Morning walk

Tally & I went on a walk to the Palm Island park. The morning reflections in the lake are nice.


Mary pointed out this Palm Island house that recently installed a practice green in their backyard. You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

Korean BBQ

It's been an annual ritual for Mary & me to go to Kyung Ju in North Miami Beach for Christmas dinner. As usual, the Jumulruk, Kimchee, & sliced green onions were awesome! Yum!!!

The big clean-up begins!

I'm home in Weston for 2 weeks to get ready for my "real" move to Ponte Vedra Beach. It's amazing what you can uncover when you decide to donate or trash stuff.
Here are the diskettes from my first version of Photoshop ... 2.5!!!
I think it was from 1993.

Mary broke open a bunch of diskettes to destroy them.

Yikes! This neon sweatshirt was in my closet! I can't believe I actually wore this ... but then again, I used to wear Agassi's Nike denim shorts complete with the wild spandex liner. That's why the ballkids in Paris called me Mademoiselle Agassi.

Rob & Evanne's Birthday Lunch

We went to Aqua Grill for lunch today. I had the smothered chicken burrito. It was delicious, but huge.

Creative Services Holiday Party

I brought the Magnifica to the office for made-to-order Starbucks espresso drinks. It was the perfect accompaniment to the Turtle Cheesecake dessert.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Today was the TOUR family holiday party at the Marriott.

My boss sure is a good sport!
There were some screamers ...

a squirmer ...

a beard puller ...

and a big smiler!!!

There weren't as many screamers as last year, so that was a little disappointing. They're my favorite! ;o)

Ben & Tim

Ben Van Hook came to town to shoot Tim for Golf World. The stuff looked really nice ... especially the 4x5 Type 55.

Jana's Haiku

Today is the deadline for the PGA TOUR Media Guide. The Champion's Tour & Nationwide Tour books went out yesterday. Laury tried to cheer Jana up by sending the stuff below in an interoffice envelope. It made her smile & made me wanna take a blog photo.

Employee Summit

Today was the first of 2 days of the inaugural PGA TOUR Employee Summit at the Sawgrass Marriott. There were about 800 employees from around the country in attendance.

I went back to my office for an hour & a half to get some work done between the Summit & party. The sky was really nice!

After the Summit Chris, Mike, John & John enjoy the annual Holiday Party.

The espresso mousse cups & chocolate cake looked fab with a little slow sync flash!

When I Grow Up ...

I wanna be a sports photographer! Here's an interesting fact from the back of the card: "A sports photographer may shoot 12 rolls of film during a game. Usually, only 10 to 20 percent of the photos are usable." I'm not sure where they got those stats. Those sure aren't good odds!

Manager Development

Today is my first of two full days of Manager Development to prepare me for my promotion. It should be easy compared to all of the homework & testing I've had to complete over the last couple of weeks. Some of it was brutal!!! This was the shadow cast on the wall outside the Golf Course Properties conference room.

Here's some of my stuff ...

Happy Anniversary to WTD!

Today marked the 100th strip for Aaron Johnson, the talented creator of What the Duck. He gave away some freebies & had a live chat. Long live the Duck! Here's the cast poster:

Yay! The Magnifica is here! :o)

Mary shipped me my new Magnifica espresso machine yesterday & it arrived today. I still have some of the 16 shots left that I bought on Sunday. I watched the DVD & fired it up. Works like a charm, but I won't really put it to work until the weekend.

Here they are side-by-side ... the broken Digital Italia & the new Magnifica.

Dead Digital Italia :o(

Today my Starbucks Digital Italia died. The display said it needed to be primed, but after an hour & a half on the phone with Starbucks, we determined it was dead. Ugh! I went to Starbucks in Jax Beach & picked up 24 shots of espresso to hold my house guests & me for a couple of days. I told the barista I was gonna order a drink that I was sure nobody ever ordered before. He didn't think I could shock him, but I did. The good news is that Starbucks will give me a full refund since it's less than 2 years old. Mary's gonna pick up a Magnifica from the Starbucks in Weston & ship it to me.

Jax Sunset

Today we went to check out the San Marco area of Jax. After that we went back up to Fernadina Beach. This was the sunset on the way home.

Thanksgiving

Mary came up to PVB for Thanksgiving. Since the weather was nice we decided to take a trip to the airplane graveyard for an early morning shoot. Just like the last time I went there, the police showed up to check us out. This time the grouchy cop ran my tag & I started hearing my address being blasted over their radio. I told them we were just taking some pictures since we thought it was really cool. The nice cop said, "you mean like for a camera club?" I said, "yeah." Then they left us alone & we went back to shooting. It was great.










After shooting the abandoned planes, we took a ride up to Amelia Island & Fernadina Beach.

Mary was pretty happy when she found a rare Santa shell. We determined it must be native to Fernadina Beach.

After the beach, we went to the Homestead for the Thanksgiving buffet.

TOUR Academy revisited

Shooting golf instruction can be very humorous. I guess we're all a little giddy after four days of shooting. A blind person might have thought they stumbled upon the set of an adult film.
Here are some of the quotes of the day ...

Sam said, "Neil can always come in & tweak me." (referring to fixing her hair every time it fell in front of her face).

Sam said to Neil, "Just stick it back in." (referring to sticking her hair back behind her ear).

Sam thinks the quotes I'm compiling are funny.
Neil tries to control her unruly hair, so she stops talking dirty.

Stan shoots in some interesting positions. He must've been a gymnast in a former life. No wonder he likes using a tripod!

When I straighten Todd's trousers, Stan amuses himself by pretending to pinch my butt with his shadow.

Kyle looks on while Neil & Travis examine the pictures & Stan finds out the fate of his Powerbook.

some more quotes:

Todd said, "If you see that thing poking out, let me know." (referring to his infamous thumb).

Stan said to Travis, "There are little people walking between your legs." (referring to golfers on the fairway in the distance).

Travis said, "Let's see if i can get my fingers in it. It's a little tight." (referring to putting on a golf glove that was too small).

Travis said, "That one felt a little sticky. That one felt good". (referring to his drives).

Travis said to Caryn, "Can we go in & take a peek?" (referring to dumping the cards & looking at the pictures).

Jana is ... Dancing with the Stars!

I was a little surprised (& initially disgusted) with myself for watching some of this season. For the record ... I have never watched this show before. In all fairness, I only watched Emmitt, Mario, Joey, and due to a sick curiosity, a little Jerry Springer. When I told Mary she should watch it, she said I was creeping her out & she didn't ever want to hear me utter the phrase "Dancing with the Stars" again. I told her to pretend it was football & just watch Emmitt.

It was Jana's sheer hate of Dancing with the Stars that caused Deborah & me to go all out & decorate her desk while she was at a meeting. Deborah made a replica of the trophy, while I made a glittery "I (heart) Dancing with the Stars" sign. We topped it off with pictures of Emmitt Smith & Mario Lopez from TV Guide. I strategically covered her keyboard with today's USA Today articles about last night's finale, so her keyboard wouldn't get covered in wayward glitter. She was irate that USA Today considered it "news". She wasn't amused by our creativity, but everyone else was. Jana said we better beware of retaliation!