MJ and the Western Conference Finals

 

MJ and the Western Conference Finals

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 26, 2024

Our tour through various sectors of the medical industry continued this week when I met with the Urologist to address some kidney stone issues I've been having.  I had a procedure called a Cystography on Wednesday morning which is basically a probe being inserted into the only exterior opening of the urinary tract I had available.  It wasn't a pleasant experience.  The good news is they didn't find anything concerning, but the sphincter between my prostate and bladder has been violated in a way that I'll remember for a long, long time.

Our beloved Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Denver Nuggets in a crazy Game 7.  It gave us the opportunity to attend Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.  Avery hadn't been to a game with me in awhile but jumped at the chance to join me for this one.

The Wolves had a regular season record of 3-1 vs Dallas, but Luka Doncic wasn't playing during two of those wins.  Minnesota wouldn't have that benefit going for them this time around.

Kyrie Irving has had some erratic seasons the past few years, but everything has been going great for him in Dallas this year.  He was on fire on this particular evening.

I noticed Mark Cuban and his family about 30 rows in front of us. Mark started in the computer industry about the same time I did so I've been following him for about 3 decades now.  I've always been a fan of his, but tonight we'd be rooting for opposite teams.

I enjoy watching the various celebrities.  It's always fun to see who Alex Rodriguez brings to the game. 

Everyone is worried about Justin Jefferson not signing his contract extension with the Vikings yet, but I've seen him at several games so he seems to spend a fair amount of the offseason in Minnesota.  Maybe he's just that big of a fan of the Wolves?

This being the Western Conference Finals meant that the NBA crew from TNT were at the game.  For some reason they brought Draymond Green which is an odd choice considering he was suspended earlier this season for putting our center, Rudy Gobert, in a headlock.  When Avery and I walked up on the crowd, we heard them chanting "Draymond Sucks" so I captured this video:

@toddswank Draymond Sucks! Round 3 Game 1. Wolves fans letting TNTs newest analyst how they feel about him! #draymond #nba #timberwolves #minnesota ♬ original sound - Todd Swank

 

Our seats were pretty close to Shaq and team so I kept sneaking pictures of them.  I bet they're a fun crew to hang crew to hang around with.  We have so much in common.

Charles Barkley made headlines this week complaining that their show is coming to an end since TNT is losing the NBA after this season. I'm betting one of the other networks will figure out a way to pick them up for next season.

The game was very exciting!  It was back and forth all night and the home team was putting up a heck of a fight!

Our superstar, Anthony Edwards, wasn't quite right unfortunately.  We'd grown accustomed to seeing perfection from him, but his shots just weren't falling.  He ended up going only 6 for 16 in the game. 

 

I was excited to see that Montell Jordan was there to entertain us at half time.  It was fun to see him show the crowd "This is How We Do It!"

In the end, Luke and Kyrie would prove too strong.  Irving finished the game with 30 points and four assists. Doncic logged 33 points, eight assists and six rebounds.  Dallas won the game by a score 108-105.  We will see if Minnesota can get another home playoff game this year.  They also lost Game 2 and 3, but I'll be there for Game 5 if it happens!

On Friday night, we went to the Orpheum to see MJ the Musical.  Our good friends The Browns and Zitzewitzes were happy to join us!

It was a great show!  It basically is a concert featuring a couple dozen of the King of Pop's hit songs, but there is also a story line which highlighted his life.  They showed young Michael and the Jackson 5 conquering Motown and addressed a few of the controversial aspects of his life.  But not all of them.

  I loved the music and really enjoyed myself.  

It was a Thriller of an evening!

Oracle Cloud Day 2018 in Dallas, Texas

Oracle Cloud Day 2018 in Dallas, Texas

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for December 9, 2018

I flew down to Dallas for a couple of meetings and a chance to attend Oracle's Cloud Day event at the Hyatt Regency next to Reunion Tower.  That's a big ball in the sky they have up there.

The cloud day event was a productive one.  I met with customers and colleagues while also experiencing keynote speakers and hands-on labs for some of Oracle's latest and greatest technologies.  I love technology so always have a great time at events like these.

Oracle's CIO, Mark Sunday, gave one of the keynotes and talked about how Digital Transformation is changing society and businesses and is generally making the world a better place to be for all of us.  He also talked about how Oracle has transformed our operations from on premise technologies to the cloud which is a pretty impressive accomplishment for a company with 137,000 employees.  Quite a fascinating talk.

I stayed at the same hotel as the event which was the Hyatt Regency Dallas.  It's right next to the Reunion Tower also known as that great big ball in the sky.  I love going to the nineteenth floor, standing at the railing and looking over it to freak myself out.  It's hard for me to stand there staring over the edge because I think it  would be just so easy to slide right over it and plummet to my death.  I would never do such a thing, but it's hard not to think about it when looking over the railing.  I have a weird brain.

The best part of visiting Dallas is having the opportunity to see much of my family who live down there.  My sister, Tracy, her husband, Dave, my niece, Bailey, and my niece, Mallory and her family, all came to Village Burger to meet me for dinner on Wednesday night.  It was so great to see them.  I hadn't seen Mallory's kids in awhile and they've all grown so much and are so well behaved!  It was really nice connecting with them all.

On Thursday night, I connected with my old mentor at Oracle, John Eder.  John and I worked together for a year and a half before I took on my current role.  He is a 20 year plus veteran salesperson for Oracle and I learned so much from him on how to be successful in enterprise sales.  It was great spending a few hours with him catching up on the good old days of 2017.

