Glasses

If you are part of our family, odds are you have bad eyes and will need glasses. Tyson became the fifth family member to sport corrective lenses. We went to Costco and he picked out the frames by himself. Doesn't he look handsome (and smart)!

A Fine Day for Golf

We've had unseasonably warm weather for this time of year so Darren and I decided to take advantage and go to the driving range. It has been several weeks since both of us picked up the clubs and it showed. Because of our poor showing, we both decided to wait another year until we went to Q-School. In the mean time, I've got a golf tournament in St. George November 7-8. It is a two day, five man scramble with the fifth player being a "celebrity". Last year we played with a former tour player Bob Betley. Other "celebrities" included Ron Boone (former NBA player), Julius Erving, BYU and Utah golfers, among others.

Do You Yahoo?

Kristi and I attended the Utah Technology Council Hall of Fame induction event tonight at the Grand America Hotel. I'd been invited in prior years but had always turned it down. I always assumed it would be boring. The room was full of 800 of Utah's key government officials, CEOs, CFOs, Venture Capitalists and business leaders. Senators Hatch and Bennett spoke and a keynote address was delivered by Jerry Yang, Co-Founder and CEO of Yahoo. Yahoo is one of those companies that has revolutionized the Internet. In Utah there are 2.5 million residents, 1.5 million of whom are registered with Yahoo. There aren't many products that can claim such broad adoption of their technology. Mr. Yang spoke for about 30 minutes and was a down turn earth, fascinating speaker.

Holiday Concert

York Minster

We finished working today and had several hours before we had to travel back to Manchester. We walked the cobblestone streets and toured the York Minster (cathedral of the Church of England).





Typical street and plaza in this great European city.



We really miss out in America because of the young age of our country. It is so fun to see a historical city like this.



Lighting a candle in the Minster. The instructions say that you should light the candle and say a prayer (as well as a donation). I said a prayer for the Boston Redsox who are trailing 1-3 in their playoff series.



View of the city from the top of the Minster.



Another view from the to of the Minster. The cathedral was built starting in the 12th century. It was originally a roman catholic church, but is now owned by the Church of England when they split from the Catholic Church in 1534.

Social Experiment

We had planned to leave by train at 5:00 pm to travel from York to Manchester, but the trains delayed giving us an extra hour to kill at the train station. We grew increasingly bored until we decided to conduct a "social experiment". We had pockets full of British change and started dropping coins on the platform to see how much it would take before someone would claim the money. We started with 2 pence (about $0.04). No one even acknowledged the coin on the ground. We then placed 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence and 50 pence ($1.00) coins on the ground. The train station was busy and peopled walked past, stopped next to and looked at the coins, but didn't pick them up. We even set coins adjacent to vending machines of all places and people still didn't pick them up. Finally someone sat down to eat there lunch with their foot inches away from the 10 p coin ($0.20). After five minutes they finally claimed the coin. If you happen to be in York in the coming weeks, the coins are probably still there.

York - Day #3

I traveled all this way and all I seem to do is work. You'ld think this was a business trip and not a vacation. Nothing particularly exciting to report. I've attached some pictures of our office which is in the country side surrounding York (Sutton-On-The-Green is the name of the city). The office is surrounded by farm land as you can see in the attached pictures.

Outside our York sales office. Today was the first rainy day which is fortunate given the climate here this time of year.

There is a lot of green place and farm land in Northern England with significant restrictions on buidling and development.

Very narrow road that wouldn't be very accodating to our large vehicles in the US.

We had dinner this eveing at a traditional English Pub / Restaurant with the Control4 EMEA team.

Yorkshire Pudding

Most of today was spent working with no time to do any sightseeing. That didn't stop us from enjoying a more traditional english meal at the hotel where we are staying. I ordered the following:

• Yorkshire Pudding
• Roasted Chicken and Potatoes
• Apple Tart

I leared that Yorkshire pudding isn't really pudding at all. I've attached a picture of a typical meal with Yorshire pudding which is more similar to a roll covered in gravy.




The hotel where we are staying at is the York Marriott. I've attached some pictures of the hotel and room as well as view from the hotel garden. The hotel is situated adjacent to a fairly large horse racing track.



Front view of the York Marriott.



A really slow day with the camera as I'm forced to share pictures of my room.




The back garden of the hotel.



Picture of the racetrack I took from the hotel garden.

Cheerio from Jolly England

I wanted to be the first in the family to blog from foreign soil, so I decided to take a trip to the UK. Our company has an office in York, England and this is the second trip I've been able to take this year. On my last trip I didn't take my camera. This time I thought it would be fun to post some daily pictures from my travels. The trip was fairly long - 22 hours in total, including a train ride between Manchester and York. I really enjoy the train ride as you travel through very traditional English countryside with green rolling hills and meandering rock walls.

For those of you who rely as I do on the movie "Braveheart" for your English history, you'll remember that William Wallace and his band of Scots "sacked" York and sent the Duke's head to King "Longshanks".

The original city is walled with four entrances (see pictures below).





One of the four entrances to the city.


Me standing on top of the wall which circles the entire city. I'm standing directly above the entrance pictured above.



Two rivers (Ouse & Foss) combine and travel through the city. On Sunday, people will travel to York by boat to spend the day.

I'm not a huge fan of English food. There are three types of restaurants - Indian, Italian and Pubs. Taking full advantage of being in a foreign country, tonight we dined at Pizza Hut. It's surprising how expensive the food is here. I'm traveling with a work associate and it cost us $40 to eat at Pizza Hut.



You see these traditional double decker buses all over England.

Utah Jazz

Tyson and I kicked off the start of the NBA season by attending the pre-season game between the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns. Tyson was impressed by the 10th row seats and the snack bars. It's hard to get too excited about pre-season as you don't recognize half the players, most of whom won't be on the roster when the season starts. We did get to see Shaq and Steve Nash from the Suns. There were a few "plays of the day" worthy nominees and we had a great time.

Benefit Dinner at LaCaille

For the past three plus years I've been a volunteer on the board for a non-profit domestic violence shelter (http://www.southvalleysanctuary.com/). The sanctuary provides emergency shelter for women and their families who are in immediate physical danger. It has been a rewarding experience. I recently approached Hilary about performing a benefit concert for the shelter and she has graciously accepted. The concert and dinner will be held at LaCaille restaurant (http://www.lacaille.com/) on November 21. We are still putting together details, but if any of you are going to be in town or have friends who might be interested, I'd encourage you to attend or pass along an invitation. The cost will be $100 per person, with all proceeds going to benefit the shelter.