I got to visit one of my favorite cities this past week, San Francisco. I wrote about some of my favorite places in the city back in November 2013, and this time around I checked out a few new places that I’ve decided to add to the list.
And with Tuesday’s night loss to George Washington, Pitt’s 2014-2015 basketball season mercifully came to a close. It was their fifth straight loss to close out the season, which I’m sure isn’t sitting well with coaches or players.
While the Panthers won more than they lost, their 19-13 regular season record combined with an 8-10 conference record wasn’t enough to get them to the NCAA’s. Pitt promptly pulled one-and-done’s in the ACC Tournament and NIT, in both cases playing listless and uninspired.
I spent a week traveling through the midwest and east coast last week. All I can say is that the weather was brutal!
My trip started with my arrival in Detroit just before midnight on Thursday, February 19. The temperature was minus 15. That’s right, minus 15. When I walked outside the terminal to catch the rental car bus, it wasn’t the cold that startled me, believe it or not. It was the burning sensation in my lungs when I took my first breath of the frigid air. When I left Burbank earlier that afternoon, the temperature was a balmy 75 degrees. So yes, the 90 degree temperature change was a shock to the system.
I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in the Ann Arbor, MI area recently with my son Brad who is attending nearby Eastern Michigan University. During my visit, I discovered two great places that are worth a quick mention – Roos Roast Coffee Works and The Ravens Club. I always enjoy discovering places that are off the beaten path and different than your typical franchise establishment. Roos Roast and The Ravens Club fit both of these criteria to a “T”.
Does anybody watch the Pro Bowl anymore? I can’t even remember the last time I watched it. I couldn’t tell you who played in or won any of the last 20 games. It’s a don’t care for me.
2014 was a good year for my personal fitness. I had three goals, two of which I did really well on. The third, well, not so much. Here’s a look at the my goals for 2014 and my plans for 2015.
For some reason, I can still remember the moment clearly. I was in my late twenties. I had just moved into a marketing role. I was at a breakfast meeting with our sales team at the beginning of multi-city road trip in Dallas. The question came: “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I replied quickly, “No, I don’t drink coffee.” I received an incredulous look. The response, “You will. You can’t survive on the road without it.”
I had tried coffee before but didn’t like it. I couldn’t get over the taste. I was also concerned I would turn into one of the “coffee zombies” I saw around the office. They couldn’t start their day without woofing down two cups, and then needed three or four more cups to get through the rest of their day. I didn’t want to be one of them.
I made it a point to stay away from coffee. To fit in with the coffee drinkers, I made tea my drink of choice. It worked. Even with the proliferation of Starbucks, I stuck with teas – either straight up or as a tea latte. Life was good.
I had a goal last year to read 25 books, 20 of which were supposed to come off my 2014 reading list. As far as number of books went, I succeeded and read 27. Unfortunately, I only got through 19 on my list. I was halfway through book number 20 when the ball dropped.
Still, it was a good year for reading. I’ve enjoyed it so much the last two years, that I decided to up the level of difficulty this year. I’m going to make an effort to read 35 books, which equates to about 3 per month. I’ve also upped my reading list from 20 to 33 books.
In 2014, I read 27 books. I realize that some people may read that many over a month or two, but it was a lot by my standards. I had a goal to get through a list of 20. and I managed to finish 19 of them. Only 8 jumped the queue during the year.
Based on the books I read, here are my recommendation to seed your reading list for 2015. There’s a mix of fiction, non-fiction and business books on the list. The fiction books are going to tend toward the science fiction genre, and the non-fiction/business books will lean towards technology readings. Even if you’re not into science fiction, I’d still suggest picking up a couple of the books on this list. They’re just that good.
I’ve also segmented this year’s list into general recommendations, specific business book recommendations, books I found interesting that aren’t in my Must Reads category, and a couple of recommendation reminders from last year, just in case you didn’t read them yet.
With that out of the way, here’s my recommended reading list for 2015.
I always enjoyed my mom’s chocolate chip cookies growing up. I can still remember the aroma that filled the kitchen while she baked them. Getting them while they were fresh out of the oven and still warm was a treat. The only downside was that the cookies would get hard after setting for more than a few days. Granted, this was rarely a problem since the cookies went fast. However, after using my mom’s recipe to bake cookies with the kids, I was convinced there was a way to make softer cookies.
A Google search for soft chocolate chip cookies pointed me to the “Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe at Allrecipes.com. After just one use, we were hooked. Using this recipe, the cookies are soft and stay this way for days. The family absolutely loves them, and we get rave reviews anytime we take them somewhere as a dessert dish.