Trade Talks Weren't Just Talk...

Chris Weber, the main stay of the King's, has been traded to Philadelphia. The Sixers also received swingman Matt Barnes and forward Michael Bradley.

The Sixer's sent forwards Kenny Thomas, Corliss Williamson and Brian Skinner to the Kings, who clearly are looking to reduce payroll. And by offing Webber and his $17.5 million a year salary they are off to a good start.

Now to see if the players acquired can fill the holes in both offence and defence. It seems as if the King's are attempting a mini-rebuilding of their team as the chemistry hasn't been there this season. I'm hoping this doesn't jepordize their chances at making the playoffs.

Tour de Georgia

The Tour de Georgia, America's most popular bicycle stage race in it's 3rd year, is shaping up to be a star studded event. Already, Lance Armstrong and his Discovery Channel team have announce they will defend last years victory accompanied by a host of top level European teams. Swiss team Phonak, Danish squad Team CSC, France's Credit Agricole and Spain's Saunier Duval/Prodir have all signed on for the 2005 edition of the race. Race spectators will have the opportunity to see many of Europe's top racers as well as the best America has to offer. Reno native, Bobby Julich, fresh off his bronze medal performance in Athens will be racing for the CSC team. Floyd Landis, previously with US Postal, will be riding with his new team, Phonak. As well, the Tour de Georgia's 2003 winner, Chris Horner, will line up with the Saunier Duval/Prodir team. The other American notable rider on a European team for the tour is Saul Rasin of Georgia, the Tour de Georgia's Best Young Rider of the 2003 edition.

Contending the race will also be a number of American Continental race squads. The officials for the race have not yet release the name of these teams but it's safe to assume many of the 15 American Continental teams will represented.

Here is the link to the Tour de Georgia website, so you too can follow the action!

King's In Trade Talks...

Well, all good things come to an end and change is inevitable. The NBA trade deadline is Thursday so it's coming down to the line for the King's to make some roster moves. The talk has been between the King's and Laker's where the King's would send Peja and BobbyJ to the Laker's while the King's would receive Lamar Odom. It seems like the King's would be giving too much in return for too little on this deal.

Another deal which could happen is Chris Weber going to NY but no mention as to what they would get for him. Either way, the King's chemistry isn't working right now and they need to do something. It's unfortunate, but all good things come to an end! We'll see come Thursday.

Update to the Investigation

Well, I received an email from Chris at CSA Marketing and his reply was short and sweet. Here it goes, so be sure you are sitting down....

"cant say".

In my reply back I pose the following questions...

Can't say because you don't know? Or it's against the rules to divulge such information?

Doubt that will get me anywhere. So, these people are just out to make a buck riding someone else's coat tails. At $4.95, they were the most expensive Livestrong wrist band resellers I could find. I did locate a number of Yahoo stores online who sell the bands from between $1.99 and $2.99. Either way, they are just around to rip off unknowing people. Very sad.

But wait, I finally realize the service they provide IS important. You see, at the Lance Armstrong Foundation website store the smallest amount of bands you can purchase is 10 for $10 and this rips off are saving you money, cause you really only need one and they are there to give you what you want for between $1.99 and $4.99. brilliant!

Investigation Time...

Just for fun as well as some minor interest in the truth, I've sent the following email to our fund raising friends at http://www.livestrongbracelets.net/

To whom it may concern,

You mention on your website:

Note: We are not the Lance Armstrong Foundation; we purchase the Livestrong bracelets from them and resell them at a higher price, just like how other hundreds of other people do. We however donate a portion of our profits to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, therefore not only the first $1 of the bracelet (the normal price of the bracelet because they were purchased from LAF) is donated to cancer research, but also donations of our profits which we commit every two weeks. This is also true for the breast cancer bracelets.

I'm wondering how much of the $3.95 you profit is donated toward these foundations? Is it a percentage of the profit?

