Poke'n Facebook

I was talking to John, aka Johnny GoFast of BeatsGriff - yeah, I actually talk to that dude quite frequently to give him new material for his blog. Anyway, we were talking about Facebook and how difficult it is to use and how we don't understand it and what a couple of 40-year-old loosers we are for not being so hip. I'm sure you'll understand. Anyway, this sort of sums it up right here. You'll get a kick out of this John:

Spencer's First Baseball Game

Spencer started playing baseball a few weeks ago on an optional coach pitch team. That means they can hit a coach pitch or off the batting t. His first game on his Granite Bay Cardinals was yesterday.

We're going to go check out the real SF Giants vs. STL Cardinals this weekend with Mondo and Jackson.

Tahoe to Truckee Great Ski Race

Field size: About 1000
Team Riders: 2 (me and J Laine)

They started us in waves and I went in the 4th wave, about 400 back.
J Laine went in the 1st wave with the olympians. I felt really good
off the start and immediately started working my way to the front of
the pack. Felt very much like the start of a mountain bike race where
you get up toward the front until you find a group that is going your
speed. There wasn't much room for passing though so it took a while
to move through the group.


My trek toward the front was going pretty well until someone stepped
on me and made me fall. Doh. Then a few minutes later someone
stepped on my pole and it came it apart. Doh. After I got that
fixed, I started moving again toward the front but had lost a lot of
places and a little steam.


We started to hit the big sustained climbs and people began to slow
down and it became even more difficult to pass. I came upon a 5k
marker and thought "crap, we've only gone 5k". We had another 5k of
climbing. After so much climbing, I started to cramp. After all,
this was only 6th time doing this and it was a month since the last
time I tried it. I really started to lose ground to my competitors
when I cramped, and those muscles were cooked for the rest of the race
even after we crested the climb at 10k.


Since I was just in this race for "fun", I took a moment or two to
stop at the check points for a frozen snickers and a couple of
drinks. Probably lost about 5 minutes in all, but who cares when
you're so far of the back anyway.


Things got a lot easier physically after the summit, but also a lot
dicier and mentally demanding as we were descending icy slopes. I
fell three more times, losing ground to people I had labored to pass
each time I fell. Doh, doh, doh.


I finished in 1:51 which I guess is good for a rookie, but J Laine was
1:23 so lots of room for improvement and the winning time was a
seemingly physically impossible 1:06.


Ok, that's the end of my cross country skiiing adventure with the
Tahoe-to-Truckee Great Race. Now back to our regularly scheduled
programming (bike racing).

Just riding around in in Kauai

Novell gave Veronica and I a vacation trip to Kauai because I knocked it out of the park last year on the sales gig. It was a bunch of fun with lots of stuff to do with about 200 other Novell-ites from around the world. Not often we get to get away from the kids for some R&R like that. The biggest bummer was Veronica was sick the whole time! I mean stay in the hotel room bed with the flu type sick. She spent all of about 6 hours outside the room. It was miserable for her.

I took my bike stuff and rented a roadie for a few days of riding. I went on a couple of 4 hours rides up the canyon. The first day it rained almost the entire ride. At least it wasn't that cold. The second ride out was beautiful and I captured some video. Warning: pretty boring video. You'll only like this if you really love me (like my mom) or you really, really love cycling.

What a flippin rip...

It better be fun!

Not that, but that

I grew up being forced to watch british shows on PBS and channel 54 in the Bay Area. Aside from MASH it was pretty much all PBS all the time. On the comedy side, it was Faulty Towers, Monty Python, Rumple of the Bailey. My parents are both Brits and BBC on PBS was the tether to England. This video below is for my parents and my other friends who share a British sense of humor". Enjoy.

Speaks for itself

ground breaking for pool today

Rapping Friday

Highly suggest checking out their music vids on youtube. Good stuff.

video for Grandpa

City Folk

Training Camp #2

Met in Forresthill above Auburn this Saturday for a ride with the Team. We dropped down Mosquito Ridge which is about a 10 mile drop, crossed the American River, and climbed the canyon on the other side for 15 miles. 7 of the guys did the long loop with Dan and the rest of us opted for the 3 hour out and back. Good fun. Here's the evidence.



History note; It wasn't always called Forresthill and the post office has been there for 148 years! Here's how it got changed from Forrest Hill to Forresthill.

Geico brings back memories to 40-year-old white guy

Come listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer. Barely kept his family fed.

Then one day while shoot'n at some food,
up from the ground came a bubble'n crude.

