I am back....

Okay folks, I am going to be blogging again. I have been busy with things such as you know, life, family and trying to stay healthy, so look for some new posts. YAY!

Bicycle Dreams Movie Trailer..This could be my next event.

I have heard of this event and really want to do this race. I hear that you can do this in teams of two or even 3. Could be fun!

Sliding at the park

He learned from the other kids how to do this and now we can't stop him.

Maddox at 10.5 months learning to walk.

Had no idea this truck was gonna come in so handy but check him out. Look at that boy goooo!!!!!

Lance Pics from Tour of California that I took, 2 of 2.

Tour of California, 1 of 2

As most of you know, TLC and I are cycling fans along with others in the family. Well about a month ago the Tour of California ripped its way throughout the state. Starting in northern California and working its way down to San Diego. Well as you would imagine Taunya and I wanted to go check it out. So we ventured about 5 miles down the road where they were going to start the race. We did this rather than go park along the course and wait for them to ride by. I thought that this would be the best way to see some of the pros and boy, did we. Take a look at the pics that I got of yes, Lance Armstrong. We had a great time and it was awesome to see so many people out supporting such a great sport.

Some of the other notable sights were a motorcyclist that rides around a professional cycling photographer. So, we all know that I am a fan of anything with 2 wheels and I decided to ask this guy standing by the motorcycles some questions about riding with the pack, how it works such as hierarchy, etc. In an Australian accent, he began to explain how complicated it is and I took a glance at his name badge and it said "Walt Conte". I was like holy mole!!!! I pulled out my id and showed him my last name. As you can see from the pic to the right, we do look a bit similar. hahaha. What a small world I tell you. Anyway it was an awesome time. I will post again with all of the pics that I took there and ones especially of Lance.

Here is the video from the post below...

An update for all of you

So,

I have not posted in a bit and it is due to a TON of things. I have been busy with work, training and of course family. Maddox has been doing well and got some new teeth and more hair than ever before. I am glad that his hair is turning somehwat dark as now I can claim him as my own. LOL. We have done a lot of things here lately and I will be making separate posts regarding all of those events later. For now, enjoy this video of Maddox trying to say "Uh oh". He cannot pronounce the "Uh" so instead, he coughs and then adds the "oooooooohhhhhh" at the end. Pretty funny.

Hope you love it, I do...

2008 in review

Wow, what a year huh? We had a presidential election as well as a baby in the same year! Not to mention it being a historical election as well. As I sit here listening to Mad Season drinking a cappuccino stout thinking about all of my great friends and family I am in awe. 2008 has been nothing but a stellar year for us. We have managed to stay employed amidst all of the financial issues with this country. We celebrated the gift of life with our son who I like to refer to as "Maddogg". I will tell you this, for all parents that read this blog, I can tell you that this guy "gets it now".

There are a lot of things to be grateful for this year but as I mentioned earlier, my friends and family are truly the greatest. I would like to thank the Gaufins personally for being there in a time when we really needed them. Frank and Brenda I really cannot say enough about the two of you. The love we share for my son and your willingness to be there for us has been truly outstanding. I would like to say you are appreciated and even though despite our differences we do share our love for one another. Thank you for being so great. U are appreciated.

Friends are also a great part of our existence and I would like to point out someone special to me. David W. Dave and I grew up with one another and I would like to say that although we have drifted apart, he really still does mean the world to me. He and his wife Megan just gave birth to their 4th child and I wanted to say congratulations! For Dave, although we might not talk as much as we should, I really do miss you and look back at the times we spent together as kids and would not of done it with anyone else. Thanks for being such a great friend. Congrats to you and all of your success!

We stayed here at home for the holidays this year. We threw the Thanksgiving gig here for our family and friends. We threw such a shindig that we had 16 people over. It was a great time but a lot of work. We were so burned out this year that we even considered not getting a Christmas tree. In the end, we decided we would but just not put up all of the decorations. So, this is what we did.

Some of the highlights of 2008 for us were Barack Obama, Thaidra's Graduation, the birth of our son, Me working from home now, connecting with family and some lost friends and progressing in our careers. Well folks, that's going to be a wrap. I will post some more pictures here shortly. Thanks for reading.

David Goggins, the definition of mind over matter...

All, this guy is truely amazing. Please take the time to watch this video, you may be inspired. I understand where he is coming from. His website also has a great video as well.

http://www.the100mileman.com/davidgoggins/

Summer 2008 and some football fun

Barack Hussein Obama just proved to the world that the United States is where change can really happen.

