David Koresh and Me

Man, I am getting bad at updating my BLOG. A few weeks ago Brian and I made the pilgrimage West to Waco, TX. Waco is the worst town ever and I would never allow my children to live there, but we made it as fun as possible. Eric got a financial job there so we thought we would go see him. We went to the Dr. Pepper museum, a few night spots, and even drove up and down the streets of Waco jamming "The Ketchup Song" Eric's friend Jeff from Tech was there, as well, which added to the greatness.

I think all of us had a life changing experience though. On Saturday we drove over to Mount Caramel to check out the Branch Davidian Compound and see what was left. It's way off in the middle of the country, but we figured it out, thanks to the internet. We drove passed the gate only to find some old lady sitting on a chair reading a book. At first, we were all a little intimidated, but decided to walk over to the gate anyways. The old lady didn't bug me, it was the old dude who looked just like Koresh, who kinda freaked me up ( he was walking towards us from the house on the property). He reached the gate and the old lady about the same time we did. I said hello to both of them and asked what the diddlio was. Come to find out the old lady was Amo Roden, the wife of some dude who owned the property before it all burnt down. He wasn't a follower of Koresh though and supposedly Koresh and his followers kicked him out at gunpoint. She is still mad and sitting outside the gate 10 years later and filing a lawauit against them. The new people on the property forced her off the property but locked her truck (which she lives in) up. We have pics to prove all of this. Anyways, the whole situation was AWESOME. Kinda scary, but awesome. Please feel free to google Amo Roden. I am converting to something religious cool tommorrow.

Pics here ==> http://pace.netpimpz.com/photo/thumbnails.php?album=29

The Dirty Dozen 12 Hour Race

This happened before my recent cruise but definitely worthy of some Blog space. A few weekends ago Joe my buddy from college and myself participated in a 12 hour MTB race. Neither of us had ever done one but we were both going out there mainly to have some fun. The race took place at Bluff Creek Ranch in Warda, TX. If you know Texas mountain biking then you know this place. It's a great little course, not too hard, not too easy, but it has a little bit of everything. We decided to camp out the night before since the race started at 7am and would go till 7pm.

The race format is pretty simple. We are given a little medallion, and each time one of us come in to the start we run over to the official, say our team number, and then hand the medallion off to the other teammate. We decided early on we would alternate each lap. Joe started the first lap, it was still dark so everyone had their lights on. Basically, Joe came in right under an hour and then I went out and came back right under an hour. Surprisingly, we remained consistent the whole race and it would pay off at the end. About the 8th lap, Joe came running to hand off the little medallion and told me to catch the guy in front of us b/c he was on a 2 person male team. I started giving it a little more gas that lap and ended up beating him by 3 minutes. Joe did the same on his next lap and made up more time on other team as well. Towards the end we thought we had 2nd place for sure. Even at the trophy presentation we thought we had 2nd by a long shot. However, when the race promoter called our team name, "The Delicious Bass". He also stated we had won by only one minute! Ends up we weren't even aware of the third place team. Pretty crazy. We received all kinds of prizes for second. A Trek jersey, Fox Racing rain jacket, a plaque, and a few other goodies. After the awards, we chatted with friends and went back to the campsite to have a few beers and BBQ. Overall, I had a blast. I don't ride like I use to in college and it was nice to know I still have a little kick. It was also nice to ride with Joe again, he's definitely my best riding buddy.

We ended up doing 13 laps in 12:06. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures and all professional pics on the net are copyrighted. Here is the link to the results, we are under the 2-person male section...

http://www.terrafirmapromo.com/dirtyresults2005.htm

Here is an older pic of Joe and me.

CRUISE

I recently just got back from a 5 day cruise to Mexico. It was an awesome time, great group of friends, good weather, and good drinks. I still can smell the tequila! Josh, Kent, Andrea (Dre) and myself made up grupo de awesome. Oh, and of course Josh's parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, my camera was acting up the whole trip so I only got a few pics. Hopefully the others will send me theirs, and I will post them in my gallery. This is one of us right after we left Galveston, TX.




Pretty much we started to get our party on first thing. It didn't take long to figure out there was going to be only a handful of people our age on the ship. However, I think I had a better time chasing around the crew members and chatting with the older folks. The crew was awesome. Most of them are from Europe and Indonesia. The first day was eventful but we passed out at 9pm on accident and "someone" forgot to wake the group up. The second day on the ship was a "Fun Day at Sea". S0 basically we just laid out and enjoyed the endless view of the Gulf of Mexico. That night was a formal dinner, which requires one to dress up very very nice and goto dinner. Afterwards, we walked around took candid/professional photographs. We bought one each and their hilarious. Anyways, all of the dinners we actually attended (3 out of 5) were amazing . We had the coolest waiter, Julia, from Estonia. She really put the icing on the cake because the food and atmosphere was great.

The first town we hit was Cozumel, Mexico. This is where we did a catamaran/party boat adventure. First we did some snorkeling and then some margarita drinking. We played some beach volleyball and drank some more. Then did the "long way" back to the boat and continued slamming down margaritas. It was a blast! We did a bunch of line dances and did a Congo line around the boat which was my personal favorite. After the boat we headed straight for Fat Tuesdays and continued drinking. This time we switched to beer. We chatted, danced, and partied with a few crew members and some new friends. Last thing I remember was dancing on a table with the boat masseuse and her other English friend. Woohoo!!!

We didn't last very long after Fat Tuesday's and woke up the next day already in Playa de Carmen. Here we decided to just hang out at a beach. They had a free bar and some good authentic Mexican food. We even made it on the ship's TV channel, and Dre pimped Tarzan the tour guide. The water and weather was great. That night we went the ship's club Stripes. We went there 3 or 4 times but this time we really tore it up. I remember at 5 am, Josh and I were out on the deck talking to 2 Indonesian crew members, that was cool. Oh yeah, Kent had a rough night that night ;-).

The next day was just another "Fun Day at Sea". We got a late start b/c of the previous night so spent most of it doing a lot of nothing, which was actually a blast. Basically, the whole entire trip we acted like complete goofballs which I wouldn't want any other way. My stomach is still soar from laughing so much. One neat part was walking around the last day because it seemed we knew half the ship from one incident to another. That night we went to a few hot spots and stayed up way too late for a 6am wake up in Galveston. At the end, I am really glad I got to go with the group I did. We had a blast and did it right!