An Orlando Tour of Prior Lake, Minnesota

An Orlando Tour of Prior Lake, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 13, 2016

On Thursday night I stopped by to see Meatsauce, Mike Morris, and Greg Coleman talk Minnesota Vikings at Mystic Lake Casino.  Our Vikings have been having a tough few weeks, but I'm hoping they figure things out and get the season turned around soon.

Friday morning brought us to see the new movie, Arrival, with Amy Adams.  It was an interesting take on aliens being smart enough to figure out how to travel to earth, but not being smart enough to have a plan for how to communicate with us.  So Amy Adams comes to the rescue with her translation skills and a message about why being nice to the aliens is better than being mean to them.

  

It's been an unseasonably warm November in Minnesota, so Miss Sheri and I took the dogs down to the lake to go swimming.

We don't do this nearly as much as we used to because our young pup, Blue, has not been very kind to our 11 year old retriever, Sunny, when they play this game.  For the longest time, Blue thought the game was for us to throw the ball in the water, Sunny would then retrieve it, and Blue would attack Sunny in every way possible as he tried to get out of the water.  Poor Sunny.

But they're actually getting better at playing this game together.  We have to time things right so each of them gets a ball thrown to them so they can get it instead of the other dog.  Then convincing them to bring the balls back to us rather than leaving them out in the water is another challenge we have.  But all in all, they're doing pretty good.

My buddy, Orlando Mazzolini, stopped by for a Saturday afternoon roadtrip.  Before we left, he asked to see the progress on the porch that Miss Sheri has been re-building.  She's come quite a long ways so far, although she still has some things that need to be completed.

  

Orlando has lived in Prior Lake longer than I have, so I asked him to take me to some places I've never been to before.  We started out at Cedar Lake Park which isn't all that far from my house, but for some reason I've never been there before.  Orlando tried to tell me he'd actually never been here before either, but I'm not sure if I believe him.

It's actually a beautiful park and lake out in the middle of some cornfields.  We talked about that being one of the nice things about living in Minnesota among it's 10,000 lakes.  There's so many dang parks like this that are around us, you can always find a new one to explore.

I thought it was pretty funny to see this sign before going on the dock to check out these two kids fishing.  They didn't seem to be too worried about breaking the rules, though, because I walked back and forth on the dock and they just kept right on going.

We had to leave after Orlando started getting klutzy and fell backwards down some stairs.

Orlando then took me to a couple of local bars I hadn't been to before.  They were both also in the middle of cornfields in the middle of nowhere.  This was St. Patrick's Tavern and they had really good burgers.  I had the St. Patrick burger which included Canadian bacon on it.  It was pretty darned good.

We then stopped by a little bar called Daugherty's which looking at it from the outside was pretty unassuming, so I figured there wouldn't be anyone inside.  It was actually quite hopping.

Coincidentally enough, one of our co-workers from Oracle, April, happened to be there which was a pleasant surprise.  I guess you just never know who you're going to meet when you go on an Orlando Tour of Prior Lake!

Prior Lake Band Concert - November 1, 2016

Prior Lake Band Concert - November 1, 2016

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 6, 2016

Our week started at Prior Lake High School to see our son, Luke, perform percussion in the band concert.  

Luke played a variety of instruments during the concert.  Mostly stuff he could hit with sticks.  Here's some clips:

Grandma Linda joined us at the concert.  She has a new friend so we don't get to see her much any more.   So we always try to come up with reasons like these so she has an excuse to visit us.  

On Friday night, we decided to be really crazy and went to the local Costco to start a new membership.  Lynette was really friendly and talked us into an executive membership.  She basically said we'd be stupid if we didn't go this route and I sure don't want anyone to think I'm stupid, so I stepped in there.  Now I feel like a real executive.

If I would have known I could have experiences like this, I would have joined Costco years ago.  I couldn't believe they actually let me ride this guy for free!

After we went shopping, we went to one of our favorite Sea Food restaurants, Red Lobster.  I wanted to throw my new "Executive Status" around a bit and see what kind of leverage it would give me.  I told all the people who worked that I was now an executive and I think it helped a lot.  They even gave us free biscuits which was a nice little perk.

On Saturday, Luke and Avery helped run an FLL robotics tournament.  FLL stands for First Lego League and it's geared for elementary school kids.

The game consists of running the Lego robot through a variety of challenges and the high scoring team wins. 

Luke and Avery helped judge the tournament.  I try to tell them to not be judgmental, but I guess in this case it was OK.

Lisa Maldonado runs the FLL and Jr FLL robotics program and has been a magnificent mentor for the boys.  She helped them be mentors for the younger kids in the robotics program and also helped them come up with their Eagle Projects for Boy Scouts.  We certainly appreciate all that Lisa has done for our boys!

The kids really enjoy helping the younger kids with their robotics program.  It feels like just a short time ago where we were the young ones and looking up to the older students.  How time flies!

Podcast- A Desire to Inspire: Manny Patrick Interviews Todd Swank

If you've ever wanted to know my entire life story and have an hour to kill, then this podcast is for you. Although I could probably just email this directly to my mom and still get the same number of viewers, I thought I'd share it with all of you. 

Manny Patrick is from Las Vegas and has quite a story of his own. He created this podcast series called a Desire to Inspire and asked me if he could interview me so I could tell my story. 

Mom, I hope you like it!!