Sarah Palin Prank Phone Call -

This is great. Two radio DJ's from Montreal call her up and pretend to be the French President. She actually thinks that Nicolas Sarkozy really called her. Hilarious. She has no idea. Unbelievable at the same time.

Cork Soakers....another funny one from SNL.

How can you be adverse to change? It's 2008!

1.	Technologytard
	One who is slow or lagging in the use or understanding of any/all electronic devices. Devices include but are not limited to; computers (especially internet & e-mail), camcorders, cameras, portable GPS, DVRs, DVD players and remote controls. A portable GPS unit would be the perfect gift for most people, except for my technologytarded mom who can barely figure out how to use e-mail. Okay, so I had to post this because I ran into an old friend this morning getting coffee and she was complaining about www.facebook.com and how people are now trying to add her as a friend. She said, "yeah I signed up on facebook and now I have all of these people (that she knows from the past) that want to be my friend". No kidding! Its a social networking site like Myspace, Yelp and LinkedIn to name a few. It really bothered me because I could not believe that here was someone in their late 30's that just had no idea about how things are done these days. Yeah I mean this person knows what to do when they are hungry or when they get tired, but aside from that they are oblivious to the world around them. Take the time to pickup a book, have a chat with someone that you do not really know, try a new resturant at random. You know....LIVE. Ignorance is still king I guess. At first it made me mad that this person could be so out of touch but then she did the ultimate. She was with her two sons and had the 9 year make a comment about facebook. She said to him, "what is facebook? He said, "facebook is for those people who do not have a life". I just started to think WOW. The cycle continues. People are more comfortable with being uninformed rather than taking the time to learn or hear about something "New". These are all sites that allow people from all over the country and even the world to communicate about a particular ideology, hobby or interest. They are the evolution of the web and are changing the way we look at communicating with others, not just our neighbors. For those of you whom are reading this, this definition does not apply to you for obvious reasons. It is the year 2008 people, if you do not know how to attach a file, send or recieve email, download anything you might as well consider...well I just don't know. On another note I will be posting some pics of Maddox soon per the request of Grammy.

Maddox @ 4.5 Months

At first he did not like this thing at all. Now we cannot keep him out of it.

Ya'll mean I am goin to be on TV now?

My brother hanging out with Flavor Flav in Vegas

So...for those of you who do not know who this guy is let me explain. During the 80's my brother, friends and I were into hip hop and a show called Yo MTV Raps. This was a show that was on for 30 minutes a day that covered the new videos and songs that were done by rap artists. At the time, this was the premier show on MTV. Secondly, my brother was a DJ and I was always surrounded by music. Either way, this photo is historic for my brother. The clock is a symbol for flavor as he saws that he always knows "what time it is". Just typing this makes me laugh. I am really happy that my brother had a chance to take a picture with Flavor. I know that it truly was a great moment for him as we have always liked him since his days with the group Public Enemy. If you get a chance, Google the group Pubic Enemy. They are one of the original hip hop groups of all time.

Yeaaaaaaaahhh Boyeeeeeeeeee!

Bored on a Friday night and I cannot sleep...watching Letterman

Well in the spirit of blogging and not being able to sleep..Here I am! Its getting late and I can here Maddox waking up for his late evening snack.

Well, it was somewhat a busy week. I recently just had the end of quarter for work and I think I did well. Although all of the final numbers are not in, I think that I did good. I am now getting ready for the 4th quarter and I just have 90 days left until the year is over. For those of you that are not aware, the year ends for me in November with is great. It gives me the month of december to recharge my batteries and to get ready for the year. Some of you are aware, but I am trying to win a trip to Marbella, Spain. It should be a good time.

Maddox is still growing like a weed and as I sit here and type he is sitting next to me as his mom feeds him. He is getting longer and making all different kinds of noises now. Nothing much really going on around this topic other than he still smiles all the time and looks like has not a care in the world. He is just so comfortable all the time. Mona has managed to be on the bed all night these days and I think its TLC 's way of making sure that she still feels like #1 to us

As I sit here watching David Letterman, he makes me laugh. On another note, I just saw a show that said Mccain's wife's outfit that she work for his acceptance speech was worth approximately $313,000.00. The earings alone were 3 karat diamonds. LOL. They compared this amount of money to the $900.00 dollar dress that Michelle Obama worse during Barak's acceptance speech. Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I am just really trying to figure out how Mccain and the hockey mom from a Alaska can relate to most americans.

