Mr. Moms Vs. 3 kids for an afternoon

Yesterday Mike and I had babysitting detail for a few hours. The goal was really simple, feed them, wear them down, put em to sleep...and have a few Coors lights in the process. The pictures and videos below tell the story best.

I met Juan Tonight

So it's late Thursday night and I'm taking out the recycling. A guy darts behind me on the sidewalk. I can hear his cans clanking in a potato sack as he rushes by. I tell him to wait up as I know I have a few cans. It turns out he's taking wine bottle, cans everything.... no biggie:-)

He's so thankful, so apologetic, so humble. He helps me take out my paper recycling. I tell him to hold up again. I just remembered, Jodi just placed a few pairs of old khakis on the goodwill box. I ask, "Tiene usted una familia.? He lights up and says YES, a wife and daughters. He was probably in his late 30's, had athletic clothes, shoes, and seemed well groomed. His English was not bad and he looked fit.

I run to get the khakis and give them to him. Again, he is so thankful, so apologetic, so humble. After I return he tells me he's having a hard time finding work because he's injured. He points to his knee, and shows trouble lifting it. I tell him my name is Todd, he says his name is Juan.

Juan tries to help me with my paper recycling and feels awkward for leaving without helping me more. I go to shake his hand and he scrambles to take his gloves off. At this point he's just grateful.

I'm not sure why this inspired me to write about it. I don't even have a point to my story, other than maybe hoping the khakis work out for his wife. Maybe in the spirit of tax season I'll say I hope part of what I put into the system goes to Juan, I really do.

What a cool way to end the week. Becca and Chris are coming over tomorrow and I'm really excited. I picked up some Prather Ranch dry aged fillets today from the ferry building and some shrimp. Tomorrow is surf and turf day, I said so.

Back from Hawaii Part II

2 Weeks ago Jodi and I were back in Hawaii for my Peak Performers trip for work (sales incentive trip). This time the 3 night tab was on the company...all expenses paid. They put us up in the Grand Wailea Resort in Maui, which was awesome. What's better than 400 young sales people from around the world, pool bars, and adult water slides? Lot's of things but go with me on this one. Anyway, before we got to experience this awesomeness we had to fly into Kona and then take a 737 over to Maui. We landed in Kona no problem, but our flight to Maui was a disaster. After two failed landing attempts and instability at low speeds our pilot came on the loud speaker. She said, "well folks, as you can tell we have the plane very stable right now, and we are very much in control. We are having a problem with one of our flaps and as a result the plane is unstable at low speeds. We'll let you know what our options are as soon as we know."

Now I'll be the first to admit, I was having some anxiety after hearing this, and I'll tell you why. I noticed the the wing would dip to one side when we slowed to land. I also know that you need to slow down when you land. So by that logic, I was pretty sure we would dip a wing into the ground when we went to eventually land. The pilots attempt to convince us that the plane was stable at speed was not doing much for me. Jodi was solid as a rock but as I looked around the plane people were not looking so good. First I look at some of the locals and they are looking concerned. Then I look over at my buddies 5 mo. pregnant wife and she is visibly praying. By this time I'm having some pretty bad thoughts. Let I remind you I fly a lot, and 3 weeks prior had no problem landing in Chicago with 1 ft of snow on the ground and heavy cross winds. That was another day at the office.

No, no, no, this was different. 15 minutes pass with high speed, low altitude (3-5K ft.) island fly overs. I'm thinking "Todd calm the F#$% down....read a magazine or something." But then the other voice in my head barked right back "You idiot, do you really want to be reading Sky Mall in your final minutes." Finally the pilot comes on, "I have decided to head back to Kona to take advantage of the LONG runway. We will attempt a high speed landing. Just so you know we will be greeted by firetrucks but this is standard procedure." Somehow I liked being greeted by snowplows in the Midwest a lot more. Long story short the pilot nailed the landing, fire trucks and all, and yes we were hauling @ss, and yes we used the whole runway. After a flight to Honolulu, and then eventually to Maui (yes 4 flights in total) I was ready for 10 Mai-Tais. That was until Aloha air lost our luggage. It took another hour to basically tell Aloha to send the bags to our hotel when they showed up.

Jodi and I finally checked in to the hotel and headed strait to the dinner event. 13 hours later we had arrived and the Mai-Tais could not come fast enough. The rest of the trip was awesome and we partied like rock stars.

All I have to say is church was awesome this weekend :-)

Oliver Martin and the Volvo 240DL Wagon

I'll write about our second trip to Hawaii this weekend, but until then here is a great story written by my childhood buddy Ollie and the Family car that just retired. Enjoy

It’s been a long road for the yellow Volvo 240DL Wagon – 338,457 (original engine) miles and 25 years to be exact. She safely transported us through oppressive desert heat in the Utah salt flats and frigid snow and sleet in the Idaho Rocky Mountains. From the Santa Cruz beaches to the Albuquerque war zone; she covered every state west of the Rockies as well as Canada and Mexico. Not to mention teaching my sister, myself, and countless others how to drive. And all without any complaints! If anything was wrong, give it a week to let her figure herself out. If the engine was smoking, reattach the aluminum exhaust vent. If the engine wouldn’t start, re-plug the wire to the distributor cap. And if you wanted to get to “5th gear”, short the SOB over-drive wires together.Here is a quick snapshot of days in the life of the Volvo Ultimo: Andre and myself with Joe Mei lost deep in Mexico. You might wonder why the right fog light is torn off or the license plate is bent back. Simple explanation: we were climbing some mountains behind Borland and there wasn’t enough clearance between the front bumper and the ground. Buried in Tahoe at Schmidty’s Aunt’s place near Homewood. Victors, Schmidty, and I managed to snap the chains but we ended up doing better without them anyway. The road to Punta San Jose in baja mex with NATE, ROB, granny, and sean. This is the intersection that Andre and I wish we would have found instead of taking some locals’ advice and driving the Volvo down a canyon, forging through a creek, driving straight through a crop field, and finding the “main” road after breaking down a fence. Checking the surf at 4mile with Eli (also the sight of cannon launcher testing – we hit that barn in the top left). Annual physical challenge: hike from the north rim of the Grand Canyon down to the river and back (30miles) in 24hrs. The results weren’t pretty. This was the day after hitting 300,000 miles and doing a couple victory donuts near the Four Corners. AMDAL upside down and chopped off after the D thanks to Eli and the De Laveaga crew.
And a couple Action Shots:








You may be asking yourself: ¿What was the fate of the Volvo Ultimo? Was it when the oil filter tore open after 2 engine mounts broke – possibly related to jumping her off the rail road tracks? Was it after nearly rolling her when sliding sideways at 40mph and hitting some concealed potholes? Was it after getting her stuck teetering in an 8’ ditched and having to pull her out with the Truck above Vine Hill elementary school? Was it from under-steer and crashing her into a fence on the way to Physics class? Or was it from filming Super Brodie or Abductions? No. No, No, No, and NO. The death of the Volvo due to god damn government regulations. The MAN killed the Volvo!!

R. I. P.

Dave's 30th Birthday Party

My Buddy Dave had his 30th birthday party this past weekend. All I have to say is that these pictures could have been taken 12 years ago for all you know. You might want to look at the group shots up close. I just about woke up the neighbors laughing.