Thank you for Watching this interview! Each week I have the pleasure of interviewing influential business leaders, athletes, educators, and self-made millionaires to share their story, shed some light on the possibilities of life, and, the best part..I get to pass it along to you!
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This is podcast #10
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You can follow Manny at:
Website: http://mannypatrick.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mannypatrickv/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manny-pat...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mannypatrickv/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mannypatrickv

Manny Patrick Vargas is an author, speaker, coach, podcast host, and former restaurant owner. In November of 2015 Manny hit a transformational turning point and decided to embark on a path of self-discovery to understand how he could best impact those around him. Asking questions was integral on his path to bringing more awareness of self and of others into his life. Manny has since authored his first book, "loss VEGAS- The Art of Finding Joy in Sin City" and earned his certification in Conference Management and Event Planning. He is also a certified Social and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Coach. A self-actualized man, Manny is called on to inspire others to live a life of purpose and creativity, encouraging lasting change to help guide them towards finding joy in the struggle of life. 

Get your copy of loss VEGAS here. Bit.ly/lossvegas

A New Backyard Project

A New Backyard Project

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 30, 2016

My day job is selling ERP software for Oracle.  On Friday, I was having a meeting with a CFO, VP of Accounting, and CIO from a local insurance company in one of our nicer conference rooms.  We had done a lot of preparation for this meeting and were trying to make sure everything was perfect for the presentation.  The clients were in the meeting in person, but our main presenter was calling in on a conference line.  The meeting was going well and the customers were listening intently.  All the sudden, we started hearing some loud bangs outside which is not a very common occurrence on the 9th floor in downtown Minneapolis.  I quickly realized it was the window washers, which wasn't a big deal except they kept making these loud bangs and were slapping their suction cups on the windows.  Nobody said anything and we kept going with the meeting.  But it was just awkward enough of a situation that I thought I should snap a couple of pictures to remember the occasion.

I came home from work on Friday and was surprised to find Miss Sheri and our neighbor, Jim, had removed most of the boards from our deck.  She had told me she was going to replace a couple of boards, but I guess once they started they just couldn't stop themselves and decided to replace all the boards.  They're a lot more ambitious than I am.

Friday night, our friends the Walters invited us over for a bonfire since it was such a lovely evening.  We just couldn't pass on the opportunity to burn things.

We were celebrating the fact that Luke and Jackson both made their decisions for college and have decided to room together at Minnesota State Mankato.  Luke will be studying business and I'm pretty sure Jackson said he'd be studying science.  Congratulations, fellas!

On Saturday night, we invited Jim out to Benihana to partially thank him for all his help he's given us this year.  Aside from countless projects around the house and yard he's helped Sheri tackle, he was also instrumental in helping Luke and Avery complete their eagle scout projects.  Thanks, Jim!!

Jim told us he also grew up on a farm like Miss Sheri, which is probably why they are so compatible for taking on big projects together.  I on the other hand am not compatible with them.  When I discover a project around the house or yard, my first thought is "Can Sheri fix that?"   My second thought is, "If Sheri can't fix that, how much is that gonna cost me?"

    

But lucky for me, Sheri is willing to tackle the big projects and Jim is kind enough to help her figure out the best way to do them.  They decided the frame of the deck was solid enough to keep, but needed to be raised.  They are then going to replace all the boards.  Which is nice.  Pretty soon it will look like we have a brand new deck!

Iowa State University College Tour

Iowa State University College Tour

Todd Swank's Diary Update for October 23, 2016

On Saturday, we woke up at 4am to drive down to Ames, Iowa for a tour of Iowa State University.  That was a little bit too early to wake up on a Saturday morning.

  

Luke and Avery have each applied at 3 different colleges and we're trying to tour all 5 of them.  We have now been to the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Minnesota State Mankato.  Iowa State makes it number four so we just have to visit the University of Minnesota Duluth and we'll have checked out each of their top choices.   Unless something new arises.

I wasn't expecting much from Iowa State, but honestly they have been one of the most impressive schools of the bunch.  They are just really on the ball when it comes to responsiveness, marketing, organization, and making their tour extremely interesting.  Avery said this visit has made his decision much harder than he was expecting.

We bumped into one of their class mates, Andrew Fristad, who was  was also here for the tour.  We had lunch and did part of the tour together and just generally had a good time with one another.

We spent most of the day visiting the college of engineering.  They told us they have thirteen different majors in the college of engineering and after hearing about them, I wanted to go back to school and try each one of them.  I have such a greater appreciation for education now that I'm an old man than I did when I was seventeen and trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life.

Of course, we all got really excited when we heard about their VRAC or Virtual Reality Applications Center.  Seen behind us in this picture is the VRAC's C6 which is the world's highest resolution fully immersive virtual environment.  Inside the C6 is a room that is 10 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet in which all four walls, the floor and the ceiling, are projection screens illuminated from outside by high-resolution, interactive computer-generated stereoscopic images that provide an experience of total immersion in a virtual environment. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside, but I really, really want to go in there!

The Virtual Reality Applications Center, where dreams become simulations and simulations bring about reality.

The students who gave us the tour of the engineering school were really kind and passionate about Iowa State.  They showed us several interesting tools and laboratories including this one which had a water jet used to cut materials into interesting shapes.

Here's a great example of what one can cut with a water-jet.  I thought it was pretty neat.

After we were done checking out the engineering school, we took a tour of the campus.  It was a beautiful day and the temperature was in the seventies.  It's been quite awhile since I've lived in Iowa, but I'm pretty sure the weather is like this here year-round.

The tour guide told us this old water tower no longer holds any water, but is now considered a national landmark so can't be torn down.  Which is too bad because I was hoping to go saw off a couple of those legs to see what would happen.

Outside of one of the engineering buildings, there were several slabs of marble and if you looked at them the right way, you could see this butterfly.  But if you looked at them the wrong way, then they wanted to pick a fight with you.  So I was careful.

All in all, it was a beautiful campus and a beautiful day.  If either of my boys decided to go to Iowa State University, I would be downright proud of them.