Bang

Look out...

This was the site my sister saw when she walked out to her driveway on Mothers day morning...

Apparenty there were other cars that got hit that night in her subdivision as well. Just goes to show you that it doesn't matter where you live. btw, she lives in a nice sub in Novi.

As the economy gets more and more sour the percentage of these occurances will unfortunately get higher. Make sure you take steps to avoid this from happening. Here's a couple suggestions, post a sign like these up...

My personal favorite...

PACMAN!!!!

I'll let the images below speak for themselves....

I felt bad for Hatton's wife...



Next....PBF bring it on!

Hmmm...

No time to write anything....but a lot to say. Check back later.

This is a recording....beeeeep.

WAR PACQUIAO!!!!!

"For God and Country"

That's the motto that rings all through the Phillipines and now the world.

Manny Pacquiao defeats Oscar Delahoya in this years Dream Match in Las Vegas this past weekend.

The “Golden Boy” got his ass handed to him for 8 straight rounds!!! The referee had to stop the fight and Dela-hoya quit on his stool.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Oscar very much. I think he’s the face of boxing. What I didn’t care for was everyone from experts to analysts counting Manny out even before the fight. No one gave Manny a chance. Well, now the whole world knows the real truth. He put away any doubts in peoples mind that night that he is the Pound for pound best fighter in the world. He deserves the respect of everyone in my opinion.

BBC…
“The Filipino gave his bigger, more famous opponent such a beating that De la Hoya declined to come out of his corner after the eighth round.”

So until next spring I'll anxiously wait till the next fight with the current light-Welterweight belt holder Ricky Hatton.

Speed kills!

Honestly, I think this combination was the best part of the night. Beautifully executed. Manny is sooo damn fast that I think he did this combo in less than 2 seconds!

I think this may have been in Round 8...had it not been for the ropes holding Delahoya up, he would've been knocked down...

Quiting on the stool after round 8....

My hats off to Delahoya. He's done a lot for the sport but it's time for him to retire and to spend his Millions.

THE PAC-MAN!

Failure is NOT an option!

Show your support.
Post a shoutout for Manny.

2009 Season

Well, here we go...we are finalizing our 2009 sponsorships for next season and it looks very promising.

The problem now is we need to step it up big time!
oh oh, time to get in the gym!

More to come....

The War...

Yup, it's that time of the year to battle it out with the dreaded LEAVES!

The Enemy...

The Battle Grounds...

The weapons, RedMax EB7001 & a TORO 5 speed Workhorse...

The Soldiers...Daddy with his soldiers...

The battle...

The aftermath....Zero bags, fully mulched.

Trees - 0

Daddy - 1 (for now, lol)

Summer 08'

Another summer gone.... I'm sad.

New kid on the block...

My daughter the other day looked at my Honda sitting there and was both happy and sad because of the new kid on the block. She commented on how the Honda Civic "took care of us".

I agreed with her that we have a lot of memories with that car...multiple camping trips up north, many trips to the upper Peninsula, many road trips to Chicago to visit Arlenes brother Rudy. Not to mention tons of bike races I've been to. The list goes on and on.

I'll miss the old girl. I assured her that with the new truck will come new adventures and tons more memories will be made. She was content....for now. :-)

It's official....

http://funpromotions.com/2008_endurance_points_full.htm

Once again we're the 2008 Endurance Series Title Champs!

What a year it was. When I get some time I'll do more of a summation of what transpired throughout the year. More of a "what in the world was I thinking about when I decided to do these endurance races.." kinda of a writeup. Keep an eye out for it.

I have one more race to do as of right now. It's the Boyne Downhill Chamipionship race in October. I look forward to this race because Arlene and the girls come out to watch me abuse myself...lol.

Welcome our newest member of the family...

That's right, after almost about 2 years actively looking on and off that I've finally found the truck I've been looking for.

First off a check list of my wants...

**These were the must haves:
- Had to be a first generation 4Runner (85-89)
- Had to be rust free
- Had to have AC (or else Arlene would never ride in it on hot summer days)
- Had to have clean interior
- Had to have full documented maintenance records
- Oh yeah, couldn't smell like a horses you-know-what on the inside

**These were the not so critical must haves:
- Wanted the 22RE motor
- Wanted to have the center gauge cluster with Altimeter and Inclinometer
- Wanted decent size tires
- Wanted power windows and locks
- Wanted a darker color (Just not black again)
- Wanted a solid front axle

Everything else extra that it came with was just gravy in my eyes.
Well I finally found one that was originally from Florida. Literally no rust on this truck. These trucks are very very hard to find in this type of condition. It was owned by some guy in the military who's stationed down at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He resides in Florida, which is where it was titled.

Arlene and I flew down there last Saturday and drove her all the way back home from Fayetteville North Carolina. 13 1/2 hours later it's sitting in my driveway. Enough talk, let's see some pictures...

That's right, it's a 1988 4Runner! 20 years old and it looks better than most cars and trucks on the road today...at least in my opinion.

It's got a great stance to it with Mickey Thompson 31X10.5-15's!

Clean interior...

