Two NBA thoughts

First NBA thought: Robert Horry owes Bill Russell and apology
"Who is the best player of all-time" is probably the most popular sports debate topics ever. Rarely is there one conclusive answer to the question - as there are varying viewpoints from different generations, different sports philosophies, different regions of the country/world, etc.

Growing up, the NBA was my favorite sport and Magic Johnson was the type of player I wanted to emulate. Understanding that I was never going to be 6' 9'', I still loved his game. I'm sure there was some time when I thought Magic was the best of all time ... although I don't today. Him and Bird undoubtedly made a enormous impact on the league like no one else - but I'm not sure either was the best. Magic ended up with 5 NBA Championships, Bird ended up with 3.

Michael Jordan is probably the most popular choice as best NBA player ever. It's hard to argue MJ's impact on the global game, his dominance, and sheer beauty playing the game. MJ ended his career with 6 NBA Championship.

There are a bunch of other players of mention in the category such as Wilt, Kareem, Oscar, etc.
But then there's Bill Russell ... who I never saw play. They guy has 10 championship rings - more than any other player! I used to think that the 10 championships were almost enough to give Russell the crown ... but then Robert Horry comes along.

"Big shot Rob" - as Wilbon likes to call him - has been a solid role player on 7 championship teams! More than Jordan, more than Magic, more than Bird, more than Wilt..... You get the picture. Bottom-line, Robert Horry ruins the claim of Bill Russell's as the best player of NBA history - and I think that's sad.

My second NBA thought: When are teams going to learn -- Drafting big, white centers in the top 10 is a huge mistake.
What was Sacramento thinking tonight? Spencer Hawes??
I honestly cannot remember a 7-foot-plus white center being drafted high who actually has an impact on his team. Rafael Araujo? Chris Mihm? Nikoloz Tskitishvili? Chris Kaman? (solid role player - c'mon)

Toilets in Mountain View Office

I'm at corporate headquarters this week for work. This place is very lively, with tons of perks (like great free cafes, gyms, pools, dry cleaning service, valet parking, etc) - but over time the company has done a pretty good job bringing some of these high value perks to other offices like New York.

Well, today, I figured out what I really want to come to NY next... The toilets in the bathrooms here are AMAZING. You may think I'm either over-exaggerating or ridiculous... but hear me out.

First and foremost - who likes taking a deuce at work? NO ONE! Well - I've got to admit that if I had toilets like the ones we have here.... I may try and hold it in to ONLY do it at work.

Check it -- Each stall has a square panel on the right side of it -- about waist high standing up. There are 4 controls on the panel - which become at eye-level while sitting down:

1) Heat Control -- Yes -- the seats are being consistently heated so that when you sit down - it's comfortably warm. There are controls to move the temperature higher or lower, but in my brief experience tinkering wasn't necessary...the temperature was perfect at initial contact.
2 & 3) Rear and Frontal (for the ladies) "rinse" controls. Now, I've never been a "bidet guy"... Partially because bidets are rare, but primarily because it looks uncomfortable. Who wants to do their business on the toilet, then move (with your pants down) and crouch over another apparatus. It just doesn't scream "refreshing" to me. Well, these toilets solve that problem. The rear and frontal rinse buttons enable you to efficiently and refreshingly take care of your washing business. There are water temperature controls for these features as well.
4) Dryer - After you rinse with water - you of course need a dryer - which temperature is able to be set on the panel. I obviously used TP as well -- but I'm guessing because I'm a novice at it. I can foresee figuring out a way to ensure that the embedded rinse and air dryer combo is sufficient enough.

That's it. I felt the need to share. I've tried looking into how much one of these costs for my home, but haven't found it online yet ... I need to do a bit more researching...

Political Debate Youtube style

A quick note in case you don't frequent YouTube.

Today the leading online video site and CNN announced an interesting format of upcoming Republican and Democratic debates whereby all of the questions will come from uploaded Youtube videos. I know I'll catch a little grief about promoting some Youtube announcement -- but I thought it was cool. I'm sure the entire events will be available on the site afterwards as well. Check out the announcement below.

