I'm sitting here at a children's worker conference. It's amazing how important it is to continue learning about effective strategies to teach students. So many people think that when you get out of school learning is done, but the thing that really makes the difference in successful people is that they continue to learn throughout their life, you never know it all. One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein and he said, "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know." Be a continual learner if you truly want to be a success.
I've got a show tonight then I'll be doing a short demo at the conference tomorrow morning.

The new site is almost done! I made a few more changes to the flash navigation at top and ported over all the old news articles into the new format. Still getting ready for the conference this weekend and that's enough to keep me busy for a while. Until tomorrow.

A couple days ago we bought my wife a bicycle and decided to go for a ride. We went down this stretch of road that we go on quite a bit when I noticed that the seat on my unicycle was feeling really weird. I pushed down on the handle and the seat bent in half almost down to the seat post! I knew I had cracked the seat a while ago when I had gone off a jump, but this was way different, it was totally and completely broken. By the end of the ride the seat material had started ripping and it didn't take too much effort to rip it in half. Needless to say I had to replace the seat and am now trying to break in a new one. I guess it lasted a while (I think I've put in around 3-4,000 miles on that seat), but it sure made for an interesting ride. I've got a big conference coming up this weekend (Thurs.-Sat.) and they're using me as one of the give-aways (not me, but one of my shows) for whatever group brings the most people to the conference. It should be fun! Hope you had a good weekend.

For those of you interested in such things, I've been working on updating the site and have transfered over most of the pages to php. If you've ever tried linking to a specific page you've probably noticed that things don't look right as the original site was built in frames. The new version will look consistent across every page and you'll be able to link to individual pages without having to go through the main page. I'm still working on a few kinks, but you can check out the almost there version by clicking here. You'll notice that the page is a bit wider now and there is a new flash navigation at the top. I wanted it to be smaller and less obtrusive and I've still got a little work to do on it, but it will get there. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments on the new layout. On the jump rope side of things, I've been talking with my booking agent trying to get some details worked out for this fall. There's plenty left to do and I'm finding that after working by myself for so long there are some growing pains that have begun to happen now that someone else will be taking care of (most of) that part of the show. Hope you're having a great day, time to go eat.

The joys of travel, my flight into Pennsylvania was rather late and I didn't land until 12:30 in the morning and I was really tired. The baggage handlers were taking forever so I decided to go get my rental car. Normally when I?travel alone for an overnight trip I?always get the smallest car available, sometimes I?get upgraded due to a lack of anything small, but this was the biggest upgrade I've ever had. They only had 2 cars available and they gave me a choice of a 15 passenger van or a Cadillac Escalade (it's massive, but still a Cadillac). I know most of you would probably go with the van, but I decided to try something different and went with the caddy. This thing was huge for one person with 2 bags, but that was my only option so I drove around town in a tank. I've never been in a vehicle like this and they had more buttons than I knew what to do with, it also had a central, touch-screen radio that had a nifty camera option when you were backing up. The only thing I didn't like was the gas mileage, knowing it was huge I decided to drive like an old lady and barely went the speed limit on my way to the schools. I managed 15 mpg which I thought was decent, but certainly not what I would have liked. Anyway, below are some pictures of the car and one of the schools I was at. Later.

I'm working like mad getting ready to head out to Pennsylvania today. I've got 2 shows tomorrow at a couple of different elementary schools and it should be fun. This is one of my rare days that I have a late flight instead of the usual 6 am ones. The only thing I worry about when taking a late flight is that there is some sort of delay that will cause me to miss my connection and then I can't get there until the following day. I haven't had it happen yet, but there have been a number of close calls over the years that thankfully the airlines were able to save me from. I have to give props to American Airlines on helping me with this. I had one trip to St. Louis a couple years ago and I was supposed to switch to United to get there, but my flight was delayed out of Tulsa which meant I would miss my connection. The agent worked for about 30 minutes on my problem before getting me moved up to First Class and routed me through a different city. The important thing I noticed that day is it makes a world of difference how you treat the agents when you have a problem. The guy in front of me started yelling at a different agent when he found out, and they couldn't help him, I made sure to be really considerate to the person I was talking to and he made things work out for me. The moral, treat people better than they deserve (I'm not saying this guy deserved it, but in a case where they do, still treat them nice). Attitude and manners are so important, never let them slip.
Visitor badge from a school

