Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays!


I just wanted to take a quick moment to wish everyone a very Happy Holiday season! No matter what Holiday you celebrate, I hope everyone enjoys their time with their family and friends!
Here is a picture of the holiday card from the Phoenix Zoo. If you click on the picture above (to enlarge it), you'll see me in the middle at the top of the picture!

Frank

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Caribbean her we come!

Carnival Victory - Our Boat

Kelly and I are off to the Caribbean this weekend! Doing a cruise with friends and family. Also attending the wedding for good friends Ramonita and Raul in Puerto Rico. The blog will be offline for a few days. Be on the lookout for photos and stories from our trip when we return.

Congratulations to Raul and Ramonita!

Behind the Scenes at the Phoenix Zoo

Yesterday, several of the exhibit guides and myself got a behind the scenes look at the Phoenix Zoo. We spent some time with the Elephant keepers to learn more about the Asian elephants and their exhibit. Part of the tour including feeding the elephants. Here are some of the photos from Wednesday's adventures.

A little Lemon flavored Gatorade before mixing with water
Cookies please!
Found out the record for cookies fed to an elephant at the zoo was 17 by Shaquille O'Neal and his kids. I went for 18. The elephant only took 7!

Waiting for her snack. The Elephants eat 150 lbs of food per day!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

My First Hockey Game






Thanksgiving weekend I went to my first NHL hockey game. I went with Kelly, our friend Susan and her parents. The San Jose Sharks beat the Phoenix Coyotes 3-2. I never knew how cold they keep the arenas for hockey. Definitely bring your cold weather gear when you go.

Thank you for pictures Susan. I also have to say thank you to Kelly's dad for the tickets!

Monday, December 08, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, Help Needed please.......

Hello Everyone,

I've been invited (asked) to write several articles about dating for a national women's magazine and website. I'm almost done with my submissions, but I would like some help from the males and females. My articles will discuss:
A.) What couples can do to keep the flame burning in their relationships
B.) Low cost dates/creative dates

If you would like the opportunity to be a part of my writings, please send me a message or e-mail (frank@badbadapples.com) with the following:

1. Your name, age, dating status and location
2. Something special you've done to keep a relationship from becoming "stale" or "boring"
3. Creative dates you've been on or wish you could go on
4. Describe something your significant other could do to make you feel special that doesn't cost a lot of money.

Thank you in advance. If your submission is selected, I will let you know and include a special gift for your assistance.

Frank

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Thanksgiving




We had another great Thanksgiving. Kelly's parents came into town. Everyone worked on a different part of the dinner. I was the dessert man. Kelly should be a party planner or hostess. I had to work at the Zoo on Turkey Day, but when I got home. The house and table looked great. The meal was even better and the woman I'm in love with looked awesome! She was dressed up, so I had to go and change so I wouldn't make her look bad! =0 )

Here are a few pictures from our dinner. Kelly's dad took me to my very first Hockey game so I'll post those pictures up shortly.


Frank

Friday, November 28, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!


Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Enjoy your time with Family and Friends!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Zoo Adventures!











I've been heading to the zoo a little early the last couple of weeks to explore and take a few photographs. The zoo is busy before opening. Animals are fed, counted and exhibits are cleaned before guests arrive. All of this activity makes the animals more active too. Here are a few photos from my "before opening Zoo Adventures."

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Miscellaneous



I got a hold of Rodger's camera on the last trip and here are a few miscellaneous pictures from our speaking this fall.

Off to a show at Trine University
The Trine University Cottage
Hybrid Parking in Chicago
Me and the Prius outside of Ikea in Chicago
The Bad Bad Apples meet the Tigers Mascot.



Wisconsin



(Wisconsin Lumber Yard)

Last Friday I was in Wausau, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Technical Colleges Fall Leadership Conference. Rodger and I had a great day with the students. They really made us feel like Rock Stars. The all day conference kept Rodger and I busy speaking and working with 175 students from six of the states Technical Colleges. We really enjoyed the t-shirts the made for the conference.

I got a chance to see my first snow of the year. I couldn't wait to get back to Arizona. On the way home Rodger and I got to see the Green Bay Packers in the airport. They were heading to Minnesota for a game with the Vikings. There were some definite fashion do's and don't be several players. When I finally got home to Arizona, I ran into Ozzie Guillen (the manager of the Chicago White Sox). While I was noticing all of the sports players, I got noticed by someone. People always tell me I know everyone, but I didn't expect to have my name yelled out in the middle of the Green Bay Airport. Thank you Kristy from Franklin University for remembering Rodger and I!