Metaphor - "Nah Mean"

I had to give a quick shout-out to an old-school friend, Becca. We go back a ways from the mean streets of the Rat's Mouth..

Becca has been working the record industry for a few years now - and came across Metaphor (the rapper in the video below) a few years ago. The kid is young - but apparently getting some real-deal hype. It's great for to see them start to see some momentum - so wanted to do my part in the "social media" world and share his new video. If you're a hip-hop fan - I hope you enjoy.

Seat un-taken

I spent this past week in San Francisco at my companies national sales conference. Usually I find these weeks very long and fairly uneventful -- but this past week certainly wasn't.

The details of the two day festivities were exceptionally planned. One of the highlights was renting out AT&T Ballpark (while the Giants played on the road) for a huge party for the 900 of us attendees. We had celebrity MC for our yearly talent show (Carson Daly), but I'd have to say the highlight of the "wow factor" is in the following story:

I'm assuming most of you have attended a large conference in a hotel ballroom before. Seats were set-up in 10 seat round table formats. On Thursday morning, my buddy and I headed into the ballroom looking for seats. It was mildly crowded, but we found a table with no one else at it... I sat in the seat with direct straight view to the humongous stage and screen ... My buddy (JJ), being the "guys-guy" we both are -- felt we needed some elbow room -- so we left a seat in-between him and I.

Before starting the days session -- our VP kept telling people in the back rows to move up closer. Given the influx of people --- JJ and I both thought separately of moving next to each other, as to not have someone we didn't know sit in-between us, but we didn't do anything. A petite girl who'd been at the company for 2 weeks sat in-between us....

Anyway - the morning session was dedicated to clients coming in to talk to us about their marketing initiatives, how they thought we can serve them better, etc. Representatives from 4 companies including AT&T and Cadillac did the honors. After the session - they announced that there was a surprise... They were giving away prizes - including Gift cards for AT&T products (excluding the iPhone) as well as a new 2008 Cadillac (that hasn't even been built yet). They instructed us to look under our seats to see if we won anything.....

By now - I'm supposing you guessed it ...... THE GIRL WHO SAT IN-BETWEEN MY BUDDY AND I WON THE CAR!!! The seat in-between us won -- which by the way -- is the reason why they told everyone in the back row to move up ... They knew that no one was sitting in the winning seat...

Imagine if no one sat there --- my buddy and I woulda had to wrestle for the car!

I told myself that I'd give it one day of frustration -- and that I'd have to move on after that. And no - I couldn't sleep a wink on the red-eye flight home last night ... I was still thinking about it.

Stepping in dog poop

Last Friday -- I stepped in dog poop. I was wearing my shoes with about 80 different crevices in them -- which the poop fit right at home with filling up completely...Clearly I've developed some thoughts on the subject...

1) Seriously People -- Curb your freakin dogs!!
I'm not a dog lover nor a dog hater. I don't see Amy and I ever owning our own dogs -- but we aren't against them at all ...We actually like playing with family and friends dogs... What we are against is committing ourselves to the responsibility of properly taking care of a non-human. Part of this responsibility is scooping the dogs excrement off the street - putting it in a bag - and throwing it away. EVERY TIME!
Do the people who decide not to pick-up their dog crap think it's going to magically disappear? Well - their half-correct ... it's going to disappear onto someone else's shoe! Not what I would call good Karma people...

2) Although the instant feeling of frustration right as you realize you stepped in crap is a bad one ... I found a worse feeling than this (and it's not getting on an elevator with the crap still on your shoe - praying the smell will not be too potent)...The winner of the worst part of stepping in dog crap during a work day is ..... Digging the crap out of your shoe in your companies bathroom, as several people come in and try to empathize... (and for the record, saying '' Oh man - that sucks" ...doesn't make someone feel any better)

3) I'm wondering how long my new doggy-doodoo radar walk is going to last. My approach to walking on the street has been temporarily altered. I'm now overly keen of looking down to see where my feet are going to step on the sidewalk -- and yes -- I'm even more appalled how much dog crap is on the sidewalks -- (SEE Point #1 please!!)

