Maddie Meets Apple

During Thanksgiving, our golden retriever, Maddie, mistook a green apple for her tennis ball. Tilly took it away, but she always yearned for its return. Once Thanksgiving was over, Tilly let Maddie enjoy her edible "tennis ball." Here's a short video.

Notice how she bites on it from the side just like we would. Of course, we have hands so its a little easier.

Disclaimer: This is 25 seconds you will never get back, but for a dog lover its pure entertainment.

Birthday Wine Tour

While there is no photographic evidence, my birthday was earlier this month. Technically, there is the photo below from a vineyard two days before my birthday. There are supposedly some blurry photos of me opening gifts, but I am not sure those will ever see the light of day on this blog.

Anyway, Tilly and I celebrated over the extended Veteran's Day weekend. On Sunday, we took a drive to Leesburg for some wine tastings. I am always interested in road trips (i.e. Christmas trek to Arkansas) and these tours have wonderful scenery.

Earlier this year, we took a tour of some vineyards in Charlottesville. My favorite was First Colony Winery. I took Tilly there for a Valentine couples chocolate and wine tasting. Its been one of my favorite small vineyards.

Fall Festival 2007

This is a bit belated, but to top off Halloween week our church held a Fall Festival on the final Friday of October to reach out to the community of Falls Church. I was in charge of the entertainment and worked for three months to prepare and coordinate. The event was a large success and the entertainment was definitely a bonus. Brent took video which you can check out.

We had four language churches send their praise bands and we raffled off 17 huge gift baskets which only guests could register for. We had food for 300+ had to order more in the middle of the evening so my guess is we had well over 300 attend. Activities included a large moon bounce and a huge blow up maze. It was a lot of fun and I'm pleased its over! On to the next 18 things.

Halloween on Capitol Hill

You would think holding a hearing on Halloween would be a bad omen, but not this time. We had a very successful hearing in front of the House Small Business Committee to discuss the evils of competitive bidding on October 31st. It's a system that's haunting the homecare industry and threatening access for Medicare patients to services such as oxygen and power wheelchairs, while the government claims it brings prices down. I know you're not really interested in my lobbying rant, but I did want to comment on how much fun a ghoulish day on the Hill could be. Our hearing was scheduled for 2:00 with a break in the middle for the Congressmen to go vote on a tax something or another. We had three members testify- the picture is of me and Alex (in the middle, she's our new GR Manager) working with Georgie. Georgie testified on behalf of our Association and she was fantastic.

Chairman Altmire (D-Pa.), Mr. Gohmert (R-Texas), and Mr. Gonzalez (D-Texas) presided over the hearing and were absolutely a riot. I was told not all hearings will go this well for our industry, but this one was like taking back candy from a junior high kid who shows up at your door twice (like there aren't 200 other apartments in the building to visit- he had to come twice? Really?).

World Series: Game Four - Post Game Celebration

On Sunday, November 28th, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Colorado Rockies in Game Four of the 2007 World Series to win the championship. After the presentation of the trophy and lockerroom festivities, the Red Sox players returned to the field in Denver to celebrate with their loyal fans. I was in the clubhouse during the celebration, but once the it cleared out I headed back up to our broadcast booth. Looking down on the field at the players, I took this video of the players celebrating with the fans. It was taken with my Samsung Blackjack phone, so it is not camcorder quality. It does give you a sense of the remaining Red Sox fans in the stands once the national cameras had gone off.