2016 Pre-Election Thoughts

Posted on November 6 by admin

This year, 2016, has certainly been an unusual election season. In both candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, are the most unfavorable people to run for the United States Presidency. It’s amazing and, therefore, I would like to provide some of my personal thoughts and opinions on this Sunday, 11/6/2016, ahead of the decision to vote for our next President this upcoming Tuesday, 11/8/2016.

Locker-Room Talk
- Let me address this issue head-on because it’s a legitimate concern that a Presidential candidate such as Donald Trump clearly was busted using nasty language on a video. It’s disgusting for sure to hear such vulgarity; no doubt. Let me ask you to do this right now though….go into your bathroom and look in the mirror. Now ask yourself this question, ‘am I a perfect person?’ or ‘have I ever said something nasty?’. If you can honestly say that you are holy-then-though then so-be-it.
Bankruptcy and Tax Returns
On the topic of bankruptcies and tax returns, this is really ridiculous. For those of you that know me personally I follow business news very closely. I study financial rules extremely close and I run my personal and professional business accordingly. So, let me be very specific about ‘Donald Trump’s bankruptcies and tax returns’ as far as I know them. Please know that I am know apologist for DJT, but these are the harsh realities from my personal perspective.
- Bankruptcy: 500+ business ventures and 4 bankruptcies (0.8%)
- Tax Returns: Every leaked tax return has been proven legal. It might appear shady but the returns were clearly legal. If you don’t like the system then change it.

E-mails and National Security risks
- To me, personally, this is one of the most important issues. When Bernie Sanders said “I don’t care about your damned e-mails” he was absolutely wrong. Her e-mails ARE very relevant. First of all, we, U.S. citizens paid for her service as Secretary of State and through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) all e-mail records are supposed to be available to us. This is clear, yet she chooses to intentionally setup an illegal server to support personal business with the Clinton Foundation.
The Russians are Coming
- The constant story of “Russian hacking” really bothers me to the core. First of all, anyone that has common sense that ‘hacking’ is a reality. We hack, they hack, North Korea hacks, China hacks, I hack and nearly everyone else hacks. For pete’s sakes it’s 2016 and we live in an internet-connected, cyber-world. HOWEVER, this does not mean that the Russians are trying to influence the U.S. election. I have worked closely with many great Russian people, as well as visited Moscow once. I have written previously about this. My Russian friends are super nice and the most genuine ever. They all appreciate American democracy; as wacky as we might be at time. I’m really disgusted at the continued suggestion by the Clinton campaign that Russia is doing anything to influence this election.
LGBTQ
- To be absolutely clear, I am in full support of people’s rights to marry whoever they want. That is none of my business. As long as people are happy then society wins, in my opinion. However, I lost a Facebook friend this year because I didn’t throw 100% support for Hillary. I have never, and would never, de-friend a Facebook friend over such as issue but this person choose to do exactly that.
Veteran’s Support
- The lack of Support for our brave Men and Woman that proudly served in our military is absolutely disgraceful. Our current administration claims that everyone is okay but people with common sense know otherwise. It’s beyond disgusting. This is a real problem for me in this election decision. If Obama and HRC truly cared about our Vets then why are they in such a bad way 8 years later under their leadership?
Economy
- As I previously stated I study the economy very closely. The Government wants to publish ‘free-good’, fake statistics such as 4.9% unemployment but it’s a complete farce. 4.9% is only because of people forced to take on a second-job and also people continuing to abandon their job search.

Bellaringa Update 11/5/2016

Posted on November 5 by Kevin

BELLA, THE BEAUTIFUL:

Brandee, Jack and I would like to provide a brief update on our daughter, Bella.

Bella, for those that might not know is a 13-year old orange furr-ball tabby feline of fun-ness. She’s a great source of entertainment for our family. Some good, some bad and some down-right ugly. How something so small as her at only 7 pounds can inflict such damage on our household is beyond comprehension??? Just kidding, in all seriousness we love her determined personality.

BELLA, OUR BEAUTY:

We are so pleased to report that we have our baby Bella back; or at least a former shell of herself. She will never be the kitten we adopted 13 years ago and we have no illusion of such. However, we had been seriously concerned with a recent medical issue.

