The Crazy Life

In the last few months I'm not sure if I have spent more than four days in a row at my house .... and I'm not complaining at all. I've spent a lot of time in Napa, been to the Bradley Lodge a few times and over the last few days I was in Newport Beach.

The Meritage Resort and Spa has been keeping me busy as I work on a variety of marketing projects, including a lot of print projects as we implement a new version of the logo. With events for 4th of July, Latin Nights with the trumpet player from Santana's band and many other events and activities it's been a lot of fun so far ... including going to see the chef (I needed a fork) ... he wouldn't let me leave without a spoon and pint of ice cream. I also got my official work laptop ... bringing me up to a total of three laptops that I use on a regular basis and two that I will be traveling with.

When not traveling out of the region I was able to have friends over for a BBQ'd chicken dinner, go to church at Bayside and dinner at Jack's, plus head to the State Fair twice for Sacramento Republic FC soccer games. I hadn't been to the fair in years and it was fun to walk through all the exhibits, including the one all about candy, see a few of the animals, walk through the garden, featuring Ironstone Vineyards vines, the 9/11 Memorial, and even taste some great wines for free from SaveMart. The two soccer games were also a lot of fun, especially after a friend invited us down to his field level seats, although they didn't win the two games I went to (both against International upper division teams), we played hard and had nothing to be ashamed of. With all the traveling I also decided one night that I wanted to stay home and watched the game from home with commentary through their live YouTube channel.

This week I headed down to a sister property of The Meritage Resort and Spa, The Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach. It was so much fun to see the property for the first time, eat at their newly remodeled restaurant/gastropub "A & O", go out into Balboa Bay on a Duffy boat, and hang out with my team from The Meritage, while also getting to meet lots of people that I have only known through email for the last few months and years.

After a quick flight back to Sacramento I was off to The Meritage for a reporter visit and tour (I had been trying to get the reporter to come to Napa and The Meritage for four years, he confirmed Thursday night that he could come for a tour and dinner). It was so much fun to chat and talk about the entire property, and with the pictures that were posted of dinner, I know the team at Siena treated them well.
Pictures for those with iPads.