Monopoly - it's not just a corporate conglomerate

My family likes to play games. Board games to be specific. We always have. My wife and I have played cards since we started dating - rummy or gin usually. And as our boys came of game-playing age we got them started with the basics...Candyland and Chutes & Latters and Uno. Then we graduated to Life, Battleship and Monopoly Jr. And they've grown to love it.

Jacob & Nic at Starbucks

As it turns out - we rarely play at home. We keep our games in the back of the family car and the games are usually played at Starbucks. It's such a regular occasion that when we walk in we're greeted with "Monopoly tonight?" .


We still mix the games up - but our family favorite is the classic Monopoly. Even my 7-year old has been playing since he was 5. We all have our favorite game pieces and some (Jacob) even have custom pieces - like a LEGO man.


Of course our boys could make change for a hundred since they were toddlers - and we credit the board games with that. But they learn a lot of other values from playing. Patience, teamwork, a bit of business sense - but mostly they learn about family. This is our time - game time. Family time - sitting, sipping a hot chocolate or mocha and spending an hour or two together playing a game.

Thanksgiving Day Bicycle Ride

Like I don't have enough to be thankful for... I got to go for a great bike ride this morning with my friend Josh and his girlfriend Lilian. We met a group of 40 or so from Swami's Bicycle Team for a 40 miler up through Camp Pendelton to San Clemente and back. It was a leisurely pace for us of around 15-16 mph. A bit slower than I'm used to going, but it is Thanksgiving Day and wasn't supposed to be a hammer session. I seem to have a hard time not going hard all the time, so this was probably a good thing for me.

I'll warn you first - this is a 30-second video shot with my cellphone, while riding - so the quality is exactly what you'd expect...pretty bad! But I wanted to try it and add it to my blog.

Anyway - I do have so much to be thankful for - and I am! I don't think I'll list them all here, but a short list would include God, family, friends, health, freedom and independence. Thank you everyone for your part in all of this!

Happy Holidays!

Here's a picture of Josh and Lily on the ride.

Sunday night

Sunday night... it was a long day. I got up at 5am to go the the Swap Meet to try and sell some of the things filling my garage. Our house is on the market and I'm trying to get lean...as far as clutter that is. In general, I'm the anti-packrat. I throw stuff away almost too quickly and then wish I'd kept it. But, I still manage to collect enough stuff overtime to fill my Trooper from front to back floor to ceiling.

Anyway, after a 6-hour stint at the lovely Oceanside Swap Meet, I was $500 the wealthier and 24 boxes of stuff lighter! WhooHooo

I grabbed some Chipotle for lunch and headed over the the Boy Scout Space Derby event. This is a fun tradition held anually by my youngest son's Scout Pack. They're balsa wood rockets that fly down a fishing line race track propelled by ....rubber band powered propellers.


My son, being the knucklehead he is, decided he intentionally didn't want to make it aerodynamic. He wanted it completely square, like block of wood it is when you get it out of the box. He also insisted we not paint it, or finish off nicely. He wanted to win the "Procrastinator" award (which is a real category), even though he planned well ahead to not finish the darn thing.

Amazingly he finished 4th overall out of some 60 rockets - beating many of the wafe like aero shaped rockets that obviously hours were spent on. It almost irritated people and only made our family chuckle. We spent literally 5 minutes on the entire project and he flew through 5 rounds with only 1 loss on the track before his final round for third place - which he lost. Anyway, it was fun.

I then hurried home for an online conference I was hosting for AuctionSelling101.com - our eBay education website. We coveed eBay stores today, where I instructed the attending students on how search is different for eBay stores than it is for fixed price and auction format listings.

Then we spent another hour where I literally opened up a store, and built it before them online in the conference room where I can share my desktop while talking to them in my headphones. Very cool stuff.

We had some dinner, and went over to Starbucks for an hour or so to play some Monopoly with the family. Then hit the grocery store and then home for the night.

