I had lunch with some conference attendees from Houston, Texas today.  They work for a firm called “Waste Management.”  And yes, they do have a guy who works for them by the name of Tony from New Jersey.  Of course we joked about getting “axed”.

I arrived in Orlando, Florida last night after experiencing delays and plane changes and surviving a Shuttle ride by a driver right out of Steven King; specifically The Shining!  I was exhausted and thirsty and wanted to find some cold bottled water that I didn’t have to pay $10 for out of the mini-bar.  After I settled in I went down to the hotel lobby and was wandering around when I heard my name called.  David Lover, a VP at Cross Telecom invited me to have a seat with him and a couple of other Cross employees.  I have known David for a number of years and the conversation is never dull.  He will be doing presentations on three topics during the conference, one of them will be new to me. 

David reports that his new obsession is geocaching.  Geocaching is an outdoor activity that involves using a GPS to find a “geocache” anywhere in the world.  A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a log book and a “treasure”, usually trinkets of little monetary value.  They can be anything from small toys, buttons and sometimes there might be a higher valued item for the first finder.  You may take a treasure but you also replace it with one of your own and then you log your name, date and time in the book.  You don’t geocache for the value of the treasure, you do it for the sake of adventure.  You can go to the Geocaching web site and search for caches in your area.  Sounds like a fun thing to do!

P.S.  I just checked for geocaches around my zip code and there are 344!! 

Bronson Hoaglund is growing up TOO FAST!!  Here he is 4–wheeling already!!!

Jay’s boss at Mobil has throat cancer and begins radiation and chemo on Monday.  In spite of Robin’s July wedding, he joined his co-workers in support of his boss and got his head shaved. Good for you, Jay!

Tom sent these great photos of him and Sara in honor her 21st birthday today!  Happy Birthday Sara!

I had dinner with Donna and family last night.  We were talking about how much we would love to go back to Jeckyl Island some day.  Donna and family had a Thanksgiving tradition of going there which lead to a discussion of holiday traditions and how we adapt them to changing times.  We also discussed Jay’s “Eddie Munster” hair do as seen above.  My guess is that they were headed to the beach in this photo.

Cousin Mike Enzmann, an engineer working for Catepillar, recently returned from a business trip to Abu Dhabi and sent this photo.  He reports that the Subway franchise is doing well in the Middle East.  Below are photos of their soda cans and below that a photo of Mike (in the middle) with his clients.

We had a lovely weekend in St. Cloud for the 2006 Spring Fling.  We spent the majority of the evening visiting while watching the 4–hour Twins vs. Yankees game and by the yelling at the end of the game you would have thought they had won the World Series!  We had a nice Easter breakfast together at Perkins before leaving for home today.   The photo below is just one example of how well everyone got along this weekend!  Actually, Alan was trying to hide a dirty spot on his shirt.  If I hear one more gay or Brokeback joke it will be too soon!   We also celebrated Jane’s 32nd birthday….  16 years late.