Goodbye 2012!

This will be the last Hollywood Four blog post for 2012. The video below contains some picture memories from December 2012. Please check back on January 1, 2013 for a fresh, newly designed hollywood-four.blogspot.com website ... oh, and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Animated fun from the PartnerShip Pole!

Here is a reprint of the article and video I posted on The PartnerShip Connection Blog this morning. So I thought I would share it here as well:

Continuing a tradition that began a few years ago, PartnerShip has once again created a short and fun seasons greetings video in appreciation for our customer partners and our carrier partners. This year's video gives you an exclusive, behind the scenes view of what goes on at the PartnerShip Pole ... we hope you enjoy it! (you can also view it directly on the PartnerShip YouTube Channel). The PartnerShip team wishes you all the very best during this busy holiday season, as well as a prosperous and joyous new year!



Special thanks to Barbara Teleha, the PartnerShip graphic designer responsible for this year's animated fun!

Holiday Luncheon at PartnerShip

Here is a reprint of the article and video I posted on The PartnerShip Connection Blog this morning. Thought I would share it on the Hollywood Four Blog as well:

Consistent with annual tradition, the PartnerShip employees gathered together last week Friday for a fun, holiday luncheon. In addition to good food, and a couple holiday games, we also had our first ever "ugly sweater contest." As showcased in the video below, the employees who participated in the contest really strutted their stuff. Ultimately, it was Alex West (customer service representative) that won the popular vote. Congratulations Alex and thank you PartnerShip for providing such a great workplace culture!

Mustangs Lose to Leafs in 2nd League Game

Friday night the Strongsville Mustangs played their second regular season game. Once again (fourth time this year including exhibition games) we played the Geauga Maple Leafs. Also, once again, despite being the home team we actually played on neutral ice at the Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, OH. It was another tight match with neither team scoring goals through two periods. In the third, we allowed the Leafs to sneak a couple goals past our goalie, but then roared back with a goal of our own scored by Andrew (#97) and assisted by Blake (#12). Trailing by one goal and with only a couple minutes left in the game, we pulled our goalie. Unfortunately, the Leafs scored an empty netter sealing the victory. Here are the highlights (including footage from Mr. Finch and from Mrs. Frederick).

Mustang Team Photos 2012

Andrew's hockey pictures have arrived. Here is his 2012 mug shot, along with the team photo.

Rock-N-Roll Cup in Cleveland

This past weekend Andrew and the Strongsville Mustangs team played in the Rock-N-Roll Cup tournament here in Cleveland. This was supposed to be a four team tournament against evenly matched opponents in a "round-robin" format where each team plays the other once and the top two teams play for the championship. Our first game was against MCYH (Rochester, NY). This was an extremely physical game and, despite outshooting the other team, the Mustangs lost short 0-3. In our second game we played Dayton and lost that one 0-10. In the end, Dayton was disqualified because they won all of their round-robin games by double-digits and were obviously a higher level team that was just "trophy-hunting." That left us in a game 3 match-up against Geauga (our nemesis) to determine which team would face MCYH in the championship game. The Mustangs exploded with a 7-2 victory that was led by Kanzig (#13) who had a hat-trick and an assist. Andrew (#97) was second on the team with three assists. Gaeschke (#81), Eisenaugle (#12), Beaver (#47) and Vandenbusche (#91) all chipped in goals as well with the assists coming from others on the team; and "the kid" Forsythe (#21) was spectacular in goal. The victory setup another physical rematch with MCYH on Sunday. Gower (#20) and Crossman (#87) led the Mustangs with solid "hits" in the game with 5 and 4, respectively. But despite both teams having around the same number of shots on goal, the MCYH goalie was simply too hot (he ended up MVP of tournament) and the Mustangs fell short again by a close score of 0-2. Overall, the kids played tough and earned themselves and extra game as well as the runner-up trophy and medals. Nice job Mustangs!

Petessence

Abby has been working on a fun project for her Sociology class the past few weeks. First she had to come up with an interesting new product idea (Petessence - perfume for pets) and target market (upper scale consumers); then she had to pitch it to investors (I helped her with that, including an ROI analysis that impressed everyone); and lastly, she she had to create a video commercial with testimonials. For this latter part of the assignment, she worked with her friends Paige (who was also part of the project) and Sarah to shoot and edit the following video. Overall, I think it turned out great (in a cheesy sort of way). I also think Abby could easily pursue a career in sketch comedy if she wanted with her different accents and personalities.

