4th of July update

It was full of excitement and fun. We had several of the neighbors over for the traditional barbecue and drinks and then went to set off lots of fireworks. We were a bit hesitant after Kevin had already caught the field on fire and almost got my fence, but with his solid work with the garden hose all worked out.

Caden learned a good lesson about not putting fireworks on top of things as the entire crowd was bombarded with Saturn Missiles. Carsen got the worst of that with a small burn on his leg.

All it all a great time was had by all and the next day was WAY too early for everyone.

Maybe my favorite holiday?

July 4th is definitely the most relaxing. An extra day off, everyone is happy, it is warm (Well ok, hot) and you get to have a few beers with the neighbors and blow some stuff up.

I got a couple of rounds of golf in, good food and some down time. I am getting ready to go into a fast time of the year so this is good timing.

And of course none of this could be done with out freedom.

Saving some money and MP3's so I actually own the music!

I have to be honest, iTunes works really well. However the whole pay $1.29 per song and then it being protected so I could not share it how I wanted was really getting to me.

You say, where can't you use the music? Well, pretty much anywhere other than on an Apple device. I sync my Android phone with iTunes via Double Twist which works great, however only with the non-protected songs. Here comes my solution!

Amazon MP3 store works great. The small application that automatically installs and then automatically adds the songs to iTunes. Best part? The songs are in MP3 and are lower cost than iTunes! Double win!

And as a bonus you get 5 GB of Cloud storage from Amazon. There is a cool app that you can use on the PC and Android that streams from the cloud. Sweet! I am trying out Google's version of the cloud, right now I know you can sync from the cloud to a local device that is nice. We will see...

Good bye old friend...

I had to say good bye to who has been refer ed to by many as "The best dog ever". She did not quite make her 14th birthday which is almost 100 in dog years.

I remember taking a road trip with my friend Chad Tepe to go get a couple of puppies. He wanted a German Short Hair and I wanted a Yellow Lab. We first went to Salina, then further east and eventually I bought Molly only a few miles from where I grew up in Topeka (Same with Zach the Short Hair) That definitely was a late night!

Me and my pal Molly did everything together in my single days. From trips to the lake to trips home. I knew Jenifer when I got Molly but we were not quite engaged yet (I think). But Molly accepted Jenifer and Jenifer eventually accepted Molly. I think that happened the day that Jen taught Molly to speak.

Then I remember bringing home Caden from the hospital. That crying definitely drove Molly crazy. She wouldn't even look at Caden for several days. The second baby (Carsen) was easier transition.

The last new addition was a bit more annoying to Molly, that was Jersey (The Yellow Lab Puppy) Molly bit Jersey the first night. (My fault, do not put the puppy by old dog when she is eating) However the constant activity did Molly good! She even played ball!

Hopefully Molly had enough time to teach Jersey the right way and gave her some good advice on dealing with me and the kids.

We told the boys what was happening a couple of days ago and they took it well. Thank goodness we had Jersey to help us through this difficult time.

Good bye old friend. I will miss you.

Thinking Too Much?

It came to me when coaching T-Ball. Many times the kids thought too much and ended up doing nothing. If they would have thrown the ball to the wrong base it may have been better than doing nothing.

Work may be like T-Ball. Many times we get advice from all directions and then end up making decisions way too late and nothing gets done, or worse you end up losing out on an opportunity that was in the moment.

History as important as the future?

In business how a decision was made may be as important as what you do in the future. Why decisions were made, what things were in place when it was made and who made that decision. Maybe it was a reaction to another bad decision. Maybe it is in place for something that people have not thought about in some time yet is still viable. Maybe it was just part of the culture and it has been carried through simply because it was trained that way. These are the ways that the "TPS Report" become every day practice

Next time that someone tells you to do something a particular way, ask for the history, not just the why.

A big thanks to Jose and Michael from the Larks

Caden had Jose and Michael to his school today (For his "Me" day. They made Caden feel really special.

Then tonight at the game, Jose and the rest of the Larks had Carsen and Caden out on the field between the games. They really felt special!

Thanks Jose, Michael and the Larks!