Kobe's shot

I was in the kitchen, with the Lakers setting up for the last shot against the Heat, and Brian asked who I would want with the ball taking the last shot. I said Kobe of course. And I ridiculed some other people that can name me ANY other name that they would prefer taking the last shot. Well I came out two seconds too late and the streamers were already falling from the ceiling. Kobe did it again. And yes I heard him call glass. And he had the same look on his face that he did against the Magic last year. The "We are going to win no matter what look". I love it. I love Kobe. Go Lakers.

USC Trojans and the Rose Bowl

It is weird to see the USC not in the Rose Bowl or any BCS Bowl for that matter. It's offensive seeing also ran's Oregon and Oregon State in some overhyped scrimmage game to play for the Rose Bowl. Two loss teams in a conference who's champ should be undefeated or a one loss team. Now in Oregon, Southern California teams take a tremendous amount of grief for anything less than perfection. But if 8-3 is a down year, and that is considered an unbelievable year for every other program in the Pac-Ten, I'll take it. So if a disappointing season for USC IS the Rose Bowl, and the greatest game in the history of Oregon, allegedly, is to go to the Rose Bowl, that is pretty sad. I am embarassed for our conference and for the shellacking Oregon will withstand against Ohio State, who USC has beaten two years in a row. What is once in a century for other teams, is a down year for the best team in college football. Its good to be a Trojans fan!

High Trek Adventure 11/14/09 Las Vegas

Now that we got New Orleans out of the way, I felt more prepared for Vegas, and this is basically my home turf. Advantage, US. We got up at 8am, which is way too early for Vegas, and cabbed it over to Planet Hollywood. We found everyone at a Hawaiian themed Cheeseburger restaurant (sound familiar) at the Miracle Mile shops at Planet Hollywood. Before we even got our clues, we had to build a house of cards. I am good at shuffling cards, dealing cards, and playing cards...but a house of cards? We had it collapse once before we completed the task and got our clues. Our first mission was to beeline for UNLV where we had 3 challenges, and we were able to catch two more on the way back. At this point we are cruising and I felt we were ahead of the pack. There was an anagram that Hans and Kat couldn't solve, so we had a choice to get on the Deuce towards Circus Circus and hope the answer was in that direction, or head to NY NY where we had a confirmed clue, which was much closer. I made the decision to go to NY NY, and of course, the other clue was by Circus Circus. Now we took a calculated risk and took a half hour penalty thinking we would be WAY ahead of the pack, but not so much. Even with our skip, AND penalty we finished in sixth. Meaning we had to hope four teams did not cross in the next half hour. Not very likely. Dannel was actually upset, and he didn't say it, but he felt that going to NY NY was incorrect. I still think if we go the other way we still don't make it. Well, after watching the clock, miraculously, even with the penalty, we finished in tenth, meaning we were in the second race. Now in the Great Urban Race, we had at least two hours in between which was really nice to change, shower, and wind down a little before the next race. This time not so much. We had a 45 minute clock which meant we had to hang out at Miracle Mile, and before we were allowed to go, we had to win three hands of blackjack. This is my kind of race! Gambling, playing cards, Vegas..again home field away from home. We got our clues and headed BACK to UNLV. I felt that was a little redundant having to do that twice. All teams were provided with an escort (not a prostitute, a runner from a local track team) to ensure that nobody cheated, or got in a cab or anything. I mean, after all, this race was for $12000. I was struggling to keep up with Dannel and Jamie, who was our escort, and an incredible runner. We still managed to finish everything we needed to do on the strip, and make it to our first major checkpoint which was at Margaritaville. Now here is where things get interesting. And I know Jason, the organizer of the High Trek Adventure, will read this because he scours blogspot and other website for what people have to say about his race. Mind you I am sharing this with family, friends, and have NO REASON than to describe the next series of events other than EXACTLY HOW THEY HAPPENED. We got to Margaritaville at the exact same time as this team called Zach Attack. Now the rules were implicitly clear. Get the clues from the lady, who is employed by High Trek at the bar. Take a picture with her. The clue specifically said, It is up to you to remember to take a picture with her. Not doing so will result in a half hour penalty. Now the Zach Attack, get their clues, and takes off. We take our picture with the lady. The lady, who is employed by High Trek, gets up, leaves Margaritaville, goes out onto the strip to search for and call out for the team that forgot to take their picture. This is important, but you will find out later. We get our last three clues, head to downtown Vegas, and quite efficiently finish our last three challenges. I started to taste the money, and I said to Hans, get us on a bus off the strip and we are going to win. Well a miscommunication forces us to miss the bus. We get on the deuce with the pack that was 5 minutes ahead of us, meaning we were actually five minutes ahead, because they got a head start, if that makes sense. Now we could really taste it. They decided to get off and take the Monorail but we decided to chance the Deuce. Bad idea. It took an eternity to get back to Planet Hollywood and we actually had to get off at Ceasars and run back. Much to our disappointment we were among the last teams back, but the caveat was there was a GIANT crossword puzzle waiting for each team at the Cheeseburger restaurant. Normally that would not be my forte, but the puzzle was about cities, Las Vegas Casinos, and Ocean's 11 trivia. Now, anyone that knows me knows that this is a home run for me. Still, other teams finished theirs relatively fast, and although we tried to be as thorough as possible, we still left a couple of the answers blank. I had been up since 8, it was now 6, and I was ready to leave. Dannel was going to stick around for the award ceremony. I did not need to wait around to find out that we were in 6th or 8th or whatever. Well I am standing in line at the Subway at the Orleans Hotel, and my phone rings and its Dannel. Normally he would just text me, but he called to tell me that we finished in second place. We crushed the crossword puzzle, and with each wrong answer costing each team five minutes, it vaulted us up to second. Which is all fine and dandy, but the team that finished in first was Zach Attack. The Zach Attack of forgetting to take their picture at Margaritaville fame. The same team that should have been penalized had the employee of High Trek not chased them down. Now I know for a fact she went into CYA mode (cover your ass) because you would hate to have an otherwise good race tainted by a questionable result. It is my understanding that she at first said she never went after them, and then it changed to, she did go after them but didn't find them. So here is the question. If they forgot, and left, what prompted them to go back. Did they realize this as they were halfway down the strip heading towards downtown Vegas? Clearly not. What I theorize is that the lady caught up with them as they were about to get on the Deuce. Or maybe it was just outside Margaritaville. Thats why they were running alongside our bus, instead of being in it. If the rules are followed, to the letter, they are penalized a half hour, and we are drinking Grey Goose at Tao that night. Let me tell you, its not easy winning these things, and opportunities are very few, and very far between. And I know this was the cleanest way for Jason to end this thing, but I know there is a TON of ambiguity on what happened, and it would have all been fine with a little honesty. Not on Jasons part, who tried very hard to put together a good race. But from his employee. So they get 12 G's and we get a plastic medal. I can't even drink out of a plastic medal. Alot of this also could have been avoided if the prizes are staggered, as opposed to a winner take all format. It would have sucked, but a few G's thrown our way would have definitely eased the blow of how the whole thing went down. Oh well, I was still in Vegas, and had a great night with Darren, Tain, and Adam that night. Sorry if this was more of a venting than a summary of the events!

Great Urban Race 11/7/09 New Orleans

I got to New Orleans two days early, which gives me one good day to explore the city, rest, oh and maybe hit the casino, before what was going to be a pretty bit race. There were not many of the unathletic, just there for fun types that there are in the preliminary races. Bourbon Street has an interesting smell in the morning that will definitely wake you up. The race began easy enough, taking the streetcar to Tulane, where there were three challenges including solving a word search. Dannel wont admit it, but I got us through that thing pretty quick. There was a triangle puzzle which looked like someone sabotaged it, so we took our best guess and moved on. We caught the streetcar back to the French Quarter, and with Hans and Kat's precision support system, we hit every stop we needed to hit efficiently. The one hiccup was a particular hotel, where two REAL six foot alligators were waiting for us. I don't know who was more petrified, me or Dannel, but I psyched him into picking up the gator, I grabbed the tail, and we carried it around the room. The gator must have an enlarged medula oblangata because he was not pleased with being picked up. Hans, like a knight appearing from the horizon appeared on a bike with the hot sauce we needed, and we cruised into the finish line in second place, which was astonishing, easily qualifying for the final race for the 10K. I was asked, ALOT, how we finished in second place, what our strategy was. Well the answer is, great support team. We had a couple hours before the final race, so we grabbed a bite to eat, showered, and came back refreshed for the next race. I was admittedly nervous, because we had a one in ten chance at ten thousand dollars. We waited around for a little bit before being loaded onto a bus and being taken to City Park. Let me just say, we are horrible lego assemblers, murder mystery solvers, and boat paddlers, and this led us to be terribly behind right off the bat. We were the last team off the lake and we missed the bus to town, and ended up having to run back, which is at least a few miles from where we needed to be. It was basically a disaster. We ended up going through some of the worst parts of New Orleans, and compounding this, there was a three hour time limit virtually assuring that no team would finish without penalties. My thought was to finish everything in the French Quarter, and just take our penalties, but the others decided to head down Magazine Street and actually try to finish this. We actually got to our first stop, Tee Eva's, just before the time was about to expire. Dannel, like a trooper, still tried to finish an ENTIRE SWEET POTATO PIE. This is normally good, when you are not eating the whole thing, and you haven't ran probably 10-12 miles cumulative for the day. Poor Tee Eva thought something was wrong with the pie, and I laughed as I snacked on some free samples of pralines, and had a diet coke and caught some of the LSU game at a neighboring bar. Ok, thats a bit of a stretch, but yeah, the race was over before he even finished the pie. We never even went to the finish line, we headed to the hotel, showered up, and went to the after party at the Tropical Isle, which was actually pretty fun even though we did terrible in the second race. The fact that the Beard's completed all the checkpoints and finished in time was rather amazing. They deserved it, Good Job.

Great Urban Race Seattle, 8/29/09

Well this is now the second race I have done with Dannel, and this one was to qualify for the finals in New Orleans and a shot at $10000. That's almost enough money to retire and great motivation to kick a lot of ass. I am by leaps and bounds in better shape and can run alot further, and lost about 7 pounds since I started doing this. This is coming from a guy that goes to the gym ALOT. Again, coming off of a night with not much sleep, Dannel wakes me up at about 930 for a noon race here in Seattle. You know me, I like to cut things a little close and 2.5 hours is not cutting it close! We even had well over an hour to spare so we scoped things out a bit including a visit to Whole Foods, which was to be one of our clues. I had creme brulee french toast, the breakfast of champs, and perhaps the worst energy drink I have ever tasted. We still had over an hour to kill at the coffee shop so I worked on some fantasy football, and was totally amused at how irritated Dannel was with all the people in costume, including pirates, dr. seuss characters, and two pink panthers complete with whiskers drawn on their faces. I offered Dannel a hundred dollars if he would paint whiskers on his face. There were a TON more teams than there were in Portland, perhaps 300 in all. After we got our clues, Hans copied them and we were off. Every last drop of extra energy I had was spent on the first leg, considering we had to run straight up hill. It was like the streets of San Francisco, but running. We had to learn how to do sign language from a random guy in a coffee shop, do the rumba?, and donate three cans of tuna to charity all while hauling ass. We were way ahead of schedule and the first people to do the first three checkpoints. We then took the long run over to where the stadiums are, did a few more checkpoints and had to make it to Pike Place by 130 for the picture up at the top. We did three more challenges, and headed BACK to the stadium area for two more challenges, both of which cost us valuable time. We got on a bus all the way down third which dropped us off by the Space Needle at our original location, and we see two jokers dressed like pirates heading towards the finish. It became an all out sprint and with pulled muscle and shoelace untied we left them in the dust. Now there were a few teams inside already, and we figure we finish in the top ten which more than qualifies us for New Orleans. We may even be top five but we will know by Tuesday. If it werent for having to wait ten minutes for the clock picture, and another ten minutes in line to do sharades, we may have won the whole thing. Once again, so close, yet so far away. Buca De Beppo never tasted as good as it did after the race and I am not sore today!!!

High Trek Adventure

So I agreed to go on a fool hearty adventure with Dannel, and do the High Trek Adventure with is a race throughout Portland, where you have to figure out clues along the way, and take your pictures in front of certain landmarks. My only experience is that I went to Las Vegas with them for the Great Urban Challenge last year, and ran about 100 yards with them, while holding a Bud Light Lime, and showed them where the New York New York Roller Coaster is. Oh, and I haven't ran a mile in ten years. I have ran at most two...EVER. Not that I am in bad shape, but I just don't run! So I was actually preparing for the Seattle race when Dannel informed me of this Portland race as a tune up. So after three weeks of running, I was ready (I guess!) I was actually quite nervous day of, considering I was up til 430 the previous morning, left Spirit Mountain at 9am, and had a lot to drink the night before since it was Jonathans birthday! I felt AlOT better when we got to the coffee place and most of the teams did not look in good shape. Actually there were some marathon runners there, and I certainly am not one of them. I once did the Fresh Prince Marathon. 8 hours...non stop. So the first clue is outside, its a puzzle, and it leads to where we get our real clues. The first running...see if I can keep up with Dannel, a former Division 1 Athlete. We get the clues, run back, make copies and Hans and Kat are the support team that immediately start figuring out the clues and telling us where to go. I think that Dannel does some lolligagging and can save some time by just being a little bit more on it, but don't tell him I said that! I think that I saved us some time by taking charge of the phone while he was figiting with his iphone and getting frustrated. I actually ended up doing the majority of the communication with Hans, but Dannel is the superior runner. His phone camera is a POS and we need something better next time. We started in the pearl, ran all the way to the South Park blocks, fought our way through Saturday Market, found or next two clues and ran to the bus that was going to take us over the Ross Island Bridge. This was my first time getting on Portland Public Transportation. We took a picture IN FRONT of sock dreams, got bonus time for taking our picture with a musical note, and hopped on a bus North on 11th, bypassing one of our clues, which we are allowed to do. We found our next two spots and realized we are now way ahead...UNTIL...we realized we were supposed to perform a task at sock dreams. There is nothing more discouraging and crushing than realizing you are going to win and have to run from Stark to DIVISION BACKTRACKING! Dannel has this angry gear, which I don't have and he basically left me behind in the dust. Things were starting to hurt and I was starting to get tired but I could not let the team down. He basically did the challenge at sock dreams, and I got there just in time to take the picture. We immediately jumped on the bus back downtown and realized we were going to have to do the next bonus to have a chance. We needed to find someone with an Oregon AND an Oregon State shirt and pose for pictures with them, but you can never find this so Hans and a friend grabbed some shirts and met us on the water front right next to Velour, which was our last stop. Let me tell you, the last stretch was about 6 blocks but it may as well been six miles through the Sahara desert. Well it turned out that every second counted as we are the third team to make it in there. We have a little bit of optimism as we were the only team to get both bonuses and one of the teams had made a mistake. Well, the mistake was taking their picture at Velour instead of Velvet, which we did too. Had we taken it at Velvet or somehow managed to take our picture at Absolute, we would have won by a lot. As it turns out, with the bonuses, we ended up in second by 3 minutes. Not too shabby for an "out of shape" 32 year old guy that has never done this before. Dannel was very discouraged but I was actually pretty happy considering my tempered expectations. We got these really nice bags and free entry into the Vegas race which I think I can help us win. Try $12000 to the winner. That will motivate me to do a little extra on the treadmill eh?

Shaq tell me how that tastes!

Finally another NBA championship for the Lakers! All you Laker haters out there makes this one even better! The Lakers may take short lulls but they are the best team in NBA History and will always be doing this! So you can either be a fan, or continue to be disappointed every time they win!

Aloha!!

Just saying hello from (not so) sunny Maui. Two days of bad weather but its supposed to clear up over the next day or so. The Westin in Kaanapali beach is amazing as usual, and the ocean view from the room is spectacular. Saw Warren and Annabelle's show and would highly recommend it to anyone. Gonna wake up bright and early tomorrow for the Ono breakfast buffet and walking around Lahaina before we go to the Old Lahaina Luau! Then off to Hana on Sunday where they are having the East Maui Tarot festival. Nonstop action, but I really hope we get some real sun! Mahalo

Fantasy Baseball: Whats the Point

Well, we did our draft on Sunday, and already I am intently watching every game and every highlight...It's not fantasy football, but I likened it to the chips and salsa at a Mexican Restaurant. It holds you over until you get the sizzling plate of fajitas, sizzling plate of fajitas being Football Season. All I know is that if Soggy Soldier ends up having a better team than me again, I'm gonna be pissed!

Poker Tourament @ Holiday Inn 4/7

Just did the $30 buy in tourament at the Holiday Inn. I accumulated about 8000 in chips when someone with a much larger stack was moved to our table. I made it 3000 with J c J h and he called and the flop came KQ6 all hearts, and he moved all in. I called, but I didnt quite realize I was a 60/40 underdog. This was a clear mistake. My logic was that if the heart came, I would have 16000 in chips, and probably the chip leader for the entire room and I would coast into the money. Somehow this coasting never seems to happen...My dad and Rocky made the final table, busting out on the bubble in 7th and 8th respectively.

Charlotte Bobcats

I am so sick and tired of the Charlotte Bobcats. Why have they won 6 out of the last 7 against the Lakers. This is ridiculous. Now I have to wait another year for the Lakers to put an end to the madness. Actually, I could care less. The Lakers are the top seed in the West and nobody remembers regular season games. Except for when the Lakers beat the Blazers ass this Friday April 10th at the Rose Garden! Yours truly will be there...

Welcome to the wonderful world of Joel

Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by...things I am going to write about are sports (the Lakers), my travels (Vegas), fantasy football, Poker, work, politics, observations, and things I feel the need to complain about! Hopefully you will get some entertainment out of it. Feel free to post comments, and dont worry about hurting my feelings!