ROLLER COASTER

Over the past few weeks i have experienced some of the ups and downs of what this roller coaster we call life has to offer.

i spent some time on my bike.

I watched Luke run the leg of RAGNAR that Bunny ran a couple of years ago.

I watched the RAGNAR team my wife has run on for the last few years but couldn't this year because she was great with child.

I celebrated #4's 3rd birthday.

I saw a couple of great shows.

I cancelled a trip to Italy but Joey and chris still went and had a good time anyway.

I spent quality time with family and friends that i do not spend enough quality time with.

I watched my dad cry, but he was not alone.

I said goodbye to my mother and tried to convince myself that this was a good thing.

I said hello to #5 and #6 and and tried to convince myself that this was a good thing.

Huntington Beach-Worst Vacation Ever!

A few months ago, we generously invited to a surprise birthday party for Lindsey. I have seen some of her online videos and thought they were mildly amusing but i had not actually spent much time getting to know her. She was cousin john's wife, so i figured she couldn't be that bad. The catch was that the party was in Huntington Beach. First off, what an inconvenience. Chuck-E-Cheese is 10 minutes from my house and would have been much cheaper and i would not have this rash in my nether region.
I packed up the kids and my pregnant wife and we made the long voyage down to California.
When we got there, I realized that vacationing with the Parry's is not pleasant at all.
They are extremely MEAN people. They are always yelling and threatening people.
Luckily i had a camera with an expensive lens to document some of what i am talking about.
You be the judge. Here is John repeatedly hitting baby Maggie in the head with a shovel and then laughing about itHere is Mark showing what happens if you disagree with a Parry. Notice his ARMY visor he got after working out with the army on the beach earlier that day.Someone ate Lindsey's Cheetos and would not admit it so they took all of the kids and buried them up to their necks in sand and left them there for 7 hours without food, water or sunscreen. You can see how #2 was starting to go crazy after a few hours of this.Here is Kevin yelling at one of the kids because they said they were hungry and wondered if they were going to get lunch that day.
Kevin made it quite clear that no, they were not getting lunch that day.Here is Layla when she asked her mom if she could get into the pool and play with the other kids. Her mom told her to be quiet and keep rubbing her feet.I asked Maia what happened when her dad comes home from work and the house is messy and she showed me how he spanks her. When Maggie was tired and ready for a nap and started to whimper, the Parry's started throwing her around and yelling at her telling her that she better be quiet or they would give her something to cry about. Here is Todd explaining to a very interested John how to tap someone on the shoulder and then when they turn around, you smash dog feces in their face.
Oh, yea...it was also #3's 6th birthday while we were down there and she got an awesome kite with a kitten on it from Lindsey's Mom.

If you are ever asked to go on vacation with the Parry's, even if it sounds like fun and you can get a good deal on a room, I suggest you pass. My #4 still can't sleep with any covers on because she has flashbacks of being buried in the sand and left.

Hell of the north 2011

Another road biking season started out in a painful way. Last year I was lucky to finish this race, getting dropped from the lead group on the 2nd of 10 laps and flatting somewhere along the way, coming in close to last place. This year the course was as fast as I have seen it with a good tailwind coming out of the south making the gravel section dangerously fast. When you hit a pothole at 35 mph, it can be painful and very hard on a bike.
I was able to make the selection on the first and second laps when our group that started with 30 but got reduced down to 10. I was feeling as good as I could with my heart rate never seeing south of 170 bpm for the first hour and 20 minutes. After we had whittled it down to 6 guys my legs gave. I got popped somewhere around the 7th lap (i lost count of the laps
In there somewhere) and limped to the finish, getting caught by one guy that was riding very strong and just unfortunately went down in the first corner of the race and had to fight his way back, and then by a group of 2 guys from my race that had attached on to the back of a cat 1/2 break and sat on.
The pirate did well finishing in a respectable 13th with only One leg. I wasnt there when he crossed the line but i wonder if he pointed to his stump for everybody that came in after him.

photo courtesy of cyclingutah.com

Why do we have so many daughters?

This study may suggest why:

Single girls have always grumbled that good-looking men are difficult to find.

But science may have just proved them right – because beautiful women are more likely to have daughters than their plainer counterparts, according to a study.

As parents tend to pass on genes that determine looks, this could result in handsome men becoming rather thin on the ground.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, of the London School of Economics, analysed data from a survey of 17,000 babies born in Britain in March 1958 and tracked them throughout their lives.

At the age of seven, their attractiveness was rated by their teachers.

When they reached 45, they were asked about the gender of any children they had.

Those rated as attractive were equally likely to have a son or daughter as their first child – but the unattractive sorts were more likely to have a son.

Put another way, the beautiful women were more likely to

have daughters than those who were less blessed in the looks department, the journal Reproductive Sciences will report.

A previous study of 2,000 Americans suggested that women are becoming more beautiful over the generations because attractive women have more children than plain ones – and a higher proportion of their offspring are girls.

Dr Kanazawa believes that parents tend to produce children who benefit from their own attributes.

Beauty, he says, is of more benefit to a woman than a man, and so it pays for attractive women to have daughters.

But couples blessed with strength and aggression rather than looks are better off having boys, as these characteristics are of more use to males.

It is because my wife is beautiful and I lack strength and aggression.

I just figured i was plain enough looking that i could have tilted the scales towards a boy just a little bit. I guess my wife's attractiveness far outweighs my plain looking-ness.

New Movie

2010 was an challenging year for our family.

According to the Chinese calendar, this is the year of the Rabbit. We are looking forward to what we can expect from 2011.

I have been busy that last little bit writing, directing, filming and editing this latest movie.

I hope you enjoy it.

Family Portrait

We were able to get a family picture done this last December.

We are very excited about how it turned out.

Final CX RACE of the 2010 season

Although this was not my category, here is some footage of the highlights of the Masters 35+C, the juniors men 14-16 and the Clydesdale category held out at Butterfield park out in Herriman.

Cold that cuts through your clothes, 40 miles an hour wind and mud,..mmmmmmm, good times.