The Laptop and the Thief

Posted by PapiBlogger on Sunday December 8th, 2013 at 11:16 PM

It was a miserably cold, rainy night in San Francisco.

My business partner Cristy and I were taking the last red-eye flight of the night and had passed through airport security (TSA) when I noticed that my leather laptop bag felt unusually light.  I frantically zipped it open to find that my MacBook pro – the most important business and personal possession of my life – was missing.  I asked Cristy if she was playing a joke on me but after she said no, I immediately sprinted back to TSA, 10 minutes before boarding time.

TSA staff and supervisors quickly initiated a bin-by-bin search for my laptop but they couldn’t find it.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I told the TSA supervisor.  ”I was here just minutes ago.  It’s literally disappeared, unless someone stole it.” The supervisor told me that they only had one more thing to do: look at the recorded security video.  

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,
Posted in The Way Things Are | 10 Comments »

State Farm Holiday Traditions and #HolidayDriving Twitter Party scheduled for Dec. 11

Posted by PapiBlogger on Friday December 6th, 2013 at 01:27 PM

The holidays are here again! Who doesn’t love this time of year with all the fun holiday traditions, travel, cooking and shopping – oh yeah, and holiday driving. A new State Farm® survey reveals an increase in aggressive driving around the winter holidays.

According to survey findings nearly two out of three (64 percent) U.S. drivers have experienced an act of aggressive driving six times or more in the past three months from another driver.

Please join State Farm and PapiBlogger on Wednesday, December 11th at 5 pm PST/8 pm EST for the State Farm Holiday Traditions and #HolidayDriving Twitter Party! We’ll be sharing tips to help keep you safeon the roads and make your driving a little less stressful!

Twitter Party Details:

What: State Farm Holiday Traditions and #HolidayDriving Twitter Party

When: Wednesday, December 11th at 5 pm PST/8 pm EST

Where: Twitter Hashtag: #HolidayDriving  

Co-Hosts: @MContemporanea, @UrbanJibaro, @Hispanicize, @TexinMiami Moderators: @PapiBlogger

Prizes include:  

  • Two (2) State Farm Holiday Stress Relief Kits
  • Two (2) $50 State Farm-branded Visa Gift Card
  • Two (2) $100 State Farm-branded Visa Gift Card
  • One (1) $100 Walgreens Gift Card
  • One (1) $200 Target Card
  • One (1) GoPro HD Hero3 (value $199.99)

RULES: Click HERE for the Official Rules RSVP:To be eligible to win prizes, you must follow @PapiBlogger and RSVP with your Twitter handle below at PapiBlogger.  

This is part of a sponsored collaboration with PapiBlogger and StateFarm.  However, all opinions expressed are my own.

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Twitter Parties | 2 Comments »

#HolidayDriving Road Trip: Even non-golfers will be impressed by St. Augustine’s World Golf Hall of Fame

Posted by PapiBlogger on Saturday November 30th, 2013 at 11:37 AM

Even though I’m a huge sports guy, I’ve never cared much for golf.  The first time I played real golf (not the miniature version one) I was 32.  The second – and last – time I went golfing I hit a real bird and broke a car’s window (yes, really) before I had shot four holes.

These personal golf facts make it all the more ironic that when the St. Augustine visitor’s bureau folks invited my family and I to “America’s Oldest City” they help put us up in the 271-room World Golf Village Renaissance St. Augustine Resort that is also home to THE World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , ,
Posted in Family Travel Diaries | 2 Comments »

#HolidayDriving Road Trip: St. Augustine yields engaging historical treasures for a great family vacation – Part 1 of 2

Posted by PapiBlogger on Friday November 29th, 2013 at 09:30 AM
photo (3)

I’m going to be blunt in saying that had I not been forced to visit St. Augustine during a cross-country, 12,000 mile family road trip in 2010, I probably would never have returned to see “America’s Oldest City”.  

When I first visited St. Augustine 20 years ago the only things about the city that seemed prime for visitors were the Spanish fort El Castillo de San Marcos and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum.  I spent a weekend there with friends and after having the place shutdown on us at 10 p.m. I vowed never to return.

Fast forward to 2013 and my what a difference time and a lot of imagination makes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Family Travel Diaries | 2 Comments »

We’re headed on a Big Thanksgiving Family Road Trip thru St. Augustine, Savannah and Charleston – #HolidayDriving

Posted by PapiBlogger on Monday November 25th, 2013 at 01:30 PM

You all know how much we love road trip so it shouldn’t surprise you that as busy as my wife and I are on planning everything for Hispanicize 2014, we’re always ready to take a family road trip.  Below is the press release we distributed today on Hispanicize Wire about our first major holiday family road trip fully sponsored by State Farm and Toyota.  Check it out and don’t forget to follow us closely on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and, of course, PapiBlogger.com!

