In 2011 I spent at least one night in:

• Omaha, NE (Home)
• Kansas City*
• Las Vegas
• Carroll, IA*
• San Antonio, TX
• Iowa City, IA

2 cups chicken stock

1 10oz jar turkey gravy (or 1.25 cups homemade gravy)

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 large potatoes 1″ diced

1 onion diced

1 tablespoon butter

3/4 cup frozen peas

3-4 carrots 1″ chop or 1/2 bag baby carrots, halved

1 can Grands Biscuits

salt

pepper

4 bay leaves
Step 1 can be skipped and the breasts cooked in the slow cooker, but avoid the taste test in step 7. I like to poach the chicken first so it is falling apart tender at serving time.

1. Add chicken breasts, 2 bay leaves, 1/4 of the onion to a deep pan. Cover to top of chicken with water, bring to a boil and poach for 15-20 minutes until chicken cooked through.

1. While the chicken is poaching, dice the vegetables and add to slow-cooker.

1. When the chicken is cooked. Shred or 1″ dice and add to slow-cooker.

1. Add remaining bay leaves.

1. Add turkey gravy, cream of chicken soup, chicken stock and butter.

1. Set slow cooker to low and cook for 6-8 hours.

1. After 3 hours in cooker, taste the sauce and add salt and pepper to taste.

1. 45 minutes prior to serving. open the can of biscuits, tear or cut in pieces and add to stew.

If you ever think about letting your domain expire, this doesn’t destroy your Google Apps account. You must cancel this service as well.

Any future registrant of your domain, if they determine you had Google Apps – and it is a trivial process – all it takes is a couple of days and they will have full control of whatever information resided there – which includes Google Apps email archives, Google App Docs and more.

I don’t blame Google for this, this isn’t a hit piece on them and they shouldn’t be policing the expiration of domain names from Google Apps accounts.

It is no secret that I buy and sell domains. I’m not as active as I once was, but I still browse the drop lists for expired domains and actively search new domains with keywords of up-and-coming business/tech and terms in the news.

In the last 6 months alone, I’ve picked up 3 domains¹ that I realized, after the fact, had Google Apps accounts configured. Between those 3 domains, and before I deleted the Google Apps accounts, I had access to 37 email accounts and their archives. A cursory look through a few of those accounts and assuming people lagged behind in changing the email address associated with their accounts, I could have likely found a way to access:

• Cell Phone Accounts
• LinkedIn Profiles
• Facebook & Twitter Acccounts
• Affiliate Network Accounts
• An Ashley Madison Account (hmmm)²
• Business Plans
• Apple ID & iTunes Account
• Hundreds of Contacts
• And more, you get the idea

Like I said, I deleted the accounts associated with these domains. Mainly because I would hope someone would do the same for me, but also because there was some temptation to dig for some competitive information that I didn’t feel right doing. I removed the temptation and kept the ethical compass pointing north, mostly north.

Before you let any domain expire, audit its past usage and clean up the loose ends so they don’t come back to bite you.

¹ Don’t ask, I’m not revealing which domains they were.
² A married, and from what I gathered, a prominent business person in his city.

• Nebraska – Personal & Professional HQ
• Iowa
• Minnesota
  Very weird to be in Minnesota in January, seeing no snow, and a daytime high in 40′s. My brain is having troubles comprehending as the last time I was here in January it was -15 and there was more than a foot of snow on the ground.
• …more coming soon…

My failures are pretty easy to pinpoint as I threw goals on the table, and didn’t bother putting any plans in to place. This year, I’ve changed that up and have been working on my goal planning and the steps I need to take for the last 60 days or so. I’m not broadcasting them publicly this year, but I did write them down along with the steps I need to take, printed them out and stuck them to the bathroom mirror and shared them with my wife to keep me accountable.

I broke them down in to several categories: Health, Financial, Personal Improvement, Professional and Focus (encompassing my digital disconnection, and addressing how my connected time is spent). Giving me a healthy mix of overall improvement.

I hope your 2012 is prosperous. If you see me on the street, make sure give me a dose of external will power and ask me how my resolutions are coming.

Over the course of that 6 years, my active lifestyle has dwindled with kids and family responsibilities. All of which are also easy excuses. I’ve made a few attempts in the last year to get moving.

A couple weeks ago I made the decision to get an exercise bike. My wife’s worries that it will become a laundry rack were set aside with a wager that if she finds any clothing on it other than a workout towel, it’d better have at least 20 miles on it over the previous 7 days or I’m on the hook of handing over a cool $1000 to her. I’m not letting that happen.
After a few days of trying and deciding, I ended up going with the Livestrong LS 5.0u upright bike*. I purchased mine through Amazon, but I also tested it out at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Mine arrived yesterday and took roughly an hour to assemble in to shape. I gave it a quick test last night, but had some prior work commitments to get to. Tonight, my first ride, 30 minutes on a easy level to give my legs a test and see where I stand. 4 minutes in to the warm up I was ready to quit, but I stayed on it. The twinge in my knee loosened up after a few minutes and my little touch of asthma loosed up after a quick bit of tightness as my heart rate increased.

30 minutes later I stepped off. 8.8 miles and the guesstimated 260 calories burned. A nice stream of sweat coming from head.

I’m back on the bike.

*the link is an Amazon affiliate link. My thoughts on the bike, easily 4-5 stars on Amazon’s rating. The feel of the bike is similar to health club units, but there are some obvious trade-offs with the computer/display unit, simple LED readout of workout vitals – the usual things you see with home models. But this has the heft of a club unit, especially when compared to the $250-$350 pricepoint of the entry level home exercise bikes. I happy with it, and I like that it is USB-enabled so I can transfer my workout data to Livestrong.com. The data is a simple XML file so it could be adapted to whatever uses you might find.

I think this also signals a renewed focus to the site. While I have been posting a ton of curated content via Twitter, I do see a need for more long-form sharing.

Hi, you may be surprised to learn that we are downsizing and moving to Spain. We found this bung. at a silly price near Dolores (Alicante). It is a little inland, away from the concrete It is one of a group of 9 similar places all occupied by Brits. All legal, no further development allowed. It is very secluded and we drive up an amazing avenue of palm trees to get to it. On our visits to Spain we have noticed how much cheaper most things are, food in particular. There seems to be much more English spoken and the attitude of traders is usually helpful. So we are selling off bits and pieces in all directions mostly on le Bon Coin. Sorry we don’t seem to have heard from you since you had pool pump problems. Trust you got that sorted! We finally got our non paying tenant out, what a relief, but we are owed considerable monies which we don’t expect to recover! Regards Dave & Michele.

Problem
Exists
Between
Phone
And
Chair

In all seriousness, this is the cell phone he should own: