World Cup Soccer Is Upon Us

I am so fired up for the FIFA World Cup this June in Germany (I bought this shirt a while back). Gatorade and Nike have started US Soccer commercials already...maybe you have seen one of them. I started playing soccer when I was 6 years old I think and my Dad picked the name 'Kyle' because he knew about US Soccer great Kyle Rote, Jr.

As a refresher course, this is the BIGGEST sporting event in the world. I loved soccer and liked the World Cup every 4 years as a kid, but never realized its global meaning until I spent the summer of 1990 in Veria, Greece (Google). I spent the summer with the Kaprinis host family and Greece was in the Italia 1990 Cup. Whenever Greece was playing in the 'Copa Mundial', the entire town shut down completely. All workplaces were closed and NOBODY was on the streets...everyone in the town was watching the game either at home or a restaurant. It was incredible for me to experience that.

The United States will never be like that because we have so many sports for people to follow and watch and love. When the US hosted the 1994 World Cup, we got closer. We sold out every game and the US qualified to Stage 2. We beat Colombia to advance to that stage which we hadnt done since 1950 I believe. This is how huge world soccer is...the Colombian player who cost them that match was assassinated when he went back home.

Anyway, here is a quick overview of how the World Cup works:
------------------------------------
32 Countries qualify for the cup every 4 years.
*Just to qualify is an honor itself and the host country gets in automatically.
These 32 teams are put into groups of 4 .... (A-H)
The US is in Group E this year with powerhouse Italy, the Czech Rep. and Ghana.
These Groups A-H play a round-robin schedule from June 9 - June 23.
Teams receive 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss.
The top 2 teams in each group advance to the Stage 2 Tournament.
The 16 remaining teams now play in a single elimination tournament (June 24-July 9).
*Teams that make it to this have done very very well!!!
*The FINAL is the day after my wedding!

Here is the US Men's National Team (MNT) World Cup Schedule:
(WC Match 10) 06/12/2006 -- 11:55 AM ET
U.S. Men vs. Czech Republic (ESPN2)
FIFA World Cup Stadium (Gelsenkirchen, Germany)

(WC Match 25) 06/17/2006 -- 2:55 PM ET
U.S. Men vs. Italy (ABC)
Fritz-Walter-Stadion (Kaiserslautern, Germany)

(WC Match 42) 06/22/2006 -- 9:55 AM ET
U.S. Men vs. Ghana (ESPN)
Frankenstadion (Nuremberg, Gemany)

My favorite US players are:
Landon Donovan (our best in my opinion)
Brian McBride (33 yrs old like me!)
Eddie Johnson (KC Wizards)
Josh Wolff (KC Wizards)

Here is a cool site to follow your games as well (WorldCupKickOff).

Here is a link on youtube to get you fired up for soccer!

GOOD LUCK USA!!!

Where's Kyle by Where's Tim

I am traveling to New Jersey this weekend to see our clients in Salem, our client in Kennett Square, PA and talking to other potential clients regarding our ParaPlan Family of products. Tim gave me the Nextel phone so you can track me all week here.

I may make it over to NYC on Wednesday, so stay tuned!

Camtasia vs. Captivate

After I reeled about Camtasia and liked their product even more after I heard from Betsy Weber from Camtasia Software (aka TechSmith) .

David thought I might like the features of Macromedia Captivate and he was right! I downloaded the demo and gave it a test drive. Its features are slightly more robust than Camtasia where I have full control of timing, labels, etc in a true Flash format.

Check out another quick presentation I did in just 40 minutes...click here. We will be purchasing one of these applications soon. Stay tuned for more great demos!

Depeche Mode Petition For Kansas City Fans

If you were at the May 10, 2006 Depeche show at Starlight and felt jipped like me... Please click this and sign the petition to have them come back to KC and honor our tickets for another show!

Full link to petition page: http://www.petitiononline.com/dmkc/petition.html

Our Engagement Annoucement Online

Allie and I's wedding announcement is now online at kansascity.com. View it here. Our parents placed actual newspaper ads in the Hutchinson News and Olathe Newspapers. We plan to have our wedding announcment in the KC Star this summer.

Camtasia Is Easy

David and I recently went to an AutoCAD seminar here in KC at Union Station hosted by Mid-West CAD. Presenters were both from Autodesk and Mid-West CAD. We learned about the new features of several Autodesk products including: AutoCAD 2007, Civil 3D 2007 and Revit 2007.