I created a facebook www.facebook.com account about a month ago and I have managed to meet alot of old friends on there. Its a great way to connect and catchup with people that you used to have in your daily lives. Geez, time really flies. Most of my friends have had kids and really have gone off in their own direction. Like either moving to New York, Boston, Florida, etc. Some of them have remained the same and others have done something completely different. One particular guy I found this week I have been looking for awhile. He got an academic scholoarship to Stanford and was a high school all american in football as well. Turns out he lives in DC and he has an 8 month old. Him and I are going to chat, but I am glad we finally connected.

Finally, I just switched to ATT cable and my phone is not set up yet. If you are calling the house and getting the busy signal this is the reason. This will be resolved in the next couple of days,

Football is back!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited for the season to be here. With the Padres not being competitive (nice way to say they suck). I think we have a really good chance of going to the big game this year. We will see how it goes. I am currently in 3 footballs pools as well, so every, I mean every game means something. Anyway, I am going riding earlty in the morning so I gotta run. Oh, by the way, I got a new tattoo as wel. If you want to see it, send me an email.

I saw this and could not stop laughing..Enjoy

Bringing Down the Bounce House - Watch more free videos

Barack Obama's Full Speech to the DNC

Not to be political but what the heck. Having majored in political science and minored in philosophy, I like to dig into the issues at times.

Although I will not disclose my political affiliation, I will tell you that Taunya and I were glued to the tube for all of the DNC. We really looked forward to hearing what Barak was going to say. When we saw it, we were completely floored. What a story of this young man who defied the odds to turn out to be someone truly special. This is the underdog. This is the story that we all watch in movies and in the theater(s) and root for in the end. It was this history in the making and we were thrilled to be apart of it. I thought he did a good job of addressing the issues that we Americans face everyday.

Not only does he speak with conviction, passion and presence. He is you and he is me. We have all been in his spot at one point in our life. For some, the road was a bit more windy and for some it was much longer than expected. No matter which, you stayed the course. You did and that is what helped you get to where you are today. Look back and ask yourself if you are one of those who were handed something or if you were one of those who had to work for every bit of it. If you were, then the choice is clear.

We will be glued to the tube when the RNC is on as it will be interesting to see how the 2 year governor from Alaska and the veteran with 13 houses can help us see the benefits of the last 8 years.

Maddox and Truman

I uploaded some videos to youtube. Here is one of them.

Lots going on around here now...

Well? Where do I start? It has been awhile and let me tell you I am can honestly not begin to tell you everything or maybe I will. Maddox is about 15 weeks old now and he is really starting to come into his own. Relatively a happy baby(keeping our fingers crossed), he has been going to day care for about a week now. TLC drops him off and I pick him up M-F. I must say that it is one of the more exciting times of the day for me.

Work has been good and we are getting close to closing the 3rd quarter. Things are good and I have not been doing any real traveling at all. This is good. It gives me more time to spend with the kids and really helping out with Maddox. I have recently started playing golf again and getting "back" into it. I bought a set of Taylor Made irons and they are doing me right. I am considering taking lessons from a guy that lives in our complex who is a golf pro. Nothing major, just a day or two session. This might make a big difference as I have never taken lessons before. Who knows?

Maddox has been growing by the hour it seems. He is always kooo'ing and looking around at things. Taunya does the drop off in the mornings and I do the pickups. When I pick him up I put him the the jog stroller and cruise him around the neighborhood for about an hour. He likes it and I really enjoy this time.

We are going to the Dave Matthews band concert tonight so we are looking forward to a night out. It should be a good time and we have a great friend that is going to watch Maddox. I will be posting more pictures and videos over the weekend. Stay tuned.

Okay, okay...he looks like me

Lots and lots to talk about but I am short on time. I will post this weekend with some new updates. Meanwhile, enjoy the "MAC"

Intense clip from the movie "Behind Enemy Lines"...

I just bought this movie off of itunes and think this part is one of the best scenes of the movie. The graphics are amazing and so is the camera work of the aerobatics of the FA-18 Hornet trying to get away. Great movie if you like action and drama films.

Latest addition...iPod Classic 160GB

I finally bit the bullet and went for it. I ordered a new iPod classic. Its like the original iPod, but it holds a ton of music, videos, etc . Something like 40,000 songs and will play 7 hours of straight video or 14 hours of music. Since I have been traveling a lot, my smaller iPod nano would not stay charged long enough and it would die on flights. This makes those trips just that much longer. The cool thing is that I can now watch my movies and other things all on this thing too. Wooo Hooo.

