This was created in less than 3 minutes via Google's Picasa product. Pretty neat. These are from my honeymoon in Great Exuma back in 04.

MUST WATCH THIS MOVIE

I usually try to stay out of politics but I just watched a great yet extremely disturbing documentary titled, " An Inconvenient Truth." Seeing this film has made me awake, alert and aware re the issues of global warming. You must watch this film. Click on the photo of the film (on the left) to buy it from Amazon.com or get it on nextflix or run out to blockbuster and pick it up. We must do something about this major, earth threatening issue. For more information on this topic go climatecrisis.net

The Weather Channel

Many of you know that during the winter months The Weather Channel is my favorite channel....just ahead of ESPN. I was so obsessed with TWC back in elementary and middle school that I would stay up all night waiting for them to say it started snowing....it rarely did and I would be tired all day at school. I recently met one of the executives at this great station and I told him my OCD re TWC. He invited Jen and I for a personal tour. It was cool (no pun intended), we were there for about 90 minutes and learned about the entire operation: programming, advertising, graphics, editing, affiliates, weather.com, why the local forecasts looks different in different markets, meteorology of course, etc. We even met some of the on air personalities and then watched them in action! That Stephanie Abrams is sharp! Thanks Bob and Amy for a great tour!

Other tidbits:
There are no cameramen, all the cameras are robotic.

They are live 22 hours of the day.

Small, family owned company.

Tag!

Tag is genius. It is one of the most useful new tech products on the market. Say goodbye to standard window folders and tag it. To learn more about this product and to get it for free click on the tag logo.

FIRE JIM MORA

Breaking & Exciting News: First Posted 12/14/06

After having to keep quiet (hard for me) I can announce that The Grape and Usher plan to open many more sites together: nationally and internationally. Inman Park is just the beginning. The next Grape/Usher site will open in late '07 in NYC to coincide with Usher's next album release. This synergy between two incredible brands is very exciting. We had a national press conference to announce the Usher involvement in The Grape. Below are two video clips (I am interviewed in the second one):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iex7hIhnNFU

http://www.rollingout.com/video/wk121406/usher.php

Welcome to The Grape family Usher!

It's All About The Experience!

My two nieces (Jenny's side) are in town for the holidays. We decided (my in-laws acutally) to take them to the aquarium (the GA aquarium is the largest in the world). I didn't think I would have fun, man was I wrong. It was a great experience. The Sea Lions were my favorite things to see. We also went to watch the fish movie. As you walk into the theatre they hand you those alien like glasses and there is a sign that says entering a 4D theatre. I know about 3D but what is 4D? I don't want to give it away but it was the most incredible and surprising theatre experiences I have ever had....and the two nieces loved it as well. If you are reading this and know what the 4th D is please post it as comment.
Branding Side Note: The main character in the movie is an orange fish named.....Deepo. As many of you know Arthur Blank financed the aquarium and he was one of the founder of Home Depot. I wonder how much Home Depot pays the aquarium for this publicity. Happy Holiday!

Grockit - c2innov8's newest client

Grockit is one of the coolest and smartest gmat prep tools on the web. Created by Farbood Nivi, 2002 Princeton Review National Teacher of the Year, Grockit takes online learning to a whole new level. In addition to GMAT preparation the company also plans to help students prepare for LSAT, SAT, MCAT, GRE, & ACT. Farbood and his team have developed an excellent business model (including free office hours) that will definitely help students across the world prepare for those not so fun tests. Details of the c2innov8/Grockit deal still being worked out. Stay tuned.
*To learn more about Grockit and sign up for your gmat prep class click here

The Grape @ Inman Park Finally Open!

Well, we have had a lease in effect for over 2 years at Inman Park here in Atlanta. Tonight we finally opened the doors for business. This was our first ground up Grape and I must say one of the best looking sites in our entire system. Tonight we had our Friends and Family party, it was a great success! I am pictured above with Franchise Partners Usher Raymond IV aka Usher and his partner Solomon Smallwood. This is Usher's first Grape and Solomon's second. We are very excited that they are part of The Grape. Tomorrow night is the VIP party. Details and pictures to follow later. Go Grape!