The most beneficial thing I took from the seminar was the existence of Camtasia Studio. This is a fantastic product that allows you to take PowerPoint presentations and publish them to the web using Flash. Now I can quickly publish marketing demos, training videos and more to our website. I downloaded the 30-day demo and quickly produced this in only 15 minutes start to finish.

It is very affordable and we are excited about its potential for our existing and future clients!

Original Depeche Mode Setlist for KC

My friend Amy found this online from Sarah Sizemore:
(This is the actual list used by DM members and crew during the show)

1. Intro
2. A Pain that I'm Used To
3. A Question of Time
4. Suffer Well
5. Precious
6. Walking in My Shoes
7. Stripped
8. Home
9. It Doesn't Matter Two
10. In Your Room
11. Nothing's Impossible
12. John The Revelator
13. I Feel You
14. Behind The Wheel
15. World In My Eyes
16. Personal Jesus
17. Enjoy The Silence
***ENCORE
18. Shake The Disease
19. Just Can't Get Enough
20. Never Let Me Down Again

Needless to say...we all deserved this set and not the one we got.

Depeche Mode Disappoints Kansas City

One of my all time favorite bands came back to Kansas City for their new tour last night. They were playing at one of our nicer outdoor theatres called Starlight. I even got Allie fired up for it by making her a CD of previous set list songs. Tickets were outrageous, but oh well, I love em. The night started off a tad bit odd because a) it was chilly and b) She Wants Revenge started at 7:40pm and not the show start time of 8PM. Then my boys came on with a fun loud techno Intro then went into 'A Pain That I Am Used To'. Things were great for 5 songs until front man David Gahan made them stop the song 'Stripped' after 1 minute and start over. I found that odd, but oh well, they finished the song and it was great.

Then David walked off stage and Martin Gore sang 2 songs, which is completely normal. Then, they started 'In Your Room' for 10 seconds then cut it off, a roadie came out and told us that 'we cannot continue because we seemed to have lost our front man'. The crowd gasped and boo'ed. Roadies runnin' around everywhere, then Martin and Fletch tried to calm us down and Martin did 4 more songs on his own. He sang 'Leave In Silence' which I of course knew by heart and hadn't be performed live in the states since 1985 I guess. Then we thought that maybe Dave would come back or Martin would sing more popular DM songs or something, but NO. Another roadie guy came out and said 'we are sorry but the show is over, thanks for your support.'

Here was our final set list after the maylay of re-arranging:
1. Intro
2. A Pain that I'm Used To
3. A Question of Time
4. Suffer Well
5. Precious
6. Walking in My Shoes
7. Stripped (*Restart*) *Dave Gahan leaves stage
8. Home
9. It Doesn't Matter Two
9.1 In Your Room *10 second start, then nothing
*Announcement that... 'we have lost our front man'
*Then all Martin Gore...
10. Leave in Silence
11. A Question of Lust
12. Somebody
13. Damaged People
*Announcement that... 'we have to cut it short this evening, sorry.'

Therefore, Kansas City got half a show at best. (more like a 1/3)
Anyway, I heard there is a petition online somewhere to get them to refund our money or come back to KC and honor our ticket stubs. When I find it, I'll let you know.

Reasons for David's exit have included the following:
-David is on drugs again
-David was hungover from his 44th birthday party the night before
-David pooped his pants
-David had stomach flu from being in Mexico the night before
-David collapsed backstage
-David was mad the venue was half full
-David got attacked by a flying bat

Then I read today that they canceled their Chicago show tonight because David has laryngitis. So at this point, who knows what happened.

I still love their stuff and would like them to come back to KC this summer.

Tim found a post about the evening here.

New ParaPlan Feature

Added Feature: ParaPlan Live Dispatch Multi-Select Module View a list of all trips. Sort by Name, Route, Pick Up Time or Drop Off Time Sort each ascendingly or descendingly.

After selecting 1 or more trips users can...
1- Assign those trips to a selected route and dispatch them if selected.
2- Timestamp the trips. (Dispatched, Picked Up, Dropped Off)
3- Select a cancelation reason and cancel the trips.
4- Mark them as no-go's or no-show's.

This new feature was built and deployed based on our user wish-list. We will continue listening to our clients as we continue enhancing our software systems.