these next four months

I just finished reading Brain Tracy's Goals, which is sort of like The Secret without all the crazy.

One of the book's main themes is that in order to achieve your goals, you have to get specific about what you are trying to accomplish. Doy, right?

The author says you should write down your 10 to 15 major goals every day. At first, I thought that writing them down every day would just be busy work. But, I've been doing it for the last few weeks and it's been really amazing.

The key is to not refer to yesterday's list when you write up today's list. This forces you to go through the thought process again and again of basically deciding what it is that you really want to do right now. You can't do everything, you have to choose what's going to make the list, and what's going to get weeded out. Because you are rewriting the list everyday, you end up drilling that top ten list into your mind and you end up thinking about your goals a lot more during your daily activities.

The author says that after about a month or so of honing your list, you will reach a point where you list becomes almost identical every day. I'm pretty close to that point now.

These might change a bit over the coming days and weeks, but for today, these are (some of)...

Dave's goals for these next four months:

1. I communicate sincerely with my Heavenly Father through prayer at least twice daily by December 31, 2008.


2. I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover by December 31, 2008.


3. I attend the temple with Holly at least once each month by December 31, 2008.


4. I go out with Holly (no kids!) once a week by December 31, 2008.


5. I have no debt (other than our mortgage) by December 31, 2008.


6. I have (and hold to) healthy eating habits by December 31, 2008.


7. I run five times a week by December 31, 2008.


8. I lift weights five times a week by December 31, 2008.


9. I weigh 170 pounds (or less) by December 31, 2008.


10. I launch the side project (that I've been daydreaming about for the last two years) by December 31, 2008.

There it is. It's now public. All three of our readers will mock me in the street if I don't follow through with these goals.

Quit your job

Three months ago, I started working at Omniture.

When I tell people that I work there, they always ask me they same question.

"I've seen all those green billboards," they say, "but what do you people do exactly?"

When they say that last bit, the "do exactly" part, they raise one eyebrow, squint their eyes a little bit, and really peer at me. Like they're looking for Waldo.

"We do online business optimization for large corporations."

"Right," they say "but what do you do?"

"We help companies get the most out of their marketing efforts by providing them a suite of online applications covering web analytics, search engine marketing, A/B testing, behavioral targeting, and advanced customer segmentation." I say.

"Uh huh. Sure. But what do you DO?"

"We eat catered meals, watch TV, play Guitar Hero, pool, and Wii Tennis, hold lavish company parties twice a year, and organize office foosball tournaments."

"Swear a cuss!" they yell, "I knew it!"

"Yeah," I say, "Sorry."

family pictures

When we were in California last month, my sister, Carol, took our family pictures down at the beach. She's just starting a new photography business in Southern California (based in Oceanside) and is working on building her portfolio. So if you are near here area and are interested in using her, click here for her website and here for her blog.

And good news for those of you in Utah Valley, she will be here for a few weeks this month (I think Aug. 16th through the 28th) and if you are interested in booking a session with her, then let me know. It will be an amazing deal you won't want to pass up.

Here's a little sample of her work and a few of my favorite shots she got of our family.

This is my new dream location, by the way. There are a whole row of dream houses on the beach here.



I love Nezzie's expression and how her emotion goes straight through to her toes in this one.



I cannot believe how the girls have identical hair color. I mean, it makes sense because they are sisters, but it's just odd how it is exactly the same. When Inez was Gwenie's age, she was so, so blonde. I guess that's why it's odd to me.

Tender. Still in love after all these years.

The beach! I miss it.