“There were those ... [ more ]]]> This morning I got into a discussion with my Mom about Star Wars. As we talked, it became clear to me she was a bit hazy on a few of the plot details. Here are a few of the great nuggets from my Mom’s retelling of Star Wars”

“There were those sand creatures that rode around in those white walker things, what were they? They were the Ewoks, right?”

“Han Solo and Chew-bacco went into this bar, but one of them couldn’t get served. And they were smuggling guns or something, there were guns there, and then they went off in their spaceship to kill Jabba the Hutt because he had captured Princess Leia in her little outfit.”

“Yoda, he was that advisor guy that just kept popping up.”

“Obi-wan Kenobi, Obi-wan Kenobi, now that’s that commander in whatever army that was.”

“No, Han Solo and Chew-bacco flew their spaceship to the bar. Well, how did they get to the bar, then?”

My hope is on the next visit I can get the Flip cam out and get Mom to walk us through the full plot summary.

Here’s the dilemma: We are going to go visit my dad in Tallahassee, but how?

If we fly, we’d get there faster, but the price is steeper this year than usual this year. Moreover, it’s the first flight with a ... [ more ]]]>

Oh Tallahassee, why do you have to be so far away?

Here’s the dilemma: We are going to go visit my dad in Tallahassee, but how?

If we fly, we’d get there faster, but the price is steeper this year than usual this year. Moreover, it’s the first flight with a very accessory-dependent baby, so we’ll need to either cram all her stuff into our bags, pay for extra bags or go without. Don’t see any of those options working too well. My dad has generously offered to procure whatever we need, but that’s putting a lot on him to find people willing to lend things like strollers, pack-n-plays, and car seats.

Those problems go away if we just drive to Tallahassee. The baby is pretty good on car rides, we’ve done 10 hours with her before to Lake George. It will cost less and we can bring all the stuff we feel like, even the puppy.  The issue, the really big issue is that it’s 14 hours each way for a 4 day visit. That’s a lot of driving.

So, what do you think? What would you do? And knowing our family, what do you think we should do?

UPDATE: We decided to drive. We’ll be taking a few extra days and stopping in to visit relatives in Atlanta along the way. We’ll be bringing the puppy as well.

This blog is typically all about Selena and I, but I wanted to take a minute to express how excited I am for my brother Jeff, who over the holidays finally popped the question to his long-time girlfriend, Katie.

Now making it about me ... [ more ]]]>

My brother Jeff and his fiance' Katie

This blog is typically all about Selena and I, but I wanted to take a minute to express how excited I am for my brother Jeff, who over the holidays finally popped the question to his long-time girlfriend, Katie.

Now making it about me again.

I don’t know that Jeff and Katie know how often I get asked “When are they going to get married?”, and for the longest time I’ve been able to point out an event or goal in the future that they are focusing on first, such as:

• They want to wait until Katie graduates from school / finds a job / finds a different job
• They didn’t want to pull focus from Selena and my engagement / wedding / announcing of the baby
• They want to get settled into their new careers/ new house
• They want to wait until after Ben comes back form NZ / Katie comes back from LA / hell freezes over.

And then right when I was starting to run out of milestones to prioritize on their behalf first, Jeff goes ahead and asks Katie to marry him.

We couldn’t be happier for their engagement and to have Katie officially become a member of the family.

My brother Jeff went skiing this year on our annual pilgrimage to the Poconos. It may not sound blog-worthy, but this is the first time he’s strapped on a pair of skis since 1992 when on a high school class ski trip ... [ more ]]]>

Skiers on the ski trip (Jeff at center)

My brother Jeff went skiing this year on our annual pilgrimage to the Poconos. It may not sound blog-worthy, but this is the first time he’s strapped on a pair of skis since 1992 when on a high school class ski trip he was ridiculed by the jackass instructor. Jeff finished the lessons, returned the skis and (despite coordinating a ski trip to Shawnee annually for 10 years now), never returned to the slopes… until this year.

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve ... [ more ]]]> On Friday, January 29th I was standing beside a big projection screen in front of the entire company of The Motley Fool. I took a deep breath and began:

“Hi everyone, I’m Greg, and if you don’t know me it may be because you started working here in January and I’ve been out most of the month on my Fool’s Errand.”

“I think the Fool’s Errand is a fantastic initiative. I had the most remarkable and rewarding time. But wait, this is The Motley Fool, we don’t evaluate success based just on word of mouth. No, we look at the numbers. So I submit to you, Fool’s Errand – The Report.”

“All right, let’s dive right in.”

“I spent the first half of the trip moving into my new home. You can see in the upper left a chart of which level of my home I spent time unpacking. It turned out most of the work needed was in the attic and basement. Notice here too the number of boxes left to unpack: one. I’m very proud of that.”

“Enough about moving in, lets go on to the road trip. I drove down to Florida with my wife and my puppy, 2969 miles in total. I am presuming that’s expendable, I’ll be submitting an reimbursement report later today.”

“You can see here a breakdown of where I slept each night of the Fool’s Errand, about half in my home, and then a little less with relatives and less still in hotels and B&Bs including SoBe You in South Beach which I highly recommend and La Quinta in Savannah which… well, not so much.”

“While in Florida we travelled down to the Florida Keys and then back to Orlando to spend some time with family. We did hit all four Disney parks in one day. You can see in the lower right here a breakdown of time spent in each park, pretty balanced Disney experience. Also, I want to call attention to this score right here, 39 or -14. Yes, I played a sick game of mini golf  and held the low score of the day at Fantasia Gardens.”

“The weather was surprisingly cold, you see here 19 degrees in Orlando. The locals found that novelty fun and interesting. Me… not so much, I knew cold, I left cold back in DC, I wanted some warmth, which did come towards the end of the trip, 78 degrees on the last days in Orlando.”

“Let’s talk about what I ate while I was away. I totally recommend Puerto Sagua in South Beach for excellent Cuban food, and hey, did you know that there is still a Bennigans in operation in Orlando?! I was so excited to get to have a Monte Cristo sandwich again.”

“You can see her a breakdown of what I drank. We all know it’s important that we have a nice variety of beverages, and I think I achieved that here.”

“Now, exercise… let’s not talk about exercise, wasn’t much to speak of.”

“Ah, entertainment, yes. I highly recommend the Finding Nemo Stage Show in Animal Kingdom, it is Broadway caliber, by far the best thing I watched while I was away. And the worst… that would be my Eagles losing to the Cowboys twice while I was away. Ugh, Cowboys.”

“Oh, there’s my dog. I am very happy about this number, zero accidents in the house or car, she finally became housebroken during this trip. I will also point out this number here, six attacks by poodles. I don’t know what the deal with ShihTzus and Poodles but there is some bad blood there.”

“Finally, if I may tell a quick story, two years ago my wife and I got married on a very warm day in the Florida Keys, and a staff member at the resort, trying to be helpful, put our cake, well actually cake topper, in the freezer to keep when it should have been out thawing. When it came time to cut the cake it was frozen solid, there was no penetrating it. So, my wife and I never got to eat our wedding cake.”

“Knowing I had this opportunity  of the Fool’s Errand, I convinced my wife to join me on the trip to Florida, and we contacted that same bakery and ordered that same cake, and we went to that same spot on the resort where we married. It was two years late, but we finally got to enjoy our wedding cake. And it was damn good too.”

“That alone made this whole Fool’s Errand worthwhile, so thank you The Motley Fool for providing me this opportunity, and thank you all for letting me share my experiences with you today.”

And with that I returned to my seat, smiling, knowing that I had made the most of my Fool’s Errand and the most of presenting it back to the people at The Motley Fool.