MrAndrewBradley

Well Sam's Club has out Halloween items, Costco has out Santa and reindeer , but my sights are on November right now, not for my birthday or for Thanksgiving , but the election .  No this is not a political blog, no I will not tell you which way to vote, but as some of you may know I sit on a volunteer committee for Citizen Voice .  One of my projects is to find a representative from each side of the nine propositions on the California ballot and set up debates between the supporters and the opposition.  Each debate is 10 to 15 minutes long and is then placed on the Citizen Voice website for every Californian to watch.  Why do I do it?  Why does Citizen Voice take the time to film debates for each proposition?  Simply because it is important to have informed voters and with a voter guide numbering nearly 130 pages, we all recognize that very few people will actually read it from cover to cover, but perhaps they will watch videos from their computer o...

Well, we may have cheated a little bit, using two chainsaws , but I thought Woody Woodpecker needed a little shout out.  After half of the tree came crashing down onto the Bradley Lodge in December and we had the other half cut down professionally in July , it was time to cut it up into rounds so that we could use a log splitter in a month or so. The whole project, cutting 30 rounds only took about 2 hours and with a little luck and some skill, no one was gravely injured and no limbs were lost.  Thanks to Eric for all of your help and for trying out your new toy at the Bradley Lodge! After our fun morning, we decided to take a trip down to Arnold, where my dad got additional information about renting a log splitter (see above for the reason), we went to a Calaveras Humane Society fundraiser and art show and of course stopped at my mom's favorite store ... The Outhouse , despite the name it is a great store and for the first time I played with what is supposedly one of t...

Although I was no where near Fort Bradley while a 434 acre grass fire was burning a mile away, I was still part of the action and helped get video to both Fox40 and News10 .  My former roommate called me around 4:00 pm asking if I was home, I said "no" and then found out there was a fire burning in empty fields near my house, although not too scared (knowing that it would have to burn through lots of houses and jump a 4-lane road before coming close to mine), I was interested in learning more.  A few minutes later he sent me a text message with a video, I watched it and again thought all would be fine.  About an hour later, Fox40 tweeted asking for videos, I responded that I would send one, News10 quickly asked for the video as well.  Within minutes I e-mailed the video in and my former roommate and I immediately became sources of information as the video was posted on both websites. The lesson from this ... don't just sit on the sidelines when watching breaki...

After attending the Sacramento Tweetup at Chipolte Downtown and seeing a friend from the Sacramento Bee , I noticed that she had purchased the same deal ($10 gift certificate for $4) at The Squeeze Inn , a Sacramento institution.  I've known about The Squeeze Inn for most of my life, seen it featured on Dinners, Drive-Ins and Dives , followed news developments after an ADA lawsuit was filed against them and they decided to move from their original location and so on.  All of that said, today was my first experience at the world famous establishment.  The " Squeeze with Cheese " was amazing!  A well cooked hamburger with grated cheese piled high, making a "cheese skirt" around the burger, placed on a bun and served to hungry diners.  The fries were not as good as I was hoping for, but overall I enjoyed the experience, the burger and especially the cheese.

I was never one to babysit neighbors' children, not because I did not want to or turned people down, but because I was already among the youngest on the block, so the opportunity never presented itself. Last night I had the opportunity to hang out with my nephew and for the first time it was without his grandma, grandpa or parents in attendance.  It was only for a few hours, but we had a great time.  We went on a walk around the neighborhood , he especially enjoyed walking through the water in the gutters from a neighbor washing his car and picking up a stick and hitting piles of yard waste.  After our walk we played with his trains, cars and a new set of foam blocks that his grandparents got for him at Costco (well in all honesty, I built large towers of blocks and he crashed anything and everything into them). After a dinner of Mickey Mouse themed mac & cheese , chicken and applesauce he decided it was time to watch most of A Bugs Life and about 10 minutes of Ju...

This week was full of good news.  On Monday I had an interview with a public relations company in downtown Sacramento (I do not know if I will make it to round two yet), on Tuesday I had an interview with the public relations/advertising agency that I have been doing freelance work for (see previous posts about Specialized Parts Planet ), later that same day they offered me a part time position working in their office for about 25 hours a week.  Although I am still looking for a full time position, this could lead to that and/or help me continue to build a more robust portfolio of work experience that I can take with me to other opportunities as they present themselves. Most importantly it gives me a huge burst of confidence that all of my hard work, persistence, networking (which will continue), education (through "webinars" and events) is paying off in ways that I may have never imagined. Beyond interviewing, I also went to the Bradley Lodge , where my mom, grandma and...

It was a week of paradoxes and lots of fun. First I attended the " Facebook for the Floundering " event on Wednesday ( see previous post ). On Friday night (or Saturday morning, depending on how you look at it), I watched the 1988 movie Beetlejuice presented by Mystic Cinema , a group that is showing classic movies at Roseville's historic Tower Theater .  Then on Saturday night I attended " Poor Boys Midnight Mass " at the Placer County Fairgrounds .  It was definitely a crowd that I am not used to hanging out with, but it was really cool to see tons of old cars from 1965 or before.  Some of the cars included the first dragster to go over 200 mph in Sacramento ( the "Vagabond" ), a few that reminded me of characters from Cars , the "FLUMNGO" (complete with pink plastic flamingos ), a Studebaker , lots with painted flames and a few even got their kids into the action with low-rider wagons. So in four days I went from 2010 to 1988 to 1965 (and...