Congrats Felchy and Dana!

Quick congrats are in order for Felch and Dana who got engaged this week! (I'm sorry Dana - but the only pictures I have of Felch are either of him asleep or giving the camera the finger like the hater he can be)

For those of you who I told the "bagel for dinner" story to -- Felch is the renown author of the phrase.

Felch is the center of a lot of friendly abuse (mostly by Colediggy), but on occasions like this -- I've gotta try and show nothing but happiness for the guy. I'm looking forward to snapping a picture of you taking a little snooze while your groomsman walk down the aisle... (Sorry - I couldn't resist).

In all seriousness -- Congrats to you both! It's great to see you both so happy!

How long have I been blogging?

Well - if you look at the archives of this blog -- it will say February of 2005... but in truth... I've been blogging since February of 1997...

Long before I starting working at Google (the owner of blogger -- which sparked my initial interest to see what blogging was about), I studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain. At that point, I had 2 years of "World Wide Web" exposure -- and was entrenched in communicating via email for about a year or so through my @umich.edu address. Knowing I wouldn't be able to access this account in Spain -- I got my brettg@hotmail account (yes - it was that early) to communicate with friends and family while I was in Europe.

I had every intention to keep interested parties up-to-date with my activities and experiences, although I honestly under-estimated the massive effort and lack of computer time I would actually have. My solution to this issue was to create a mass email on a weekly (or bi-weekly) basis giving highlights of my study abroad experiences. So - yes - I consider myself a blogger since 1997.

The main difference, of course, is that my current effort is:
A) Available for total public consumption rather than merely 25 people on an email string
B) More easily archive-able (if that's even a word) -- so that hopefully one day I can use these web pages as a way to reminisce.

Interestingly enough, when I wrote the mass email -- most people weren't satisfied. It seemed as if everyone wanted their own personal attention. Fast forward 10 years -- and I get grief from people for not writing enough...

Cooling Down

As I've previously mentioned, over the last month, I have begun most days during the week with a cardio workout at the gym. With the weather getting nice and the routine starting to come into place, I've really only hit one snag....

For some reason -- my body and face/head in particular, takes a very long time to cool down. This causes any subsequent activity whatsoever to result in a minor (and sometimes major) post work-out sweat attack. Clearly for many reasons this is annoying and worrisome given that it hasn't even gotten hot and muggy yet (and yes - I do take the subway to work - so this could turn into a major problem this summer).

I've always been a morning shower person because I like the feeling of starting the day fresh. With the increased body heat issue - I have a cheapened "morning fresh" feeling. Now, I want to point out that this issue isn't odor related. It's the mere annoyance of sweating while in dress clothes on a daily basis.

I've purchased some Dri-fit shirts (which aren't spandex btw) - which have helped the torso sweat decrease during the gym session - but my head is still like a furnace for about an hour after my workout. Additionally, I've been drinking A LOT of water during and after the work-out to try and cool down. This helps a little as well, but it's unfortunately not the total cure. I've tried the cold shower - but that hasn't helped at all...

Does anyone have any additional suggestions?

RSS Feeds

One of the "hot topics" in 2006 marketing circles was the concept of RSS feeds. While most marketers are trying to think of ways they can exploit their marketing objectives through the practice -- I think only a handful of folks in the publishing industry are starting to get it right...

I consume a lot of online media. Most people I know do. And while this post isn't intended to be one of my Google promotion pieces, I will just say that one of the main reasons why Google is so successful is that it helps people get through the massive clutter that is the Internet to find what they were looking for.

In the case of RSS feeds -- we as users are already fairly certain of what we want - and rather than search for it - it's probably preferred if it were merely delivered. So yes, rather than going to the store everyday to pick-up a newspaper, we want it delivered to our house. The difference within this RSS vs. Newspaper metaphor, is that we are very explicit with what custom information we want delivered to us. And whenever there is an update -- I want to know about it right away. I also have the ability to customize the layout as I see fit. (There are several "readers" such as the Personalized Google homepage and MyYahoo, etc)

Now - I'm very high on the concept - and I employ it daily on a number of levels.

