Joy

A friend sent this to me in an e-mail today, so I thought I would share it with everyone. Thank you Maribel!

Each day is a new chance to find joy and to dance. If you let it pass or think it useless, the chance is gone and you'll never get it back. When was the last time you played? Or just did something for the sheer fun of it? Joy is not found in the world around you, it's within yourself. You can make your own joy, especially during those dark times when you need to really feel alive again. Fun and play are healthy antidotes to taking life--and ourselves--too seriously. They're proven boosters of immune systems and mental health and make life worth the trouble. So do the twist. Sing in the shower. Learn a magic trick. Watch a cartoon. Challenge some kids to a game. Don't let a single day go to waste.

Back to Sedona!

Kelly and I have been dating for a year! Our very first trip together was to Sedona last October. To celebrate our anniversary, we returned to Sedona last week. Sedona is a town in Northern Arizona known for it's great landscapes, tourist attractions and parks.

Kelly and I took a hike and checked out all the shops. Late on we had a nice dinner at the outdoor patio at the hotel next to a fire pit. Good times! Nice and relaxing!

If you ever visit Sedona, I definately recommend staying at the Hilton!

Here are a few pictures enjoy!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

October 31, 2007! Happy Halloween Everyone! Enjoy the day! Have fun! For the kids who read this, I hope you get lost of candy!

Here is a picture of our (Me and Kelly) Pumpkin! We carved it tonight! I love his tooth, but it fell out shortly after the picture, I wonded if the tooth ferry visits pumkins!

The Secret (Click Here)

A few years ago, a book called "The Secret" came out. It talks about the "secret" to a great life, being successful and being positive. The book was converted into a movie. A really good friend gave me the movie for a birthday gift and I finally got a chance to watch it. Trudy and her husband said watching the movie or reading the book would be life changing. They were right. Everyone who decides to read the book or watch the movie will get something different out of it. The book/movie defiantly backs up a lot of my personal beliefs and the beliefs of a lot of people I know.

If you're feeling a little down, you're looking to focus on the positives in life, or you just want to know what makes people successful, click on the link above for more information on "The Secret."

What's in your piggy bank? (Click here)

Like a lot of people I've been doing a lot to improve my finances. Increasing my net worth, is the way I like to describe it. I've been talking to financial advisers, reading books and just using some of my experiences from life. I was in the car and heard a commercial for a Feethepig.org. It's a cool website set up by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. There is a ton of free information to help people out no matter where you are in life. Click on the link above for more information. When you go to the site, be sure to click the link marked "www.360financialliteracy.org" at the top of the page!

Good Luck everyone!

Another video on Youtube!

New YouTube video for BAD BAD Apples. You can call this our infomercial. Everyone loves the blooper reel at the end! And yes I know I'm wearing white sox! lol

Skybus (click here)

One of my former students let me know about a new airline called "Skybus." The airline is based out of Columbus, Ohio and offers discount airfares around the country. The most interesting part of the airline is their $10 fares! Yep, if you're one of the first 10 people to book a given flight, you can get a seat for $10! There are taxes and fees for your bags and food, but if you live in Ohio or any of the cities the airline fly's too, check out the link above.

Where have you been Frank?

Where in the United States is Frank Kitchen?

I’m back to Blogging! I was out of town 11out of the last 14 days. Life on the road! Here’s how my traveling has gone in the last two weeks.
Phoenix to Denver/ Denver to Billings, Montana/ Billings, Montana to Powell, Wyoming (3 Day Leadership Conference/Speaking)/Powell to Billings/ Billings to Denver/ Denver to Phoenix (Home for 3 days)/ Phoenix to Chicago/ Chicago to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania/ Harrisburg to Lancaster, Pennsylvania (3 Day College entertainment conference/Speaking)/ Lancaster to Cleveland, Ohio (Employee training workshop)/ Cleveland to Dallas/ Dallas to Phoenix (home for 12 hours)/ Phoenix to Kansas City, Missouri/ Kansas City to Emporia, Kansas/ Emporia to Kansas City/ Kansas City to Phoenix! Wow! So, blogging has been a little difficult! =0 )

Life on the road! I think I will have to start rating airports in my blog. I've been in eight different airports in the last two weeks and at least 20+ so far this year. The new terminal in Dallas (Terminal D) is by far the nicest I've been in so far this year. Harrisburg International was the cleanest ( I love the rocking chairs). Kansas City, Harrisburg, Tampa and Phoenix have free internet!