GRANITE PEAK SKI AREA
Granite Peak Ski Area offers downhill skiing in nearby Rib Mountain. The 700-foot (210 m) mountain is the highest skiable mountain in the state and offers the second highest vertical drop in the Midwest. It first became a ski area in 1937, when Wausau residents cleared six runs by hand, installed the nation’s longest ski lift and built the chalet with stone quarried nearby.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Congratulations


My good friend and partner in crime when we speak welcomed his fourth child into the world. Congratulations to Rodger and Melanie! They welcomed a baby girl into the world on Monday. Her name is Sonja Olivia.


Here is a picture of his baby girl.

Speaking Season coming to an end

I'm sitting in the Phoenix Airport getting ready to board a flight to Wisconsin. I'll be speaking with Rodger in Wausau, Wisconsin on Friday. We will be speaking at North Central Technical College. We'll be conducting a leadership conference for 200+ college students from Technical and Community Colleges in Wisconsin.

This will be my last planned speaking job for 2008. It's been a good year and I look forward to a GREAT 2009. As of now, look for me in Akron, Ohio and Austin, Texas when 2009 starts.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

SCORE

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop given by a great group of people. The organization is called SCORE. They are known as the Counselors to America's Small Businesses.

Score is a non-profit organization that offers free and low cost workshops for small business owners and anyone looking to start a small business. Their are local chapters across country.

With the tough financial times, I learned this weekend that a lot of the workshops offered by SCORE are good for the everyday non-business owner. There are workshops on how to get loans, how to market yourself and basic business principals.

In 2009 I will turn my speaking, entertaining and modeling in a small business. I would like that business to last for a long time ,run properly and efficiently.

For more information on SCORE click on the link below. More information on my business will be posted in the next few weeks.

http://www.score.org/index.html

Who am I voting for?

Election Day


This morning I woke up a 5 AM (Kelly woke me up) to head over to the local polling location to be a part of history. I went out to vote. Every time you go out to vote you are a part of history. I arrived to the polling location at 5:30 AM to discover 30 people already waiting. It was a diverse group of people in both age, race and ethnicity. I was even asked "Do you speak English" by one of the election workers. I laughed on the inside. The lady just wanted to know if I wanted if I wanted a ballot in English or Spanish. It took me twenty minutes to vote on my "paper ballot." That really surprised me because I've used a voting machine in Ohio the last four times I have voted. When I left I noticed the line was about an hour plus wait.

I had friends wait over two hours to vote this weekend. My grandparents in their 80's went and voted early. My mom, brother and sister waited in the rain in Florida. It's nice to see people finally taking the time to do what so many people world wide value and many times fight over......the right to vote. I met a group from Brazil last year and they told people how it's manditory to vote in their country. They said you risk be hired or fired if you don't vote! Wow!

I hope everyone takes the time to go out and vote. It's really important. Choose a candidate that you really believe in or agree with their goals and aspirations. It's not about what your friends or family believe in, it's about what YOU believe in. So choose the candidates that best reflect your beliefs and aspirations.

You can see I feel that voting is important. I had a friend who wouldn't talk to his co-workers on Election Day if they didn't vote. Voting is important, hopefully the country will really make it important in the future by either giving people the day off or giving people time off to vote because of the long waits people have to go through.

I leave everyone with this. A former boss of mine had a great comment years ago when he was asked why he voted. -"I like to complain. If you don't vote, then you can't complain."

Happy Anniversary






Kelly and I have been dating for over two years now. Time flies when you're having fun. Every October we've agreed to celebrate by visiting Northern Arizona. Our very first trip/romantic weekend was spent in Northern Arizona, so ever year that is were we'll go to celebrate our anniversary.

We visited Flagstaff and Sedona. Both areas are very beautiful. We spent our time in Flagstaff walking the streets and did some hiking at the base of Mt. Humphrey (12,600+ feet tall, tallest point in Arizona). The sign near our hike said that the altitude was 9,200 feet. We were breathing a little heavier than normal.

For dinner Kelly made reservations for us at the "Cottage Place Restaurant." We were given our own private romantic spot for two. The meal was great. It came out in five separate courses. We had crab cakes, salad, butternut squash soup, hazelnut crusted pheasant with rice and vegetables and pear flambe for dessert. The owner/chef came out to talk to us. His name was Frank, so that made for good conversation. He let us know that the menu is changed monthly to give people seasonal varieties to pick from. The wine list is very extensive too.

For more information on the Cottage Place Restaurant, go to their website for more information
www.cottageplace.com

We finished our two day trip by walking around Sedona window shopping at the art galleries.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Working at the zoo!






To keep busy and to make some extra money to pay the bills; I'm working at the Phoenix Zoo. I started on Wednesday. I spend a few days a week working in "Monkey Village." It's an open exhibit where zoo guests can get within inches of squirrel monkeys. My job is to welcome guests into the exhibit and answer questions about the monkeys and observe their behavior during the day and report it to the zoo keepers. I've been learning all the behind the scenes secrets of how a zoo operates. Pretty amazing!