My personal consumption (Sports, Friends, Weather, etc)
My professional consumption (Industry news, Google News alerts, industry bloggers, etc)
My entertainment consumption (Authors or concepts I enjoy)

Now in some cases, companies have caught on to the fact that I'm a loyal reader to some portions of their content. For example, ESPN recognized that I enjoy reading The Sports Guy, but I don't want to go searching for his articles (especially with the pop-up - video downloading pages of ESPN.com!). So - ESPN provides me with an RSS feed and I am now in-tune with when Bill Simmons posts a new article and I can click on a link that directs me to it.

An example of where RSS could be better utilized is Bloomberg and The New Yorker (magazine). I'm a big fan of the authors Malcolm Gladwell and Micheal Lewis. I try and read all their books and articles, however, the publications they work for haven't made "author specific" RSS feeds available. (To be honest, I wasn't even aware that Michael Lewis wrote a column for Bloomberg until I started doing a little research for this post...I know - big fan I am)

In the world of vast information availability - if publishers want my eye-balls, they'll need to make the specific information available to me in the way I want to consume it. Otherwise, authors will become their own publishers and we fans will stay loyal to the writers rather than the media publisher.

Also if you want an RSS feed of my blog - Click Here.

Getting "the underpants"

Back in 1998-1999, Internet advertising was beginning to explode. Tons of start-up companies were getting countless amounts of money. Most business models during the time period revolved around generating revenue from advertising. After companies received this money - they consistently needed to prove something to the VCs in order to position themselves in hopes to sell the business to someone else. This began the incredible demand for "registrations." Companies believed that if they merely grew their registered user base (regardless of why users were registering), they would be able to sell that to someone else for large sums of money...

While working at Beyond Interactive, we often represented many of these types of companies. Several of us, and most notably "the big daddy" began to grow skeptical of the aforementioned business plans. But ... given that our job was to merely obtain registered users -- we did just that -- and we did it well. Whether it was using gimmicks like contests and promotions -- or only having 3 or 4 required fields to counts as a registrations -- we got our customers registered users. (To be clear - our clients always knew the tactics we were using - and always signed off on them)

So - what's the point of this "underpants" post?? Well - in 1998 - there was a South Park episode clip that is almost the perfect representation of the business practices of a lot of these .com companies. As we all know - most of these companies ran out of money shortly thereafter. As I found the clip randomly on Youtube - I felt the need to share. It's about a minute long - and worth the watch - especially if you were in the industry and the time.

Early Morning gabbing

Up until today, everyday this week I woke up early to go to the gym. It's fair to say that I'm not a morning person, but with the weather the way it was (65 degrees with a light breeze), it truly wasn't that bad jogging to the gym at 7 AM. (I know - most people who want to go to the gym in the morning have to wake up at 5:30 AM - I'm lucky I guess)

Anyway - I wasn't surprised to see the gym crowded at that hour. What I WAS surprised to see, however, is how many people no the street are talking on their cell phones at 7 AM. I mean - seriously - I have a lot of questions about this.
Who the heck are people talking to that early? Is there a whole society that I am not part of? I know we are a "connected culture" but I can't imagine why people would want to talk that early in the morning or what they are talking about. Is talking on your cell phone on the way to work a new "buddy system" where you find someone else in your social circle that commutes at the same time and have daily conversations to help the time go by?

If someone calls me before 9 AM - my first instinct is "somethings wrong." It's not a good feeling at all. If I ever have to call someone before 9 AM, I get nervous when the phones ringing....

Interested in knowing if any readers are morning cell phone junkies (BDS - I'm sure you are). Well - if any of you are - please don't call me. :)

_______ On Steroids

I think in the last week I've read 3 quotes in business magazines along with a few mentions during business meetings that "something" could be "something else on steroids." This has begun to irritate me.

Here is why... If a new technology, for example, would help facilitate "online advertising on steroids," does that mean that the new technology would help make online advertising look strong, but truly be bad for it's health and well-being?

