While waiting for my luggage...

Just getting back from the ACUHO-I conference and figured I post a few updates:

• You can't help but smile when you're down at Disney World. No matter what's going on in a person's life, everywhere you turn there is a kid and/or adult smiling. One smile that I don't think will drop from my mind for some time is when I first got there. Disney provides a shuttle service from the airport to any of their resorts. I hop on after being greeted by a number of different Disney people and take my seat. After finally being able to sit down and relax I hear a familiar song in the background ("You can fly" from Peter Pan) and close my eyes. Some rustling continues around me, bus driver comes on and says they'll be playing a video welcoming us to the park. I open my eyes back up to find an family with a young boy, maybe 9 or 10, sitting in front of me. I do the polite Jeff Spain nod and get ready for the video. The Disney theme starts up and I catch myself cracking a nostalgic smile. As I do, the kid in front of me, turns to his family, gives them an excited smile, then peers through the crack between the seats and flashes a smile my way. It'll be hard to forget until I have my own kids. Can't wait.
• A shoutout to Scott Victor who is participating in the Disney Internship program. Scott will be donning a cowboy hat everyday and saying "Howdy" as he greets visitors at the Fort Wilderness campground. Scott was the RA for the Business Leaders of Tomorrow group I advised this year. Was able to catch up with him and even got a tour of the campground and other parts of the property.
• If you are involved in any management or leadership development profession, take a look at how Disney does things. Part of the conference was a session about the Disney style of management and leadership and there are some great things that can be "borrowed" to help any manager or leader.
• How many people can say they've been to Disney World and Disneyland in the same week? You can tentatively add me to that list because tomorrow morning it's out to Los Angeles for some much needed family time including my cousin's wedding. An early congrats to Patrick and Andrea Manion!

Off to get my luggage thanks to flying standby on an earlier flight. Hope that it gets here! I'll have more updates next week from that side of the country. Until then, keep smiling:-) It's a small curve that can straighten a thousand things.

It's Time

Two reasons for this post:

1) Every August for the past 10 years has meant one thing, RA training. Each year it's a different experience filled with meeting new people, sharing ideas, and listening to new ways of how I can build my professional self piece by piece. There are a lot of presentations I remember from labeling exercises to the numerous (and rockin' good) tech talks I've given.

Last August was a little different. I think it was the keynote speech for the 2007 training where a woman who works at RIT named Colette Shaw came in and talked about the development of a book she wrote. To write a book takes a lot of work but what got her through it was by telling people about it. She recommended to the students to tell people about their goals but be prepared because you'll be accountable to them.

2) Just finished reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. It's one of those books that I'm going have to read again with a highlighter or set of post-its to capture some of the great sentences and anecdotes that he wrote. Highly recommend putting it on your reading list. With it's focus not necessarily being on that life is short, it's more about living life with a purpose and to it's fullest extent.

Now, from here, this post could take on a stereotypical, "I'm going to tell you everything in my head" type writing. But, as I've mentioned before, I don't want to live my life through a blog. A big part of my life has been connecting with people 1-1. Can't really see who's reading this. Can't ask them what they thought. I don't believe I can truly connect with people without getting to them face to face.

So I'm going to be a little selfish and use this blog for my own good. Putting Colette's words into action (but not giving away all the cards (goals) in my hand(head)) and having realized something else from reading that book (read it yourself (I'll let you borrow my copy!) and you may find some clues as to what I'm talking about) I'm posting two, count em, two goals for the world to call me on:

1. Before the winter is here, I want to be able to run 4 miles without looking like a tomato when I'm finished. Just want to be able to do it with a little bit of ease
2. Lose 20 or more pounds in six months (edited to be more specific)

I've got some plans in place and have been working on them already (lost 15 pounds) but now that these are out there, it's a whole new ball game. I don't want to let you down.

Happy Father's Day 2008

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers I know out there. Thanks especially to my Dad, Grandpa, and Pa for their support over the years!

Two updates

- Yep, it was a hot one:

- After the t-shirt gun expereience, a few people sent me this link to Bud Light's tribute. Enjoy:-)

http://www.allowe.com/Humor/audio/BudLite/Mr%20T-Shirt%20Launcher%20Inventor.mp3

Chris vs. the LA Dodgers Fans

Head over to this link and fast forward/watch till around 43 seconds:

mms://a1503.v108692.c10869.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1503/10869/v0001/mlb.download.akamai.com/10869/2008/open/mlbam/2008/06/05/mlbtv_chnlan_556477_400K.wmv

(You may need to copy and paste this link into your browser)

What you'll see is a guy run down some stairs after a Mark DeRosa home run. Well, it's not just any guy, it's my brother Chris!

Appartantly he gets the home run ball but then the whole stadium starts chanting "Throw it back". What does he do, he threw the darn ball back. Don't know if I would have had the guts to keep it either.