Internet Promo

My friend Rodger and I will be speaking at a conference in Jacksonville, FL on April 1st. The conference asked us to record a one minute promotional spot for their website. They gave Rodger and I a call on Wednesday to record the spot. Rodger and I had practiced a few times the night before, but kept laughing and missing parts. We were told we could take as many takes as we wanted too until we got things right. To our suprise Rodger and I got things right on the first take! Wow!

That spot is a little cheesy, but it was fun.

If you want to hear it, go to the link below. When you get to the site, scroll down until you see the blur about "Frank and Rodger", then click on the link.

NCSL Keynote Speakers

Monster Truck?

Here is a funny picture I had to show off. I was driving home and saw this van. I've seen monster trucks, but why do you need to have a van with huge truck tires?

Employee Basketball Game

For the last three years, our college athletic department has sponsored a basketball game between the faculty (teachers) and the staff (non-teachers). On Thursday we had our annual game. We got snowed out last week. The game was before the last home game for the men's and women's teams. We always hold the games to help draw more fans to support our teams.

The game was a lot of fun, and the staff team, my team came back in the final seconds to win a dramatic (no one got hurt) 56-55 game. The staff team is now 3-0 versus the faculty. Here some photos from the game. Staff is in silver and faculty is in blue.

Happy Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday

Today is Fat Tuesday! The last day of the Mardi Gras period! I almost forgot about it, until I got to work today and saw all my co-workers wearing their beads and sampling the food that my boss brought in. He "LOVES" Mardi Gras. He's been to New Orleans several times to celebrate. So, when can't make it down, he's brings the party to work. I can't wait to eat the Jambalaya he brought. I hope everyone has a great day today. For all the practicing Catholics reading this blog, good luck with what ever you give up for Lent!

Hopefully I'll be able to go down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras one day and share a few stories on the blog.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Many of you know that I've been dating a very special lady named Kelly! Friday was her birthday, so I wanted to wish the birthday girl a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

"Happy Birthday Kelly!"

Valentines Day Snowstorm

Valentines Day 2007...."The Heart Day Snowstorm!" We've had blizzard warnings all night and the snow is still falling. There are 3-4 foot snow drifts everywhere. There was also thunder and lightning. Work is closed today, so thats great. I've been watching my neighbors and people get stuck all morning. I tried helping a few neighbors last night. So, just like most of Cleveland, I'm snowed in for Valentines Day! Keep warm everyone!

Click on the photos to see them larger!



Look at the snow blower in the background. Ye, that snow drift is chest high!

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

For everyone stuck in the snow on the east coast! Keep warm and be safe!

Happy Valentines Day to my AGP! I'm happy you liked your flowers!

Cavaliers vs. the Lakers

Today I joined my best friend Scott and his basketball team at the Quicken Loans Arena to watch the Cavaliers play the Los Angeles Lakers. The Cavaliers won the exciting game 99-90. The best part of the game was getting to go on the floor before the game and be near the players. The Cavaliers have a program were organizations and teams can buy/sell game tickets. If you sell enough tickets, you can go on the floor before the game and give the players "high fives" as they walk on to the court. Most of the kids have never been to an NBA game or that close to an NBA player, so it was fun to see their reactions and faces. It was a good time and we got some good pictures. Ran into a couple of ex-NBA players in the tunnels. You have no clue how big the players are until you get up close to them.
Scott's girls/team enjoying seeing themselves on the jumbotron
LeBron James getting ready for the game


Special Pass given to go onto the floor.

Still Cold in Ohio!

This last week and a half have been super cold and snowy in Ohio. Nothing like upstate New York (they got 10 feet of snow in the last week). We've had wind chills reach negative thirty ( yes, -30 degrees) and today it hit 20 degrees for the first time in a week and it felt like a heat wave! Here is another picture of the bridge down the street. Notice how the river is frozen!

Super Bowl

A long day?

Starting Brian's friend's son off early! "Go Bears!"

Last week the Colts beat the Bears to win the Super Bowl. One of my really good friends (Brian) had a party to watch the game and to cheer for his favorite team ...."Da Bears!" Things started off great for the Bears, but things just weren't meant to be and the Colts won. The party was a lot of fun. Brian definately had the Bears theme going and some great games and door prizes. i didn't win! Oh well! Here are some pictures from the party and Brian's shrine to the Bears and his favorite football player Walter Payton!