Here are a few photos of my new co-workers along with a video!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

October Birthdays

October is a busy month for Birthdays. I wanted to wish the following people a very Happy Birthday!

Jerene - Keep the checks coming!
Jane
Teresa - my sister from another mother
Chad
Caden and Cole (Happy 1st Birthday)
Rodger...aka Dr. Fun
Danielle
Holly
Patrick

Enjoy yourselves and thank you for reading the blog!

Balloon Fiesta Dawn Patrol

I was talking to my friend Brian about uploading videos on the blog. I wanted to experiment, so here is a short video of balloons taking off at dawn at last week's Balloon Fiesta. The group of balloons in the video are called the "Dawn Patrol."

Dreams without plans

In these days before the political debates for president, it's time to look at the candidates and ourselves.

It's one thing to make comments or offer advice, but do we practice what we preach? It's easy to give advice and tell people what to do, but it's hard to do exactly what you offer as advice/ or when we tell people what they should do.

With the financial crisis, Presidential elections and life in general, I really started to think about my comments above. We hear the candidates for President go back and forth about their dreams for the country. We here about what they will do when the get into office. The candidates all have dreams. There is also a lot of mud slinging and rhetoric.

But what people want to know is, what is the plan? Yes we can go to a website, but people would like to here more of what you are going to do versus, what the dream is.

The funny part is, we are just like the people running for office and running the country. Everyday we (me included) talk about our dreams. We talk about what we would do if and when "x" happens. But just like the candidates, we don't talk about or state what our plan is. Dreams are defined the following ways.

1. A series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in a person’s mind.
2. A cherished aspiration, ambition or ideal
3. A unrealistic or self-deluding fantasy
0.
Most of us want reality not dreams. The only way to make a dream into reality is by having action or better yet an action plan.

I'm reading a book right now and the author brings up a great comment about dreams and goals. It reads like this:

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk.”
James Cash Penney (Founder of JC Penny)

Many times we focus too much on what we want and dream about. We spend and waste a lot of energy dreaming. We start to focus on the wrong thing. We get distracted. Dreaming is ok. Actually it’s great. A world with out dreamers would be pretty boring. The key is to take some of that energy and put it into a plan that will make the dreams come true. We need take make the dream into reality!

Dreams are fun and plans are boring. I’ve heard this from several people. Yes it’s true; plans are no fun. Fail to plan/plan to fail. We’ve heard that before too.

I met a lot of people who are successful. Most started with a dream, but then they put it to paper and started working on making their dream into a reality. All successful people have plans. The people with plans have fun. Boring people are having fun and dreamers are dreaming to be those people.

I’ll end my entry with a classic TV show from the 80’s………”The A Team”....I love it when a plan comes together!

Good luck to everyone and making your dreams turn into a reality. It’s nice to hear about your dreams, but most of us would like to see you make them happen!

Monday, October 06, 2008

Romance and Relationships

I'm sitting in the airport, getting ready for another trip and I decided to clean up a few files. I came across an article on Romance and Relationships and thought it would make a really good post on the blog. Enjoy and feel free to leave comments.

Bringing Romance Back
by Relationship Coach, Rinatta Paries

Below are four attitudes or actions to make sure romance never dies in your relationship - or to help you revive it.

1. Learn compassion and acceptance. Your partner is human, no matter how perfect they seemed in the beginning. Most importantly, remember your partner is not imperfect to hurt you.

2. Communicate negative emotions. Communicate when you feel hurt or when you need something to change. The best thing to do with any negative emotion is to get it out in the open and resolve it.

3. Appreciate and celebrate your partner every day. Live each day as if this is the last day you have with your partner. If this really was your last day together, you would want them to know how much they are loved and appreciated.

4. Touch each other every day. Physical connection is essential to the health and longevity of the relationship, as well as to the health and longevity of each of you.



Balloon Fiesta









This weekend Kelly and I went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Hot Air Balloon owners, enthusiasts and people from all over the world descend on Albuquerque, New Mexico to watch HUNDREDS of hot air balloons. The nine-day event consists of a variety of demonstrations, races, competitions and displays. Over 800,000 people are expected to attend this year's Fiesta.

We only went for a day because of the weather, but the day we went was amazing! We saw over 650 balloons take off on Saturday morning. The balloons came in every shape, size and color imaginable. The crowd favorite had to be the group from Belgium with Darth Vader Hot Air Balloon!

The Fiesta is called the most photographed event in the world! Here are a few pictures.

For more details on the fiesta, click HERE!