Oil that is. Texas tea. Black gold.

Well, the next thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire.
The kin folk say; "Jed, move away from there."
"California is the place you ought to be"
So they loaded up the truck and the moved to Beverly.

Hills that is. Swimming pools. Movie stars

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

Thanks Geico!

Hagan Park Cross Race

Sometimes, the only thing that matters is whether you beat your buddy. You can come in at the back of the pack, but when you get home and your wife asks how'd it go? You swell up with pride and say; "Pretty good, I beat Joe." Then it was a good day of racing.

Last Sunday at Hagan Park was one of those days. I went to a neighborhood Oktoberfest party the night before. When I went to bed I was seeing double and the room was spinning. Got up the next morning and if had not been for Colleen, Oz, and John racing I probably would have stayed home.

At the course, Johnny takes one look at me and get's the biggest shit eating grin I've seen in a long time. This is Johnny of BeatsGriffRacing fame. He's feeling good and thinks he's got it in the bag. It's his kind of course too. He pretty much tells me he's going to see me going backward after two laps.

I had a plan though. One I've been planning for a few weeks. Ya see, this was probably my last CX race for the year. CX is John's baby. I'm just stretching out some road racing fitness and having some fun. My last road race was Challenge on Labor Day weekend and I've been watching the fitness fade. I know John will get me if I keep losing form and he keeps building, so the trick is to get out before that happens. It's already been a painful year to have him beat me in Phoenix, at Sea Otter and Leesville.

My plan; ride John's wheel until the end and pip him at the line. I'm somewhat hopeful I can execute this even while hung over.

So this one's for you Johnny. Enjoy! (Actually, it's for me but I feel like I earned it!)

Training Camp #1

We have a good team going into the 2008 season. We all got together for Training Camp #1 on Saturday and had a great ride. So, 53 miles with the Team on Saturday followed up with a little quality time at Jeff and Sherry's Oktoberfest party and one very hung over but very fun Sunday cyclocross race at Rich Maile's Hagan Park CX race. Good weekend.

I'm sharp

Feeling super brianiacal this morning.

Maybe I should look into that tax audit... nah, going for a ride instead.

Yesterday at Dunnigan for our team

M1/2/3 - 1st and 5th
M4/5 - 2nd and 4th
45+ - 3rd

Good day.

Wednesday hill repeats

For Rick (Mr. 700) and Rick (Lovey):










Thanks for the workout.

Go'in to Esparto

Esparto TT race report (sort of)

One of the perks of racing bikes is going to places you would never otherwise go, and essentially seeing the backroads of California. When I go to places like Copperopolis, or Challenge, I always wonder what the particular history of the place is. I wish the places could speak and tell their story.

Esparto is one of those places. A little central valley farming town long abandoned by time and the railroad that once served it. It has a nice little shady park and its share of decrepit run down buildings. One of which is an old train depot which you see on your left just before the start of the TT.

Trappers and settlers came to the area in the 1820's as it sits on Cache Creek and the surrounding Capay Valley. By 1888, Esparto was served by the Vaca Valley Railroad which came out of Vacaville and through Winters. If you've raced Winters, you've seen the remnants of this rail running through town and the old rail bridge. By the end of the 1800's there were probably 3 trains a day going through Esparto to carry out the local produce to the rest of the nation. The rail went all the way up the Capay Valley toward Clear Lake with termination in Rumsey. Close to where the Cache Creek Casino is now.

By 1937, the rail line from Esparto to Rumsey was abandoned under Southern Pacific's ownership. Eventually the leg from Winters to Esparto was abandoned too and 1957 was the last time a train ran to Esparto. Over the years, most of the track has been pulled up. For a while there was a nursery operating out of the depot, but it's empty now.

As for my race, it wasn't one of my better efforts. I struggled through for 8th with a somewhat pathetic time. I probably should have warmed up a little better but didn't. I mashed a big gear the whole way and couldn't get my HR or my legs moving. There are some rollers near the turn around and I thought I would come to a complete stop on one of them and had visions of my chasers whipping by me in an instant. I had the misfortune of drawing the #1 start, so there were no rabits to chase and I really needed some on the way in. I was a perfect rabbit for a smack talking Paul Carter from Pegasus starting 1 minute back and finishing 10 seconds down. He came in 2nd (and won Patterson on Saturday). I also got beat by Brian Staby and I was pretty motivated to beat him too.

Anyways, I was home by 10:15 AM and got hammered last night so all is well.

