Weekend Activities

* Relaxed after last week's road trip back to Virginia.
* Sophie caught her first squirrel over in Cardiff. Luckily for the kids, she practices catch-and-release.
* Quick 5K in Mission Trails.

Books

* The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany
by Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits - a fabulous "cheat sheet" to Blank's Four Steps by a local author and lean startup guru
* The Next Decade: Where We've Been . . . and Where We're Going
by George Friedman - a more detailed look at the next decade by the guy who predicted The Next 100 Years
* Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder - great way to model a business

Weekend Activites

* Flying Leathernecks Museum at MCAS Miramar

* Working on the garden

Weekend Getaway

Jyoti and I had a wonderful little getaway at the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort in Huntington Beach. We ate dinner at Cucina Alessa. I highly recommend it as the food, service and ambiance where fabulous.

Weekend Activites

* Chased squirrels in Cardiff and enjoyed snow cones and tacos at Bull Taco

* San Diego Botanical Gardens
* Ate too much at Sunday buffet
* Walked around Huntington Beach with family and friends
* Hike at Mission Trails and Tierrasanta

Latest Books Read

* Men's Health Big Book of Exercises by Adam Campbell - a wonderful catalog of exercises; using it to design new workouts
* The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene - a Machiavellian tome on power; some useful tips on how to deal with others
* The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen - ever wonder why big companies miss out on innovation?
* Iwo Jima - World War II Veterans Remember the Greatest Battle of the Pacific by Larry Smith - a great collection of first hand accounts about Iwo Jima
* New Business Road Test by John W. Mullins - a great way to test out business plans; read the 2nd edition and just bought the new 3rd edition

Virginia Pix

I spent another couple weeks in Northern Virginia for work. I was able to escape for a couple of excursions.
* Stone House at Manassas Battlefield - this trip I did the second battle hike

* Flying with Uncle Steve in his 172

* Lee House at Sully Historic Site - the guided tour is highly recommended

* Cherry Blossoms

St. Louis Pix

* Snow in Kevin's backyard.

* Bengt on the pistol range.

How America Works

Read this great Kickstarter story (and buy some, like I did).

St. Louis Vacation

We just had a wonderful vacation with my family at my brother's in St. Louis. My parents were also to able to be there.
Some of the highlights (pix to come later):
* Cahokia Mounds - it was snowing so we didn't get to hike around, but the mounds are one of America's least known wonders.
* Snow! - a nice 6" snowstorm.
* Good times with family! Including shoveling the driveway and helping my brother with his crown molding.
* Sister-in-law's photography studio - she graciously took some family photos and headshots for us.
* Jaya's 13th birthday (she is a teenager now)
* Trip to the range at the A. Busch Conservation Area Shooting Range - the boys fired some .22 pistol rounds. They also got to fire the 20 gauge but they didn't care for the kick.

Bengt on Youtube

Bengt has started on Youtube with some lego videos and his first stop-motion film.

Weekend Activites

* 5K run in Mission Trails - hot day and straight up hill outbound
* Jaya's performance in "Just So"
* Lunch at Mary's Restaurant in Oceanside with Grandma and Grandpa

Airport Book

Read "A Week at the Airport" by Alain De Botton, a wonderful little book about an airport terminal.

Weekend Activities

* Survived the hail
* Chased squirrels at Cardiff with Sophie
* Jaya's piano performance test

Weekend Activites

* Built trebuchet with Bengt. We had a great time building the kit.
* Walk with Sophie in downtown.

* 5K run.
* Jo was sick :(

Muammar Qaddafi, Fashion Icon

The recent activity in Libya reminded me on this Vanity Fair article.

3 Technical Books

Picked up a trio of technical books to help me with some new projects -

• Pragmatic Guide to JavaScript by Christophe Porteneuve - a good guide/reference to the latest js stuff


• Web Design for Developers by Brian P. Hogan - a great guide for developing web pages, targeted for the non-designer


• Professional Android 2 Application Development by Reto Meier - a good guide/reference for Android apps

Chasing Cezanne

Chasing Cezanne is another Peter Mayle novel. It was a good read until the end which was terrible. The ending was rushed and hardly followed the rest of the book. I love Peter Mayle's books, but this one needs a version 2.0.

Wooden Book

A recently finished a book my wife gave me, "A Game Plan For Life: The Power of Mentoring" by John Wooden and Don Yaeger. I enjoyed the mentoring stories Coach Wooden had, but especially like the second half of the book which had chapters written by people mentored by Wooden. This list included Lewis Alcindor (as Coach called him) and Bill Walton. Highly recommended for those considering mentoring or being mentored.

Union Spelling Dispute

Some local union came by the office and had a labordispute.

Funny thing is, directly out of view, on the building, is a huge NG logo with the correct spelling. Work union, spell worse.