Livin' the dream man

I've been wanting to write a book for a long time. For those of you who know me this may not come as much of a surprise. I often live "off-the-cuff," and have several business venture ideas. It's only too bad that we don't have the means to try them all out. I'm pretty sure a couple of them would be real winners. Right now I have the time, well sort of, and figure it might be a good time to try and accomplish this goal.

Any way...I'm writing a book about business upwards management, or managing up. There are plenty of books that discuss management philosophies and the like, I've always thought it would be fun to write a book geared toward the entry level or intern worker. If any of you have any funny stories about bosses, or yourself/ "someone you know", and would like to consider having published please send them to me at michaelgonzales99@yahoo.com. Not everything submitted will be published, and if they are, I will change names to protect anyone involved. I'm looking for stories where;

1. You as the "underclass (wo)man" was right and the boss was wrong, or where your efforts proved triumphant.
2. You failed and learned a big lesson going forward.
3. The dawning of, "duh! that's how it works."
4. DOH! I shouldn't have sent that
5. I can do this no matter what
6. you were able to make the most of something bad

Please provide background to the story. This book is more of a comedy than a serious business practices book, though I'm sure some will take it as such. Because behind most funny stories are good morales.

I look forward to reading your stories.

Looking for new work

For those of you that haven't heard, I was laid off the beginning of September as part of a labor reduction initiative at DeltaValve. I'm currently seeking employment in Marketing Management preferably in Oil and Gas, but I'm adaptable to take on anything. If any of you have any leads that may help, I would appreciate the insight.

The funny thing about family and friends is... many times, we know what's going on in each other's lives on a personal level, rarely are we aware of what each other do on a professional level. Heck, I still have a hard time explaining what my Dad taught after all these years, because his curriculum always seemed to be changing. To help out with this, below is a link to my professional site on LinkedIn. Here you can read a brief outline of what I do, what a few of my accomplishments are, and even some recommendations a few people I've worked with have said about me.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-gonzales/14/2a6/257

OH @#%^&!

We spent the evening at Primary Children's Hospital with Zander. Michael was picking him up from the bus stop and Zander wanted to race. Michael accelerated quickly, felt a bump, looked in the rear view mirror and saw Zander on the ground. He immediately stopped, picked him up and brought him to me at work. The PA I work with, Gay, decided we would be better going somewhere else. We have an xray machine, but the M.A. wasn't sure how good of xrays she could take of his hip, which was hurting the most, and Gay doesn't feel too confident reading them and our doc is out of town. We bandaged up all the scrapes he had (all on the left side: elbow, hip, stomach, ankle) and brought him home. I called my Orthopedics Instructor for advice for an uninsured patient (hoping he would offer his free services) and he highly recommended we go to Primary Children's. While I was talking to him, Michael went to talk to Zander's friend Mackenzie who was at the bus stop.

She told him what happened was as Michael pulled away, Zander grabbed the door handle (on the passenger side) and he tripped and was then pulled down under the van and the back tire ran over his mid-section. After we heard that, and the recommendation from my teacher, Michael and the bishop gave Zander a priesthood blessing of healing and health, Bishop Jensen took the other kids and we left.

When we got there the waiting room was full and we fully expected to wait. I went to check in and as soon as I said he had been run over there wasn't a second to breath. The nurse, Fritz, put a collar on Zander's neck and told me I was about to be freaked out as they put him on a gurney and rushed him back where a team of doctors was waiting. They cut his shirt off (which upset Zander almost as much as the whole night) and started checking vitals and pain and everything else. He got an IV, they drew blood, EKG, chest xray, c-spine xray, brain CT and abdominal CT. Every step along the way I told each new person we didn't have insurance, but that didn't seem to change anything, which is a little frustrating. They did have us fill out financial assistance paperwork before we left, but some of those tests didn't need to be done.

Anyway, after a battery of tests and such, Zander has a buckle fracture of the pelvis and some major bruising in his hip and abdomen. A buckle fracture is just what is sounds like. The bone isn't separated or cracked, but has a buckle in it. It's on the L back side of his hip, straight back from the hip bone in front that we can see and feel.
There's no treatment for that. They said he could be weight bearing as tolerated, but that he wouldn't want to for a couple days. He's out of school for a week and out of PE for 6 weeks, doctors orders.

He's been a great sport about all this and is in good spirits. He only cried twice in our 4 hour visit to the ER. The first was when his shirt was cut off, the second was when he was getting the CT scans and then again (okay three times) when they didn't take the neck brace (collar) off as soon as would have liked. Michael was brave too and only cried twice, which is quite impressive as every new person wanted to know how it happened. They're both so brave. =)

---

All in all there were some funny things that happened along the way through the Hospital. Here are a bunch of pictures from the ordeal. Like Zander didn't stop talking the entire time. The comment the attending doc made was, "well the accident doesn't seem to have not affected the area of his speech." Zander's favorite comment to everyone at the hospital was, "NO TOUCHY!"