Turns out we had a stellar day on eBay with the bicycle clothing! We sold 5 of our new cycling jackets and vests, several pairs of arm and leg warmers, toe covers and shoe covers and several pairs of shorts. Gross sales of over $350 for the day in just my bicycle clothing. Very good news!

We have an order already in that should be arriving in another week, and I have an order put together to submit next week. I sent out an email to my 400 plus past customers of cyling products directing them to my eBay store letting them know we had full inventory and lots of new items in stock. I guess it worked! :o)

Pop Warner Football

It's funny...I couldn't wait for this day, and now it's come and gone and I'm kind of sad. The day...well, the last day of Pop Warner Football of course!

I have two younger boys playing ball this year. It's the first year for both of them. My youngest has been bugging us for years to play. He's 7 and this is the first year he's allowed to play. He asked Santa for pads last year - a year before he could play on a team. So of course Santa brought both he and his 11 year old brother full football pads/helmets...the works.

They spent hours out in the yard tackling each other. I have to be honest - I loved it. I played football as a kid and hockey as I got older. I like contact sports. I'm one of those guys that likes the physical hitting. The crack of pads against each other. I know...sick right? :o)

Anyway, my younger son Jacob is around 40lbs lighter than his brother Dylan. But he would hit him hard - drilling him. He'd bring him down hard and delight in it. We couldn't wait until the season started to see him in his 'element'.

Dylan however is more of a technical type kid. A math wiz, a thinker...not so much of a physical type kid - though an excellent athlete. Dylan runs distance with ease and is great at Baseball. We just weren't sure how he'd hold up under the pressure of coaching and the physical punishment dolled out on the field. It turned out because he is fairly light weight for his age - that he played down a division in what they call "older-but-lighter".

Imagine our surprise when Jacob came home from practice saying it was "ok" not great. Saying he didn't want to play next year and showed general disinterest in playing. We watched practices from a distance - nothing going on at practice (like poor coaching or bullying). He is small for his age and was the second smallest on his team. At 7, he was also the youngest on his team with most of the boys being 8 or 9 years old. But we still thought he' revel in the sport. He just didn't.

He played his minimum required 10 plays a game, sometimes more. He was a wide receiver and they call that a 'skill' position, but really at this level it's a blocking position for sweeping runs, as the quarterbacks are usually too young and weak to pass the ball effectively, certainly not to a wide-out.

It was such a surprise to us, and to Jacob. He can't wait for Baseball to start and he's actually practicing with his tournament team once a week. He loves baseball and has played for several years at the All-Star level. I think he thought he'd be an All-Star at football, and when he wasn't it really took the wind out of his sails. We tried to encourage him, but the lesson in humility was a great lesson for this cocky young man. I think he'll play football again, even if it's not next season. He is an incredibly gifted athlete, and as he gets older we'll delight in seeing him put those skills to use in different arenas.

Ok, that's Jacob's story - but the real story here... the shocker, is Dylan. Dylan was immediately seen as one of the quicker boys on his team. He was the starting tight-end immediately and they used him often as an outlet for the QB. He LOVED playing tight-end. He loved practicing. He came home telling of the big 'hit' he delivered in practice or even the licking he took now and then. We were so happily surprised at his joy.

But wait - it gets better. It turns out, probably the best athlete on his team was the quarterback. And having at QB really limited his ability to run the ball - at least at this level. So they went to the next best they had - Dylan. After practicing for nearly 6 weeks at one position they switched him from tight-end to starting quarterback. He was absolutely dilerious with pride and joy! It was fun to watch him.

He did have some serious growing pains in his new position. Remeber, this was his first season ever playing football, and certainly had no practice at quarterback. But he's a smart kid, a good leader, and works hard. He had some rough weeks, dropping snap after snap. Pitching the ball back to non-existant running backs because he mis-called a play. But it got better, and better and soon things started to click.