I obviously don't think that's the intention. Clearly people mean to use the phrase as a way to express ultimate improvement on something. So - why can't they just say this? I'm a big fan of the word "Innovate." It extremely positive and good for society, as well as fits with the desired description. "The new technology would really help innovate online advertising." SO much better.

Perhaps the term was developed in the 1980's when steroids were seen as cool ... but terms and fashions evolve. So just as cigarette packs rolled up in t-shirt sleeves or terms like groovy and rad .... I'm proposing that we stop using the description of "steroids" in a positive way.

UPS Whiteboard commercial

Just a quick note ... Today I went to a client meeting at an ad agency. We spent the entire day strategerizing on how their clients can utilize Google more... Anyhow, the highlight for me was during a brainstorm session...

I'm assuming that most of you have seen the UPS Whiteboard commercials where the guy talks through various benefits of UPS by modifying his sketches on a whiteboard. Turns out, that the guy in the commercials is the actual creative director at the agency on the UPS account (Andy Azula is his name). So...the highlight for me was him actually "whiteboarding" brainstorming ideas during our meeting. Turns out that he had some pretty good ideas too...

2007 NBA Regular Season Rap-up

Tonight marks the final night of the 2007 NBA Regular Season. Although the NFL has surpassed the NBA as my favorite sport to be a fan of -- I think I'm one of about 16 people who still like the NBA (including the Sports Guy). However, even as an NBA fan, I did find this past regular season disappointing.

Part of this was that my team, the Miami Heat, pretty much announced at the start of the year that they weren't going to really try until the play-offs. This plan was a bit foiled when D.Wade went out for 20+ games, so they had to try a little while he was gone. Props to Jason Kapono who had the best year of his career - and had a huge part of keeping the Heat afloat while the regulars were on cruise control...

Anyhow - some more reasons why I was disappointed about the NBA this year:

• How did the Detroit Pistons get Chris Webber? Oh yea - He just didn't want to play for the losing Sixers anymore so they cut him and he was able to sign with whoever he wanted. Huh?
• Lebron took notes from Shaq and decided to coast for about 50 games.
  
• I can't remember the last time the rookie class was this bad. Anyone who wins the Rookie of the Year honors is by default.
• This entire Tanking situation is out of control. There needs to be a fix and I do believe that D. Stern will make it happen.
• Speaking of D. Stern -- He took Mark Cuban out character. This season Mark was very very quiet.
• The West is still Varsity and the East is still JV. Last year the JV squad upset the Varsity, but that's just because they had the best JV phenom who was waiting for his spot and took it.
  

Not all was bad, though. Some things that are good:

• The Phoenix Suns are fun to watch - especially when they play the Mavs
• David Stern actually took the players side in the Joey Crawford ordeal
• Kobe being so good.... but Phil and the Lakers being so bad...
• Props to Sam Mitchell and the Toronto Raptors. Sam deserves coach of the year in my opinion given the fact that everyone expected them to be in the Oden/Durant sweepstakes, but instead they've got home court in the first round.
  
• My "I took and extra step up in 2007" team:
• Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, E. Curry, Gil Arenas, T-Mac,

Going into the post-season - I will obviously be passionately rooting for the Heat. I didn't expect them to win last year - and I don't expect them to win it all (again) this year. I'm hoping for some upsets, especially in the west. I'd love to see Houston or Utah come out of that group - although I wouldn't bet on it.

Finally, if you're looking for a reason to watch the NBA play-offs -- check out the NP3 later this week. It's a pool my buddy runs....

Imus and Black Leadership

In case you haven't watched any news program in the past 48 hours, Don Imus made racially insensitive remarks on his radio show last week. I'll first say - that I don't have too much knowledge on Don Imus past, but I've seen him a handful of times, and never once been intrigued to listen to his program. Bottom-line - he seems like an idiot to me so I'm not suprised by the dumb comments he made.

The media world has really fallen in love with the story - making it a top-headline for almost an entire week. I feel like it's on every outlet varying from CNN to ESPN to The Today Show and I am OK with this. Some white entertainment personality makes racially insensitive comments about black people should be publicly humiliated (like he has been) by mainstream press. What I do find a bit disappointing -- even as a white person -- is who the media consistantly turns to for the African American viewpoint: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.....