Thanks,

Tony Rocha

I wonder if they might respond or if they are on vacation in the Bahamas enjoying the rewards of their new found income source?!

LiveStrong Sales Record Broken...

As you may already know, Lance Armstrong was featured on the Oprah show on Feb. 11th accompanied by Sheryl Crow. It was their first TV interview together. I was able to catch most of the show and it was pretty cool. There were a couple of part of the show I really liked. One of the best parts was about a women with breast cancer who had previously been in remission for 5 years only to be rediagnosed. It was her dream of meeting Lance and Oprah made that possible. It was very touching. As well, I enjoyed Sheryl's song at the end of the show about Lance. Other than that, the bulk of the information contained in the show was kind of old news except for one thing. Lance announced he would attempt another victory at this years Tour de France. You can tell he's not only hit the big time (which was obvious), but he is also working the press, even more so than in the past. Making such an announcement on the Oprah show is truely a sign of mixing his athletic stardom with big time marketing. It's got that Hollywood spin-like feel to it. Anyway, it worked, as do most of the things Lance does.

With Oprah's support and her vast legion of viewer, the Lance Armstrong Foundation was able to break the singe day sales record of the LiveStrong wrist bands. The previous record was 382,000 sold in a day. With Oprah's help, that record was smashed with the new record standing at more than 900,000. This brings the total number of wrist bands sold to 33 million, not bad considering they only figured on selling 5 million a little less than a year ago.

Of course, with any good thing comes hangers on and rip off artists. Click the Read More link to hear about that.

So, people are realizing the money in these little band and many foundations have jumped on board with their own renditions of the band. Susan G. Komen foundation has their own, as well as every other Tom, Dick, and Harry foundation. I supposed you can't blame them for realizing a good thing and implementing it for the benefit of their cause, but it's the groups who sell them at a profit who really burn me.

I found a large number of resellers of said wrist band attempting to pawn them for $4.95 with a disclaimer stating all the bands were purchased from WWW.LAF.org. So, it's cool they didn't totally rip off the public and LAF by selling fakes, but I question what they plan to do with the $3.95 of profit from each sale. One site mentions they regularly donate more money to LAF and Susan G. Komen but don't state how much. Making them seem even more shady, they attempt to benefit from the LiveStrong name by using it in their URL (http://www.livestrongbracelets.net/). NOT COOL in my book.

A simple search in Google for "research wristbands" resulted in 67,000 hits, amazingly not one link on the first page of results were for WWW.LAF.org. I did find, however, there are wrist bands for the March of Dimes, Lupis Research Institute, and even one for a child who will probably die within the week.

Anyway, enough on this rant. Support who you choose, but be aware of fake causes, people, and websites sell for their profit, not that of the foundations.

Bike Ride Foiled....

Upon waking up around 5 AM to the sound of rain, I realized the goal of riding in the Rice Valley Tandem Rally was kaput. Even as I'm typing this at 7 AM I could still drive out there and ride, but really, why should I do that to myself. The rain has subsided, mostly, but its still windy and a little cold. As well, it's supposed to rain again today, 80% chance. I've viewed the NASA interactive weather map and see that we should get dumped on in a matter of hours. It's one thing to ride in a strong wind, it's another to ride in the cold, and yet another to ride in the rain, but when you put all 3 of those together, you might as well stay home. So, rather than spend $35 to suffer, I'll wait until later in the day to ride and suffer around here instead, saving myself about $50 in the process. Not to worry though, another ride is scheduled for March 6th. Hopefully the weather will be better... as the rain begins to fall again.

Not to mention, I spend 2 hours washing and cleaning my bike yesterday.

Tour de California

Read the article here.

