Week at Home! - Yea...

So what did I do with a week home...

Last Friday after catching up on work from being gone - I went home early and cooked up a great batch of Fried Rice for the Family.

Saturday we had Dad over to watch BYU beat the Cowboys of Wyoming - Dad had thought to drive over with me early Saturday morning. It wouldn't have been nearly as cold as the last time we did that... this time it ended at 35-10 Cougars.Sunday had dinner at Janet's for the birthdays of Logan/Mary and Janet/Rich's anniversary.

M-W was just catching up on more work in the office.

Karrissa and Joe drove up and arrived home by 5:00pm or so with McKinley - she really likes the 'dog' 'dog' 'dog'... and Karrissa had asked for Mongolian Beef - so I did all the prep and cooked that for the entire family. The chinese food turned out great - then we watch a 'scary' movie recommended by the boys - well, it was scary for Karrissa...Thursday was all spent in th preparation of the Thanksgiving day feast. I did the Turkey (12-hour honey-brine soak followed by an apple/onion/sage aromatics) - next year I'll start this a bit earlier. We were about 90 minutes later than planned because the Turkey took longer than expected to cook, and I made a mistake and didn't trust the oven's temperature probe. Note to self... next year leave 5 hours for cook time. Well the family had fun playing Sing Star Pop on the PS2 while we waited.Also did the stuffing with sausage, walnuts, etc. (Grandma's recipe) and the mashed potatoes and gravy. In all, a great meal. Yes - others helped with the vegtables, deserts, rolls, etc. It was nice to have a bunch of folks, family and friends, over to share this meal and some games with us. After dinner and while we were waiting for the movie, we played a new game Apples to Apples.That night we went to the movie "Dan in real life" - well, all but Jill who volunteered to stay home with McKinely. Though it was a movie Jill would have really enjoyed, I'm sure she also had fun playing with McKinely. Then back to the house for some more games. - Balderdash.

Friday was a half-work, half-lazy day - but had the family over for 'leftovers' and the kids begged for Chocolate shakes and we watch a very funny movie - I'd never even wanted to see it in the theaters, but it was pretty good.Then today I got to watch the BYU Cougars beat their in-state rivals University of Utah football game. 17-10 Cougars! Brent and the Lacrosse team will be down cleaning the stadium as a fund raiser for many hours.Then after the game ended and the family all returned from their various activities, we all went down to Macaroni Grill for a 'final dinner' before Karrissa and Joe head home tomorrow.
Next week I'm off to Dallas to teach a new Advanced Wireless Design class for AirMagnet - but only for three days.

I just reviewed this blog - it's like all we do as a family is eat, play games, and watch movies... oh, there is all that visiting and playing with McKinley in there as well. You know what... we like it this way - so there.

Custom Class for Kaiser Permanente in Orange Co.

The end of last week I was planning on being in Seattle all this week teaching an AirMagnet course - then late on Thursday I found out AirMagnet had sold me to teach a special private class for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California instead.So this week I taught a *very* abbreviated version of a 4-day course into a 2-day format for 10 students... then again for another 10 more.I was able to have an evening free to have Dinner with Barry and Donna Woodbridge at a local teppanyaki kind of place. The food was great - but the chef was very 'boring' - didn't interact with the customers at all. Kind of weird - but the food was great.
Afterwards we went over to Donna's daughter's house - I had a chance to copy some files to Barry's hard drive, and 'show off' my new Nikon camera. Donna's son-in-law has a pretty cool business manufacturing and selling an internal amp/speaker for Acoustic Guitars. (www.icoustic.com)
Now I'm home for 10 days over the Thanksgiving holiday! - Yea!

Books from the last two weeks

I know it's probably overkill... but I think it is good to capture all the books I read here in the blog. It's the first time I've ever been very consistent in a 'journal' - so this is more for the 'archives'

The US Economy

Here is a great graphic I ran across that explains a bit of *why* the US is such a global leader economically. This is a new way to look at the United 'States' - each state name is replaced by the COUNTRY it's economy is the same as. Quite a mind opener...

