Abandoned the strip for the low rent downtown district.

Pre craps meal at Sushi Roku in Vegas.

Working on #20. The iPad makes it even better.

#10 Finished. The list…

1. Ghostwriter
2. Law Abiding Citizen
3. Hot Tub Time Machine
4. Defiance
5. An Education
6. Sherlock Holmes
7. Brothers
8. Crazy Heart
9. Exit Through The Gift Shop
10. Couples Retreat
11. The Road
12. Bad Lieutenant 
13. Get Him to the Greek

Saw Get Him To The Greek. A few laughs, but mostly weak.

School’s out for… SUMMER.

#15 in progress. Read Kitchen Confidential and loved it. The down and dirty guide to the culinary biz.

#55 Done. Saw a great bar band at The Stage on Broadway in Music City, USA.

Southern Comfort.  #61 done. Our clients treated us like we were the clients. Expected nothing less from the South.

Honky Tonk Row, Nashville.

Touched down in Nashville, Tennessee.

May Recap.  In the immortal words of Beyonce, I liked it so I put a ring on it.   

So, let’s start with what’s done…

#7. Spent Mom’s Day with my actual mom. Hadn’t done that in ages.  

#13. Drank with the ghosts of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Samuel Johnson at the Cheshire Cheese Pub in London.  It resulted in my all time favorite picture of me.

#34. My DLSR is quickly becoming my favorite toy.  

#58. Made the backyard our favorite room in the house.

#60. Bet you didn’t think England when you saw this one.

#62.  I’m an enabler.

#70. Great game. Great Atmosphere. Great precursor to the World Cup.

#71. The British History Museum is truly a museum filled with the world’s history.

#74. Patience is a virtue.

What I put a dent in…

#1. We’re slowly but surely figuring out the manufacturing game. But running a company by the book is bad business. 

#6. I’ve hit a wall. But, not gaining is still a win.

#18. Little by little.  

#51. One down, three to go.

Onward…

Me and Brit.

Dad with his five kids.

Sonia and Brittany helping with Georgeanne’s awesome dinner.

Me, Dylan and Kaden.

Kennedy with Delilah

Pool time.

King George with his nephews, Dylan and Kaden. 

Dad was able to steal a couple of minutes of sleep during a rare quiet moment.

Brit’s team suffered a heartbreaking 2-1 overtime loss in the finals to the team it beat 3-0 the day before.  

End of the day get together at Dad’s.

Congrats to my little sister who had her Confirmation today. 

Brit’s team beat a silver team one age group above them and secured a spot in the finals.

Mom and daughter.

Had dinner with our friends Pierre and Tomeko at Hudson to celebrate her landing a new print modeling job. She will be the face for a medication touted as Viagra for women. Anyone want a free sample?

Brit and her friend discovered the joys of my camera. 

Popped into the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd to experience some masterful mixology.  Every drink tasted like the farmer’s market.  This particular creation will be featured in Bon Appetite next month. It is a gin based, wild arugula gimlet.  Really good.

Dear Brittany,

For the last 12 years you have played your heart out on the field.  Everyone who watches you is marveled by your motor.  But there is always that moment in the game, particularly after a big run, when you need to stop yourself in order to catch your breath.  And when you did, I was right there on the sideline to tell you to suck it up and run.  Well, turns out you couldn’t suck it up because your doctor just informed us you have asthma.  My bad.  But, at least now you have a treatment.  There’s no telling what you’ll be able to do with a full set of lungs.  And if you forget I’ll be right there on the sidelines to remind you.

Love, Dad

Took a client to actor Ashton Kutcher’s Ketchup in West Hollywood.  Similar to Kutcher’s acting skills, this place was mediocre at best. The real kicker though was the employee we fired was seated right next to us.  Uncomfortable.

Netflixed Bad Lieutenant and I’m surprised to say it was a descent reboot of the original with Harvey Keitel. Nic Cage actually held his own. No actor has more great and awful performances than cage.

The “hit” show LOST is one of the reasons #73 is a goal.  I started watching the mystery show when it debuted six years ago.  I started disliking it by the end of the third season.  Even worse, I kept watching for three more seasons until Sunday’s series finale in hopes of getting answers to the hundreds of questions the show posed.  Unfortunately, the show’s writers were lost years ago and failed to answer the majority of them.  Thankfully it’s all over now.

The engagement benefit tour continues. My dad and Georgeanne treated us to a steak dinner at Mastros in Westlake. Excellent as always.

Our Client & Friend from the great state of Alabama (along with her daughter and a friend) treated us to dinner and an absurdly expensive bottle of Dom to celebrate our engagement.  If I’d had known such unexpected benefits were to come I would’ve asked Sonia to marry me years ago.

Brit finally received her High School All League certificate. Only freshman to make first team. Proud.

This is how I feel now that, The Pacific, Hanks and Spielberg’s latest WWII miniseries has come to an end.  

Nothing like 20 hours of flight to catch up on some movies.  Surprising enough I enjoyed four out of the five. Crazy Heart and Brothers were very good. The Road and Exit through the Gift Shop were above average. And Couples Retreat was average at best.

The Photo Dump.  Here is the link for a bunch of pictures from our trip you may or may not be interested in.

That damn ash cloud has shut down Heathrow Airport again. But as luck would have it, we were the last flight to LA to make it out.

#71 Done. Toured the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London. It’s the oldest museum in the world and has an incredible collection of artifacts. The Rosetta Stone and collection of Eygptian mummies was particularly impressive.

#74 Done. That blank goal was reserved for something big and secret. 

#70 will be epic.  We secured the hottest tickets in town and will join 90,000 fans at Wimbley Stadium to watch Chelsea take on Portsmouth in the premiere league’s FA Cup Football Final.  This is Europe’s Super Bowl, NBA Finals and World Series wrapped up in one.

Antique shopping on Portobello Road in Notting Hill.

#62 Done. Gucci was nixed.  At the end of the day, Sonia decided she was a Louboutin kind of girl. 

Harrods is shopping mecca. You can spend days in the place. Thankfully we were in and out.