Tesla Coil

GoogleTeslaNikola Tesla was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On his birthday last week, Google dedicated a logo to honor his contribution to the world of science.  In reading through the article, I liked a quote from Tesla about Thomas Edison: “If Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, he would proceed with the diligence of a bee to examine straw after straw until he found [it]. I was a sorry witness to such doings…a little theory… would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.”

Winning, Losing, & Being Content

rocky

Believe it or not I’m behind on my blogging.  Last week I was watching Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel because they were playing every episode in the series which allowed me a chance to watch all of them (filled up my DVR).  It is a great show and I really like Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan who constantly argue like school kids and even though Billy isn’t with us any longer due to his recent death it was obvious they cared for one another.

In one of the last shows of the season Anthony Sullivan had a great quote which I wrote down: “If you want to be in front you have to act like you are behind”.  That quote from Anthony Sullivan really rung true to me because I think we need to constantly remind ourselves to keep loving, keep fighting, keep working, keep living, but at the end of the day be content with what we have.  Sometimes when we are financially secure, our jobs and relationships are going well, our bodies aren’t ailing us, we stop trying as hard as we should.

Mays was wildly successful being the #1 pitchmen in the world which afforded him a Bentley and a mansion.  We all know money doesn’t buy happiness but my point is God gave him a talent and he wasn’t using that talent to its fullest extent.  In that episode Anthony noticed Mays lost his focus or hunger for achieving as much as his talent allowed (selling the Zorbees) and allowed Vince (who famously pitched the Shamwow) to steal some significant sales away from their product.  As Tony Robbins said in another more famous quote: “It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”

Probably the most famous example of this is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky movies.  Read the summary below from Rocky II from IMDB: “Rocky Balboa is enjoying life. He’s got a lovely wife, Adrian, had a successful fight with Apollo Creed and is able to enjoy the wealth coming off the draw. Unfortunately, Rocky becomes embarrassed when failing to complete and advert and ends up working in a meat packing company. He believe that he will no longer have a career as a boxer. Apollo wants to rematch with Rocky to prove all his critics wrong that he can beat Rocky. Can Rocky once again have a successful fight?”  In the video below you see what happens when he once again rededicates himself to his passion and what talents he has been blessed with.

Rocky Theme from part 2

I could write about winning for a really long time, I love motivational books and quotes.  Below are some other quotes to wrap things up but always remember to give life your all but be content with what life has afforded you.

  • One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” – Anthony Robbins
  • “Winning is not a sometime thing, it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” – Vince Lombardi
  • “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits” – Napoleon Hill
  • “Winning isn’t everything…it’s the only thing.” – Vincent van Gogh
  • “Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.” – Vince Lombardi quotes
  • “Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” – Lilmmoe
  • “There is no “i” in team but there is in win” – Michael Jordan

Brentwood Cornfest 2009 Fireworks

Beginning of the Show

Grand Finale

Gary and Charisse invited us to join them at the Brentwood Cornfest last night in Brentwood, CA.  Charisse works for the High School so she was able to get us into where they shoot off the fireworks from the school football field.  Being so close to the fireworks was great because they were really LOUD (the first few were really loud) and really BRIGHT.  To give you an idea of how close we were, I kept having to shift the video because my camera was zoomed all of the way out.  The weather was fantastic last night too, not too hot and not too cold which made for a great evening.

Our Awesome Web Team at Safeway

Team 7-10-09
From left: Nitesh, Gary, Pat, Brian, Laura, Russell, Scott
Team2
From left: Pat, Laura, Brian, Scott, Jeremy (me), Brian, Nitesh

Laura is in town this week so “we” (OK I) wanted to take a group picture so here you are.  The first one is funny because it looks like we work for JCPenny.  We are missing Joel and Jill but some day we’ll get you to California again.

Screencast: How to Subscribe to Your Favorite Web Sites

Few people know about RSS or if they have heard about it they don’t know what it does or how to set it up.  In my first screencast I wanted to show you how to subscribe to your favorite websites and have them delivered to your RSS reader.  RSS enables you to subscribe to sites so you don’t have to continually check and see what updates were made to the site.  Instead the new content is delivered to you.  A big shout out to Scott for showing me the beauty that is Google.  I was a huge Yahoo! fan but Scott converted me over and I haven’t looked back since.  In true Jeremy form I wanted to share with the world what I’ve learned so let me know what you think.

UFC 100

UFC 100: We're Just Getting Started

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 100 is this weekend and it looks to be a great lineup of fighters.  I’ve seen every UFC fight and was hooked from the time I discovered the videos at Best Buy about 8 years ago.  This YouTube video produced by the UFC is a nice compilation of how the sport has evolved from its humble beginnings.

tank
Tank Abbott

I wanted to name my son “Tank” after my favorite UFC fighter Tank Abbott but that didn’t last too long so I like to call my little lap dog Tank for fun.  Tank didn’t exactly come to the octagon in shape for his fights and called his fighting style “street fighting”.  The funny thing is Tank has lost more fights than he has won but man is he fun to watch.  You would get these athletes who were world class in their sport and he would occasionally dominate them and I don’t think his fights (win or lose) ever went past the first round.  For UFC 100 I’m routing for Brock Lesner, how about you?

4th of July 2009

Went to the Danville, CA parade this morning and Tyler seemed to love it.  I hadn’t been to a 4th of July parade in years so it was really fun to get in the mood for the fireworks in San Ramon.  It was a little warm for a few minutes but after 30 minutes the sun was blocked by a tree so it was perfect parade watching weather this morning.  We stayed all three hours and it was really fun.  I was a candy catching beast but I admit I have a slight reach and height advantage over the kids around me.

Tyler Enjoying the Parade

Jeremy Catching Candy

Safeway Float

Drums Float and Tyler