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Well I know it’s almost a week since Thanksgiving, but I just got to the video we shot up at our house in Big Bear, California.  We went up Thanksgiving evening and stayed through Sunday evening. 

Friday was cool and nice out, went for a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and did some visiting with friends in town.  Then got my bike out for an early mountain bike ride early Saturday morning.  Much to our surprise we woke to around an inch of snow and it was starting to pick up.  It snowed all day off and on and again on Sunday for a total of around 8″.

This video shows Dylan sporting his new Innes clothing that Matt/Adam so graciously hooked him up with.

So I didn’t get to go mtn. biking, but we had a great time in the snow and can’t wait to get back up to the house for Christmas!

Too long since I’ve posted on my blog that is! Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 4 or 5 months. I used to be so good at weekly updates. Where has the time gone? It’s almost Halloween for goodness sake!

I know where the time went – into my busy life. I help coach my youngest son’s travel baseball team which practices 3 times per week, and my older son’s team too – which practices once a week and has a game once a week. Throw in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and poof the days just fly by. And that’s without the all consuming work…and my own adventure race training and exercise regime.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. And let’s be honest – by exercise regime, I mean mountain biking mostly, which I absolutely love to do, so it’s not that rough.

Working at the pub 40-50 hours a week, and doing freelance web design work another 10-20 hours a week. But all that has brought me a step closer to ‘the dream’. The dream for me, if you’re not familiar with ‘it’ – is living in Big Bear, California.

This past June we bought our home in Big Bear after working on that goal for almost 5 years. Now we’re breaking ground on building our garage next to the house, and furnishing it. The home is just outside of Big Bear, in an area called Baldwin Lake. It’s less than 1/2 mile to the Pacific Crest Trail and less than that to National Forest where I can hike, climb and mountain bike to my hearts content. Not to mention Kayaking and playing on the lake with Jet Skiis. “All in good time” my wife constantly reminds me when I become impatient. A wise woman for sure.

Here’s a picture of the view from my front porch:

What else – my daughter is a Junior in High School – doing great. My oldest son Cole is in his first semester at Mira Costa College taking Web Design, Photoshop, Sound Engineering and The History of Rock ‘n Roll. He loves it and is doing super. He was accepting to the Art Institute in San Diego next year for their Production program (sound, web, video – all things electronic and cool).

Nic is doing super, working and working out. She’s the glue of course, keeping it all going, on track and on time. Love her so much!

If you’re looking for more me (can’t imagine), I’m on facebook at:  Facebook  and there’s lots of pictures of what we’ve been up to!

It’s just kind of hit me all at once…that things are changing quickly in my life.

Not that long ago I went from being self-employed to being an employee. My oldest son just turned 18 and my daughter 16 – sheer craziness. My 12-year old son just earned his First Class rank in Boy Scouts – a great accomplishment. And my ‘little’ guy just isn’t litte anymore at almost 9!

Whereas a year ago we were hoping to move to Big Bear, today we’re lucky to have a home in the tumultuous times. I was at a job interview this morning and I realized how lucky I was for what I have. A fantastic family life, wonderful wife and kids, employment – even if it’s not the dream, it keeps food on the table and a roof over our heads.

So… as the holiday season is upon us and within weeks a new year begins – I have so much to be thankful for, and so much I want to still accomplish. It’ll take hard work, but I’ve never been afraid to work hard. Have a blessed holiday and start your year right!

Wow, Halloween is gone, Thanksgiving is just over a week away, and before you know it, Christmas will be here followed closely by New Year’s. Squeeze in work, family and…heck, there’s no more squeezing.

I’ve been putting off my workouts and gained some weight. Nothing too major, but it adds up…15lbs over the last 6 months. I lost 100 lbs 2 years ago. It took me a year to do it, and kept it off for a year…and now I’ve gained a bit back.

I don’t like it. ‘Tis the season to over eat and gain weight. I’ve got to get a handle on it before it I end up with a few of those handles again!

For the past several years we’ve had our boys doing chores around the house for a small allowance. The goal besides distributing the household workload was to teach the boys some

responsibility towards doing work as wall as managing their money. Honestly, it’s worked wonders!

One of the bi-weekly chores is to sort the plastic bottles from the aluminum cans. Once a few bags has accumulated we take a trip to our local recycling drop-off to turn them in for cash. What better way to show the boys the value of recycling, right?

So today – Monday, I tell the boys to get the cans and bottles in the car so we can go turn them in. We head down to the Albertson’s by our house where Re-Planet has a recycling drop-off location.

As we pull up, I can see the two big bins have the doors closed and as we pull closer I see a sign stating that they’re closed because the bins are full. A bit frustrating after putting the sticky, leaking soda can filled bags in the back of my car, but we head South to the City of Carlsbad’s recycling facility off of Faraday. I can’t believe my eyes when we arrive to see a sign saying they’re closed on Monday’s.