If I could Hie to Kolob

Last weekend was a great time. We took the kids went to Solitude renewed our ski passes and went for a hike. Looks like we will ALL go skiing this year, well minus Sadie. I
was able to get passes for Rachel, Zander, Keagan, and myself for all of $50! Rachel and I were very excited about this seeing as how I don't have any steady income. After we got the tickets, we noticed the sunrise lift was running so we walked up to it and decided to get on a go for a ride to the top of the ridge. On
ce we got to the top, I thought it would be fun to walk to Solitude Lake — it's more of a pond than a lake, but whatever. Away we went! Sadie in the backpack and Keagan, Zander skipping along. Rachel and I held hands as we walked down the trail and explained to the boys, "this is where we go skiing." As we walked down the hill toward Summit lift I recalled the great points off the trail that I would haul off and do some trick like a back scratcher or 180 to land on off the trail in the trees and take the short cut. Ahh...good memories!

Zander was paid particular attention — and made sure we did too — to the sounds of nature around us. He recognized woodpeckers and a doe. There was a large mole thing that we saw and took pictures of that we had no idea what it was, but it was sure fun to observe!

We had hopes to picnic at the Lake once we got there, but by the time we got there we only had like 25 minutes to get back and it took us 20 minutes to hike up there. We did take a few more minutes than we should have to look at the ultra clear pond and look at another part of the mountain where we all congregate after skiing down Black Forest and then race (shoosh) to the Summit Lift. The crazy thing on the way back was Keagan was too tired to hurray so I put him on my shoulders and with Sadie and Keagan on my back I ran a portion of the trail to make it back in time. We were all out of breath by the time we reach the lift down. What a work out!

At the bottom we enjoyed cold cooked hotdogs, apples, goldfish and water. What a great time! We plan to go up again this Saturday.

Keagan sings—next American Idol

Okay, maybe not, but it's just so dang cute. Keagan is the macho boy and doesn't sing much. In Sunday School he barely does the hand signs to the songs. But, being home every day can be so entertaining. I found out on my first day at home that Keagan loves Super Why. Check this out.

Batman is coming to town

Wait a minute I thought it was Santa is coming to town? Heck no! Not in this family.

Halloween is just around the corner and Batman is in full swing. Keagan is bugging me for a new batman costume. I guess he deserves it since he has completely worn his mask out. It's broken so bad that is barely fits on the face anymore. To go with this fetish I painted his room with a HUGE batman on the wall. Zander was jealous because he's not so much into batman anymore, and he wanted ninjas on the wall. So, like any good Dad I had him and Mom cut out stencils and I put a bunch of Ninjas on the wall too. They look like they are sneaking about buildings getting poised to strike on the dark knight.

The painting isn't the best, but it was sure fun.

There she goes again

So Sadie is on the move and she's not slowing down! Since September 3 I (Michael) have been unemployed. I lost my job due to a reduction in labor and now I'm playing Mr. Mom while searching for something—What I don't know but I'll know when I find it. Back the real topic...Since 9/3 I'm constantly chasing after Sadie and then consoling her when she falls, which she does fairly often. That's just the way growing up goes. We fall, then we get back up again. I wonder if I'll ever be done growing up.

We were sitting down for dinner one day and Sadie decided that her sitting in the chair wasn't going to cut it. She wanted whatever was on the table and nothing was going to stop her! Ever since then she continues to astound me; getting braver each day. A few days later she startled me as I was sitting at the computer searching for a job by starting to climb the stairs. WAIT!! Little people that are not even 8-months old yet are not supposed to be climbing stairs and standing up on their own.

So, here's some fun Sadie pictures.

Following her figuring out how to successfully climb up the stairs she has decided her favorite place to play is...YES—on the stairs. She chases the toys up the stairs then sits on a stair, usually the third one. After a minute she likes to scoot over to the railing, grabs hold and pulls herself up. She pretty well stands there until I come get her, or falls down. She's fallen twice, nothing serious. Since standing at the base of my chair screaming doesn't get my attention much anymore, she has resorted to climbing the five stairs the main level then crawls around the dinning table to in front of me. Grabs hold of the bars and smiles at me through the bars. This is really quite funny and convenient for me. This way I can watch her, she can watch me AND I can continue my online search through network contacts and postings.

Ahh...my adventurous baby girl.