Bachelor Party Festivities

Wow. That's just about all I can say about this past weekend. 7 of my best friends, including my little brother, flew in to Chicago from all over the country; North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and one from the UK. These fine gentlemen treated me to the best damn bachelor party any groom-to-be would die for.

It started on Wednesday evening last week when I picked up my little brother from the airport. First thing on Thursday morning we packed up the dirtbikes and cruised out to Ottawa to Buffalo Range Riding Park; 2 dirtbike tracks and 400+ acres of trails. We got the weekend started with some adrenaline pumping riding and we didn't even crash!

Thursday afternoon and most of the evening was spent at the Hilton Chicago right at the O'hare airport while everyone arrived from their flights. It was amazing to watch each person find their way down to the bar and meet us. It was a cavalcade of best friends from college and my childhood. I was thrilled.

Friday, my best man, Charlie, rented out an entire paintball park for ourselves. No, not just a little private group, but the entire park! I rented a minivan from Enterprise to get us all there and spend some time together catching up on old stories. 8000 rounds of paintball later, a dozen bleeding welts, paint covered pants and thoroughly exhausted, we began the trek back home.

We stopped on the way home to get some things to grill out. "Some things" turned into $329 worth of groceries! We had a massive and killer grill out at the townhouse and a few of my local friends joined in the festivities. After scarfing down hand-made burgers, sausages, potato salad, kabobs, chips, salsa, melon, cookies and having some drinks we rolled out to a local bar for some added fun.

Saturday brought some much needed rest in the morning because Saturday night was fit to be a long one. Just before 6pm a 24-passenger stretch hummer with 3 axles (6 tires) from Exotic Coach rolled into my neighborhood!! I knew Charlie likes to go over the top, but holy crap...this was over the top!


We started at the original Morton's Steak House and had the most amazing time. This was probably my favorite part of the weekend. We were all sober, enjoying a fantastic meal and great drinks, great conversation and a great staff. Our waitress was a sweetheart, my 4 pound lobster was to die for and we drank Cristal and Veuve! I even got to keep the bottle stopper for memorabilia. Oh, and Charlie ate a fistful of wasabi for $80! haha!!

Then, off to Coyote Ugly, Buzz night club, a few random stops, a short stint at the gentleman's club and back to the hotel for a night cap. Most everyone rolled out throughout the day on Sunday and I took Charlie to the airport today.

Wow. What a great weekend! I can't wait to see them all again at the wedding! Only 13 more days!

Adrienne Desmedt - The Future Mrs. Rocci!

Adrienne's maid of Honor, Tricia, has made our prenuptial madness quite a bit of fun. She sends little notes and gifts that have been really uplifting. Ash and Charlie sent us an early wedding gift, too. We are blessed to have such great friends. Eww, I just said blessed.

Anyway, here is the latest of maid of honor brilliance:

For more fun details about the upcoming rocci wedding you should surf on over to our blog @ http://rocciwedding.com.

David Rocci on LinkedIn

There are many social networking sites out there nowadays; MySpace, Facebook, Zoodango and not to mention the zillions of dating services that tout networking abilities. The problem is many fall short of providing beneficial relationship building for professionals. Many sites lack the professionalism required by today's next generation leaders. LinkedIn fills that gap.

My LinkedIn profile has enabled my connections to network with each other and many have already reaped benefits from the exchange. I intend to grow the network and see where it takes me. I leave my connections open for others to contact and that selflessness is what makes it a better place for everyone to grow.

Guy Kawasaki is a columnist from Forbes that has compiled a list of the top ten ways to improve your listing and get noticed. From his website:

Most people use LinkedIn to “get to someone” in order to make a sale, form a partnership, or get a job. It works well for this because it is an online network of more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries. However, it is a tool that is under-utilized...

Get the full story on his blog.

Liberty Tax season is over!

The first season of Liberty Tax Service in Shorewood is in the books. After a few grueling months of hectic 15 hour days, I thought I would be relieved that it is all over...but I only feel a bit lost. I've lost my purpose. Interviewing for a job sucks when you know your passion is for business ownership. I'm not looking forward to slaving for someone else...but you gotta do what ya gotta do!

I'm planning an employee party for April 28th. It should be a fun hooray to end the season and thank my staff for their terrific work this year. We are leaning towards an afternoon of bowling and some cocktails.

wedding announcement

While I'm at it, I thought I also should mention that I'm getting married on May 27th, 2007 to a my beautiful counterpart, Adrienne Desmedt. We make a dynamic team and work through challenges with flying colors. She is my rock and helps steer me through all the tough times and she is the MOST fun to celebrate with during the good times.

You can browse the wedding website of David Rocci and Adrienne Desmedt and read our pseudo-blog at http://www.rocciwedding.com. We also elected to have 100% online RSVP'ing for our guests. We streamlined many aspects of our planning to remain on a tight budget. I recommend the budgeting tools on The Knot for anyone serious about keeping budgets and timelines when planning a wedding.

Who: David Rocci & Adrienne Desmedt
When: May 27, 2007
Where: Oak Crest Cove, Sandwich, Massachusetts

David Rocci Introduction

My name is David Rocci. I'm exploring the opportunities of online blogging to expand a SEO campaign of professional networking. This is my first stint into blogging and I only picked this one because it was free. I looked into typepad but they were too expensive. Is there really a difference between where you blog and the quality of search results you obtain?

Everyone said that social networking sites like MySpace and LinkedIn were the key to building sustainable contacts for both professional and personal relationship building but I've found them seriously lacking on Google rankings. Am I doing these social networking sites incorrectly? Am I missing the proper indexing parameters? Or are they mostly overlooked as overpopulated compilations of abbreviated text and absurd two-sentence bulletin posts?

In either case, social networking did not work for me so far. I've now embarked on a campaign to increase visibility by making quality posts to many community forums such as Real Estate Webmasters and YoungEntrepreneur; you can view my respective profiles for David Rocci the Real Estate Guru and David Rocci the Entrepreneur. I've also decided to indulge in some forums for some of my favorite activities as well; motocross and skydiving.