I head North again as I had to make a stop at the Post Office anyway. I recall a recycling spot off of Tamarack next to the Sav-On Drugstore, right by the I-5 freeway. As we pull up, my youngest starts to giggle as he sees before me that it’s closed as well. No sign explaining why, no business hours posted, no signage at all…just locked up tight. We continue to mail our packages and head over to the mall off Jefferson. I have to stop by Sports Authority. As I get closer I recall they had two self-serve recycling machines out in front of Stater Bros. grocery store. And as you can imagine by now…no luck. They’d replaced the machines with a water dispensing machine.

I was ready to quit at this point. Just thrown the dang things in the garbage can somewhere, and my older son reminded me of one last shot – the Re-Planet recycling facility next to Ralph’s off of Oceanside Blvd, just East of the I-5 freeway. It was just over the hill, so why not. Heck, I’d already spent $10 on gas at $4.59/gallon trying to drop them off somewhere, what was another mile or two?

As we pulled into the lot, my son was elated, “they’re open, they’re open” he chipped. But as we got closer it turns out they’re replaced the nice Hispanic man that ran this recycling center with two large bins and two self-serve machines. Oh well, a sign of the times I thought as we got out to feed the cans into the beast.

After an hour of driving, and literally five locations we were ready to get our $5.00 to give to the boys for their work.

***WARNING*** was what the little window said. As both machines were inoperable and jammed with something other than cans and bottles apparently. My boys looked at me not quite understanding when I told them to load the sticky bags back into the back of the car.

I was quiet for a bit on the drive home, reflecting on our adventure. My son, with his infinite wisdom said “it’s tough to help take care of the environment isn’t it Dad?” Yes it is, yes it is.

Ok, just summer. Wow, it seems like it was only a month ago the boys were heading back to school and bam! – they’re out for 3 months!

Dylan’s got Boy Scout camp in a few weeks. Jacob is playing All-Star baseball and still has his Tournament ball team too. He also has Cub Scout camp in a month.

No big trips like last summer (Tony Gwynn’s induction into the Hall of Fame in New York), but of course we’ll spend much of our time up in Big Bear. I plan on getting the boys to do a lot of trail running and mtn. biking with me, as well as kayaking. My guys don’t really watch TV anyway, unless it’s a baseball game, or really anything on ESPN. But the’ve never really spent much time watching cartoons or anything else and they don’t own any game systems. Closest thing they have is a computer and the only games they have are of course…baseball and football games – go figure.

So, it will be a fairly low-key summer and I bet before you know it, they’ll be returning to school and it will seem like a week since they got out.

My son Dylan started paddling competitively just a month ago. He paddles down in San Diego on a coed team and really enjoys it. This weekend they had their first race since he joined the team. This particular race was not coed and they raced in the all boys division.

It was quite a surprise to my son when he found out the race was 1 1/2 hours long, and just the boys – no adults like practice. There workouts were typically an hour long and were supervised by an adult.

But as it turns out, they did just fine. They got 3rd place overall and as one of the photos shows, they’re sporting there medals (turtles). He was proud and tired at the same time. What a great workout and good time. I’m so glad he enjoys the water as much as I always have. Some great pictures below taken by a family friend that actually got him involved in the outriger paddling.

If you’ve read my Blog even a little bit, you’ve surely heard about my son Jacob. He’s quite a little athlete and I’m a proud papa, so I talk about him.

Well a few weeks ago we got a note home from school. I know what you’re thinking – same as me when my son told me he had a note from his teacher. But it turned out to be a note from the PE Specialist. The note said that this teacher had “rarely seen this level of athleticism at this age” and since he coached a local competitive soccer club he wanted Jacob to come try playing soccer for him.

Truth be told, Jacob had asked to play soccer, but it had conflicted with his rec baseball, travel baseball or football schedules, and we’d just never made the leap. One other factor was the expense of it. Competitive soccer in our area runs from $1000 to $1400 per year, money we just don’t have.

I called the coach and explained our situation and he encouraged us to let Jacob give it a try at least and we’d go from there.

He went to 2 practices before he was invited to play in a weekend Beach Soccer Tournament – one of the largest soccer tournaments in the US. Strangely he was not committed to baseball that weekend and we went to play in the sand. He did fantastic.

Afterwards the coach told us that Jacob was right where the others were after a year of coaching and he’d just started a few days before. I thanked him for the opportunity but told him our time constraints and financial concerns.

He said if Jacob wanted to play, and we’d allow it – he would “make it work” and would cover the cost of the soccer. We couldn’t believe it. Was he “that” good? Maybe so, and as nice as it was to hear, and even flattering – it’s just too much. The poor kid wouldn’t have a spare moment to himself.

We sadly had to decline the invite and told the coach maybe after baseball. He insisted we keep the uniforms he gave us and bring Jacob out when we could and he’d see to it that his skills would improve.