The 4th of July is approaching and I am looking forward to a little relaxation over the 3 day weekend. I plan on doing a 50 mile bike ride here in Scripps Ranch. TLC and I did the 25 miler last year, but this year she is going to sit this one out. We are going to probably ride this weekend. Enjoy the 4th!

FedEx Commercial- Very Funny

Bee to the lip at 22 mph, San Francisco, Washington D.C , TLC and I hit the road

Its been a nutty couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago I had to go to San Francisco for work for our QBR. This is our quarterly business review where we go over some of the finer details of the quarter. Overall the meetings went well and it was a good time with the coworkers. I returned to an empty house as Taunya took Maddox to her parents house in Madera, CA. This is a small town near Fresno. It was Maddox's first plan flight. He beat my personal record as I never flew until I was 21 years old. The kid is knocking out 1st's already. I did some hanging out with friends, went to sushi and did some riding with some of my time. I will tell you that it being that quiet around here was pretty unsettling to say the least.

Anyway, so last week I went in on a ride the day before I headed to a conference in Washington, DC. I was going about 22 mph and saw this little black thing coming at me. As it got closer, It was clear to me, its a bee. I tried to close my mouth but too late. The Bee hit my lip and then started to go into my mouth. In a panic, I began to spit and with a finger knocked him out of my mouth. Then I thought hmmmm, that is not bad.....ummmm hold on...what is that? Oh, its my lip killing me because he stinger is still stuck in it. I pulled over slowly skidding and with no mirror, pulled the stinger out of my lip. At this point, my lip began swelling like I just took a good shot in a street fight. I had about only 14 miles on the odometer, so I decided to finish out the remaining 16 miles and then head for home. After the 30 or so miles I got home and Taunya was staring at me and could not figure out what happened. Of course, she looks at me and says "Did you get in a fight on your bike?". I started to laugh and told her what had happened. I asked her to take a picture of it for me so you could experience it like I did. Well almost...

DC was good. Went by the white house on the way to the trade show called "CF United". Google it and you can find out more about the conference if you would like. Basically a developer conference for ColdFusion users and Adobe was on of the key sponsors. The weather was nice and I was happy to be home.

The latest heatwave of the past 3 days has been pretty bad. I went riding yesterday and managed to log about 64 miles before I broke another spoke on my other bike. I dropped that one off at the shop and rode my tri bike with TLC today and had a great time. My mom came over and watched Maddox for a couple of hours so we could hit the road. Taunya did well given the fact that it was in the high 80's and she has not really riden since before the baby. Boy it was hot though.

Maddox is getting better, developing and looking more and more like his mom everyday. He is such a joy to watch, hold, change and be with. Let it be known, that is it sits right now, the kid has blue eyes and fair skin with light brown/blondish hair. The skin is fair, but nowhere near mine. I basically put out a kid that has my face but with no single trait that looks like me. I am really happy that he is healthy, but I mean honestly, the kid is white. Nothing wrong with that as you all know.

As some of you read this you might think what is wrong with this guy? Well nothing, but I thought I would of at least gotten the eyes, hair or the skin even. Nada. We will see how things go. When I mention this to Taunya, Grandma Gaufin and others, they just tell me that they still could change and they laugh. Well news on the front too. His eyes went from dark blue to light blue. I mean at baseball games, soccer, etc. When I yell, "Nice job Maddox", people are going to whisper "is that his dad?" to other parents. The others are going to whisper back "Yeah, funny huh? He looks nothing like him"

I am THAT guy. I will be posting another youtube video of Maddox from this weekend shortly.

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean Motown 25 Live, March 25 1983

So...I realize that I am going to get inundated with emails or comments for posting this video but I realized that many of you may of never seen this.

The other night we were feeding MAC and I was showing Taunya some of the videos and music that I have downloaded and collected over the years. It was at that point that she mentioned she had "never" seen the "beat it" video from Michael Jackson. I was like "Huh?". So I showed it to her and she could not believe it.

In light of all of this guys scandals and issues, this performance was one that I watched live as a 10 year old kid. While watching this, I was completely floored and starstruck. I could not believe that anyone could dance and sing like he could. At that time, he was truly a superstar. If you have not seen this piece of music history, take the 5 minutes and watch it. It makes you wonder what really happened to the guy that seemed to have it together and so much going in his direction.

