My wife and I went to Disneyland last week. I hadn’t been in about 3 years, but had a season pass for several years before that. Admission prices have nearly doubled since my last visit! It’s still worth it…for now.

This is what happens on Space Mountain.

I stopped a lady who was running to the bathroom and had to pee really bad to take this picture. She had a hard time standing still while taking it and literally ran after she handed my phone back to me. Hopefully she made it to the bathroom and there wasn’t a line.

I haven’t said much on my blog this past year and a half. In the years prior I had written enough blog posts to complete a full 200 page book every year, but in 2012 and so far in 2013, it has been a bit different story.

At the begging of 2012 I was working a full-time and two part-time jobs as well as planning a wedding. I say planning a wedding, but my fiancé at the time and now the woman I call my wife was really doing all of that…I was just planning on getting married. Since then I have left two of my three jobs and my wife and I have relocated to her hometown of Fresno. A lot has happened!

Never in my life did I think I’d live in Fresno, California, but I do and I enjoy it! Check back with me in July when it’s 110 degrees outside and I might have a different opinion.

Here’s to more blogging in the near future!

Earlier this week I had the privilege to attend a Catalyst One Day event in Sacramento. It’s basically a day of Craig Grosechel and Andy Stanley teaching all kinds of leadership awesomeness. I highly recommend checking Catalyst out!

So my buddy Nathan is a grad school student in Oklahoma and attends one of the many Life Church locations…they have over a dozen! Craig Groeshel is the lead pastor of Life Church as well as the author of many, great, books.

For some time my buddy Nathan has been telling me the rumor at Life Church is that Craig is only 5′ 6″ tall. Since there are so many locations my buddy Nathan hasn’t had a chance to meet Craig in person to prove this rumor right or wrong…so I did for him at Catalyst.

I had a chance to share the rumor with Craig who then bent down to look a half a foot shorter and asked if I wanted to take the picture like that before standing at his normal height to take the photo below. I am 6 feet tall. Rumor obviously busted. Thanks Craig!

High five to Craigs buddy in the background for making sure he stayed on time during the meet and greet and getting hundreds of photos taken of him. I’d wear an awesome mask if I had that job.

My wife got her new iPhone 5 today. I don’t get an upgrade till June. Boo. Guess I’ll be getting the 5S.

The iPhone 5 took a pretty crazy journey around the world on UPS planes and trucks to get here in California. Below is this little phones journey.

• It started out in China on Oct 10th.
• On Oct 11th it left China and went to Korea and then left Korea and went on to Anchorage, Alaska. It also left Alaska that day headed to Louisville, Kentucky.
• Oct 12th it arrived in Louisville where it sat for the weekend.
• Oct 15th it left Louisville and landed in San Jose, California where it went up to South San Francisco.
• Early Oct 16th it made it’s way from South San Francisco to Santa Rosa and out on a truck to Windsor. Later today it will be in the hand of my wife who will probably be glued to it for a while.

The road to the Fall Classic is here. Here are my playoff hopes/picks. What about yours?

AL Wild Card
Baltimore over Texas

NL Wild Card
Atlanta over St. Louis

AL Division Series
Baltimore over New York
Oakland over Detroit

NL Division Series
Cincinnati over San Francisco
Washington over Atlanta

AL Championship Series
Oakland over Baltimore

NL Championship Series
Washington over Cincinnati

World Series
Oakland over Washington

The Oakland A’s are the 2012 AL West Champs!

I love this team!

I love that no one gave them a chance!

I love that they have the lowest payroll in baseball!

I love that most of the team is in their early 20′s!

I love seeing the excitement of the players every game!

I love that this is the 10th postseason appearance for Oakland since I’ve been alive!

I love baseball!

I love post season baseball even more!

That’s all.

- Chris

Creating the culture of an organization can be a hard process. It starts with the head or leader of the organization and works its way down. Walt Disney is an amazing example of someone who created culture throughout what became a massive organization and even had his culture sustained long after his death.

I’ve been at my current position of management for a little over two years now and I feel like I’ve finally created the culture I wanted. But it’s not just creating it, it’s sustaining it. The process has been long, but I feel like our team of 7 gets it. Why?

First – The owners have given me, their manager, complete freedom to operate their business as I see fit. Trust is key!

Second – I’ve built a team of employees or as I see them, partners in crime (business). (note: there is no crime happening here, partners in crime just sounds cool.)

Third – I’ve lead and instilled in my partners the way I want things done within this organization.

Fourth – I’ve let them run freely with it. That doesn’t mean I let them run around like a chicken with its head cut off. It means I’ve given them the trust to make their own calls. That means I’ve given them the freedom to lead themselves while keeping myself open to questions and concerns.

Doing these things has made me very happy with the current culture of my stores.

How do YOU create culture within your organization or department?

Dear Friends, Family, and Random Internet Stalkers,

Today my wife Erika and I have a big announcement. We are both excited and sad to announce that today was our last Sunday at New Vintage Church. I know this comes as a big surprise to most of you and we wish we could have told you all earlier, but here it is!

We are excited to be part of a church planting team called Two Cities Church in Fresno/Clovis California. Just like NVC, we will be a North Point Strategic Partner where our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

So what does that mean?

It means we are helping start a church in Fresno from the ground up. That means there is no building, chairs, or puppets yet (nor will there ever be puppets). It started with a group of five couples, ourselves included, and has already grown in these very early stages of planting with the hopes of launching weekly services in September 2013. We couldn’t be more excited to be a part of Gods calling in our lives to be a part of this new church.

To all of our family, friends, and volunteers at New Vintage:

You will never know how much you mean to both of us and how big of a privilege it has been to partner with you in leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ here in Sonoma County. We love you all!

NVC will always be a special place to Erika and I. It’s the place where we met. The place we found the model of ministry we want to do. And the place we started doing ministry together.

We wish we could have sat down with each and everyone of you individually and told you about our departure, but unfortunately there are just too many of you close to us for it to happen that way. Even though our time at NVC is done, we will still be in Sonoma County until early 2013 when Erika graduates from SSU. So that means feel free to invite us over for dinner (we love to eat) or out to coffee.

We can’t wait to see the doors open on Gods next chapter in our lives!

Hello again. The last few months have been beyond busy in my life which means my blog time has been few and far between. That will be changing soon. I am currently in the process of updating my blog and making some changes that will be coming soon, but I wanted to post a little something today.

Yesterday I celebrated one month of marriage. (Oh wow good for you buddy) Yea, yea, one month might not seem like a big deal and maybe it’s not, but it’s been the happiest month of my life so it’s a big deal to me!

I get to live with my best friend and roommate for life. I get to eat, drink, pray, and laugh with my best friend everyday and I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything else. I am so lucky and blessed!