You'll probably have to 'zoom in' by double-clicking on the graphic above to see the detail.

CWSP Training in San Francisco

This week I taught a four day class for Security University at their space in the San Francisco State University downtown facility right on Market Street & 4th. A very nice facility - a fun little boutique hotel nearby. The class was a Certified Wireless Security Professional class - and though there was supposed to be 9 students - some moved to a different date/venue so we had only four in class. Nice and cozy.
I was able to do some walking around at night - and had lots of great food choices in the neighborhood. Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Thai again for my dinners. On Wednesday night I was heading over to a large Cineplex nearby to watch the 'Martian Child' movie (very good by the way - quite a tear jerker for me at least) and noticed there was an 'exhibition' going on.
It was the DaVinci exhibition I'd wanted to go see for years now. Jill, Mom and Dad all got to see it in Zurich years ago on a trip there (I had to work) and then I missed it again in Auckland where I didn't have transportation from my hotel to the site across town. So I was grateful for the chance to see this great review of DaVinci's work. They produced life-size models of most of the inventions from his Codices and notes. As well as detailed analysis of his life, paintings, sculpture, etc. Well worth the time and money to see.
My flight home on Thursday was delayed for many many hours - but I had time in the SFO airport and on the plane to finish another great book. This was 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' - a great commentary on the current state of our food supplies, how foods get to market. Focusing on the 'Corn' economy we are currently in, and why Corn and Corn by-products take up MOST of our food supply. Then also a discussion of a 'natural' farm in the Shenandoah valley that does it RIGHT. A great farm called Polyface. Then a final section on the hunter/gatherer form of getting food in Northern California. I can heartily recommend this as a great read!

More Shots of Brent's LAX Tournament

I was able to 'trade' some shots of another Dad's son for one's he took of Brent - pretty good shooting there! There was an entire sequence of Brent's 'check' on this guy - but this one kind of tells the story...

Every now and then a nice 'blind side' works pretty good. This is the entire reason my son-in-law Joe likes to go to the games.

Brent gets one off to 'clear' the ball.

Picking up a 'ground ball' to transition from Defense to Offense.

An update to his online Roster Page.

Lacrosse Tournament in Las Vegas

I had a couple of days at home (M-Th) working in the office - mainly catching up on things, cleaning the office and getting ready for more WLSAT student kits.

Then on Thursday afternoon we drove down to Las Vegas (Keith, Jill, Brent and his friend Tasha) - visited with Karrissa and Joe till late Thursday night. On Friday we went to see this thing called the "Fremont Street Experience" and were very Underwhelmed! - Then on to New York/New York so Brent and Tasha could ride the Roller Coaster. We ate lunch at the "American Cafe" and McKinely was fun to enjoy her antics at the table over lunch. We dropped Brent and Tasha off at the practice fields (we showed up right as the bus from BYU arrived). Later dinner was at PF Changs in Summerlin. We were going to go and visit with my cousin Colleen McCann but didn't get any answers on here various phones.
Saturday was spent all day in the sun watching BYU play in the "Best of the West" Lacrosse Tournament. They ended up winning the entire thing! Brent got to play on both the 'B' and 'A' teams.
There were lots of teams involved - BYU, CSU, ASU, Cal Poly, UC Davis, UVSC, UNLV, Westminters, NAU, Stanford, Utah, Arizona. BYU had a total of five games (I have always kept score on my hand since watching Brent's Lacrosse - so the BYU Squads did a great job today!)
I was able to use my camera to get some pretty good shots of Brent, McKinley, the family, etc. So here goes...And some shots of the Family

Then after everyone cleaned up - we went to Cheesecake factory (well Joe had more studying to do) and a good time was had by all! A great weekend in Las Vegas with Family!