Chicago

On Wednesday I was in suburban Chicago speaking at Aurora University. Spoke to students and staff on how to motivate members, employees and students. Got treated really good. The advertising of the event around campus was great to see. A photo is below. It was fun to see Chicago gearing up for the Super Bowl. Some of the pictures below are from the trip. There's a picture of my plane being de-iced, the ice on Lake Michigan, the students and advisors at Aurora and the Bears Banner at the airport.

Snowy Night in Ohio

We're getting the snow I dreamed about! Work closed early tonight. The snow was/is coming down at about 1-2 inches per hour. On the way to my car, I stopped to take some night photos. I liked the way they came out, so I decided to post them on the blog.

BAD BAD APPLES!

The BAD BAD APPLES website is up and working! The site was set up to help advertise me and my friend Rodger. We speak mostly to college students around the country. We needed a way to better market ourselves, so we've been working on developing the website for the last couple of months.

We're off to Aurora Univeristy in Chicago this week. Then looking at lectures and workshops in Kansas, Florida and Ohio over the next couple of months. I'll be sure to post pictures on the blog and the website.

If you'd like to check out the website, click on the title above or click on the link on the right side of the blog!

Winter finally arrives in Ohio!

We've been living a dream here in Northeast Ohio this winter. The weather has been warmer than usual and the sun as actually been seen several times! Most dreams come to an end and the dream in Northeast Ohio ended this week. Cold weather and snow have arrived. Tonight the windchill factor is supposed to be in the single digits. It snowed everyday last week and it's supposed to snow everyday this week. Unfortunately, it hasn't snowed enough to close school (work). My co-workers and I have been doing the snow dance for the last week. Hopefully the dance will work this week. I plan to get out and take some photos this week. There are definately some great photo opportunities.

I was able to sneak out to the park one morning and take photos of the bridge and river.

Tired of Credit Card Applications

Today I got home from work and I went to check my mail. When I opened my mailbox, I discovered I had application for credit cards. This isn't unusual, but today there were SIX applications waiting for me, plus ONE application for refinancing my student loan. I don't know if the Credit Card companies decided their New Year's resolution would be to mail out a ton of applications, but I'm getting really tired it. I must have received at least 20-30 applications since the holidays.

Being fed up with all of this junk mail, I decided to take action. This isn't an original idea, but I opened my "mail" today and took out all of the "information" (crap) out of the envelopes. The last thing in the envelopes is a return envelope. This envelope just happens to have a postage paid return stamp on it. So, here's what I did. I took all of the useless crap from the credit card companies and put it in their return envelopes. I removed all of my information of course. The envelopes will be mailed out shortly. I think I'll make it a point to find useless information and junkmail from my house and mail it back to the credit card companies everytime they decide to blow up my mailbox! They kill me will finance charges, so I think it's fair I kill them with useless junk!

What have you been up to Frank?

I haven't been keeping up with my blog to well since the New Year started, so I appologize. I've been keeping busy as usual and I've been trying to find some time to blog and stories to blog about. Here's a run down of what's going on in my life over the last two weeks:

#1 Keeping busy at work. Classes at Lakeland started on Tuesday. The last couple of weeks I've working to organize and run our new student orientations. Monday was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. The college hosts the county celebration of the holiday. I'm one of the organizers and supervisors for the event. We had about 250 people attend this years program. Things ran great. The performers, keynote speaker and food were all good. The artwork in the gallery was great too.

#2 Getting ready to hit the road again. As of today, I have at least five speaking engagments lined up. Over the next couple of months I'll be in Chicago, Kansas and Florida speaking at colleges, schools and a National Conference as a keynote speaker with my friend Rodger. A lot of planning and practice go into our performances/lectures, so we've been working hard on content, website design, handouts and protional material.

#3 I got asked to write a chapater in a book. I work for a speaking company and they're putting together a book on leadership that will come out this fall, so I've been working on my contribution. Wow, I'm going to be an author!

#4 I'm taking some classes. I wanted to take some computer classes, so I signed up for some classes at work.

#5 Spending time with friends. I miss my friends. People got busy during the holidays, so doing what I can to spend time with my friends or at least keep in contact over the phone and through e-mail.

#6 Working on my 2007 goals. I wrote up my goals for the year, so I've shared them with a few friends and now I'm starting to work on them. 2006 was a great year and 2007 will be even better.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading. More stories and photographs of my adventures will be up soon!

Above, is a picture of me and Wayne Dawson. Wayne is the news anchor for Channel 8 in Cleveland, OH. He was the keynote speaker for our Martin Luther King program.

