Merry Christmas From the Bradley Residences

It's been a busy week, but it was packed with lots of fun and of course family.  The family (minus me) started off together on the eve of Christmas Eve at my grandma's house for some home made noodles (they're amazing, I had some of the leftovers), then we all met at Bayside to experience one of their 15 Christmas Eve candlelight services.  Not only was the lighting and music (led by Lincoln Brewster) spectacular as always, but the message and stories shared were uplifting and truly explained the "reason for the season" in a way that perhaps only Ray Johnston can do. We then headed to Fort Bradley (aka my house) for some Crab Cioppino, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner and then drove to Camp Bradley (aka my parents house) for dessert and Catch Phrase.
Christmas Day was spent at my parents house, where my two nephews got lots of great gifts, including Luke and Levi's favorites, a snow train and remote control boat.  After a prime rib dinner (another family tradition) we had some friends over for our reenactment of a picture taken about 22 years ago (the day we moved into the house). Although two of the original members were unable to make it, we have since added four kids and a few wives to the mix.

After a fun evening, that also included seeing True Grit, we spent the next day looking at houses in Rocklin and Roseville, in the off chance my brother and his family decide to move in the next few years and enjoyed a fabulous lunch at The Counter in The Fountains.  Luke enjoyed his grilled cheese and fries, as Levi slept and we enjoyed gourmet hamburgers, artisan fries and some great hang out time with my cousin Kara.  After lunch it was time to reward Luke with some time to play on the playground and then head back out for more house hunting in the El Dorado Hills area.

All in all we had a great time and I'm looking forward to Christmas 2011, wherever that ends up being (hoping for a cruise ship, but one of the Bradley residences would be great too).

Making a Difference This Holiday Season

What happens when one company and a group of individuals are willing to make a difference? Families are helped. People are served. The hungry are fed. Children smile.

My company, Augustine Ideas, decided to make a difference for our community this year. Instead of sending each of our clients and vendors an expensive holiday gift, we sent them a treasure chest with a simple letter that a child had written to Santa.  Simply put, we gave our clients gifts to children who otherwise wouldn't have been able to experience Christmas. This year we adopted 10 families with nearly 40 children and wrapped hundreds of gifts for all of them.

Putting gifts under the tree is just one way we were able to help.  Augustine Ideas also took an afternoon and evening to cook two meals each for 25 families.  Luckily for us, one of our staff members also runs a catering business, so we were able to make some great, tasty meals (lasagna, caesar salad w/ homemade croutons, rice pilaf, chicken kiev, french bread, rolls and some fabulous looking cookies) for families in need while having a great time with each other.

Roseville Galleria Struggles Under the Weight of a Flashmob

Tonight was supposed to be a memorable night for 500 to 1,000 people at the Roseville Galleria.  The idea, break out into song in the Food Court in an effort to spread some holiday cheer and perhaps break a flashmob world record.  The result however was an estimated crowd of 5,000 and as Westfield put it "The enthusiasm for the Hallelujah event tonight was far greater than anticipated by organizers," as the floor began to creak under the weight of the crowd the Roseville Fire Department was called in and the mall began to evacuate for the second time in two months (check out video of the crowd booing the announcement).

Social media takeaways:
- @scannerboy02 and @sacnews were the first "media outlets" (they supply video to most local TV stations) to report the news, a full 10+ minutes before any other representative from other major Sacramento news outlets (note this is only based on the reporters, assignment editors, producers and outlets I follow, which is a lot, but it may not be all of them). 
- Social media can be a lot like the childhood game of "Telephone" - granted I only saw one tweet that said it, but it was there for others to see.  It said that the Roseville Galleria floor had collapsed.  That was of course not true, but shows that news can quickly become rumor and not everything on Twitter should be trusted immediately.
- News organizations need help from the community to report the news.  Although it would be great if every news station had a photographer everywhere, every second of the day, the fact is they don't and they can't.  In many cases they need people with a smart phone to take pictures and send them in.  Within 30 minutes every Sacramento news outlet was asking for pictures and video, within an hour all had posted those pictures online and shared them with the community.
- A great event can become quite popular when friends share with other friends on Twitter, Facebook and other websites.

All in all, great reporting by the public and local news outlets. A note to future flashmob organizers, plan events for the ground floor.  Below is a video of what the event was supposed to look like.

*image from News10.net

1 Hour

When I worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, about $65 (now it's up to $74) would fund one minute hour of medical research. In doing more research for this post I found that in one minute the international space station travels 289 miles and 21,000 pizzas are put in the oven to bake.  If all that can be done in a minute, than surely my parents and I could accomplish a lot in one hour right?  Well we most certainly did.  We headed up to the Bradley Lodge with a trailer full of firewood (all that wood that we cut down and split over the last few years won't be ready to burn until next year), unloaded the wood, put a ton of stuff into our storage areas that had been at my brother's house, set my new laptop on on the wireless network and of course made sure everything was ready for when renters come up at Christmas and New Years.

After our quick trip, which didn't even involve turning on the water (we have to turn it off during the winter, otherwise the pipes would freeze and potentially explode, creating a very bad situation), we went to lunch at Dorrington's famous "Lube Room." The converted auto repair shop turned local bar and restaurant had memorabilia on every corner of every wall and the ceiling and enough dust to cover most of it, but the hamburgers were tasty and fries were crispy. My parent's said it was something they could now check off their bucket list, when asked how high on the list that was, they said it was near the end.

New Blogging Device

After about six years it was time for a new laptop.  I had quadrupled the amount of RAM and the hard drive, purchased a new power cord and the monitor had issues (as in didn't always want to work), so it was time to go shopping.  First I purchased a laptop from Fry's, but kept it sealed so I could return it.  Next I went to Sam's Club, where for a little bit less, I got a better laptop that includes a blu-ray player, webcam and finger print scanner among many other cool features.

So from here on out (at least for the next few years), this will be the laptop that I use on a near daily basis and of course, blog from.  I took the desktop image last year during a snowshoe hike through Big Trees State Park.