You Have Prostate Cancer. The Punch in the Stomach
What? What did you say? The doctor asked if I had any questions and those were the only two I could come up with at that moment. For years I’ve been having an annual physical and for years I’ve been pretty much hearing the same things: Your sugar and cholesterol levels are a little high. At one point my cholesterol seemed stuck above 200, so my doctor put me on a statin that knocked it down to 165. It has remained at that level for years. My blood sugar was another story; it seemed to like to stay just below [...]
A Change to My Blog
I’ve been looking back at my previous blogs and while I thought I was writing some entertaining things, I realized that I was mostly talking about me. While I’m sure some of my friends found it interesting to see what places I’ve visited since my retirement from Microsoft, they could get the same information from my Facebook page. I wrote my book Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft Suites because I thought there were lessons to be learned from the many setbacks I faced in my life and how I overcame them. I also frankly thought that people [...]
Is it June Already?
Well here we are in June already. Another year is flying by but I’m glad to say I’ve gotten plenty done. The highlight, of course, is the release of my book Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft Suites on June 14th. It’s also been fun to see all the press and interviews I’ve been getting. You can see all of that on the In The News page on my website. Another big event was the rotator cuff surgery I had to have in March. If you’ve been following me for a while you know I’ve done a lot [...]
Only so much time to stop and smell the flowers
We started April the same way we have for many years and that’s by visiting the local farms to see the wonderful tulips displayed for the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. But as soon as we were done with that it was time to get back to work. It’s been a very busy month. Since finishing my book, Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft Suites, and sending it off to the publisher I’ve been spending my time writing by-line articles and doing interviews. Hopefully you’ve seen them on my Facebook page or on the “in the press” page on my [...]
The Book is Done (Finally)
When I retired from Microsoft I said I wanted to do a few things. One was travel, and since my retirement Suzie and I have been to 15 countries. I also said I wanted to release a CD. I released three, wrote seven songs, and got to perform live many times. And I said I wanted to write a book. Sadly that one took a lot longer than I thought it would. But after four years it is finally done and I want to thank Mary Jane Beaufrand for all her help. Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft [...]
A Busy Year So Far
Well we’ve done a lot so far this year. After welcoming in the New Year with family and friends Suzie and I were off on another adventure. This time we took a cruise to the South Pacific. We went to Tahiti, Fiji, Bora Bora, New Caledonia and Australia. As if there weren’t enough when the first cruise ended in Australia we hopped on another cruise that went to New Zealand where we explored the Northern and Southern islands for two weeks. All in all we were gone for five weeks. The weather was fantastic and the scenery was some of [...]
Happy New Year 2015!
Last year was another fun and full year. Over the past year Erich Benedict and I got to do a number of great shows including a couple of holiday shows in December. We even got to perform at a Microsoft holiday party. That one was a lot of fun because I got to hang around after the show and catch up with so many old friends. It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since I retired from Microsoft. The music part of my retirement continues to go well. In January Erich and I released our latest single called [...]
Still trying to balance retirement with my new career
The last few months have been very busy with leisure and work. Trying to remember I’m supposed to be retired Suzie and I took a few trips this year. The last one was a three week cruise to western and northern Europe. We flew to London and then took a cruise ship that went to Germany, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. We even cruised north for two days in the Arctic Circle. We went as far north as we could go until we got to the polar ice shelve and had to turn back because a fog came in and [...]
A Busy Summer
It’s been a fun and busy summer. We spent most of June on a road trip through Oregon and Northern California. We visited some very cool spots like Crater Lake, Oregon Caves National Monument, National Volcanic Monument, and spent a couple of weeks visiting the wineries of Napa Valley. While I was doing that my producer Erich Benedict was mixing and mastering my third CD Get Back Up. And Anessa was doing her magic on all the pictures she took for a very cool cover for the CD. This CD not only has six great cover songs it also has [...]
It’s Been Too Long
I’ve been so busy, I’ve forgotten to blog in a while. It hasn’t been all work however as I just got back from a month in sunny Florida. The weather was great! The day after we got back to Seattle it snowed. I miss Florida already. It wasn’t all fun and games in Florida, though it was mostly fun and games. While I was there I released another new song. This one is called A Want or a Need. I wrote the lyrics and my producer and good friend Erich Benedict wrote the music. I got the idea for the [...]
Another busy couple of months
Well it’s been a fun and busy couple of months. During that time I released my new song When You Walked Through The Door. Buy "When You Walked Through The Door" on Amazon.com It got to number 2 on the Amazon Easy Listening chart. The music for that song was written by my vocal coach Larry Bridges of www.anyonecansing.com At the same time my friend and producer Erich Benedict of http://www.withanh.net/ and I started working on a few things. First we put together an act and we’ve put on a few shows at Marianna Ristorante and Pizzeria Guido That has [...]
The New Song Is Out
Well the new song, When You Walked Through The Door, has been released. I mentioned in previous blogs and on my Facebook page that I was writing a song about the first time I saw my wife. Well with the help of my good friend and vocal coach Larry Bridges I think we put together a very good song. And when we added the talent of Ben St John on drums and Erich Benedict who not only produced, mixed, and mastered the song but also played all the other instruments including a great sax solo, I think we ended up [...]