Be observant of children and pets...

I just received the following email from my employer (who also happens to be my neighborhood association).

Dear Residents,

Public Safety has asked that we pass on the following information to you.

A local biologist that tracks collared mountain lions, has tracked one to the general area of the Baxter water tank. Mountain lions in the area are not an unusual occurrence, as they frequent the entire Santa Monica mountains.

Please be observant of children and pets.

Thank you.

Assistant Real Estate Manager

Pepperdine University Real Estate Operations

I love the last line... I don't know about you, but I read it as "You can observe this 300lb mountain lion consume the children and pets!  The show starts at dusk!  Don't miss it!"  :-)

IMPORTANT! Moving to m5williams.info

This mikelwilliams.com domain has been my main domain for almost ten years now.  I'm going to keep it, but I'm moving my primary web home over to m5williams.info.  Why?

• Michelle consistently refused to use "michelle @ mikelwilliams.com" for an email address.  But, she'll use m5williams.info without a problem.
• Same with the kids.
• I'm using Google Apps for my Domain over there so all the family is on common calendars and we all use Google Docs instead of installed software.  This is uber convenient since we only have one printer in the house. Now we can work on homework at any of our 7 pc's and still print to the one printer without copying files around.
• Most people now call me "michael", not "mike".
• having my fullname.com as a domain seems a bit egotistic.

So, this will be my last post here for a while.  Please change your RSS subscription to my new RSS feed and update your browser favorites to my new blog.  And don't worry, I've copied all the posts going back to 2002 over to the new site.

Friday Thoughts...

Inspired by DMC's recent post, I've decided to do a "Friday Thoughts" column each week.  this will just be random updates and events in my life.  It's going to be boring, irrelevant, and non-newsworthy.  However, it's what's going on.  if you are still interested...read on.

• Son #2 loves the cub scouts.  He just started a few weeks ago, but he's totally eating it up.  Here is a photo of him all ready for school this week...
  
  
• I'm so grateful for our new home.  We moved in February and the view from here just never gets old.  Here's a recent sunrise with the moon still hanging over the bay.
  
• We're having our DC friends over for dinner tonight. We've not seen them since November! We try to have one big get together each month, but we've missed the last few. Sadly, the Reverend won't be at this one, but hopefully we'll see him before too long.  In honor of the Rev, we're having BBQ Brisket, homemade cornbread, beans, and cole slaw. 
  
• We're going to a friends house for the Annual GSBM Full-Time MBA Faculty Super Bowl party on Sunday.  In honor of our IN roots, we're bringing brats and Miller High Life.  Thanks to Kerry Ward for introducing me to bratwurst when we lived in Bloomington.
• Read Speed of Trust.  It's excellent for anyone who deals with people in a professional setting.  Even if you are a volunteer at church, you'll get a lot of value from this simple book about how being a trustworthy person builds effectiveness.
• IMHO, the whole Toyota thing is a bunch of crock being sold by corporate media.  I'm sure there is some problem, but it's not nearly as big as it's being billed.  Come on!  It's been the cover story of WSJ, NYT, LAT, CNN... for a week now.  My only explanation is that 1) the millions of Toyota customers out there are worried, so they are interested in watching/reading this "news" and/or 2) Rupert Murdoch owns stock in GM & Ford.
• Have you tried the news skimmer from NYTimes?  It's the best way to read the news in print.
• IMHO - there are clearly no women on Apple's new product development team.  How else do you explain the iPad? (Check out this great MadTV skit if you haven't already seen it... "iPad")
• Thinking about pulling the trigger on this new bike from ebay...A v strom 650.
• Finally...tomorrow night is the MPC Father-Daughter dance.  Madison is SO excited.  She's been practicing dance at school this semester and can't wait to teach me a thing or two.  Should be a blast!  I'll post photos next week.
  

Long time coming...

Wow...it's been over a month since I've blogged.  Thanks to my favorite cousin for pointing out that I've fallen off the cliff.  A few thoughts...

• I've pretty much migrated to Twitter and FB...mostly Twitter.  You can find my work-related tweets at http://www.twitter.com/DrWilliamsIsIn.  I sometimes post a few personal thoughts at http://www.twitter.com/m5williams.
• I've been thinking a lot lately...and reading.  I'm enjoying "The Speed of Trust", and "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", and am just staring "The Immortal Life of Henrietty Locks".  
• I'm rooting for the Saints just because Irsay moved the Colts from Baltimore in the middle of the night and I've never forgiven him.  I think my first NFL stadium was old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.  
• I really like Spanish Garnacha wine.  I just discovered it recently and can't think of another wine I like as well.
• Today Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (aka the Swing Vote) spoke at Pepperdine today.  In typical fashion, I was too busy grading papers to attend. How short-sighted is that!?!@?!?!!?
• I'm thinking of buying a Nexus and selling my iPhone.  Any thoughts?  Don't get me wrong... I love my iPhone, but I'm not much of an Apple guy.
• In the last few weeks I've cleared out about $300 worth of crap from my office through eBay.  Mostly old books from my PhD program.  But also a couple of mobile phones.  The oddest item of questionable value?  An old book from my Missiology studies that still had the "ACU BOOKSTORE" sticker on it.  I just sold it for 3.5x the "new" price.
• I miss my friend JA.  I haven't seen him for more than 5-minutes since he took his new job and I moved across the street.
• I can't WAIT for a motorcycle ride with my brother in May.  Rte. 66 from Flagstaff to Chicago.  Holy moly it's going to be fun!
• I'm one of those that are moving my money from Big Banks.  I know it won't make a big macro-economic difference since there aren't many of us, and the big banks will just pass it on to the customers anyway.  But in principle, I just can't stand to support them any longer.  I've changed my accounts from BoA to University Credit Union .  I'll keep you posted.
• Children 2 & 3 were both very sick last week.  The bad news was they barely got out of bed.  The good news is that they both started reading Harry Potter and are totally addicted.  Daughter read 1 book a day for the whole week.  Amazing.
• We re-joined Netflix recently.  The best part is that it streams to our new Xbox 360.  We rarely watch DVDs now.
• I've recently discovered a new favorite... Lindt Dark Chocolate with at Touch of Sea Salt.  Absolutely amazing.  I could eat one bar a day.
• I'm trying to read about 50-80% of my reading on my Sony Reader.  I love the form factor, but I need better light than I do with a paper book.

[christmas at pepperdine] on Vimeo

[christmas at pepperdine] on Vimeo

[christmas at pepperdine] from JJ Starr on Vimeo.

We had a wonderful tree-lighting ceremony at Pepperdine a week ago. Madison was one of the readers and she was caught on video here dancing with a friend. Such fun!

Marcus is 7

Marcus is 7
Originally uploaded by 5 Ms In SoCal

Here are some photos of Marcus' 7th Birthday party. It was a monster theme and a lot of fun. http://tr.im/FDI2

My first visit to China

Hutong Cafe
Originally uploaded by 5 Ms In SoCal

I had a wonderful time in China last week. Highlights include a trip to the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Tienanmen Square, the Olympic Village, and the wonderful shopping and dining in Beijing.

I also met with four of our second-year students from Pepperdine who are studying in Beijing this fall. They graciously showed me around the city and took me to lunch at this delightful hole-in-the-wall in a hutong (alley). The food was amazing, and I felt so generous when I picked up the entire tab for lunch at 28RMB (about $7). Notice we're all still in our coats because it was about 35 degrees in the restaurant (and about 25 outside!).