Some things to note. 47 million people watched this performance, he debuted "the moonwalk", this song alone has been sold over 5 million times.

Maddox at 3 weeks

Note the dogs panting in the background along with the hiccups.

103 Miles, 8800 feet elevation, 96 degrees in 7 Hours & 19 minutes

Last Saturday (5.17.09) I took on the challenge of a 103 mile bike ride. The ride was called "The San Diego Century" http://www.encinitasrace.com/sdc/ . They called "century rides" because they all are pretty much 100+ miles. I guess what drew me to it was the fact that there was no swim on the front or a marathon on the back..:)

Training-
How much does one train for something like this? I was doing about 100 miles a week on the bike and that was about it. Should I have of trained more? Yes, but race days for me seem to make me pull out the 6th gear for some reason. Ideally, I would of like to have of logged about 1 good 80 mile ride in before, but I just could not fit it in the schedule. Between the swim and run training, there was just not enough time.

Conditions-
The day of the race was set to be unseasonably hot. I do well in the heat, but I have not trained in the heat at all lately. Primarily because we have had some May gray type of conditions here in San Diego lately. Nevertheless, I did know what do pack in terms of nutrition and hydration from doing Ironman so I felt comfortable there. However, this course was one that started from the coast and went to the foothills and back. I knew that it was going to be in the 80's by 9am so I wanted to start the race as soon as possible. I was hoping to be out of the foothills/mountains before it hit the high 90's. This was not the case however. There were A LOT of hills and a majority of them were in the foothills/mountains where it was supposed to be the hottest. There were AID stations throughout the ride and I stopped at all 7 of them to hydrate. No water, just all electrolyte drinks.

The Race-
The race had a window from 6-8am. You could start the race anytime between then. They would have the roads blocked off at least for a couple of hours. Given how hot it was going to be I was there at 5:45 am trying to be one of the first out of the gate to get started. When I arrived, I said to myself, "Its kinda warm now". So I took off at 6am and started the ride and it was evident that I was not the only one with this idea. There were a bunch of cycling teams out and my plan was to draft or find a peloton to ride with to save me some time and energy. I did just that and heard that Floyd Landis was riding the course as well. He lives in the area, so it was not uncommon to see him out on the ride. If you do not know who he is, its worth Googling him.

I rode the first 40 feeling strong. I rode with a team called "Red Burro Racing" from Las Vegas and managed to take advantage of riding with the group. They were FAST. On some of the downhills we were going over 50 mph and within a couple of feet of each other. Some of the riders ahead of me hit a snake crossing the road and I could see them running it over as we flew down this hill. Thank the lord that nobody freaked out and decided to turn, otherwise we would of all of been in bad shape. It was fun. After riding with them, I moved on to another couple of groups and really began to start to feel the heat. It was at about 60 miles when I thought I might of bit off a bit more than I could chew. It was at this time when I was doing the biggest climb and it was close to 90 degrees as I was heading into the foothills of Ramona. Instead of quitting, I was thinking, you are fine, ride your race and push it a little harder. So I did. I was drinking Gatorade and http://www.nuun.com/ tablets trying to stay hydrated every 10 minutes.

I finally got inland and it was better but I ran out of fluids for about 20 minutes before I could get to the next AID station. I was getting worried as the conditions we so bad, that 20 minutes could really be the difference between a good race and "bonking" or cramping out due to being dehydrated. I finally made it and sat there for about 25 minutes drinking, eating gels and doing more drinking. I started the remaining 35 or so miles back to the coast and and started to feel better but the sun was still unbearable. I still just kept pedaling as I saw others stopped along the sides of the road as I rode past.

I made it to the next AID station with 22 miles left and I started to feel better already. The hydration was paying off and I had a tiny cramp here and there, but that was it. I pressed on and finally made it back to the coast and headed toward the finish. I finished in the above time even with all of the stops in 7 hours and 19 minutes. I was impressed with my time given the conditions. You know its hot when people are staring at you from their cars with the look "are you nuts?".

Will I do it again? Yes. It was a beautiful ride and I honestly really enjoyed it. It was my second real bike race, but I enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, I will be doing another one in October in Poway. http://www.tourdepoway.com/

Some interesting stats for you;

• Total Time- 7:19:23
• Calories burned- 7216
• Ounces consumed- 240

*I had two 20 ounce water bottles on my bike and I filled them up both, 7 times.

Friends of Maddox...

Sorry for the delay, here is Maddox!