Went on a really nice tour of the Napa and Sanoma Valleys today while visiting California. It was great! Sampled about 10-15 different wines, bought a few, had a great sandwich lunch at the Hall Winery then came back to the hotel in Cupertino. You can see the picture gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualomni/sets/72157623816517013/

After a working trip to San Francisco last week, Sheri and I spend the weekend with our good friends Kent and Pam on a motorcycle trip to Galena, IL while the kids were at grandma camp.  We weren’t sure if we were going to go or not as the weather looked a bit iffy and the ladies definitely wanted no part of riding in the rain.  At about 10:00 AM Saturday, it became clear that the rain had gone and we would be in for a nice ride.

Sunday we drove into Galena, walked the streets and shopped a bit, then had lunch and walked back to the bikes where we got some Gelato to share.  There were more stops on the way home as the fairer sex had some discomfort in their posterior regions but all-in-all it was a great weekend with good friends.  I’d really like to spend some more time riding in the Galena area.  The rolling hills and green fields make it about as good as you are going to get in Illinois for riding
.

You can view a gallery of some of the best photos on my Mobile Me photo gallery.

Today was the best day of the trip so far. Mid to upper 80′s all the way from Panama City to Jacksonville under mostly sunny skies.

This morning we made a couple stops in Panama City for Thunder Rally. Kent ended up getting some motorcycle luggage after eating some pastries at a local cafe. We were going to try to stay off the interstate after our great experience on US 331 on Saturday but theblocal highways were too slow. So we ended up taking US 221 north to Interstate 10.

The only downside to the day was some pretty bad sunburn on my arms and face this in spite of the SPF 50 sunblock that I put on heavily 4 separate times. ;(

Now we are trying to figure out how to dodge the storms again as we head north. We will check the radar in the morning.

Started today in Nashville dressed in all our rain gear. Left about 8:30. We were trying to avoid 2 different storms that looked to be only 30-40 miles appart. We managed to squeak through, just hitting the tail end of the first one.

Once we got south of Birmingham it was just road spray for about 50 miles. We change out of our raingear in Mobtgomery and about 50 more miles we were in t- shirts and vests.

After stopping for a break in Florala, AL. We drove through to our hotel. We ate dinner at Senor Mojotos and watched the first half of the Bulls game. Then back to the hotel to watch the rest of the game and bed… More tomorrow. 950 miles down and 4 days to go.

Left Kent’s about 7:30 this morning. Clear till Indy. 10 minutes of rain therethen clear till Nashville @6 pm eastern time. Stopped at a childhood friend of kent’s. Leaving tomorrow. Heading for Panama City. Looks like 3 hrs of rain till Birmingham. Will update tomorrow.

See where I’m at on my Spring trap… Live updates here.

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I’m spending some time tonight going through my open Firefox tabs that I’ve been babysitting for the last couple of weeks and posting the best ones to the blog here.  One that I picked up somewhere along the way was a link to a conference for 1-to-1 laptop initiatives in Memphis, TN from the 19th to 21st of July.  It’s called the Lusanne Laptop Insitute and it looks like just what the doctor ordered in terms of staff development opportunitites for teachers who are in or are moving into a 1-to-1 program.

It looks to be one of those conferences where you could really take a team of 6-8 teachers plus a principal or tech coordinator and do some real curriculum work, build a more solid team, and get your brains on the same page in regard to what is and is not possible or desirable in a laptop program.

My staff development dollars for the year are already allocated to other projects unfortunately, but I’d love to attend or even speak at this conference about how i’ve gone about building a 1-to-1 program and the successes and areas for improvement we’ve experienced along the way.

Spent the day yesterday hanging out with on of my gaming buddies, Jeff Lanza, in San Francisco. He lives in San Jose and came up and picked up Tim and I at our hotel and showed us the sights from San Francisco on up to Napa Valley. Along the way we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, saw some redwood forests, stopped at a roadside stand for some fresh peaches and Ranier Cherries (YUM!!), cruised up the 101 and Highway 1 and got an In-and-Out burger (not sure what everyone out here thinks is so great about them other than the atmosphere in the resturant), then up to see wine country through Sonoma and Napa.

After we returned to San Franciso we dined at the Stinking Rose, a garlic resturant, then got some gelato in Little Italy. It was a fun day checking out northern California.

Tim and I just registered for WWDC and are hanging out in Yerba Buena Gardens enjoying the great weather and clear blue skies. Heading to Alcatraz this afternoon. Glad I talked Tim into bringing the SLR (and not having to carry it Thanks Tim!!)

Also enjoying the AT&T USBConnect 881 HSUPA card here. Got a new driver for it yesterday that allows OS X to support it natively and its working well. Just wish I knew how fast I was connecting at. I’ve downloaded files at up to 220kbs with it out here.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

I had a great weekend this week.  I got a ton accomplished around the house, and even found some time to play catch with TC and help him learn to ride his bike without training wheels.  Sheri had a lunch date with a friend on Saturday, and TC had a play date with a friend from school, so I spent the day doing chores.  I ended up getting the lawn fertilized, the topper on the truck fixed, got the lawn furniture out, rolled a mound in the back yard that is still there from where we repaired our septic system last year, and repaire a faulty 3-way switch in the family room.

On Sunday it was mostly swapping out the outdoor light fixtures on the house and garage.  Six in all.  I’ve got to install two or three more on the back of the house, but thats a project for another day.  More catch with TC and then Sheri and I worked with him on staying up on two wheels on his bike.  He did it!  There is a picture of it in my flickr stream to the right.  He’s still wobbly, but with one or two more sessions he’ll be riding like a pro.

Here’s to hoping that next weekend will be as nice and productive.  I need to get the oil changed on the cars and the summer tires back on the STI… That’s the true sign of spring.