My Mind: Lifesized

Tonight we let Coley (my 10 yo step son) have a birthday sleepover party. 6 boys and much chaos! I took the opportunity to sneak into the back room and flip on the tube. VH1 happened to be on and to my surprise, Death Cab for Cutie was performing live at the VH1 Critics Choice Awards. Cool performance of Simple Minds with a tribute to John Hughes was playing as I tuned in. Sweet memories as John Hughes movies played in the background. Check out the video:

At this point I am figuring my blog is now really more like a diary that is left on a counter so any hapless passerby with nothing better to do could open it and peruse as opposed to a real blog...I continually bemoan my own pathetic attempts to maintain anything similar to a regular posting regimen. And it's a shame really, as so many things have happened to me, my family, and friends since my last entry and well, I think they are rather interesting. Oh well, trudge onward. The most significant event of all was the birth of my second son, Quinlan Charles Terry O'Connor on December 2nd, 2009. After another hard labor (not quite as long or hard as Liam, according to Jen), Jen delivered the mighty Quinn at about 5:15 PM. He is an awesome little boy who has already developed one heck of a personality. My wonderful parents were able to be here again and stayed for almost three weeks; they were amazing in their support and help and love. As is our habit, we couldn't decide on...

I keep sticking events and stories into a compartment in my mind with the intent to post more often. That compartment is getting pretty full! Last night I left the office a little early to make a deposit at the bank and run an errand for my Ultimate team. It was about ten 'till 5:00 PM and so rather than going back to the office I decided to pick Liam up and get 30 minutes of solo Daddy-Liam time in. He was pretty cute when I picked him up from daycare, he already had his little backpack on and was waiting at the door, blanket in hand. After we got loaded I said, "Hey Liam, want to help Daddy wash his car?" to which he replied "sure". Did I mention the boy is cute? So we headed to the ancient self-serve at the bottom of the hill. After some negotiations it was determined that he would remain in the car so he could see the water and soap from the inside (shrewd negotiations on my part). I loaded the coins in and got my 5 minutes. Being a savvy veteran of the sel...

Garrett - you might be the only person who reads my blog still...admittedly my content lately has been less than captivating. That aside, this Conan O'Brien bit is simply hilarious.

Today I was driving from one office to the other and, as sometimes happens, my mind was wandering. I had a local station on and suddenly I was brought back into the now by a beautiful melody and voice that at first I thought I recognized. I listened intently to the song and by the end almost felt like crying. All I could remember was one line, "if I live to be 102, I just don't think I will get over you". So just now I googled that line and after a second attempt found a link to this video on Youtube. What a wonderful voice...Colin hay formerly of Men at Work! And really a beautiful song, so it made my day more satisfying. Enjoy!

Some time around May of last year my friend Garrett, who always seems to be light years ahead on the next big thing in technology, told me about Twitter. I signed up to check it out and promptly could not figure out what to do. So I watched Garrett's tweets mainly and would occasionally tweet back pleading for him to explain what this whole tweet thing was all about. At the time it was a tool used mainly by tech heads to talk in their odd techie way to each other and so I could barely understand what Garrett was tweeting away about. My twittering languished in obscurity. Slowly though I heard about more people using Twitter, mainly my friend Timi in Singapore (another web head...a pretty web head at that...sorry Garrett). And so I determined to master this so called Twitter only to find I had very few people to Tweet to and even fewer friends who'd ever heard of Twitter. In October I was stuck at home while my beloved Ultimate team traveled to Sarasota for nationals and I sp...

Our last day in DC was a blast. We ate breakfast inside Union Station and then made our way to the offices of Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) where we had an early morning appointment for a private tour of the Capitol! Although a stunning (and extremely expensive) new visitor's center recently opened, I'd opted for contacting the Senator's office to see about the private tour. It was fantastic. Our guide was a young staffer from Wisconsin and he was excellent. Getting to bypass all the lines, and the crowds was really amazing and Brian 9our guide) did a great job filling us in on all the trivia and historical events. After the tour we decided to unwind from our hectic schedule and made our way over to the National Botanical Gardens...simply amazing and beautiful and like everything else, FREE. Just the smell of the place helped relax us and ease tension. I know we experienced the nice side of our nation's capitol, even so we both loved our trip. I'll come back and fil...

There is no way it has been almost a month since I posted my last post...oh, I guess there is a way. Anyhow, Washington, DC continued. Sunday, our big day and what an amazing day it was. I'll write more later and edit this post. Highlights: Breakfast in Georgetown at Le Pain Quotidien Three hours at the Holocaust Museum The War Memorials on the Mall, WW II, Korean, Vietnam The Lincoln Memorial Seeing a pickup game of Ultimate being played on the Mall The National Archives - Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Constitution The National Gallery of Art and the Robert Franks exhibit, The Americans Hopping the subway to Shady Grove and then a car ride to ED & Cathy O'Rourke's home for a great dinner Riding the subway back to Foggy Bottom at 11:30 PM Collapsing into bed at midnight

Friday night was a blast but it made the 6:15 AM wake up call come too early. My Government Affairs Committee meeting began promptly at 7:30 AM, and since they paid the bill I was obliged to be on time. The association's Washington offices are two blocks from the White House so I was anxious to see if there was a good view. At least that is what I was thinking as I said hello to the Indian man who passed me walking briskly. He hesitated at the corner and asked if I was heading to 1717 North Pennsylvania and we were happy to discover we were both headed to the same meeting and so we shared good conversation along the rest of the walk. I soon discovered that he emigrated to the US a decade ago but decided not to jump through the hoops that were necessary in order to continue practicing medicine and had instead gone back into health care administration. His son is a 4 th year medical student in Washington so he visits regularly. I got some good recommendations for authentic Ind...