Happy Birthdays

Over the last week, a couple of my close friends celebrated birthdays. Happy 30th Birthday Brian! Happy Birthday Ramonita!

I spent last Friday with some co-workers and friends celebrating Ramonita's birthday! Thanks for dinner Ramonita. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures.

On Saturday, it was my friend Brian's birthday. His wife Teresa (one of my best friends) invited all of Brian's friends out to dinner at a comedy club/resteraunt/martini bar called Pickwick and Frolic in downtown Cleveland. We had a lot of fun and the food was great.

Here are some pictures from Brian's Party! Welcome to the 30 club "B"!


Me with the Birthday Boy...Bald men unite!

Me and Teresa

Teresa and her Hubby!

End of 2006, The Beginning of 2007

Happy New Year to Everyone! 2006 was a great year for me and I ended the year the way most of it has gone....Me keeping BUSY. The last 12 days have been pretty crazy and enjoyable. I'm just doing what I can to live and enjoy life to the fullest.

It the past 12 days I have been in Five cities and Four time zones. Some how my mind and my body are in good shape. For Christmas I went to Florida to see the family. It was great to see the family. I hadn’t seen them in a year. That won’t happen this year. Everyone always asks what did you get for Christmas. This may sound corny, but the best gift from my family was a suitcase set for all my traveling and restaurant gift certificate for eating on the road.

After leaving Florida, I headed out west to see someone who puts a BIG smile on my face every time I see her (and talk to her). I had to stop in Houston for a little bit while I traveled to Arizona. I spent six days visiting Kelly to bring in the New Year. We spent time in Phoenix and a few days in San Diego to celebrate the New Year.

I’ve never been to Mexico before, so Kelly and I made a QUICK trip across the boarder in San Diego to visit Tijuana. We only made it 1/8 of mile into the country. We bought some vanilla for Kelly’s friends and got harassed by way too many vendors. Tijuana is definitely a “different” place. It took us no time to walk in to Mexico and about 40 minutes to get out. I wanted to get my passport stamped, but that didn’t happen. Be sure to look at the photos of our one-hour tour to the land south of the boarder.

To celebrate the New Year, Kelly and I went to "Old Town" San Diego. "Old Town" is the original area where San Diego was settled. It's full of historic and orignial buildings and a variety of shops and restaurants. We walked around the historic area and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant. After that we did what everyone else does for New Years....send and receive a ton texts messages wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

San Diego was a great city. I wish we had more time. The drive back to Arizona was very picturesque. The sand dunes outside of Yuma, Arizona were amazing. The dunes are where some of the desert scenes from “Return of the Jedi” was filmed. All I can say is, the area was Sand Buggy and RV Mecca of the world. I never knew so many RV’s existed.

One of my former students set us up with a good deal and a great room while we were in San Diego. If you’re ever looking for a nice hotel stay at, be sure to contact, Lori Smith with Woodfin Suites. Lori is the Sales Manager for the location in Columbus, Ohio. Thanks Lori! WoodfinSuites Tell Lori the Frank referred you and you can let you know about all the specials and packages.

I had a great time as usual with Kelly. I got to meet some of her friends and she toured me around the Phoenix area. We also took the time to a couple of holiday movies. We saw ”Night at the Museum” “Night at the Museum” and ”The Pursuit of Happyness” “The Pursuit of Happyness.” Both movies were very good. I recommend seeing or renting the movies.

The trip was a great time to be around good people and relax and prepare for 2007.

Here are more than a few pictures and captions from the trip:


The University of Phoenix Stadium home of the college national championship. Go Buckeyes on January 8th!
Outside of the University of Phoenix Stadium
Me and the cactus
The line into Mexico
Welcome to Mexico
Mexico!
The line back into the United States, notice all of the vendors in the road
The famous Corando Hotel
Kelly and I on Coronado Island
The Gas Lamp district of San Diego
Viejas Casino, Viejas Indian Reservation, California
Viejas Entertainment Center/Food Court
Viejas Outlet Center
Souther California Mountains. Went from 4,100 feet to Sea Level in less than 10 miles
Imperial Dunes California. Searching for Luke, Han Solo and Chewbacca

On my way to the west coast

I'm doing what I can to truly enjoy the holidays, so I'm off to Arizona to see Kelly and also visit San Diego for the New Year. I'll be sure to post some good pictures soon. Until then, enjoy my photo about the Gulf of Mexico as my plane prepared to land in Houston. What a crazy week for me. One week four different time zones and temperatures!