Eddie Vedder, Santana and Dave Matthews were great. Mumford and Sons was the best.

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Having lunch in downtown Palo Alto. Getting ready to enjoy some great bands.

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No soccer means impromptu day trip.

#11 in Progress

Finished a collection of essays from one of my favorite modern writers.

Enjoying our old stomping grounds.

Still trying to figure out how to get the best angle. I’ll stay behind the goal next time. Anyway, Brit had her third hat trick in the last six games. If you watch this in full screen you can sort of see two of them. But, maybe more impressive is her no look heel pass at the end.

#19 barely in progress

Played 5 on 5 basketball for the first time in ten years. I threw up in my mouth and probably had a heart attack.

Although Basically Me is our baby, we continue to produce three other lines at LA Fashion Insider, Inc. A few of those styles have even made their way onto the backs of celebrities.

Beyonce wearing Show Me Your Mumu

Jessica Alba wearing Show Me Your Mumu

A Savannah Rae dress on the cover of Atlanta’s Finest

The calm before what we hope will be a storm in Atlanta.

Nothin’ like a warm fall day in LA.

#1 in Progress

We’re getting ready for our final shows of the year in Atlanta and Dallas. Added a couple of states since the last update, but we’re doing little to promote our line outside of our Southern base.

I’m still not very good at this, but at least I managed to catch a little bit of Brit scoring two of her three goals today.

#8 Done

And Moneyball makes ten. A worthy tenth.

Post Procedure

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Had Five Guys for the first time. Not as good as the hype. In and Out still tops.

P.S. All good down South.

#23 Begins

8:00am: I have eaten my last meal until sometime after 12pm tomorrow. I am scheduled to be probed at 10:30am tomorrow morning. At 10am today, I will begin a regimen that is to completely rid my body of oysters and western bacon cheeseburgers. When I met with the doc on Tuesday, he said my blood pressure was high and he may not be able to put me under for the procedure if it remains the same. The thought of completing this prep for naught is raising my blood pressure as I write. P.S. My insurance won’t cover any of this, so I’m paying $2000 for the pleasure.

10:00am I just pounded a bottle of Magnesium citrate. Disgustingly sweet, but not too hard. You know, I really don’t think I have a whole lot in my system to give. Had a couple of pieces of Pizza for dinner last night and some cream of wheat for breakfast. Other than being cancer free I’m hoping to lose a few lbs and jumpstart a downward cycle. For the record I’m weighing in at 177lbs.

11:45am: 15mgs of Dulcolax. I have a steel stomach.

2:00pm: Time for the cruelest part. Miralax. The directions call for 17 grams per dose. The doc said I need to take 296 grams.

3:25pm: Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire comes to mind

5:19pm: Hungry!

8:51pm: Raw

#8 In Progress

Saw Unknown. Decent thriller. Something I would’ve written in four weeks back in the day.

I figured I owed a moment of silence to the man. We were the first on the block to have an Apple IIe home computer. I was never able to get it to do much more than add numbers. Many years later, Steve Jobs was lured back to Apple after selling Pixar to Disney and figured out how to extract every last penny in my bank account for products I thought I couldn’t live without. We bought Devin the first iPod on the day it was released. We then bought every iPod thereafter. We bought iMac computers, MacBooks, Macbook Airs and more software than we needed. We used the iPads to sell our clothing line at trade shows. We stood in line for six hours to buy the iPhone, iPhone 2 & iPhone 3S. We actually waited a couple of days to buy the iPhone 4, but not for lack of want. Bottom line… If someone isn’t there to take the torch and run with it, I may just save enough money to retire one day.

90 degrees last week, but tonight, we’re having our first fire.

Happy Birthday, Anna!

Love, Your Favorite Uncle

#4 Done

I bought a video camera to record Brit playing soccer, but every time she had the ball the camera would fall to my side while I watched. A good videographer is never invested in the subject. Anyway, the only footage I got of her was at the tail end of this video. She scored her longest goal, but I only caught it half way to the goal before I cut off the camera.

Breakfast

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After two months of try outs and psychological warfare from her High School soccer coach, Brittany was singled out at the end of practice yesterday and was welcomed as the first, and so far only, selection to the varsity team.

Another set of styles added to our line sheets. If you want to check out Sonia’s latest designs, click here

Username: basicallyme

Password: newstyles

Happy 1st Birthday to future Hall of Famer, Roberto Lucey. Speaking of birthdays, our friend Tomiko should be giving birth right about now to her son.

New Orleans Day Four

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New Orleans Day 3

Brunch at the historic Brennan’s in the French Quarter.

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Birthplace of the Bananas Foster


We toured the Katrina battered lower ninth ward and found abandoned neighborhoods frozen in time.

New Orleans Day Two

Night One in The Big Easy.

#1 in Progress

We hired a new employee to handle all of our Basically Me shipping and customer service. It would be nice if the State and Feds wouldn’t punish us for doing so, but I guess that’s crazy talk.

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 of Brit’s teammates was fouled in the box and made the PK to tie.

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 of orders which wiped out all profits on the batch.

Last night I was entering an order around 12:15am and told Sonia, I’m done for today because I have a lot of work to do today. Somewhere around that time it became clear to me that I hate my job. Because of this I am now focused on my exit strategy. I need to work harder to put this company in a position to offer me a golden parachute. Two years or bust.

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 knock off number 99 by joining the fashion club and the breast cancer awareness club. Both family influences I guess.