Summer is here

Saturday: Went for a solo creeper in Truckee for 2 hours and 25 minutes.

The weather was gorgeous and warm.

Went out past Northstar and over Brockway. Down to Kings Beach and along to Tahoe City, and back highway 89 past Squaw to Truckee. Rode moderately hard (250W) from old town Truckee to top of Brockway, again from Kings Beach to Tahoe City, and then after stoping for coke and choco milk in Tahoe City I wound it up one last time to come back Hwy 89 at 25-31 MPH.

I flatted once just before the light near the tunnel on Hwy 89. So I went

to the bike shop in Truckee to get another tube and CO2. Chatted up the shop guys for a bit. They know the Chico clan (Creswell, Trowbridge, et al).

After I nice chat, I started my climb back up the hill to the cabin but then I flatted again on Bull Pine, went back to the shop for another tube and CO2, and finally finished the climb back up to the Oz Cabin. 220 average Watts.

It was a great day and we finished up with an awesome meal with Colleen, Steve, Little Sam, BC, Brian Bruckner, Lori, Big Sam, and McKinley on the back deck of Oz's cabin.

Sunday: Went for another solo creeper in Truckee for 2 hours and 55 minutes.

The weather was gorgeous again but a little windy.

The Sunday ride was to be a tour of local climbs with a plan to do climb over Brockway to Kings Beach, then turn around and do Brockway again back to Truckee and then head over to do Donner Summit.

I started out from the Oz cabin and immediately headed over to Skislope and climbed that. Then onto my planned Brockway summit. I was pushing near my 3 hour target by the time I finished the Brockway climbs so I skipped Donner Summit.

I'll have to save that for another day.

Another great ride. 200 watt average with climbing at a moderate 240-280 watts.

Again, we polished the day off with a great BBQ with the Bruckners and Ouzounian's at Oz's cabin. This time feasting on fajitas and margaritas.

Monday: Finally persuaded Oz off his mountain bike and onto the road with me for a targetted 3 hours and 30 minutes.

We discussed our ride plans as we drifted out of Northwoods to Truckee.

We both wanted to keep the ride as flat as possible with some long moderate tempo sessions. So we planned to hump it out to Tahoe City on Hwy 89, take a breather, hump it again along 89 through Sunnyside to Backwood and into the canyon, then hump it back to Tahoe City. Take another breather and hump it back 89 to Truckee.

We did just that.

Getting in 30 minutes on 89, then another 34 minutes into Backwood and back to Tahoe City, and finally 22 minutes coming back 89 to Truckee.

We were far short of 3.30 so we humped it

around Donner lake and back for another 26 minutes of tempo before limping back up to the cabin with tired legs.

All told it was 3 hours with 1 hour and 52 minutes of tempo at 250-280 watts and 210 average for the whole ride.

We made a couple of stops along the way to fill up on cokes and candy bars.

After a quick shower at Oz's it was load up and head um back to the homestead. Tulip and I sailed down the hill in our volvos. I with Spence and her with Phoebe. We met up at the Mickey-Ds in Colfax for some burgers and the kids enjoyed vanilla softserves while Tuli enjoyed one of her favorite Oreo mcFlurry and I enjoyed watching them scarf their snacks and begging for scraps.

We made home in time to sip a beer or two with Marty and Jill and let the kids play with the triplets.

Even though I'm still pretty sore from crashing at Madera, and have one scrape that refuses to heal up, it was a great weekend of riding and hanging with the Ouzounians and Bruckners and capping it off with the Yarboroughs. I'm getting over my crash and getting back to my old self. It was a very good weekend indeed.

Uh, Houston. We have a problem.

So I start doing my taxes last night since the anxiety of getting it done has finally surpased my need for procrastination. It's really become harder and harder to do my own taxes as I've gotten older. There's all this stuff that needs to be accounted for. Rental properties, stock trades, blah blah blah. And of course records are hard to find because I generally rely on electronic records and it seems some of my trusted and favorite companies, like eTrade, aren't all that great at preserving records. Anyway, it's huge pain but TurboTax makes it a lot eaiser... love TurboTax. And, I guess I'm a do-it-yerself kind of guy when it comes to my finances and taxes.

Well, last night it became apparent pretty quickly that there was a major problem. Why do I owe so much money when I was expecting to get money back from Uncle Sam this year?

Uh oh, looks like we have a little problem with my number of deductions on my W2... seems I haven't been paying nearly my share of taxes this year. This is going to hurt in a major big way. Like how am I going to pay this tax bill? Ouch.