Well, things are looking good for there being a 9 day stage race in and across California. This would be very exciting as stage racing is not big in the US as compared to Europe. Next month, the organizers are supposed to announce the main sponsor for the race, which is rumored to be a large California company. They say the race will run 2 weeks with stages such as Sacramento-Tahoe, Napa to the Golden Gate Bridge area, and another would include the Yosemite Valley. There are also plans for stages in the Monterey area, Santa Barbara area and the Santa Monica Mountains in northern Los Angeles.

Social Security: To Change or Not To Change...

Thanks goes out to my parents for sending me the link on this one, please check it out at the bottom of this post!

So, the Social Security reform has been big in the news as of late. Bush feels that based on the information he has available, the current Social Security system will not provide for us beyond 2042.

I'm not in favor of the major overhaul Bush suggests. Nor do I agree with the projected numbers his people are using to make their case. I've heard too many contradictions to the numbers and most state in 2042 the system will only be able to pay at 70% of expectations. To me, that doesn't seem to be the end of the world as Bush makes it sound. But than again, you can make statistics say whatever you want and Bush is using this to his advantage to scare people into believing they or their kids won't be provided for. Anyway, yey for people who voted with their brain and not on non-existant morals.

I took a little time to play around with some numbers using the calculator. The amount you make doesn't seem to change the percent of $$ cut from what you would have received under the current system. It seems the real factor is your date of birth. Being born in 1970, my benefits would be cut by 23% and my brother's, born in 1972, cut by 25%. If you were born in 2005, you're pretty much screwed, you're bennies will be cut by a whopping 50%, ouch!

Click here to see if Bush's new Social Security Plan will work better for you than the current system. Please take this with a grain of salt as I notice the word DEMOCRATS in the link. Not that I'm a Bush supporter but just need to clairify the situation.

http://democrats.senate.gov/ss/calc.html#

Update to SS calculator

Well, I played around with the calculator a little more and found out some interesting stuff.

The DOB you input is not as important as how much income you state. So, if you input any DOB and begin with $1 income, you will notice a certain % cut compared to the current system. Then try $10 and next $100 until you get to $100,000. You will notice that the % of $$ cut will drop as you make more money, but I also noticed that they younger you are the more so this will effect you. So, it seems this is definitely going to benefit those who are more well to do. Test it yourself!

It's Official

It's official, Lance says he'll ride the 2005 Tour de France. I'm really surprised he announced it so early in the season, I'd figure he'd hold out as long as possible, leaving his competitors in the dark. It should be a great race!

Another Update on Blogger Mark Jen

Well, previously I post that I thought Mark Jen might be off the hook with Google after making remarks about their compensation package amongst other things. Anyway, I wasn't following it as closely as I could have and well, he was fired on January 28. Click here to go to Mark Jen's blog, it a decent read.

Mother Hips @ The G St. Pub in Davis

Mother Hips played this past Friday in Davis at the G St. Pub. The G St Pub was barely a decent place in terms of bars but it did give an "old school Mother Hips show" feeling kind of like La Salle's or Duffy's. The place was jam packed when we got there about 9:30-ish with a long line of people outside waiting a chance to buy a ticket. The stage was pretty small and in one corner of the venue. We were able to stand near the front before the Mother Hips started and eventually were able to sit at two chairs next to the door to the back stage door. That was nice because we could see the band members coming out and also get to chat with some of the band's friends who we know from other shows. When the came out, we were able to get up out of the chairs and be standing right up against the stage and in front of the main speaker stacks hanging from the ceiling. It was a nice way to save the ear drums but still we were getting blasted by the PA. Anyway, they came on about 11:15 and played until about 1:30. Check out the set list by clicking on the Read More link and you'll see how long it was. We had a great time, as usual, and the Mother Hips rocked out, as usual. Good thing as the only scheduled shows in the next month are in Salt Lake City, so it might be a little while until the next show.