I’ve had a lot of fun over the last two weeks. Last week I was in Lancaster, PA to give three workshops at the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) Mid-Atlantic Conference. Over 900 students where in attendance. The purpose of the conference is to give colleges the opportunity to see/meet performers live before that book them. Rodger and I were scheduled to give three workshops. By the time Saturday rolled around for our last workshops, students were showing up at 9AM cheering that “Yeah Rodger and Frank are presenting!” That is great for the ego….errr confidence! We checked out the evaluations and all were Super Positive. We have several strong possibilities for work in 2008.

After the conference Rodger and I jumped in his car and drove to Cleveland. It was great to return to my former home. I was in town to work at a staff training retreat with Rodger. “Work” allowed me time to see lots of friends. I got to meet my best friend’s new girlfriend. I got to go back and visit my former job at Lakeland Community College. I got a chance also to enjoy some great weather. 94 degrees in Ohio in October was crazy!

As Rodger says, “They shoot, they score!” The training retreat went great! Everyone attending loved what we did. After that I got a chance to stay with my friend Brian. He and his wife are expecting twins in 2 weeks. I got to help him a little bit with the baby room he is painting. Earlier during the week I went to the hospital to visit his wife Teresa. She’s on bed rest until the babies are born. Brian and Teresa, thank you for letting me borrow your car to visit everyone in Cleveland.

I was preparing to return home after being on the road for a week, when my agent Brooke called and asked if I could “fill in” for one of the agency’s speakers. It was no ordinary speaker. It was the speaker the company is named after…..Dave Coleman….”The Dating Doctor” himself. 10 time National Speaker of the year. The guy the movie “Hitch” was based on. I was being called to “fill in” for him in Kansas the very next day because he was stuck in New York City! Wow! So I flew home and prepped for the show on the plane.

Wednesday night I get back to Phoenix. Kelly picks me up and we go to her friend’s 30th Birthday dinner. It was at a local Greek Restaurant. The food was great, but the entertainment stole the night. There was a belly dancer who I’m guessing was somewhere in her 50’s. She put quarters on her stomach and rolled them up and down her stomach in unison, one at a time, every other coin, etc.! It was crazy!

Thursday morning, I was at the airport again and on my way to Emporia State University. While I was driving to the show I got a call from a local radio station to interview me about “Dave’s/My show.” When I got to the hotel, the staff said they read about me in the local paper. No pressure at all! I arrived to the college to perform in front of over 200 people. Things went GREAT! The people in charge were happy. The audience cheered, laughed and clapped the entire time and my voice that I was losing came back before the show!

I finally got back on Friday afternoon. Kelly’s smiling face was waiting for me at the airport. It was great to finally get home. Kelly and I have been dating for a year, so we went to a great local restaurant for dinner. We sat out on the patio, enjoyed some good food, some wine from Germany and some great fall weather!

We finished off the crazy 2 plus weeks on Sunday! Kelly asked me to run the Phoenix Race for the Cure 5K. It was reported that over 40,000 people were signed up to particpate in the several runs and walk to raise money for Cancer Research. There were A LOT of people. Kelly and I ran the entire race together and crossed the finish line holding hands! That was a great way to finish a crazy 2 1/2 weeks! =0 )

American Airlines DC-3 at the Phoenix Airport
Downtown Chicago
Rodger and I with a student at NACA
Coleman Productions Booth at NACA
Wrigley Field Chicago
Brian and Teresa's Baby Room. Can you tell Brian is an artist?
The happy expecting parents
More baby room art
Downtown Cleveland from the Hospital
The Belly Dancer and her "quarter trick"
Emporia State University
Emporia State Student Union. Location of my Creative Dating Show
New Mexico from the air

BAD BAD Apples Video

My new video on You Tube!