A Monster Exhibition Game

Last week Friday, the Strongsville Mustangs (B2) team played a rematch game against the Geauga Maple Leafs  - the same team we beat a couple weeks ago in our season opener.  This game, however, was an exhibition game played at "The Q Arena" before the Lake Erie Monsters versus Rockford Ice Hogs game. This was our second year playing at The Q and, once again, the facilities and hosts were awesome. We ended up with a great game too. Unfortunately, Coach Mike was not able to make the game, so Coach Tony made his first appearance on the bench of the season along side Coach Todd. He even gave the team a nice pep talk before the game. Will "the kid" played goalie for us and did a nice job saving over 86% of the shots he faced. The Mustangs got off to an early lead in the first period on Gower (#20) goal assisted by Treible (#1). The Maple Leafs scored a goal in the second period making it a 1-1 tie game up until the final 30 seconds of the game. However, six penalties - two within the final two minutes - left the Mustangs short-handed two skaters; and a bouncing puck deflected in for the Maple Leafs giving them the late victory. After the game, the team grabbed dinner at The Clevelander and then headed back to The Q for the Monsters game.

Final Oireachtas Highlights

The 2012 Mid-America Oireachtas in done. Here are some video highlights of the weekend (of course, video taping of the actual competition in never allowed). Overall, Abby and the O'Hare Irish dancers had a very good showing. On Friday, Abby danced one hard shoe and one soft shoe dance in competition with around 125 other dancers. The top 60 were "recalled" to dance a longer "set" dance for final placement. Abby was one of those top 60 finalists. In the end, she finished a very respectable 44th overall (her friend Anne finished 7th). On Saturday the Ceili team took the stage. There were 36 teams competing with the O'Hare O15 Ceili team. Once again, only the top half "recalled" for the awards ceremony that evening. The O'Hare team was one of the 18 teams that recalled. Once the final scores were in, they finished 7th place overall. That was the best showing for the O'Hare school, which had a number of other Ceili teams competing at various levels. In fact, the Ceili team did so well, there is some discussion about entering them into the 2013 World Irish Dancing Competition in Boston next Spring.

Oireachtas Dress Rehearsal

Building up to this weekend's 2012 Mid-America Oireachtas in Grand Rapids, MI, Abby and the the O'Hare Irish dancers continued to practice hard, including this dress-rehearsal Monday night.

Oireachtas Pep Rally

Today Abby attended a booster club pep rally for the O'Hare Irish dancers that will be competing in the upcoming 2012 Mid-America Oireachtas in Grand Rapids, MI over Thanksgiving weekend. This annual event (see 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008) is a nice way to get the dancers pumped up for the big competition and celebrate all of their hard work leading up to it. 

Mustangs Beat Geauga 4-2

I finally got a hold of the game film for last Sunday's Strongsville Mustangs win over the Geauga Maple Leafs. It was the first game of the regular season and, after a winless preseason, the Mustangs pulled out the 4-2 victory. Even though we were the home team, the game was played at the Baron's arena in Parma. Goals were scored by Keane (#31), Crossman (#87), Frederick (#97), and Vandenbusche (#91). Maxwell was called down from our B1 team and he provided some great defense between the pipes. Our next regular season game is actually against Geauga once again the day after Thanksgiving. This next game will be played at "The Q Arena" before the Lake Erie Monsters game. Should be fun.

Poker Fest 25 Teaser Clip

As I have done in the past, here is a short "teaser clip" for the upcoming Poker Fest 25 tournament.

Click here for 2012 videos
Click here for 2011 video
Click here for 2009 videos
Click here for 2008 videos

The Strongsville Mustangs Bantam 2 team has had a rough preseason so far. After 5 games, we are 0-5. To our defense, the roster has been in flux, we haven't really had a permanent goalie yet, and the kids are still finding their "team chemistry." Still, the preseason is really just to benchmark all of the teams so they are properly placed for the regular season. One thing the coach implemented was a new dress-code policy: Nice pants, shoes, shirts and ties before and after all games. This will help the kids prepare for high school where that is generally required. Andrew - pictured here in his "Sunday best" - continues to skate hard, and he generally has a couple good hits per game. Yesterday he switched from Forward to Center. The team plays again today against a team that I think will be closer to our level, so it should be a good game. 

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 ... ???