No doubt these guys have put in their time -- and no doubt that they've seen the worst of this countries racial divide, but I truly believe that some new leaders from the black community need to begin to be highlighted. I believe that the tactics used to help create a greater vision of racial equality should evolve over time and I don't believe that Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton agree with this.

Clearly this is a sensitive topic - but I am curious to know how the black community feels about these 2 guys consistantly being the "mainstream representation." When Imus or Micheal Richards or whoever realizes that they were idiots -- the first thing they did was reach out to these guys. I recognize that having a passionate civil rights leader interview "the idiot" is clearly a different interview than, say, Kelly Ripa -- but I guess I wish there were just more options than Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson....

Something in Baseball that I've been waiting for...

Baseball season is upon us... While baseball is my 3rd favorite sport behind Football and Basketball (I don't have a "team" that I'm a hometown fan of... other than my Fantasy teams), I have a full grasp of the game and have always been intrigued by the concept of the switch hitter - Someone who can modify what side of the plate he bats on based on which pitcher he is facing. (Not to be confused with a bi-sexual)

For a long time, I've often wondered if I'd ever see a switch pitcher in my lifetime -- and apparently - I will. This morning, The New York Times did an article on Pat Venditte a Junior at Creighton University. He's a switch pitcher, and apparently pretty good.

He apparently has a custom-made glove that allows him to easily switch hands easily, depending on what side of the plate the batter he is facing is on.

That's all -- but I wanted to share as I truly have been waiting to hear about something like this.

The Sterns Leave Manhattan

Last week - Fred, Jill, and Sydney officially moved to Florida. Beyond having family, good weather and a need for a change of scenery -- Fred also had a great career opportunity at his company.

Amy and I are obviously sad as we're going to miss them. It goes without saying that we're gonna miss Syd Stern the most - but that's not a bash on Jill or Fred. We can keep in touch with them via phone, email, etc -- but even as advanced as she is -- Syd has yet to develop the capability of keeping in touch (Jill - please work on this).

As a house warming/going away present -- Amy and I are going to buy the Sterns a webcam. It will certainly not be the same -- but hopefully we'll be able to see Syd's smile every once in a while.

With Jill and Fred moving down -- we need to add another group of people we'll want to see when down in Florida. (which at this point if you add up everyone - and exclude beach time - we definitely exceed the typical 50+ hours in a weekend time-frame) Yea-Yea, I know ... Amy and I should move down there ... I'll just say that we're happy how things are now and are focused on that.

Enjoy The Sunshine State Jill, Fred, and Syd. The Goffins will miss you.

Our Honeymoon

(I've been meaning to write this for a couple of weeks now)
Directly from Florida- Amy and I flew to Hawaii for a 2 week honeymoon. Some things to note before I get started on some of the details:
1) This was probably the only wedding related task that I, personally, owned on my own.
2) It was a lot harder than I imagined - and caused some anxiety in planning
3) Everything worked out perfectly

Amy and I have always wanted to go to Australia - and have spoken about it many, many times. So, before we even had a wedding date - we were telling everyone we were leaning towards going to Australia for our Honeymoon. Well - then reality set in.... First, Australia is a place we want to explore. I was passionate (and Amy agreed), that our Honeymoon probably wasn't a typical exploration-type vacation. And secondly, getting to the land down under via Frequent Flier miles (first class, of course) was not possible. Paying for tickets would have run us $20K PER TICKET. So... yea.... we decided on Hawaii.

Hawaii is to Honeymoons as Vegas is to bachelor parties -- Sure, a lot of people have done it before you -- but there's a reason for it. Both places are perfect for each occasion.

We ended up seeing 4 islands in Hawaii:

• Honolulu
• Kauai
• Maui
• Kona

I enjoyed our trip tremendously. In hind-sight, I may have only gone to 2 places. I totally underestimated how unbelievably exhausted we would be from the wedding weekend - and we probably would have been better off with less airport experiences rather than more.

Again - though - all was great. We relaxed, hung by the beach, went swimming, ate well, drank well, saw plenty of sunsets..... All the things we enjoy to do on vacations.