Friday morning I was nervous as all get out...I had two meetings scheduled on the hill, one with a senior Senate Finance Committee staff member and the other with a staff person from Senator Max Baucus's office. Even though I kept telling myself the meetings would be a breeze, my stomach and nerves weren't so convinced. I took the Metro from the Foggy Bottom station (1/2 block from our hotel), switched at the Metro Center and popped out at Union Station. The sun was shining and I suddenly felt some confidence in my bones. I arrived about 4 minutes late to my first meeting but managed to smooth over the receptionist and front staff. I was supposed to have 15 minutes to share my thoughts on health reform, as luck would have it, I got 40 minutes. We had alively discussion and I left feeling quite good. I navigated my way to the Russell Senate building and was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming Senator Baucus's staff were and how friendly the atmosphere was...there is ...

In November I was notified I'd been selected to be a member of the Government Affairs Committee of my industry association. Pretty cool for me from both a business perspective and personal interest angle. Later that month I was told that duie to the impending change in administrations, they had decided to move the meeting from May to January and from Chicago to the Washington DC offices! Woo hoo. Unfortunately, plane fares and the meeting schedule prohibited me from combining it with witnessing the inauguration, nonetheless I was quite excited. To make matters even better, Jen had never been to DC so we decided to make a small vacation out of it and she came along. My Mom & Dad agreed to come visit and watch Liam for us, giving us our very first opportunity to ever spend this much time together alone as a couple...but that is another story all in itself. So here we are, enjoying the wonder, splendor, bustle and hustle (and incredibly cold winds) of our nations Capitol. We ar...

Jen's sister is visiting us with her two kids Jack(4) and Evan (3). Last night we had Jen and our three (9, 6, 2), Nancy (her sister) and her two, their friend Vicki and her two (6, 4), Jen & Nancy's Mom and their niece all over at the house. It was chaos in grand proportion. Luckily for me, I'm sick. And sick enough to justify saying I needed to get the h-e-double sticks out of the house. So I did something I haven't done in about three years...I went to a movie. It was between Defiance and Gran Torino so I asked the cute girl at the ticket counter for her advice. Without hesitation she said Gran Torino and I am glad I took her advice. I dropped 8 bones on the movie (what the hell is that all about?) so opted to skip on the small bag of popcorn for $5.75. I now understand how Jen spent $55 last month taking 5 kids to the movies! Clint Eastwood is a bad ass who happens to make great movies. i've always been a fan...I even like the flick where had the pet orangut...

This is a hilarious spoof on Bush, McCain, and Palin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRVQ4xwwmQ

If you look to the right of this post you'll notice I added a fund raising widget. A couple of weeks ago I did not know what a widget was but now that I do I am quite certain I will become a widget king. Yep, it's RATPOD time again, that super cool, super challenging one-day ride through the big hole valley and up and over the Pioneer mountain range of Montana to support Camp Mak-A-Dream. Camp Mak-A-Dream is a magical place in Gold Creek, Montana that is an all-expense paid camp for kids and young adults with cancer. You can visit my fund raising web page to learn all about the camp and to hear my full story about why I think this is such an incredible cause. I'm shooting big this year...$10,000.00 US dollars big. Wanna help me get there?

As part of my effort to be a more responsible adult, I decided it was time for me to establish medical care with a primary care doctor and to get the various spots and blotches and tingles checked by a dermatologist. Today was my appointment with the dermatologist and it went like this... Arrive 10 minutes early (I work in a doctor's office after all and know how this new patient stuff can be time consuming) and begin to fill out the paperwork. The receptionist actually gave me two sets of paperwork but was unimpressed at my sarcasm, "do you need me to fill out two sets of paperwork...do I get a discount for that?" I filled out the paperwork and began the waiting process. Their office set up is kind of weird, with the doctor's actual office in plain view of the waiting area and the billing and reception area all open and in earshot, as in I could hear every conversation. Anyhow, I waited just long enough that I was considering a snooze by the time the medical assi...

This morning we headed down to the University of Montana to try and get into the Adams Center for Barack Obama's free Missoula rally. The Obama campaign announced the event on Wednesday night and decided to give away 8,000 tickets...all were gone by Thursday morning. So they added an additional 2,000 tickets, which were gone in another 2 hours! Yesterday they announced that after the Adams Center was full(first come first served), anyone wanting to could sit outdoors in the University football stadium. I would estimate there were 12-15,000 people there by 9:00 AM. We stood in line with a group of friends (Nate, Markie, Daphne, Sarah, Alex, Russ, Julie) and wound our way across campus hoping to get in to the event. Suddenly a reporter asked Jen and I if we would mind answering some questions; I guess I talked for about two minutes. He asked me about why I came to the event, why I was excited, what it meant to Montana and things like that. Afterwards he mentioned he was with...

I'll put up my best of 2007 music soon, but in the meantime, this was just too good to pass up.

Speaking of funny

This is pretty funny