Click the Read More link for the pictures.


set list


mother hips 1


mother hips 2


mother hips 3


mother hips 4 black & white


mother hips 5


mother hips 6


mother hips 7


crowd


mother hips 8


girl with mother hips tattoo 1


Karin and Mike


Mike and girl with mother hips tattoo

Paskenta SuperBowl Sunday Century

As I had stated in a previous post a few months ago, I was planning to ride a bunch of centuries this year, with the first one on Superbowl Sunday. I haven't been riding much since this hernia thing was giving me pain in December and part of January, but I did start getting some miles in about 3 weeks ago.

So, as I had planned, I showed up for the Paskenta Century about 8 AM only to realize the major portion of the riders had already left two minutes earlier. Not the way to start a long ride, off the back before it begins. So, I take off in persuit along with a few others who thought they were on time as well. After about 10 minutes we realized that we were no match for the group as they had some serious riders pulling most the weight. So, there were 3 of us together for the first 40 miles or so. I had only planned to ride from Chico to Corning and then loop back around as I'm not in great shape and had ridden 40 miles the day before. But, after chatting with the guys I had hooked up with decided to ride to next cut off point and decide there whether or not to ride the 100 or cut it to 80.

The guys I hooked up with had driven in from Browns Valley. They were brothers and one had flown out from Boulder Co. The other was a patent lawyer in Alameda, but lives part time up in Browns Valley. The nice thing was the lawyers wife was meeting us in Paskenta and bring lunch. It was at that point I figured I'd ride the whole way. I wasn't feeling all that great for the first 30 miles but figured I'd better get used to it. By mile 45 I was really starting to feel the tiredness, but given that we were out in the middle of no where I didn't have much of a choice but to keep pedaling. Lunch in Paskenta was a nice rest with PB&J's with watch and gatorade. It was really nice to get off the bike at that point since we had been riding 50 miles and had been in the saddle for about 3 hours. After lunch, it was up a little hill to where the 5 miles of gravel road begin. Gravel on a road bike is always interesting since the tires have very little if any tread. There were a couple of close calls with rear wheels sliding all over the road, especially on the down hill portions. But, we all made it though without any flats or crashes. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful other than the great scenery.

We never got close to catching the larger group, but thoughout the day picked off the slower riders who lost the pack. All in all, I had a great time. I'm planning to meet up with these guys again in 5 weeks for the Rice Valley Tandem Rally our of Gridley. Should be fun! BWT, 100 miles ended up being 112 miles and I now have an imprint of my seat on my butt!

Problems with Chico Fraternity Life?

So, years ago they banned alcohol from fraternity and sorority houses but the problems seem to be getting worse. This year, so far, has seen a Sigma Chi pledge go to the hospital with a BAC of .49 after being at a "dry" pledge event and now Chi Tau have killed one of their pledges dead by making him drink too much water. Sigma Chi will most likely get their charter yanked by their nationals, but Chi Tau isn't national, nor recognized by campus so nothing will happen to their organization, but I imagine who ever they find responsible will go to jail for manslaughter or worse. Read more...

Here is the link to the article for the water death

Here is the link to the alcohol incident

Anyways, I'm glad to report my fraternity is really good about not having any alcohol in or around the house, ever. Nor is forcing people to drink more than they should something we condone.

On that note, I'm not sure what is causing something that used to be an isolated incident to become a once a semester norm, if not more often. I don't think kids are drinking any greater amounts than when I was an active member, but once again, that's my fraternity. I'm not sure what they do at other houses. During the years I was active, I don't recall ever hearing about any alcohol related deaths or near deaths in regards to fraternity activities nor do I have any statistics but it seems to be something that is on the rise.

The last time I remember something like this happening was last year or maybe the year before. Pi Kap's (I believe that is the correct house) had one of their pledges died from drinking too much. That fraternity is no longer on campus and I think some of it's members went to jail. So, I imagine that is similar to what will happen to the organizations currently in trouble.

Either way, in my experience, there was never a point in time where someone could have said no and would have been left alone. But, that's my experience and I'm sure everyone else's is different. So remember, you make the decisions in your life!