Bella had a serious medical scare a few weeks ago that had all of us majorly concerned. She had taken what we thought might be a minor fall. At first we were concerned that she might have broken a bone in her leg or hip but that never turned out to be the problem. After about an hour after her fall she began to go into seizure-like symptoms. It was distressing for us, horrible for her and terrifying without knowing how to help her. I will never forget how awful that night was but I was so glad to be able to hold her tight to my chest and give her some comfort when she was clearly in distress.

BELLA MEDICAL SCARE:

After a few sleepless nights caring for her and our wonderful veterinarian’s suggestions we have arrived on a medical solution that gives Bella comfort and quality of life. Bella no longer has any desire to prowl the nights like she used to, nor adventure outside or even fight too much when Brandee or I are cuddly with her.

We have had to adjust her lifestyle a bit for her comfort and so far, everything is good. She is still able to walk around the house and appears in no obvious physical pain but she’s surely slowed down in the fact that she is uneasy in jumping on furniture like she used to rx cialis.

It’s truly amazing how quickly things can change so please appreciate things while you can.

BELLA BASKS IN SUNSHINE:

Bella enjoyed basking in the warm sunshine this morning and then coming inside the house to enjoy a nice feast (courtesy of Chef Brandee) and then a nice pleasant rest.

Today was a good day for Bella and we are so grateful for this. She had her kitten-like spirit with big/bright eyes and had a playful attitude. Her furr is nearly fully regrown since her summer shave and she seems in great spirits the past few days.

Bella’s health, elections and ‘the cloud’ – 10/17/16

Posted on October 17 by Kevin

Bella’s health scare

Brandee (wife), Jackson (our dog) and I had a real scare with Bella (our cat) the past few days and we’d like to report a happy road-to-recovery. First of all, Bella has been extremely anxious over the past one year or so and extremely aggressive towards our dog, Jack, and we attribute it most likely to Feline Dementia.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bella, had a hard fall. She likes to jump into our shower/bathtub for whatever reason and on this particular occasion she didn’t quite make the leap over the tub wall and crashed to the floor. It seemed innocent enough but got both Brandee’s and my attention immediately. We watched her for about 10 minutes without any obvious problems but then she went into something like a seizure-like state where her legs were moving uncontrollably. It was very scary.

Awful, yet reasonable, thoughts were racing through Brandee and my heads such as ‘did she break a leg?’, ‘did she break her back?’, ‘did she get a concussion?’. After a few more minutes of observation she was agitated enough to want to walk on her own and we determined that a fracture of the leg or back was not likely. However, something like bumping her head, like a football concussion, which is neurological might have caused a sudden onset of these seizure-like symptoms. Over that night was one of the longest ever for both Brandee and me with worry for Bella. She was very lethargic, had lack of mobility, no desire to eat/drink…it was awful.

https://www.facebook.com/kevin.neal/videos/10210792503194381/

Bella is only 14-years old and due to her feral upbringing we are always especially concerned when anything happens to her as I’ve heard life-expectancy might be less than non-feral cats. However, I’m glad to report that after a vet-visit yesterday afternoon, and an anxious night for Brandee and I, that the vet’s prescription of a mild pain-killer/sedative has made Bella a happy kitty again. We love our Doctor so much! Dr. Nagle is awesome!

American passion for elections

With less than one month until the American elections, passions, opinions and even out-right hatred is nearly at the boil-over moment. From my personal perspective I know this particular election is extremely important and I think most people would agree. And, also, while I have my own strong opinions on certain topics I would never blame anyone that might disagree with me. After all, our system of Government is supposed to be a democracy and reasonable people can, and should, have reasonable debates. So, therefore as the election nears I will continue to advocate about topics I care deeply for, yet I respect everyone’s opinion to agree, disagree or not care. All that I would ask is that if you do have an opinion, please make it an informed decision. That’s all I want to say about this topic for now – I’ll take my 5^th Amendment right now to not incriminate myself on this blog post and take-a-knee.

Cloud Business

Whether you know me personally or professional, most of you know that I have been a huge advocate of ‘cloud computing’ before it was socially or professionally acceptable like it is nowadays. I’ve had to endure the abuse of some of my seriously naïve co-workers with such criticism as ‘the cloud is not secure’ or ‘the cloud is just the internet re-branded’ or, my personal favorite, ‘no one can make money in the cloud’. These are the people that love the status-quo and refuse to go outside of their comfort zones even when a mega-trend like ‘cloud computing’ was raining on their traditional businesses. Personally I enjoy the criticism in the early days of ‘cloud computing’ because it really forced my thinking to be critical. The criticism made me really contemplate my professional career and I’m glad I made the decision to dive head-first into this cloudy future. As Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, famously once said the following:

“This is the heyday of the Cloud. This is the Renaissance. We are in the Great Time.”

“So we’re still at the very, very beginning.

We are in the first innings of Cloud Computing.

This is still the Renaissance.”

My career and my business is in an excellent position to capitalize on the big momentum for cloud applications and services. We are building an outstanding network of like-minded individual’s as well as technology partners. It is truly an exciting time to be building such an exciting future!

Shaver Lake camping, September 2016

Posted on September 22 by admin

This past weekend from Thursday, September 15^th, 2016 thru Sunday, September 18^th, 2016 the boys and I made our annual trek up the to the California mountains for cabin-camping.

Cabin-camping isn’t quite as extreme as tent-camping because our living quarters typically have a solid foundation, roof, refrigerator and bathroom. In other words, we rent a house for the few days instead of living out of a tent.

This certainly sounds like it’s easier than traditional tent-camping, but I can assure you that we challenge ourselves in many ways to make up for the convenience of having a roof over our heads.

I have been fortunate enough to participate in this fun event for roughly the past 4-5 years. It’s my understanding that this great tradition has been happening for years prior and I’m so grateful to participate with these guys, and have great fun planning with our wives.

Each year our destination is different, however, generally we choose a location somewhere in the Yosemite National Forest. Sometimes we go more north and sometimes we go south. This particular year we went East! We ended-up near this place called Shaver Lake in California.

Upon arrival at the location we all were very excited, as always. These cabins were a bit particular though. Why? Because the pathway to the cabin involved a 30-or-so yard walk from our parking place to the cabin itself. You might not think that’s a big deal but when you have as much ‘gear’ as we bring it makes a huge difference. Anyhow, that was a big difference from our typical situation because usually parking is more reasonable.

We ended up staying at this place called Cedar Crest Resort in Lakeshore, CA. The people were super-duper nice, no doubt, and we loved their friendship. We must honestly say though that the accommodations weren’t the best, nor the worst. The cabin was clean but not nearly as spacious as advertised on the website which was interesting but being the manly-men that we are; we overcame. In all seriousness they had four couches in one room and we each commandeered one of them!

After we got settled into the cabin and got our gear settled-in it was time to ‘camp’! So what was the first thing that my amigo’s immediately did? Start the BBQ grill and a campfire, of course!

Our group this year consisted of 6 total dudes. This is the largest number of campers since I’ve joined the festivities. The four other guys, other than myself, I have known for a while and really appreciate their friendship. This year, however, a rookie was introduced to the gang. This rookie-guy was an absolutely wonderful person! He was such fun, entertaining and a great person to talk with. I can’t wait to hang-out with him again buy cheap viagra online uk. It is always so much fun to have new people join the group.

This is a beautiful picture of Frank (who is our fearless leader) and his beloved puppy, Aussie. This is a photo just before Frank took Aussie on a long walk. I know both of them really enjoyed this.

Frank is a great animal lover overall and I really appreciate this quality because he is an absolutely decent person. Thanks Frank!

Aussie is terrific fun among this group of guys. We love having Aussie join us for camping and he loves being in the wilderness. Frank is such a wonderful ‘daddy’ for Aussie that it’s borderline-sickening. Just kidding Frank-Buddy!

In all seriousness it’s really fantastic to have Aussie and Frank with us. I could not imagine spending a weekend without these two entertaining guys.

So once we got settled, it was gametime for us six guys and Aussie!

Whether it was happenstance or not, a football was brought by one of my fellow campers. Maybe they had heard the legend of the Kevin Neal Golden Arm? Regardless, as you can see in the photo, my football grip has perfect technqiue which allows me to throw perfect spirals at every release of the ball.

In addition to perfect grip and technqiue, my unbelievable accuracy to hit a received in a full-motion route is simply amazing.

LOL, yeah right! If that were all true then I would be playing football on Sunday’s instead of camping with 5 other dudes in a cabin drinking beer all weekend.

Overall, I would have to say that this was certainly a fantastic experience. What I enjoyed most was the conversations with the other guys. This was really special to me. These guys are smart dudes and have a lot of common sense. It’s absolutely refreshing to have such great discussions, debate controversial topics like adults and agree that the Cowboys stink! J

So, in summary, let me please provide my ratings:

Location: Lakeshore, CA = 6 out of 10 Steeler Stars
Cabin: Cedar Crest Resort = 4 out of 10 Steeler Stars
Fellow Campers: 5 dudes and Aussie = 10 out of 10 Steeler Stars
Food: 9 out of 10 Steeler Stars
Drink: 7 out of 10 Steeler Stars

I had a lot of fun guys and I look forward to next year!

Sincerely,

Kevin

9/11: 15 Years Later

Posted on September 12 by Kevin

I will #NeverForget, EVER!!!

This Sunday, September 11^th, 2016 is the fifteenth anniversary of the awful terrorist attacks on the United States in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland using commercial aircraft as the weapon of death and destruction, as disgusting as that may be. Naturally this day is filled with a lot of sadness, as it should be, but it’s also a day of great inspiration and hope for the future.

September 11^th, 2001, was, with a single doubt THE most memorable day of my lifetime. It was absolutely surrealistic, like I was in the twilight zone, and certainly not in a good way. As with most of you I might imagine, it’s like a bad nightmare that doesn’t seem real, yet you know it is and can’t get rid of it from your memory banks.

On this 15^th year memorial, I would like to share three topics about this important day in the hopes of more healing which are (1) My Memories, (2) Inspiration from Sadness and (3) Future Generations.

My Memories

I woke up early to watch the stock market news on TV at 4am PST (7am EST) as I normally do. It was like any other normal day until about 5:47am PST (8:47am EST). At. 5:47 EST the first plane hit the North Tower of World Trade Center. I left for work at 6:00am PST thinking this might be a horrible accident, and as tragic as it might be a few casualties, then end-of-story.

However, unfortunately, it was no accident and when I got to work it became clear that the United States was under attack.

At our work office of 100 or so persons, my office had the only TV in the building, and I’ll never forget the stream of concerned persons coming to the office to get updates. You have to remember that in the early morning hours this event was still unfolding. I witnessed a full-range of emotions seeing these people come to witness the events unfold. Caring, sadness and loss. The attack seemed to be getting worse and worse by the minute. Watching these powerful images on TV together left us helpless on how we could directly help, however, I GUARANTEE, without a doubt, that we were together in spirit for the victims and fantastic responders.

In particular, I’ll never forget how ‘empty’ I felt on the drive home that day. I vividly remember the emptiness of the highways. I remember each American Flag that was proudly flown along the highway I traveled. And I remember this horrible, awful, disgusting kick-in-the-gut that my proud country was attacked by such cowards.

Inspiration from Sadness

The memory of 9/11/01 typically invokes a feeling of sadness among most people. I’ve heard that something like 20% of Americans were personally affected by this tragedy. And to be sure, it is a really sad day, yet it’s also a day of Inspiration.

However; today, as I’ve seen with each memorial for the past fourteen years there is wonderful stories of inspiration from the families and loved ones of those that were lost. Their strength to speak-up and be public about their loss is simply amazing to me. These families are awesome!

Specifically, during the remembrances’ I witnessed on TV today, never did I hear a disrespectful word uttered, nor a vicious attack and only love for others. Each and every person that spoke today did with grace, dignity and confidence. These were such an inspirational bunch of people that have suffered so much incredible loss. It was so beautifully sad actually.

Future Generations

Now it’s time to move-on and future generations that are affected by the events of 9/11/2001. One of the things that really struck me profoundly was that High School Freshman this year weren’t even born or were just infants on that terrible day. That means this whole new, next-generation of American’s will not have lived this personal experience or felt the pain of this awful reality. They can only learn this through teaching in some form or another and we MUST tell the Truth.

It’s important that we continue to share the true facts and not a fabricated narrative. Those who committed these crimes are clear, why they did it is clear and what they want to achieve is clear.

These 2,997 innocent victims of the 9/11/2001 attacks are hero’s that did nothing wrong and deserve nothing but for their stories to be told and #NeverForget. Their crime was going to work on that day – that’s all -, trying to make a positive difference for themselves, friends and family; if you can believe it.

God Bless to all 2,997 killed, the thousands injured and the millions of families forever affected.