Yup, that's a Safariland Snorkel...on days I feel like driving through a lake. :-)

I just installed the diamond plating on the doors...kinda cool huh. Gives it that industrial feel.


Last but not least, one of my angels in the back window. My girls love the new truck and can't wait to take the top off and go offroad in it!

Without boring you with all the details, this truck had tons of extras done to it by the previous owner. He had put a lot of work and money into it but finally decided to go a different route with something else (oh lucky me). There's still a ton of plans I have for it and it's a great platform to start with. I think this new addition to the family will be with us for a long time. Can't wait to get it stuck in the mud for the first time! LOL.

Could I have found it finally?

After many many months, or dare I say years of searching have I found the one?? Wait for it, wait for it....

Doing the Solo thing....

Since our team is sitting in first place overall for the Michigan Endurance Series we decided to all race the Pando event solo. We figured this race was going to be done as a "fun" event...no pressure. Yeah right.

Well, I was excited because I was able to bring Arlene and the girls out for this one. Being that the race venue is only a couple hour drive from our house I felt it was the perfect race for them to come out and see daddy punish himself, lol.

As we rolled up to the Pando Ski area I was vaugely reminded of last years race. As I started to actually race I was then clearly reminded why I hated doing this race in the first place. For the most part it's a pretty unassuming course. 4.3 miles per lap and a lot of that is actually climbing. It basically equals that of the Boyne course elevation (which I also hate).

But we move on and do what we need to do to win/finish the race. At the end of the day I feel the whole team did a great job in each of the respected classes. I ended up taking a 3rd place with 14 laps. So I did roughly 55-60 miles in 6 hours. I know I could've done better but I always seem to get that dreaded cramping right around the 45-50 mile mark. This is something I need to address and work on somehow. Not sure how but I need to adjust something either in my fluid/food intake or riding style. hmmm.

I should have pictures up soon...

24 hr Nationals!

Well we did it. The team went to Wausau, Wisconsin for the 24 hr. Nationals on August 2nd.

We raced in the national class and had a respectable finish in 5th place.

The event was very well run. Everything was layed out very well from the camp/Pit sites, the facilities (the showers were a blessing!), to the overall sign in process. Only a slight hiccup in the sign in's because we all had to renew our Norba licences, but not a huge deal.

The course was top notch. Roughly 14.2-14.5 miles per lap with about 1200 ft of climbing per lap. It had everything from fire roads, single track, to downhill sections. The only thing it didn't have was a stream crossing, lol.

This is an awesome race to say the least. It is seriously like a race and a festival all in one. There were spectators cheering people on from 10 am until 6:30 the next morning. I remember one of my last laps...it was 6:15 am in the morning. I had gone out at roughly 5am for one of my night laps and as I was climbing this one section of the course and there was a group of spectators sitting on the hill cheering me on while they were drinking a case of beer....yes 6:am in the morning! Drunk and still drinking and cheering people on. Ohh how I wished I was them at that moment. I was in some pain because at that point we had been racing for about 20 hrs now.

Some things I saw at the aid stations -- cases of beer, a tiki bar, a mobile DJ, a dancing man dressed as a beer bottle, a real live keg of beer, lots of Christmas lights, a jump (which I launched on every lap except my last lap, just wayy to tired at that point), a man with a battle axe, and lots and lots of screaming spectators (who cheered for anyone). There also was a self-serve Twinkie station perched on a card table complete with hard boiled eggs and Schlitz beer way out in the middle of the woods.

The weather was great...if you consider 90+ degrees during the day and damn near freezing temps at night, lol. You could seriously see your breath at night it got that cold.

Kuddos to Kevin who promotes an awesome race. Not to mention Laird Knight who managed the timing system. That was cool.

Despite the pain and suffering I endured as I rode lap after lap, I would go back and do this race again. I say that now but.... :-)

The start of the race was a Le mans style start. It consisted of a 1/4 foot race to you bikes. The start of the pain...

Finishing off a lap...

This was our pit/camping site....

This tent was what we referred to as "The Soul Cycles hotel"...LOL. It was huge. Enough to fit all our gear and 4 sleeping cots.

Getting the lights ready...

It wasn't an Olympic Gold medal but we worked our tails off for it!

12 hrs of single track!

The team was back in action again this weekend with the latest stop in the Michigan Endurance Series at the 12 hours of Ithaca.

Continuing with the winning ways, MTB-Life won the 12 hr open class setting a new COURSE RECORD with 33 laps, which added to about 170 miles of single track fun (well at least for some people). It was a great race with all of us finding our form and riding consistent laps (within a minute of each other) for the entire 12 hrs.

There was a news reporter there doing a story about the event and they said just 2 miles down the road it had been raining extremely hard. Fortunately the rain held off missed us completely and we were able to make great lap times throughout the day.

During the night laps we all encountered some type of wildlife...raccoons, possums, skunks. But not as bad as one guy who during his night lap actually ran into a deer! Both rider and deer were fine.

Our next race takes us to the 24 Hour Nationals in Wisconsin on August 2nd. This will definitely be a true test of our speed, endurance and our willingness to not go crazy! I'm tired just writing about it. Need to sleep now.

This is Justins dog, Endura....what a loveable dog!