PapiBlogger takes off on Thanksgiving Family Road Trip to Historic Cities of St. Augustine, Savannah and Charleston

MIAMI, FL – November 25, 2013 – (HISPANICIZE WIRE) – Road tripping dad blogger PapiBlogger (aka Manny Ruiz) will kick off a big holiday season of family travel with a three-state Thanksgiving Week trip to the historic cities of St. Augustine, Florida, Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina.   

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Family Travel Diaries | No Comments »

Don’t Teach Your Sons to be a Papi

Posted by PapiBlogger on Wednesday November 20th, 2013 at 10:05 PM

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

Posted in Parenting Tricks | No Comments »

Parenting Challenge: How to Deal with Ever Multiplying Digital Screens #HuggiesLatino

Posted by PapiBlogger on Tuesday October 29th, 2013 at 06:01 AM

This is part of a sponsored promotion with Latina Mom Bloggers and Huggies.  However, all opinions expressed are my own.
A couple years back I wrote that I thought having multiple TVs in the house was a recipe for family discord.  I stated then that it is one of the worst things that my own parents did with my siblings and I because it didn’t foster unity, it helped us program ourselves out of having dinner together and it also enabled us to avoid compromise with each other.
Yes, this TV in the room thing can be deep.
Fast forward three years later and today I find myself battling my wife, kids and even myself about the addictive tablets and smartphones that are competing for our own attention.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Parenting Tricks | No Comments »

The Ultimate Parenting Challenge: Getting our Middle Daughter to Sleep Alone

Posted by PapiBlogger on Wednesday October 9th, 2013 at 10:47 PM

This is about as close as Briani would like to be to sleeping alone in her own bedroom.

This is part of a compensated campaign with Latina Mom Bloggers and Huggies.  However, all opinions expressed are my own.

One of the biggest parenting challenges I’ve encountered has to do with an innocent mistake my wife and I made when our middle daughter Briani was born.  Our mistake was letting her get in bed with us – and then staying there.

I’ll be honest with you.  At first I was not happy about this because I didn’t think it was healthy for our daughter or our marriage.  A couple of years ago I wrote a blog about this very situation and the fact that my brother, who still sleeps with his wife and my 9-year-old niece, convinced me that it was something I would grow to love. Five years into this experiment, the results were

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,
Posted in Parenting Tricks | No Comments »

PHOTO ESSAY: Briani’s First Day in Kindergarten

Posted by PapiBlogger on Monday August 19th, 2013 at 09:05 PM

After a long day of fun learning with Mrs. Perry, Briani just couldn’t stay awake anymore.

10

Tags: ,
Posted in Keeping it Real | 1 Comment »

The Night Before Kindergarten

Posted by PapiBlogger on Sunday August 18th, 2013 at 09:02 PM

My wife needed to have this book read to her instead of her reading it to my daughter.

Tags: ,
Posted in Keeping it Real | No Comments »

Fraud Comparisons: Lance Armstrong vs. ARod

Posted by PapiBlogger on Monday August 5th, 2013 at 10:31 PM

Here’s an interesting comparison I haven’t heard anybody make about Alex Rodriguez and Major League Baseball.

Lance Armstrong doped his way to seven Tour de France victories and more than $100 million in endorsement deals that literally transformed him from irrelevance to global celebrity.  When he was finally busted, Armstrong was stripped of his trophies, he got banned from cycling for LIFE and many dark clouds of lawsuits hover over him from sponsors and others that duped.  

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , ,
Posted in Keeping it Real | No Comments »

End of the Road Trip: Alcatraz, Tech Entrepreneurs and 8 Stitches in San Francisco

Posted by PapiBlogger on Sunday July 28th, 2013 at 10:00 AM

After almost two weeks on the road through Northern California and then Yosemite, an awesome trip made possible by State Farm and Chevy, we headed back to San Francisco for what we thought would be two interesting but fairly relaxed days.

At the top of our agenda was a work-related meeting with top Latino tech leaders from the Bay area and Alcatraz.  Well, that was the plan but life does not always happen as planned and on our last day we had a small medical emergency that really challenged us.

Briani, Rover our State Farm mascot and Elena nearly freeze to death during the ferry ride to Alcatraz.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Family Travel Diaries | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries