T-Rav & I in Flagstaff. The one time I managed to get up to Flag this season. Great day. Im looking forward to getting my hockey gear so we can wreck the rink Trav!

Old friends, New Friends and LOTS of snow!

President's day last year was warmer in Puerto Vallarta. I went to Blue Knob, PA this year to see my buddy Steve and check out his new house in MD. Great place Steve - I'm stoked for ya! After a long flight into Reagan Airport, Steve picked me up and i racked out at his place for the day while he finished up the week at work. Then we went on the road playing tag-team with Ian and Eric in their car on the way up. Rebecca was meeting us their 'cause she's stationed in PA. Steve and I kept calling her in the drive because there was some huge car wreck on the highway and they closed the interstate in PA to traffic on a Friday afternoon. What was a short ride for us took her 8 hours. We ran into her at the gas station before hitting the resort and boy was she glad to see us.

Once there we got checked into the room and she started cooking up a storm. I found a mug in the cupboard of the condo that said 'Supermom' on it and relegated it to her for the weekend. The boarding was great, unfortunately while teaching 'Becca to board we took a dive and I tore a tendon in my shoulder. I wasnt going to let that stop me though. I learned I like a lot of edging and started getting a little air on some small jumps. That night the bar had a mardigras party... oh and this drink i got in a mason jar was the end of me... the rest of the night went down - I got nothin' after I saw the bottom of it. Aparrently I started dancing with some of the local riff-raff and finished off 1/2 of someone elses drink.

Then waking up the next morning rough and tumbled we discovered someone had come into our room while we were gone and snagged Steve's car keys and our lift ticke vouchers for the next day. That meant police reports and working out getting on the mountain anyway - they were very accommodating in that respect to us and hooked us up with the lift tickets. Unfortunately Ian had to run back to MD to get his spare keys and drive back to PA to bring 'em to us. A little bittersweet end to an otherwise outstanding weekend. Thanks Steve & co.!!

The New Bimmer!

After 3 months driving the beater truck around I finally found something. It isn't EXACTLY what I wanted - got the PDC (Parking Distance Control - parking assistant) instead of heated seats. But hey - what do you want for 18,500 and only 40,000 miles on it?!? A little more when you add the shipping from

West Palm Beach in Florida. Yep, Ebay again. So far Ive done ok with both my last cars being bought off Ebay sellers. I am still going to have to get the tint in, and my nave system I cut outta the old Bimmer installed. Its going to be SUH-WEET when all is said and done with it. Then I wont have to worry about the airbag in the 11 year old Dakota burning my face off anymore except when I make a run to Home Depot.

Buddy Sean & I getting ready for a full day of boarding.

AWESOME Boarding at Bogus Basin, ID!

And some people wonder why I rant about the Illegal Alien (or UDA - Undocumented Alien) problem in the US.... When they T-Bone your car and leave theirs - or whoever's they were driving in the middle of the intersection and walk off.... boy does it piss me off. Not to mention my poor car. The guy at the Collision place told me that it's totaled. The entire passenger floor is buckled.

Crystal Mountain - The second time Ive boarded in 3+ feet of new powder. And it kept fallling all day. What a way to kick-off thanksgiving week in Seattle!

And then there were the Rucksacks filled with chain - tricycle relays....

My whole company thought I won until we realized the line I crossed was the 1/2-way point and we needed to get me back to the start line... they began tackling all the other trikes so I could make it. What a zoo!




The "Grog" is a military tradition at dining-ins. It is comprised of various amounts and types of things to represent the history of the Army and it's campaigns. From wine to represent Normandy, to sand (usually brown sugar) to warm beer to honey and even a sock and ground pepper to represent gunpowder... truly heinous stuff. Oh and the green stuff floating on top of the FULL 1/2 whiskey keg was to represent marajuanna for the 1960's. Three plus canteen cups of that sure did me in!!!

At the Natural History Museum in San Diego.

Buddy Jeremy and I after our conference well officially I guess this was DURING it... I took him and Tom to all the Museums by the Zoo. I love San Diego!!

I was pleasently surprised at how many folks 'got' my halloween costume. I wasn't sure what to do so I checked out the country singers that are 5'7" like me and lo and behold - Kenney Chesney came up. Scary part is I really like the hat now.

Ahh, and then back to work.... sometimes the job is fun.

Ok, so there was a little more than vodka fueling us at the bonfire.... good times with ED and some of the crew from the Kilimanjaro hike.