Here is a brief run-down on the places - trying to be brief.

Honolulu -- We only stayed here for one night, as a lay-over to the other islands. We stayed at the Halekulani, which was very nice - and only 20 minutes from the airport. It was interesting to see the capitalism in full effect, as it resembled a major city with tons of high-end brand-name stores and restaurants. It was the only time while in Hawaii that Amy and I noticed a true Japanese influx. We also heard a lot about how good the coffee in Hawaii was. Here is where we had the best coffee of our trip.

Kauai -- Pretty much the opposite of a major city. There was one major road that took us from the airport 30 miles (an hour) to our hotel, The Princeville resort. This is located at the north part of the island and unfortunately - we had dinner reservations at the south part. Being committed to our plans, we rented a car - explored the island -- and enjoyed the ride. The following day, we had massage appointments outside - which was very needed by both of us. We spent the day chillin and had a romantic Valentines Day dinner that night.

Maui - We then went to what we envisioned as our "beach" portion of the trip. We stayed at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea. The rooms were big -- but we were a little disappointed when we first got there. A lot of kids and a somewhat crowded beach scene. We powered through, though, and looking back definitely had a great beach experience there. In Maui, we did the only true touristy thing of our honeymoon by going Whale watching. Amy was like a little kid - getting so excited when the whales would jump up or splash. I loved seeing that. The 2 hours we were out there - we saw very close-up views of these whales activity and the crew on the boat said it was the best they've seen in a while. We also adventured out to Mama's Fish House, which was recommended by everyone - and probably the best food we had all trip in my opinion. We also made our own little driving beach tour on the west part of Maui. Was nice to have a convertible and do that with my wife...

Kona - Hands down the icing on the cake of the entire honeymoon for us. We stayed at the Four Seasons, which was amazing. The rooms were modern, spacious and comfy - including a cool outdoor shower in our room. I don't mind getting my ass kissed while I'm on vacation - and this place definitely knows how to do some ass-kissing.... The pool area's were all very serene (Amy's comment multiple times) and the overall atmosphere was very chill. While sitting by the pool, they brought goodies to us every 15 minutes (cold towel, Evian spray, fruit, ice pops, etc). The spa was very nice as well - where we enjoyed a couple of massages a piece. Our meals were great, too, especially, the private beach dinner I planned for us (picture on the right). We had our own waiter who served us food on the beach where only the two of us were. The resort was so great - that we literally didn't even think about leaving once and have no regrets about that.

When the time came to leave, we were certainly bummed. Not often do we get to go away for two weeks without any questions....but after this trip... I am going to really try and do it more often. Two week vacations may not be easy on the wallet -- but they are definitely worth it.

Amy and my honeymoon was great. Anytime we go on vacation together, we have a great time - and this time was no different. I'd recommend Hawaii for anyone's honeymoon.

Work at your own schedule

I heard of this concept about a year ago when I went to visit Best Buy at their headquarters in Minneapolis. Basically, employees can make up their own hours. If you're a dad who wants to pick up your kids from school at 3:00 everyday - you can do it. If you prefer to work from home - you can do it. If you prefer to work at night - and sleep in the day - you can do that too.

At Best Buy - they have true "flexible hours" As long as managers and employees have realistic conversations about what's needed in terms of productivity - hours or place of actually working don't matter. Check out the CNN article about it.

Workers at the company had mixed feelings about it when I chatted with them a while back. In essence, it makes it very difficult to manage people. Managers actually get in trouble for making employees feel like they should be in the office - so it puts a lot of pressure on a manager to set very straight-forward expectations and goals of actual tasks. It also makes it near impossible to have "team conference calls" or mandatory meetings. (not to mention if you're a sales person calling into a marketing department. Having a large meeting is unrealistic)

On the employee side - I think it's great in theory - but only good in practice. Sure, making up my own hours is ideal -- but I think there is long-term value from going into the office and learning from others. I think over time it would feel a lot like school where you have an assignment and you wait till the last minute to get it done. I hated that feeling (personally)....