This summer I shoot a video with my friend Rodger and my brother Jim. We wanted to have a funny video to help advertise our speeches and performances. We plan to show the video at conferences and before we come on stage.

Please check out the video. Another one will be posted soon. The second video will have the outakes/blooper reel from the video!

Click on the title above see the video YouTube... If it doesn't work, just search for BAD BAD APPLES at the YouTube site

More Wyoming

What a great time I had with Rodger in Wyoming. The staff and students at Northwest College treated us like VIPs. Rodger and I were in Powell, Wyoming to be the keynote speakers at the Wyoming Leadership Conference. We gave 3 speeches to about 100 attendees. We also participated in a lot of the other conference activities. The conference began on Thursday and ended on Saturday.

At the college’s attending the conference were all community colleges. We learned that there is only on 4 year University in the state of Wyoming. Even though Northwest is called a “community college,” but it has the fell of any residential campus. The college has dorms and resident halls, a campus spread out over a couple of blocks and their own rodeo team!

The conference site is close to the entrance of Yellowstone Park. The entrance to the park and being in the park are totally different. Yellowstone Park is the first National Park and covers more area than the state of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Many of the roads in the park close during the winter or when it snows because most of the park sits at over 7,000 feet. There was some bad weather in the park the day before we arrived and the amount of time needed to see some of the sites didn’t give us enough time to see the park. We did get close enough in the city of Cody to see a lot of the mountains near the park! Wow is all I can say.

Cody, which is named after Wild Bill Cody, was a fun tourist town to stop into. The City has about 8,000 people and is about an hour from the Eastern entrance to Yellowstone. It’s is also the closest airport to the park. Cody is known as the Rodeo Capital of the world. During the summer, there is a rodeo every night of the week. We also got a chance to check out the Wild Bill Cody dam. It’s amazing to look over the edge of the dam (300 feet down). It was trying hard not to drop Rodgers camera or fall over the edge because it was very windy.

If you’re ever in Cody, be sure to stop by the Will Bill Cody museum. The place is huge and has a ton of information on the West, Buffalo hunting, American Indians and weapons of the period.

Also be sure to stop by CB’s Family Sports Bar and Grill. The food is great and the owner is very friendly. The owner is from Florida and wanted to open something up that was a little “different.” I recommend the Chicken Pesto that I had. Lots of flavor and very light.

CB’s Family Sports Bar and Grill
1134 13th Street
Cody, WY 82414

That’s all for now. I’m off to Pennsylvania and Ohio this week, so I will blog more about those trips later this week! For all of my friends in Ohio, I’ll see you soon!

Wyoming and Montana

I just got back from a great trip up north. Roger and I got invited to speak at the Wyoming Leadership Conference at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. Powell is locted just south of the Montana/Wyoming border and about 90 miles from the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. We wanted to visit the park, but we just didn't have enough time. We did get to see a lot of beautiful landscape. Here are a few of the photos from the trip. I will post more information and photographs later. I have to get unpaked and ready for another trip this week.

Major Payne Website (Click Here)

I was working on a workshop today. I was doing some research and stumbled across a website that has audio clips from the movie "Major Payne." Some of the clips are "Classic!"

Click on the link above if you need a good laugh!

Vote756.com (Click Here)

Clothing designer Marc Ecko purchased Barry Bonds' 756th homerun ball for over $752,000. He believes the record is tarnished because of steroids, so he's letting people vote on what to do with the ball he purchesed. Click on the link about before September 25th to cast your vote. The choices are A.) Send the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame B.) Brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall of Fame or C.) Send it into outerspace. I think it would be funny to see them launch the ball into space, but I voted for B.

Keeping Busy

Haven't blogged much in the last week. I've been keeping busy. I'm preparing to hit the road again next week, so I've been working on some speeches and working with a friend to write a couple of workbooks/ books. On top of that, I signed a contract with a movie casting company last week, they said they liked my look and my resume. Hopefully you'll be seeing blogs and pictures of me working on a movie set.

