by Joe Doyle on November 18, 2008
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Some of your know I blog in a couple locations. Here for family and personal news, then over at The Sweetspot, the official blog of Stalelife, Inc.

“Why are you writing about this, Joe?”
Well, first I’m proud of all the work we do at Stalelife. As my family and friends, I’d like you to know what we produce, because you might overhear somebody say “do you know anybody who builds websites?” Or even “we need a new agency for our product launch”. Stalelife does all of that and more.
So run over to The Sweetspot for a closer look. Grab the RSS feed and you’ll be able to keep up with all the latest from Stalelife. In fact, over the next week I’ll post a few times about a company re-branding we launched, a direct mail package we created for The Chicago Tribune, and some insight about eCommerce.
And if you find the time, feel free to spread the word about our agency. Anybody in marketing, product management, a business owner, an entrepreneur…even your friend who works at that non-for-profit – we’d love to talk with them.
Thanks, friends.
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by Joe Doyle on October 14, 2008
If you ever hear of a friend traveling with a toddler, have compassion. Toddlers are assertive. Always on the go, they hate the word “no”. They can’t talk, but they want to. They are frustrated. The like to explore. They test your boundaries on purpose, just to get a laugh.
It’s a tough gig for one, double crazy for two. Luckily for us our friends and family – everyone rolled out the welcome mat and took control to make sure we had all the necessities and more (thank you thank you thank you).
Still, it was maniacal at times. Katie was sick from motion in the van and on the plane. PJ didn’t want to sleep in his tent. We went from care-taking 25% of the waking day, to 100%. Man was it cruel.
If I’m sounding like we had zero fun, I apologize. Nothing is farther from the truth. We saw old friends and our family got to meet the rest of our families. There was a spa day for Stacey, I was pulled around Palos by Paolo (thanks again for the bike!), Rachel and Ken. We even had 16 people for dinner in Greek Town on the last night.
The trip north reminded us of how much we love tall trees and fertile soil, and miss our friends and family. We’ll do it again soon – maybe when the kids are five or so.
Pictures from the trip are found here.
Here are some highlights:

Sun rise over the pond in Galena, IL.

Aunt Betty plays with the kids.

Katie chasing Aunt Kelly's cats.

PJ and Grandma Jean learnin'.

Katie on the slide at Little John Lake.

PJ and Grandpa Joe at Cloud Gate (The Bean).

Doyle cousins computing.