... especially in the LDS church.

From 1998-2000 I was on a church mission in the northern third of Ohio. I know, exotic huh? In November 1998 I got to Ohio and was assigned to my first area, Painesville. Nearby was a city called Perry, Ohio - not much there. But there was a family there I became really fond of: the Corbetts.

At the time, they had an 11 year old girl named Dani (on the left) who plays into this picture.

10 years later I am married and living in Washington, DC and Dani is 22 and living in Utah. In 2006 I briefly worked at Policy Impact Communications, Inc. in midtown DC. There I met a friend named Rylie Martin. We still keep in contact even though I am in Florida and she and her husband are in Michigan.

Recently Rylie and her husband Chris attended the wedding of Chris' brother Curt out in Utah.

To my surprise today, I found out that Dani Corbett (who is now Dani Christensen) was the photographer of Curt's wedding! Evidently when Dani moved out to Utah in 2000 or so, her neighbor was Julie, Curt's new wife.

It's just a small world and you never know how you are linked in many circles.

Labels: friends, photography

Last Saturday a few of my friends here in Florida got together at my place and played some harmless tennis.

It was a beautiful day.

And there were some beautiful characters on the court.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was the return of the Gag Gift outfit...



... this time in full action and with a sidekick:



Those two outfits are so sweet, the guys from Blades of Glory would TOTALLY be jealous!!!

In this photo, Brig(ham) White, explains to Nathan the finer points of dressing for tennis in style:



Tag Team Action! The World's Greatest Tennis Duo!!



All in all, we all had fun.

Feel free to view the approved photos on Flickr.

Labels: friends

When I have a dream right before I wake up it tends to be very vivid and I can describe it extremely well.

This happened to me again early this morning. I have no idea what time it was when I was having this dream but it was vivid enough for me to remember details about it hours later -- so I jotted it down.

A friend of mine and I were neighbors at a summer house on a lake. I am not sure if we were our current age or what, because I never saw either of our spouses around.

One night I went over to hang out and saw three older guys who looked like white trash truckers at her place sitting on her couch as she was talking to them like old friends catching up. She wasn't wearing any shoes. (Pay attention, that plays into the story).

I asked who those guys were, wondering if it was smart for her to be
alone with three strangers, and she gave me some sly remark and one of the
older truckers said to mind my own business. They clearly did not want me there!

So I kinda left but hid where none of them could see me and from where I could keep an eye on the situation. I saw all four of them go out to the big-rig truck and laugh a bit then come back inside the parlor to chat more on the couch which was on the front porch. I thought it was very strange. The entire time she wasn't wearing any shoes.

I snuck over to my house and tried to watch from the windows then somehow found out that they were going into town, so I tailed the group. She was driving a pickup with all 3 truckers in the cab.

In town I was tailing the group because something didn't seem right and I ran into
a cop who was a friend and I told him the story up until now. He took me to this place near the docks and showed me rows and rows of pickup trucks that looked empty. However, he told me that they had reports of three greasy truckers who would lure young women who drove pickups here to the docks, park "as if to talk" and then decapitate them while sitting in the drivers seat and leave their bodies there. As I looked closer I could see it was true, rows and rows of headless female bodies in pickup truck driver seats.

Then we heard the engine of my friend's pickup truck and hid right behind where they parked and started throwing rocks at the pickup and shining flashlights at the windshield. The truckers recognized me and everyone got out of the truck. They were clearly agitated at me for ruining their plan. About this time my female friend said some code words into a digital recorder pen which brought the cops and helicopters in a flash. The truckers scrambled and while two got caught, the one who seemed to be the leader was able to escape.

Later on, I was searching for the leader by myself and found myself in an alley when he came up behind me and called me by name. I turned around and noticed that he had a butchers' axe ready to throw at me. As he wound up and threw it towards me I had come to an intersection in the alley and quickly side-stepped to my right so as to
miss being hit by the axe. I picked it up, called for the police on my cell and had him arrested.

After sorting out all the mess, I was told that this gang of truckers had been going around killing young women and that they had found all of their victims in the lakehouses during the summer. They especially were targeting women who were not wearing any shoes!

MORAL: If you ever go to a lakehouse in the summer... wear shoes.

Labels: friends

Tonight Valerie and I went to have dinner at the house of a couple we hang out with here in SoBe (South Beach -- yes that's where the name of SoBe drinks comes from). There were six couples there, having dinner and playing games.

While some of the guys were playing ping pong table tennis, I set up my tripod I got for Christmas last year (used it for the first time only because I haven't had a good shot to take yet) and took the following pictures of downtown Miami at night.

They can also be found on flickr.


Miami Skyline


The Ill-Fated Orange Bowl (and possible site of a future Florida Marlins stadium)


A canal passing through one of the blocks in South Beach. Waterways and canals are frequently found in south Miami.

Labels: friends

I am a sucker for reunions. The greater the distance between seeing each other the all the more sweeter it becomes.

This week has just barely started and already I have been reunited with two of my favorite people from when I lived in Ohio in 1998-2000.

On Monday I got an email from an old friend from back then and she gave me the rundown on her family's whereabouts after 9 years. They had moved from Ohio out west and I lost contact unfortunately. I loved being around their family. Of all the people I met in Ohio when I lived there, this family meant the most to me. I still have a lot of love for them.

This afternoon, not five minutes after returning from lunch, I got an IM from a guy I used to work with in Ohio in 1998. We chatted for a bit and caught up and swore we'd keep in touch better this time around. Back in 1998 email was fairly new and mass communications weren't as rampant or embedded in our lives as they are today. He is now a dentist in the Army, stationed in Germany.

It's so good to catch up with former friends and to especially see that they are in good spirits and health.

Labels: friends

This past weekend Valerie and I flew to California, to the area I grew up in, to attend a wedding for a college friend in Newport Beach, California. Val and I met Nikki up at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho in the late 1990s and have been friends ever since.

Here are some pictures I took from the wedding:



College friends: Monique Bethea, Amy Krummenacher, Nikki Harris, Valerie Coffey



Valerie with another college friend, Christy Hatch



Nikki Brown and Darren Harris after the ceremony



Nikki being Nikki



Ricks College friends: Amy Krummenacher, Nikki Harris, Valerie Coffey, Monique Bethea

Labels: friends

I got an email from my mom tonight wondering what I was up to because this site hasn't been updated since April 30th!

I'm sorry. I just haven't been updating anything, kinda been busy and never thought about updating any progress in our rather mundane lives.

For starters, we are alive.

That's a good thing.

I am still with the Florida Marlins in Media Relations and love what I am doing. I am around baseball all the time, including the players and coaches and in and out of the locker rooms whenever the team is in town. Of course I have to work 14 hours days when there is a home game but I love it and it goes super fast. One of the best things about working in baseball is that when I am having a bad day at work or things just aren't going right I can always stop what I am doing, walk out of the office, down the tunnel and into the Marlins' dugout, sit on the bench in the dugout and look out at the field - enjoying the green grass and blue sky mixed with the unmistakable sight of the diamond.

Valerie is still commuting back and forth between DC and Florida. We are so used to it that it doesn't bother us at all. Her company is still paying for her flights and apartment in DC and we are very grateful for that. She still loves her job with Life Policy Dynamics and she does an excellent job there.

It's starting to get really hot here in Florida and there is always a threat of tropical storms (in fact we are expecting one here early this week). It rains hard then goes back to hot, sunny day. Florida is in the middle of a drought so they need all the rain they can get. I just hope that the rain storms come when the team is on the road because getting rained out means that we will have to make the game up later in the season, and that means a doubleheader. I already work 14 hours during home games, no need to extend that.

I started working out a lot more lately. We have a gym in our building and I frequent it two too three times a week. I've got myself a pretty good workout plan and am starting to explore the necessary components of diet and supplements (not illegal steroid type of supplements, just an extra boost of protein shakes and others that help repair and rebuild muscle quickly and faster than normal following a workout). Val and I are looking into getting a pass to Bally's gym nearby but that always seems like a girlie name to me, like it's main purpose is for aerobics and jazzercise.

Valerie has a college friend who is getting married in October out in Southern California so we are going to go out there to the wedding. We are excited for her. She used to date the guy, then they had a time apart and got back together and things worked out. We're looking forward to the wedding! Val is looking forward to the bachelorette party with all her college girlfriends!

So that's it, not much to tell. Life is good, just plugging away, too early to tell if there will be a real full-time job after this season - probably NOT with the Florida Marlins - but we will see. I have contacts elsewhere.

Labels: baseball, family, friends

Growing up along the warm, sandy beaches of Huntington Beach, CA, I had a friend named Erik Goodlad. We went to the same church and same school for a number of years.

After Valerie and I got married Erik helped us find an apartment near where he and his wife, Kathryn, were living in Costa Mesa, CA. In the 4 years Valerie and I lived there Erik and his wife had 2 kids, Johnathan and Lydia.

Now they added a third one.

Nicholas Robert Goodlad was born on Sunday, January 28th @ 3:22 AM. He weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs. 5 oz. and was 23" long.

It's crazy when all my friends I grew up with start repopulating the earth! I often reminisce about junior high and high school days and it boggles my mind to see those same kids with kids of their own.

So, congratulations are in order for the Goodlads. I'm happy for them.


[The growing Goodlad family with baby Nicholas in foreground.]

Labels: erik, friends