After doing all of that, I got to help Kelly out a little bit last week. She's a teacher and they have a ton of work outside and inside of the classroom. Seeing how busy she was, I volunteered to help her out and she took me up on my offer. I spent the last week being her assistant. I got to help grade papers, make copies and work with students. Volunteering was a lot of fun. I'm sure after reading this, Kelly will find some more work for me to do! =0 )

Favorite part of last week was the weekend. Kelly and I went out to dinner to celebrate the one year anniversary of our first date. To celebrate we went back to the same restaurant. I couldn't get the same table we sat at last year. We had a good time and good meal. Neither of us can believe how fast the last year has gone and that we would be living with each other. I guess you can say we had a really good dinner a year ago! =0 )

The Kingdom (Click Here)

Kelly and I went to see a senak preview of "The Kingdom" on Saturday. Really good movie. I'll definately give it my "Go see it" stamp of approval. The movie doesn't come out until Sept. 28th. The movie stars Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. The plot and story are really good and the ending will leaving you thinking. If you want more information, click on the link above.

Thank you Teri!

Hi Teri. Thank you for leaving a comment on the blog and letting me know about my old place. The only problem is, I don't know how to get in touch with you. You have my business card, can you please e-mail me with your contact information or call my cell phone.

Thank you!
Frank

Tell everyone I said hello!

Thank you Kelly!

Tuesday was my birthday. Kelly has been really busy with work and keeping up with me. Even with her crazy schedule, she still found the time to take me out to a really nice seafood restaurant. She had planned this for awhile. The food was great and the company was even better. If you’re ever in Phoenix and have the taste for seafood, look up the following restaurant:

McCormick & Schmick’s
2575 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85016
(602) 468-1200

I recommend the crab cakes! MMMMMM!!!!!!

Thank you Kelly! =0 )

P.S. – Thank you to everyone who called, wrote, text, e-carded me, Facebooked, Myspaced and e-mailed me with B’day wishes!

Labor Day

On Labor Day I joined Kelly and her friends for the Jerome Hill Climb. The Jerome Hill Climb is a 4.6 mile run in the town of Jerome, Arizona. Jerome is known as the Arizona Ghost Town. The town is built on the side of a mountain about 30 miles south of Sedona and about 100 miles north of Phoenix. The town used to be a huge mining town. Copper, Silver and Gold were lifeblood of the mines. Most of the mines closed in the mid 1900’s and the town went from 15,000 people to less than 50. That’s how the town got it’s Ghost town designation. In recent times, the town has become a big artist area. There are a ton of shops and restaurants. There are also Haunted Mine tours. Kelly and I would like to go back when we have more time.

After touring the town and all the shops on Sunday, we got ready for the “run” on Monday. The town is 5200 feet in elevation. That’s right, over a mile above sea level. The temperature was great for a run (70’s -80’s) but we found out that the run was straight up the mountain behind the town. To start the race we had to walk over a mile downhill to the starting area. From there, it would be 4.6 miles straight up. Kelly is nursing a bad ankle and I’m not in running shape, so we decided to just “power walk” the course. The mountain the town is built on is 7700 feet tall. I’m guessing we climbed somewhere above 7,000 feet. When the race started everyone but Kelly and I took off running. We just kept our pace (about 4 miles and hour), and we eventually started passing people. We made to the finish line in 1 hour and 12 minutes. Kelly and I crossed the finish line at the same time, but somehow she fished about 20 seconds ahead of me when the race results were posted. The winner of the race was from Africa. He finished in 29 minutes!

The views going up the mountain were amazing! When we got to the top we found out we were going to have to walk back down. Ughhh! Yep that adds up to over 10 miles. We started to walk about down. About half a mile down a truck beeps at us and invites us to ride down. The couple in the truck stayed in the hotel room next to our group. We had talked to them earlier in the morning. They remembered us, so invited us to ride back down. It pays to be nice to people. While we were driving back down, we found out that man driving they truck proposed to his fiancé as she crossed the finish line.

I brought Kelly’s camera with me (here’s is better than mine). Here are some photos of Jerome and the “run” errrrr walk up the mountain.