I was in Charleston South Carolina this week, and got back last night at 7:30. Charleston is very cool. Right on the water and very historic. The first shots of the civil war were fired at fort Sumter, which is in Charleston. We had a great meeting and celebrated downtown. First we had a few beers at the Roof Top Bar. Amazing views of the bay and the city. After dinner we had a few beers at this place called Mad River. It's an old church and it turned out to be one heck of a college bar. Click here to see a cool virtual tour.

New Pictures Posted

I finally posted some new pictures on Flickr from New Years up in Arnold. Click here to see.

Here is a few highlights?