For those that know me well, you know that I have a bit of a ornery and sarcastic sense of humor. A lot of my family says that I got it from my Grandpa Lewis…the man that used to catch me as I ran past and proceed to squeeze my head between his knees like a vice until I cried. As Cutler gets older and you can see his sense of humor taking shape it would appear he is carrying on the tradition. At times I chuckle at what he does, but the majority of the time I just grind my teeth in frustration then chuckle when I think about how proud Grandpa Lewis would be.

Today I witnessed a miracle and it is all due to some presents from Christmas.  Not long after the boys were fighting over the train set both of the boys sat down and started racing on the new Lightning McQueen RC slot car set.  When we first opened it on Christmas the cars could barely make it up the hill causing the boys to lose interest.  Today I changed the batteries to see if that would help and they were back at full speed and before I knew it they were both not only racing, but they weren’t arguing about who is winning and losing.

http://youtu.be/0YqNDUJ5WOw

Then about an hour later, after dinner, they boys did something that we haven’t seen in quite some time.  They took an actual bath together, thanks to some pretty cool swimming fish found in their stockings on Christmas morning.  They played the entire time without fighting.  I’m still sitting here in shock at the thought of it all.

This post is directed at my father, we will call him old school.  He never understands and often shakes his head in dismay at how much I work from home.  So to help him understand I thought I would post a picture of what I stare at while in the office.  It’s pretty similar to what I stare at when I am at home, just not in the comfort of my boxers.  For those unfamiliar with what I do, I manage a team of testers located in Atlanta, Dallas, and Seattle that test LTE devices (tablets, phones, wireless hot spots) within a lab environment as well as the flow from activation to billing.  The majority of our time is spent troubleshooting a plethora of issues to be sure that when new systems and changes to existing systems and devices are made in production it doesn’t impact the consumer experience.  The majority of that troubleshooting occurs online in a chat room or on a phone.  Thus I don’t need to be in the office every day like would be required in the old school days.  Plus it helps that I really don’t do much other than delegate.

Well not just of me, but me as in the entire team of Team Fricke and of course those that we are fortunate enough to surround ourselves.

Let me back up and say Happy New Year to everyone.  This year, like pretty much every other new year, I am not going to make any resolutions for me to fail at in a couple of months.  Instead I am just going to try and be a better husband and friend to my beautiful wife, a better father to my wonderful and challenging kids, a better son and sibling to my parents, sisters, and in laws (even you Ellen), and a better person all around.

Now, back to my post title.  I often find myself thinking of different posts to throw up on the old site, or at least photos that I think would be good to post but I often run out of time in the day or run into writer’s block where I can’t think of anything good to write to help complement the photo or video.  Therefore, I have decided that this year I am going to challenge myself to at the very least post a photo, video, or random though to the blog every day.  This may mean just a random photo of something I had walked past that day or it could be a very long and insightful post.  Either way it will be my effort to creatively capture a year in the life of Team Fricke.  So, please bare with me and get ready to ignore or enjoy.  Also feel free to send me recommendations on what you might want to see on any certain day as I am quite sure you will get tired of seeing random photos of the boys or the tree outside of my office and I can use the help and the challenge.

Hope your 2014 will be as blessed and wonderful as I anticipate ours will be.