Strongsville Hockey Pre-Season Begins

Andrew and the Strongsville Mustangs Hockey Bantam 2 team began their pre-season last week Sunday at home against a formidable, Mentor opponent. It was our first organized game, and we had an interim goalie, but the team still played two competitive periods of hockey (it was the middle of the second period that killed us when we gave up 6 goals). The preseason is basically used to gauge where teams are at, and then place them appropriately for the regular season. Andrew (#97, jersey usually tucked into back of his pants) had a great game with two shots on goal, some nice passes, and a couple hits. Here is a quick overall highlight reel that I edited down from the game CD from our team videographer (yes, we have one). Bryce (#11) had some nice shots on goal as well, and he scored our only goal. In the end, we lost 1-8.

Homecoming 2012

Tonight Abby is going to her 3rd homecoming dance. As she has done the past 2 years, she is going with a group of her girl friends. She got ready at a friend's house, then had dinner at another friend's house. Now they are heading to the dance. Afterwards, a few of them will be spending the night at the Hollywood Estates. She looks beautiful in her lovely dress. As a refresher, here are the Hollywood Four blog links for the past two years:

2011 Homecoming Dance
2010 Homecoming Dance

Abby Takes First Place in Michigan Feis

Abby danced in the Michigan Feis in Muskegon, MI today. Dad and Andrew had to stay home for hockey practices. I was delighted to learn, however, that Abby took First Place in the Championship level competition! Here is a picture that I received from Karen via text earlier today. I am very proud of Abby. She has really been practicing hard, and it's nice to see it pay off. Hopefully this will give her a nice confidence boost with the 2012 Mid-America Oireachtas (regional) competition just around the corner in November.

Global Village Festival

Yesterday, Abby and the O'Hare Irish Dancers performed at the Global Village Festival of Greater Akron. Despite the threat of rain, the weather was not too bad and the troupe seemed to perform well based on the video footage taken below by Mom. The performance also marked the dancing debut of the newest teacher to the O'Hare school of Irish Dance, world-champion dancer Michael Holland. He's been a great additional to the school, the girls seem to like him, and he is a phenomenal dancer.

My Interview with SupplyChainBrain

While attending the TMSA conference back in June, I was invited to do a short interview with the editor-in-chief of SupplyChainBrain, an online media outlet for the transportation and logistics industry. They recently posted that interview to their website (they have a very rich, streaming video component to their web content). The video clip is about 6 minutes long and it can be accessed here. Unfortunately (or fortunately) you can only access the video file if you first register to their website (it's free). I thought the interview was okay considering I didn't see the questions until about 5 minutes before the interview. Obviously I knew they were going to ask me about the TMSA and the value of the conference, which is why I had already given a little thought to my response to the last question in the interview. If nothing else, it was good exposure for my new company and the PartnerShip brand.

21st Annual BSFL Season

Tomorrow I will be participating in the 21st annual BSFL fantasy football draft. Once again, we will have 12 teams drafting, most of which are all friends from high school or college. We will have people drafting in southern California; Chicago; Buffalo; northern, western, and eastern Michigan; and, of course, northeast Ohio. The BSFL (along with our BSBL fantasy baseball league, and Poker Fest, our bi-annual poker tournament) has been a great way to make sure I stay in touch with our tight group of friends. After using an "auction" format to select players the first few years, the past 15 or more season we have been using a straight "pick 'em" draft format. However, this year we go back to an auction/bidding system, thanks to modern technology that make this format easy to execute online. I wish I could remember who won each of the past 20 season, but here are the ones that won the first seven.

1991 ... Britten
1992 ... Doneth
1992 ... Wibs/Stevage
1994 ... Britten
1995 ... Picklehead
1996 ... Mike/Matt
1997 ... Hollywood
1998 and beyond ... ???