Love watching Lincecum pitch. Hate watching the Giants lose. Dodger Stadium is done. Time to blow it up and move downtown.

Had a great dinner at Rivera with clients. There was just as much beef and vegetables in my drink than on my plate.

Sunday’s game may have just been the type of game Brit’s team needed. With only one sub on the bench, Brit’s team was down 2-0 in the first half. It was hot as Hell and they were clearly tired, but they never gave up. Brit finally scored in the 80th minute. However, it remained bleak until the final minute of the game when one…

Brit’s team bounced back from last week’s loss in a big way and creamed one of the better teams in the league, 4-1. Despite being double and tripled teamed, Brit scored all four goals, including a couple of headers.

A couple of days of interviews are scheduled to find our next team member.

Today was the launch of Missoni for Target. Sonia was up at 4am to order online and fought multiple website crashes before finally persevering. She also went to Target this morning at 8am to see what she could get. At 8:03am, everything was gone. Branding is an amazing thing. In some ways, we’re trying to become the Missoni of the South.

#11 in Progress

They’re making another movie based on The Great Gatsby, so I figured I’d give it another read. It holds up surprisingly well.

Sunday, Funday

Breakfast burrito digesting. NFL ticket on the TV. Sonia’s chili cooking on the stove. Hoping for a 50% work free Sunday. So far, so good.

Brit’s team lost the first game of the new Gold level season. They led 1-0 going into the second half, but lost 1-3. It looks like it’s all about the subs at this level.

Another successful photoshoot in the books.

Because we’re currently dealing with a company financial crisis, we decided to celebrate “Fashion Night Out” on Rodeo Drive and spend money we currently don’t have.

This is how honors students do their homework nowadays.

The Agony of Defeat

It took two overtimes and a second round of the penalty kick shoot out to break the 0-0 tie, but once again Brit’s team came out on the losing end. Nevertheless, she’s over it and ready for the season to begin next weekend.

  My mom’s dog, Shelby, approves of the pool.

After Brit’s Games

BBQ & Pool with my Mom, Jim, Sean, Kim and the twins.

Playing their last tournament before the gold season begins next weekend, Brit’s team has looked great. They won both games, 6-0 and 3-0 and look to make it to the finals on Sunday. Brit seems to have shaken off her Achilles tendonitis and scored three.

We took my Mom and Jim to the Taste of LA “Burgers & Beer” event. We tried way too many burgers from the city’s best restaurants.

I finally gave my Aunt Ona’s greatest book collection a home.

We took over the space next door to house our growing inventory. We hope that it will help alleviate the daily shipping headaches we seem to be having. For instance, we just discovered that twenty seven orders were charged from last week, but did not get boxed and shipped. So, the only thing to do was to next day air a few hundred pounds…

It’s midnight and she’s still going strong. Junior year is turning out to be a tough load to carry. Brit starts school at 7am and ends at 2:30pm. She then has high school soccer practice until 5pm. And then there’s club practice from 7:30pm to 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursday. It’s been hard to fit in all of that homework. She also managed to…

#11 In Progress

No TV in the bedroom leads to more books read or more babies. I’m reading more books.

Finally, one hour of free time on the yard. If I keep my nose clean, the warden has promised another hour next weekend.

Burbank only allows food trucks on the last Friday of every month. I’m not waiting an hour for a grilled cheese.

Come on, Irene! We have enough road blocks to deal with. Leave our customers alone.

#6 Done

We’re officially drowning in production. #6 was officially knocked off a month or two ago, but now we’re forced to expand a little sooner than we would’ve liked.

There is only one eye sore on our street and it just happens to be our neighbor. I couldn’t take a very good picture because I didn’t want them to see me. However, their yard probably accounts for $50,000 of lost property value for us, so I’ll probably get meaner as time goes by.

A Few Projects Complete

Twenty trips to Home Depot later, we completed a few projects. We painted the front door a dark red. We Painted Before After. We opted for silver and grey/blue tones. We opened up the wall between the living room and dining room. Our biggest project outside of wiring the house for audio and video. It’s not the best before picture, but we opened it…

#5 Done

Who would have the gumption to host a party three days after they moved in?

Because we couldn’t just move in and enjoy the place for awhile, we decided to tackle a few projects right off the bat. The first was painting. The second and third more ambitious jobs were opening up the wall between the dining room and living room and wiring the house for rock stadium quality audio and video. We hired a guy our former landlord…

#49 Done

It’s been 8 Days, 3 hours, 5 minutes and 36 seconds without TV. Nevertheless, I’m not missing it. Although I did buy another TV today, so go figure. It’s 9pm and what is suppose to be the final install is not going so smoothly for the crew. Maybe I’ll get another twenty four without the boob tube.

#32 Done

It may be a bit of a disaster zone, but at least it’s our disaster zone. For the very first time, Sonia and I slept in our own bed in our own house.

John Burroughs High School

Today was Brittany’s first day at her new school, Burroughs High in Burbank. Cue the marching band. Montclair didn’t have a drumstick, let alone a whole band. As far as public schools go, it’s highly rated in Southern California. Her high school class of 2013 went from 50 to about 750. It will be an interesting transition, but I still think she’ll be a…

#1 in Progress

Dallas is in the books and was our best show yet. Despite a terribly slow show (it’s the economy stupid), Basically Me has struck a chord in the South. Now all we need to do is produce and ship what we sold. Sigh.

#33 Done

Escaped the heat and caught Stevie Nicks in Dallas.

Paying her for her time worked.

Teaching Britt the family business.

They do everything bigger in Texas, including roller skating cowboys like this guy. Our show coincides with the Western Wear show, so good people watching. The first two days of the show have been busy. In fact, we have quadrupled our New York show numbers and matched the last Dallas show with two days to go.

Just My Luck

Surprised by some rare cloud cover, Dallas residents on Thursday fell a day short of tying their all-time record for consecutive days at 100 degrees or above.

#32 in Progress

Sean brought his crew to outfit the house with TVs and surround sound. Nothing like starting a big project hours before a business trip.

#49 in Progress

Sean came by and removed my TVs from their walls. They will remain lifeless until they are rehung in the new house next Monday. This separation will help me adjust to the fact that we have decided not to hang a TV in our bedroom.

Headed to Dallas tomorrow. Can’t wait to be apart of the record setting 46th straight day of triple digit heat.

Celebrating all of the July birthdays.

#8 In Progress

Being that I’m a Francophile, I could’ve watched this movie without sound. I generally don’t like Woody Allen movies, but I enjoyed this one.

We Closed on the House

Wild applause all around……

#32 In Progress

We funded today, so escrow might actually close tomorrow. If that happens we get the keys on Monday, paint on Tuesday and leave for Dallas on Wednesday. When we move in is anyone’s guess. We had our final walk through last night, so here are way too many pictures if you’re interested. <a

NYC Recap

NYC was as hot and humid as we’ve experienced there. The traffic also seems to have gotten worse. Still, you can’t beat the Big Apple. On the surface, the show was pretty bad. It’s nearly three times the expense of the Dallas and Atlanta shows and lacks our core customer. With that said, we wrote about the same amount as we did in Dallas…

Peter Luger’s Steakhouse

I always make time to visit this Brooklyn steakhouse that was voted New York’s best steakhouse for 26 years in a row. The bacon is a must.