The family had a great time at the kickoff of the Summer Concert Series in Woodstock, GA. Our friend, Kevin Carlson, was the starting performance. He opened up for the Screaming Orphans (a pop-rock band of 4 sisters from Ireland). Both performances were awesome. I would easily say it was the best free concert I have ever seen. The family showed up minutes before Kevin started and we were able to get lawn seating right next to the stage. The weather was awesome and the acoustics were great (clear sound and not too loud). We might have to go again this summer.

BTW, I posted some pictures and short video clips up on my Flickr account. It was cool to see Kevin on stage. We got to know Kevin through soccer with my son Alex. Kevin was one of his coaches back 3-4 years ago and we have stayed friends since then. Kevin’s music is a really cool mix of “folk-rock, rock and sometimes a touch of country”. You really can feel the emotions in his songs. He can go from the emotions of sad, joyful, to just silly (like his song “Little Dang Dawg”). You can check out Kevin’s music at http://www.kevincarlsonmusic.com/songs.

The Relay for Life Event went very well for being our first time to field a team (and setting up a team with less than 2 weeks before the start of the event). Team ThreeWill set a goal of $2,000 and reached this in about a week. See our Team Page for details.

I appreciate all the ThreeWill Associates that were able to make it to the event in such short notice. We had just about the whole ThreeWill gang and were able to keep someone on the track for the entire event (7pm to 7am). The night started off with 2 ThreeWill Survivors in the Survivors Lap. Later in the night we had a luminary ceremony that had a walk in silence to remember those affected by cancer. The lights were turned off while we took laps with candles lit and in the stadium stands you saw the work HOPE spelled out with illuminated bags.

The local high school had a large presence due to the loss of a Senior that died that very morning from cancer. Your heart really went out to those kids. What a tough thing to experience as a teenager…

It was a fun night for the kids of ThreeWill. There was plenty of room to kick the soccer ball and we had some time to play board games. Some of the older children took this time to put in some serious road miles. Their total mileage for the night averaged between 14 and 26 miles. At the end of the event we were starting to drag, but we had 5 of us who made it through the entire night (Eric Bowden, Justin Whitaker, Alex Ryan, Austin Ryan, and myself).

Team ThreeWill looks forward to having this event each year. Thank you for those who made donations towards this worthwhile cause and a special thanks goes out to the people how could join us.

Come back to the blog next week if you would like to see some pictures (I plan to get some pictures posted this weekend).

I just posted on “My Cancer Journey” blog details on our “Relay for Life” fundraiser (see Walking “Relay for Life” this Weekend post).  The kids are excited about “staying up all night”.  I am looking forward to participating in the “survivor’s lap” for the first time.

I am dedicating this walk to Bob Buhay.  Bob is a friend of mine that is going through the exact treatment as I did a year back.  He has reoccurring Hodgkin’s Disease (just like I did) and just started treatment this past weekend at MD Anderson (where I received treatment).

In a post late last year, Blog Plans, I mentioned that I would move revamp my blog and integrate other topics. Well, I just returned from my One Year Checkup from cancer treatment and decided to move my entire contents of my Blog to its own location http://blogs.threewill.com/tommyryan/mycancerjourney. I have been amazed in how useful this form of communication was for me and others (family, friends, co-workers, and others searching for answers with their cancer diagnosis).

This blog site, My Cancer Journey, has all the same information/data that I had before (links to cancer resources, pictures, blood counts, etc.). I am leaving this blog up as a resource for those that need to refer back to my cancer journey. I see this experience of battling cancer for a second time as valuable part of “who I am”, but I am ready to move on. I will use this experience to help others that struggle with a life threatening disease, but I want this in balance with the other passions in my life. These Passions (the categories of this blog) are:

• Personal Journey – Family and Personal Experiences that could help others.
• Agile Methods/ Consulting Practices – I have a deep passion for serving clients in way they have good choices that all them to succeed. I will share this passion through my experiences with Agile Methods and Consulting Practices we use at ThreeWill.
• Company Culture – I also have a deep passion for serving people that work at ThreeWill. To help them grow personally and professionally. One of the main reasons I started a company with my brother, Danny, to be able to create a unique company culture. At ThreeWill, we bring in our Christian beliefs, previous company experiences (like my work at W.L. Gore and Associates), and our personal missions in life to make ThreeWill a place that we all want to come to work.

More categories will come up, but here is the initial set of categories. I am looking forward to sharing my passion and experiences around these topics with others.