Pinger: A Very Cool Business Tool

check out http://www.pinger.com

Photos Galore-Scroll down to see photos

Busy, Busy, Busy: Grape Updates

Well it has been a crazy month. We just opened our newest Grapes: Int'l Plaza in Tampa, Pointe Orlando in you guessed it Orlando off of I-drive, Bonita Springs in North Naples at the new Simon Shoppes. Later this week we will be opening at Inman Park in Atlanta, be on the lookout for a neat announcement about this one and next week hopefully the city of Coral Gables will finally give us a CO so we can open at Merrick Park. At the end of the month we will have 21 Grapes in operation. I cant wait to take a vacation! Stay tuned for more Grape news soon. Hope everyone is doing well!

Anxiety Attack

Well, I had my first anxiety attack in over 5 years. You wont believe what caused it: My Blackberry-. About 4 pm as I was getting ready to leave the office (to visit a site not play golf) I tried to respond to an email (I pulled over of course as it would be dangerous to do so while driving-yea right) but I couldnt, the thumbwheel was stuck.....I got home and tried to fix manually but I couldnt.....a major anxiety attack set in. I got over it quickly, called Cingular and told them I needed them to send me a new phone. To my surprise my warranty would have expired in 2 days....perfect timing.

Gamecock Football Headed to Memphis

My Gamecocks had an up and down season but ended on an up note by beating Clemson! They have been selected to play in the 48th annual AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. We will face the Houston Cougars, champions of Conference USA. Game time is set for 3:30 p.m. CST at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium on Friday, Dec. 29.

Chain Store Age-Executive Specs

I just spent the last 2 days in Florida at Champions Gate (A great resort golf facility that in a few weeks will host the national father/son golf tourney on ABC Sports), seeing our new sites in development and attending a seminar titled Chain Store Age: Executive Specs. I have been to my fair amount of seminars, this was the best seminar/conference I have ever attended. I am not saying this because we got to play a world class golf course and I won closest to the pin, rather the speakers were polished and I was with some well known movers and shakers in the retail/branding world. I hope to be invited back next year. A little more about Executive specs is here: "This by-invitation-only conference for VP titles and above will feature a customized executive-level seminar. Top retailers and suppliers involved in store planning,construction, real estate, marketing, facilities and operations of retail stores will come together for this 2 1/2-day VIP event."

9 holes with Lucas Glover

So, as many of you know I went to high school with Lucas Glover. Lucas and I have kept in touch (even though he went to Clemson and I went to South Carolina) over the years. Lucas had another great season on the PGA Tour, finished in the top 30 on the money list for the second time in a row thus he qualified to play in the season ending tour champanship which lucky for me is held at historic East Lake in Atlanta. Lucas emailed me Tuesday night and told me to join him for the pro-am, (not to play-I didnt want to drop 25K for 18 holes but to walk with him). I replied back and stated, "I am there, cant wait to see you!" So, when Lucas teed off around 9am on the 10th tee I was right there next to him. It was very cool, like the days when we were in high school except Lucas transformed from a chubby kid to one of the best fit prof. athletes I have seen and I transofrmed into a chubby man with very little hair. I walked the back nine (one of the best 9 finishing holes in the world) with him, his pro am partners (US Senator Lindsay Graham was in the group) caddies, etc. By the way his Caddie Coot is one cool guy. It was a great 2 hours. Lucas is such a class act one example of this was on the first par 3 on the back, a special needs girl (pictured above) was the honorary walker for that hole. Lucas's tee shot was short and to the right, buried in the trap. We we got to his ball you could barely see it. Well, Lucas hit an amazing shot to 4 feet. As he lined up his put he stopped, went over to the girl and aksed her to putt if for him. What a class act! She missed the put but Lucas started clapping this everyone started clapping it made the girls day. What a class act! Sidenote: Lucas went to the scorer and asked for a par-scorer gave it to him. I then returned to follow him over the weekend-he finished in the top 10. One of the coolest and greatest things about Lucas is that he has a ton of humility. The other great thing about him is he always does the right thing. An example of the ladder was Saturday after his round instead of ignoring all of the kids waiting for him for his signature like other pros did; I witnessed from the 18th vip tent Ernie, Vijay and other stars of the game ignore these kids and bolt straight for the clubhouse; he stayed out there for over 45 minutes signing autographs and talking to the fans. Note: The wind chill was in the 30's. Lucas has character! Ken Sisson-Thanks for the VIP badges.