I’m still thinking as a retirement plan – Baseball is where my future is, but Soccer’s not a bad backup. )

There’s no doubt I’m extremely competitive. I’m not sure when it started or what made that intense desire to win a priority. But it’s definitely there. I hate to lose at anything…I mean it’s bad. I hate losing in games with my kids…seriously. How bad is that?

I guess it should come as no surprise to me that my son Jacob inherited or learned this behaviour from me. And while I think competition is a great thing…the overwhelming ‘need’ to win can have its pitfalls.

If you’ve read my Blog in the past – you’ll remember that he’s an incredible, natural athlete – specifically a baseball player. Since he was very young he could throw and catch. He has that natural smoothness to his play. Coaches are constantly telling me – ‘he moves well’ referring to his plays at second and shortstop.

For the past season Jacob’s been playing on a Tournament baseball team – also known as “Travel Ball”. It’s a team we put together of the best 10 boys of the local league of 150 kids. I coach the team with another coach whom I’ve worked with for the past few seasons. They’re a good team, and they’ve faired well in tournaments around Southern California.

This past weekend we had a tournment locally and the first day boys lost the first game and won the second game on Saturday. We returned to play Sunday in a do or die situation and the boys rallied in the last inning from being down by 3 to winning by 3 and everyone was pumped.

We advanced to the final Championship game against a VERY competitive team – a team that routinely wins every tourney they enter. It was tough going and our boys were getting beat pretty bad.

Then it happened…Jacob missed a groundball hit to him. Not the end of the world…certainly not for most players. But he’d made probably 20 incredible plays in the 4 game series and he is not used to missing the ball. He let it get to him. I told him from the bench to let it go.

“Don’t let 1 mistake become 2″ I coached. Let it go…but he was visibly upset. Another ball came to him – this time he scooped it up like a pro and… threw the ball wide to the second basemen allowing the runners to advance extra bases. He was coming apart at the seams now.

We got the last out of the inning and had our at bat. Jacob came to bat, still with tears in his eyes. I’d tried to reassure him and calm him but it hadn’t worked and now he was supposed to focus on hitting. He was rattled and backed out of the box repeatedly and watched – without swinging at 3 strikes. Something he hasn’t done before. He walked dejectedly to the dugout. It didn’t help he was the 3rd out and we were headed back out to the field.

He was standing on the field sobbing and we had to pull him from the game. He was in danger at that point…obviously unable to focus, protect himself or make a play.

I wondered how it had come to this…he felt so pressured that he couldn’t let 1 mistake go. No amount of reassurance seemed to help. Of course everyone and their brother reminded him of all his ‘highlight reel’ plays – diving snags to the left and right, turning double plays that no one at his age makes. But he sobbed on. It broke my heart.

I have to take responsibility for it. I don’t know how I did it, but I made it so important to win that my 8 year old doesn’t know how to lose. I’ve always tried to be supportive with the good and the bad. I’m not typically a yeller – certainly not at my ball players. I just didn’t see it coming.

Anyway, not a great game. He’s fine now and really was better within an hour after the game. Kids bounce back that way. We went to batting practice today and he wanted to stop on the way home and play catch – and we did. Just me and Jacob, playing catch at the park. This was my son, the happy, go-lucky kid. Hopefully we can bring this to the games and still win a few games.

Well you may not, but I know someone who does…my son. My oldest son Cole – recently turned 17 is just about as close as you can get without actually being a rock star. Check him out with my daughter Teddi.

He’s got the hairdo, tight pants, boots…leather jacket, the works. He actually does play the Bass Guitar and plays in a band that changes names weekly it seems with some buddies of his. I’d love it if he took some lessons.

Cole is not necessarily the athlete my other children are, but he is most certainly the artist that the others aren’t. He loves to draw, paint, work on the computer and has a unique talent for it. He’s always had his own style and never really tried to fit a mold. Now it seems his style is that of the 80’s big hair bands, and that still makes him unique now in 2008.

Cole’s Mom has a friend that does video production and he and Cole are good friends. Quite some time ago he invited Cole to help out on a video shoot of the Beach Boys, or was it their sons…I’m not sure now actually, but it was very cool for Cole. He like it, they liked him, and he’s done some additional ‘gigs’ for them.

Recently he went on a video shoot for an up-and-coming young Pop Star named Whitney Steele . He was just going to do some production work, help set-up and tear down the stage I believe. He was walking around working and Whitney saw him and assumed he was in the band based on his ‘look’. He explained he wasn’t and they chatted a bit. Well as fate would have it, the ‘band’ that was supposed to show up was missing a few guys, and Whitney immediately insisted that Cole stand in at the Base position for the video.

So, if this isn’t as close as you can get to being a Rock Star…without actually being one, then I don’t know what is. Pretty cool for Cole. Cool for all of us. Now if we can get him into some lessons for Bass, or into a technical school where he can further his post-production skills…Check out the video below. Cole is to Whitney’s left (right side of the video) in the top-hat (his previous look).