I came home Friday afternoon and had to jump back in the car to go out for the night with our good friends, the Zitzewitz Family.  They're such an attractive family that we try to spend as much time with them as we can in hopes some of that rubs off on us.

We were actually in St. Paul to go to the Ordway to see the new production of Elf The Musical.  We were on the edge of our seats with anticipation for an opportunity to spend a few hours with Buddy the Elf.

Our seats were on the railing of the balcony, so I had to spend a few more hours wondering what it would be like to fall from this distance.  It wasn't nearly as far of a height as I was seeing at the hotel, but it still would probably hurt pretty bad.  I just keep wondering what if I have some secret bouncing ability that I don't know about?  It would be sad if I didn't ever get to use it.

The play was fun, but ultimately not as funny as I was hoping it would be.  We are such big fans of the movie so had very high expectations.  I guess it's just not easy to be as good as Will Ferrell.

Back home, we are excited to have Luke home from college for winter break.  He wanted to take Blue for a walk out on the lake now that it's frozen.  My mom and sister were really worried about us going on the lake, but I promised them I'd have Luke go out there first to make sure it was safe.

Blue was so happy to finally get to go for a run and chase the ball.  He's really sick of winter already because we tend to choose staying inside rather than bundling up and going out adventuring.  We need to get better at that.

The critter watching around our house has been fabulous.  The birds and squirrels seem really fat so we've been wondering if we should keep filling up the feeders or not.  I think we will keep doing it.  They can lose weight for New Years.

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 18, 2018

I spent much of the week in Kansas City along with my team attending a very intense & powerful sales training.  We worked hard and played hard together.

On Saturday, I attended the 2018 Minne Mini Regional FRC Robotics Tournament.  The tournament consists of 36 robotics teams from Minnesota & Iowa competing in a game called First Power Up.

Basically each match consists of 2 alliances with 3 robots per side competing to score points by performing various tasks including lifting large blocks onto a scale to gain control away from the competing alliance.  It's 2 minutes of chaos on the field and a lot of fun to watch.

I was one of 8 judges observing the tournament and interviewing the teams to determine which ones would win various awards for showcasing talent in engineering, spirit, and gracious professionalism.  It's hard to judge because there are so many worthy teams to be considered and a ton of great kids.

It's also fun spending time with my fellow judges.  These are a bunch of great guys.

After the tournament we went out to dinner with the Korkowskis and one of Sue's best friends from childhood.  We had a nice dinner before heading back to the high school for a late night event.

We went to see the Prior Lake High School performance of Sister Act.  If you haven't seen the movie, the story is about a night club singer who witnesses a murder and has to go into hiding so she pretends to be a nun in a local convent.  Hilarity ensues.

We were there to support Grace Korkowski who was one of the nuns.  It was fun seeing her sing and dance throughout the various performances.

There are a lot of talented performers at Prior Lake High School.

There were more than 120 students involved in the production which seems pretty crazy to me.  That's a lot of kids.  But you could totally see the amount of passion and hard-work they put into the production.  It was a phenomenal show!

Hamilton at the Orpheum in Minneapolis

Hamilton at the Orpheum in Minneapolis

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 7, 2018

Miss Sheri has been rapidly attempting to complete as many projects as she can before winter hits.  She just replaced all the boards on our back patio and now is in the process of cutting them down to size.  I'm so glad she's willing to take on projects like this because I'm quite sure they wouldn't get done if she didn't.

Our October get together of the Prior Lake Empty Nester Club was a new adventure.  We attended an event called "Fill The Bowl" at St. Michael Catholic Church.  We bought bowls from local potters which were then filled with various kinds of soup.  The proceeds went to an organization called Rock which supports local kids with meals.  It's a nice group.

Afterwards we headed to the Prior Lake VFW for some good conversation with good friends.  We again had new people show up so the Empty Nester Club keeps attracting fun people.  

We're planning on going bowling in November.  Our group meets the first Thursday of every month.  Follow our Facebook page for details on where we are meeting.  You don't really need to be an empty nester to join us, you just need to want to have fun!

On Friday night, we had a special event planned for the family.  We started at Crave in downtown Minneapolis and got our sushi on.

We then headed across the street to the Orpheum Theater for our highly anticipated trip to see Hamilton.

I've been a fan of rap music since I was in high school, so when I first heard about Lin-Manuel Miranda's cultural juggernaut coming to Minneapolis I was all over it.  It was a challenge to get tickets.  You had to sign up well in advance of them going on sale on Ticketmaster and then be selected in a lottery to have a chance to purchase them.  Even then I had to wait online for an hour and change my selections a couple of time before I finally secured our seats.

It was well worth it.  A fascinating show telling the story of Alexander Hamilton and many of our founding fathers.  I didn't realize there was going to be zero dialog so sometimes it was a little hard to follow-along on where the story was going, but all in all we were quite pleased with the performance.  Such a fun way to learn history.  

We really enjoyed the comic relief brought in by the King of England.  He is played to be a bit of a buffoon, but he's also the most animated character in the show.

With the intermission, the show lasted about two and a half hours but it didn't feel that long.  It was inspirational, interesting, and even a little bit awe inspiring.  I can see why it's one of the most popular plays of our generation.

Our friendly albino squirrel has still been visiting our backyard pretty much every day this week.  I wasn't going to post any more pictures of him, but this guy has just done such a nice job posing for us I couldn't resist.  Although, I think it would be appropriate for him to put on some underwear.  

We're gonna make it after all!