Mike and Jill doing a little shopping before the fire before dinner... hmmm you really like that stuff, huh Mike?

While in NH back in my old stomping grounds the scenery was great.

It was sweet to meet Pride Veteran Quinton Jackson (Left), and UFC Reality Star Chris Leben at the after party at Macayos. I talked with a friend about the fights and he said he knows Noah from the UFC reality show. Noah is training with Matt Hughes now - I told him he has to set me up to meet Matt - that would be the bomb!!


Enjoying the Amberbock wi buddy Chris at the fights - thanks for the pic Perry :P

RAGE IN THE CAGE BABY!!!

In Memoria, Oct 31 1975-Sep 4 2006

After a month of optimism and hopeful recovery, I got the news on Sunday. I was at a pool party when I found out. "Mike's gone from us," the text message said. Simple to the point, burned into the screen of my cellphone. The release of all the hope I was holding inside for him evaporated. The world of the pool party fogged, became insubstantial. A dark haze covered everything with one focus - to get out of the house to a solid place. Thankful for James to be there. I was toughing it out.

The monsoon was coming in - yellow-black clouds rolling over the city throwing haphazard lightning into the sky. We were driving to find a good overlook to watch. Then James busts out with "well you know I could die in a wreck on the way back to Tucson tomorrow." And then the thought of losing another friend broke through the thin skimcoat of cement I was trying to build around my emotions. It was probably the best/worst thing anyone could say to me. I pulled the car over and yelled at him for saying something like that. Then my anger transitioned into borrowing his shoulder for a few.

Very cathartic. Thanks for that, James. I felt clean, clearheaded and solid in the world again.

As a good friend of mine said about Mike, "what matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog..." (well said Steve)

Mike's funeral is today and I wish I could go but I have to be with my unit for a training weekend. I am still so floored that someone so young, tough and full of life is gone. All my best wishes go out to Mike's family and friends. May he rest in peace.

"Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has
as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity."

—Nikola Tesla

I have to apologize for perpetrating a rumor- it wasn't Westinghouse that canned the possibility of free wireless electricity for everyone - it was J.P. Morgan.

When the Colorado Springs Tesla Coil magnifying transmitter was energized, it created sparks 30 feet long. From the outside antenna, these sparks could be seen from a distance of ten miles. From this laboratory, Tesla generated and sent out wireless waves which mediated energy, without wires for miles.

In Colorado Springs , where he stayed from May 1899 until 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles( 40 kilometers) and created man-made lightning.

Financially supported by J. Pierpont Morgan, Tesla built the Wardenclyffe laboratory and its famous transmitting tower in Shoreham, Long Island between 1901 and 1905. This huge landmark was 187 feet high, capped by a 68-foot copper dome which housed the magnifying transmitter. It was planned to be the first broadcast system, transmitting both signals and power without wires to any point on the globe. The huge magnifying transmitter, discharging high frequency electricity, would turn the earth into a gigantic dynamo which would project its electricity in unlimited amounts anywhere in the world.

Tesla's concept of wireless electricity was used to power ocean liners, destroy warships, run industry and transportation and send communications instantaneously all over the globe. To stimulate the public's imagination, Tesla suggested that this wireless power could even be used for interplanetary communication. If Tesla were confident to reach Mars, how much less difficult to reach Paris . Many newspapers and periodicals interviewed Tesla and described his new system for supplying wireless power to run all of the earth's industry.

Because of a dispute between Morgan and Tesla as to the final use of the tower. Morgan withdrew his funds. The financier's classic comment was, "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?"

My question is: What would our world be like now if we had free electricity from the onset of the 1900's? No oil wars, no smog, no fossil fuels, maybe we'd have flying cars by now. Thanks, Mr. Morgan.

The Scenery riding back from Flagstaff was incredible. We rode from Flagstaff down Lake Mary Road past Lake Mary, and Mormon Lake. The water was at about 50% but we did get wet ourselves in a monsoon storm. This cooled us off a little, and cleaned the roads nicely. Luck was with us again as the lightning stayed to the East of us.












I was glad to see the Grand Canyon again. It always seems fake to me. Unbelievable. Yeah, sure it's a big hole in the ground. One of the seven wonders of the world it still is. So huge and deep it kicked in Matt's vertigo a bit. I always freak out when folks sit next to the edge with their legs dangling over it.