One thing about schools is that you never know what they're going to look like. The school I was at today will be 100 years old next year and was a blast to be at. The show went great and I then taught the different grade levels a bunch of different skills. Since I drove to Springfield I got to do something that I haven't done in a while, use my own sound system! I'm a sound junkie by nature and I've come to find that most schools have less than adequate sound installations. A lot of times I show up and the only option is a boom box that really isn't loud enough for the number of kids that are there, it works, but oh how nice it is when I can use a real system. I spent last night scrounging together different parts that were lying around and put together a workable system that rocked the small room I was in. It's nice to be at ear-bleeding levels and only have the system at 1/4 power, I guess it is one of those guy things, but it's so great to know that I could make it louder if I needed it to. Anyway, it was fun to use and I had a blast. Sorry I got distracted, really quick, I went into the bathroom and they had these really old syle urinals. I wouldn't normally mention this to anyone, but I had to laugh when the urinal looked like it's been there almost 100 years and they had those electronic flushers installed, old and new, how awesome!

Besides a rather uneventful flight yesterday, I was able to get rested up and am playing catch up on most of my e-mails and calls today. I forgot to mention something in the last post. While in Frankenmuth, we went to this shop that had a lot of odds and ends. One of the things they had in stock was some cloth jump ropes. I would never jump with one seriously, but decided to goof around and do some rope tosses while I was waiting on my wife. Just after I put the rope up, some guy who had been watching me came up and asked me to 'do it again' for his daughters. I did a couple simple rope tosses which they ooh'd and aah'd over before heading out. It seems that I can't get away from performance work even when I'm just goofing around. Fun, fun, fun. I head out to Springfield for a couple shows and workshops bright and early tomorrow morning. Should be a fun day!
Reception of the new Trick of the Month has been great! I've had loads of people tell me they're loving the new format and can't wait for the next one. If you haven't signed up for the mailing list, best get on the band wagon or you'll be missing out!
I've also attached a couple recent newspaper clippings from some shows I've done. Click on the image for the full article and picture. The one with the open-mouthed girl is about my favorite newspaper picture ever. Enjoy.

We went up to Frankenmuth today to check out this rather awesome Bavarian town. If you've never been there before I highly recommend going if you don't have the time/money to get to Germany. They have some great restaurants with authentic German fare and some great places to walk around if you feel like spending a lazy day with a little exploring. It's late and I have to get up early to catch my flight home tomorrow, have a great day!

Boy am I sore! The last few weeks I've been so caught up working on my computer and the whole situation with the family left me almost no time to workout and today I'm feeling it. My forearms and hands hurt quite a bit from holding the ropes for so many hours this past weekend. It's amazing how quickly you can lose strength when you take time off from consistent workouts. I've got the next few days off before heading home Wednesday then I've got a couple shows on Friday in Missouri. I'll pass along this word of wisdom, keep consistent with your workouts!

It was rather tough to get out of bed at 5:30 this morning. I had 3 shows today at a church for Easter and the first one was scheduled for 8 AM. I had to be there by 7 to get set up and some days it's a chore to roll out of bed and be chipper first thing. The shows went great after I finally woke up and I had a great time entertaining and motivating kids to leave all the baggage they may be carrying and start living life the way it's meant to be lived! A great treat for my wife and I was that we got to meet up with my old jump rope coach, Mr. Berry. This was the man that started and coached the Juneau Jumpers when I was in elementary school and has taught me more than almost any person alive. If it hadn't been for Mr. B there is no way I would be doing what I do today. I could go on forever about the impact he's had in my life, but I'll summarize it like this: get a mentor or coach that believes in you and there's no telling where you'll end up. Anyway, we had a great Easter lunch together chatting about jumping and sports and life. Hope you had a great Easter, I sure did!

What an awesome day today was! I woke up and saw that it was snowing! I love snow like no other element and was extremely excited to see it coming down in blankets. The only problem was that my show today was a part of an Easter Egg hunt and the hunt was outside. Thankfully my part was scheduled to be inside so it wouldn't affect my performance at all, the only question was how many people would actually show up for en egg hunt while it was 25 degrees and snowing. There ended up being about 950 people show up and they all had a great time. The pastor of the church wanted me to do my balloon trick so I bit the bullet and did it for the first time in 2.5 years! In case you've never seen the balloon trick, basically I climb inside of a 6 foot tall pink balloon and jump rope. I've never really liked doing the thing, which explains my avoidance of it for so long, but he really wanted me to do it and I decided I'd give it a shot. It went flawlessly the first show and ended up popping just as I was getting in it during the second show. What a great day, I'm looking forward to the shows tomorrow in Toledo!
Getting ready for a show