The team didn't have a winning season overall, but for Dylan it was stellar. He started throwing completions, running the ball himself for 1st downs, and making good calls and plays with the old QB who was now his primary running back.

As the season wore on, attrition took its toll on the team and what was a lean team in terms of numbers dwindled. They found themselves short on players and soon Dylan was playing both ways - as starting QB and on defense as a safety or linebacker. He was leading his team, had worked through adversity and it shows in the way he carries himself. He talks "team" and "we", not me and I.

This is why kids play sports (in my opinion). They learn, grow, get stronger and smarter and learn about life while they have a ton of fun. Football...I love it - can you tell?

That's a happy kid!

Adventure Racing

So some of that weight loss I wrote about in my last post came from an extensive amount of exercise. Over the past 20 years I've raced bicycles, played semi-pro paintball, done triathlons, raced inline skates for RollerBlade around the country, swam, ran and rode all kinds of things. But this past year, after losing the bulk of my weight, I started doing more triathlons.

I completed 6 or 7 triathlons this season - mostly sprint distance and a few international distance. These races typically start with a swim of up to 1000 meters, followed immediately by a bicycle ride of up to 25 miles, followed by a run of up to 10k (6.2 miles). Some have different formats or distances, but that's the typicaly scenario.

I also competed in several swimming events including a 5k open water swim...that's a 3.1 mile Ocean swim for you metrically challenged folks. :o)

Well after having done the triathlons, bicycle racing, swimming...everything else I was of course looking for the 'next thing' - the evolution of my sports.

Let me shift gears a bit and come back to this. About a year ago - or more, I started planning a move for my family. We're moving to Big Bear, California. It's a small mountain town of around 5,000 people (at the most), East of San Bernardio/Los Angeles, California. It's gorgeous up there at almost 7,000 feet. We spend nearly all our vacation time there hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding and kayaking and boating on Big Bear Lake. Nic and I work at home full-time and we can do our work anywhere...so why not Big Bear? Oh yes, I almost forgt to tell you... I can buy a house for around 200,000 dollars less than where I live now! Anyway, with the mountain aspects coming into play I thought Adventure Racing was the natural progression for me...

Ok, back to the 'evolution of my sports'. Along the way I heard about Adventure Racing. It's a triathlon "plus" if you will. Like a triathon the distances and disciplines vary, but essentially here's what they're about. You will Run/Trek/Hike, Swim/Paddle, Bike/Mountain Bike, Climb/Rappel, as well as normally do some other tasks requiring teamwork or using your brain - like a mental type puzzle or riddle - oh yeh, and you do all this while navigating using a compass, topographic map and coordinates - no GPS. You can do them solo, but typically you're on a team of 2-4 people. They're a team event with everyone having to stay within 100 yards of one another at all times. They last anywhere from 6 hours to 6 days...yes nearly a week!

Well I got my first taste this summer with an Urban Adventure Race in San Diego. My buddy Josh and I finished 2nd place overall. This was essentially just a bike race with some fun events thrown in the middle. At approximately 5 mile intervals we had to walk on stilts, ride a big wheel through an obstacle course, jump on a giant hippity-hop, do a bean-bag toss, and do a wheel barrow race with a teammate in the wheelbarrow. It was fun and got me thinking about a 'real' adventure race doing the things I like and excel at - Mtn. Biking, trail running, kayaking...

I got my first chance last month in the Lake Hodges Adventure Race. It was billed as a 12-hour

race. Here's what the race entailed: First we kayaked 1.5 miles across the lake and back to retrieve a small foam ball (again - the checkpoints are not given - just the coordinates and you have to navigate using a map/compass to find them). Upon returning you carry the small foam ball on a golf tee around a short course without it falling off. Seems easy enough unless you just kayaked for 1/2 hour and your arms are shaking and you're out of breath. My two teammates Louis and Cory and I all did fine and soon we were off to cover around 20 miles of terrain on our Mtn. Bikes. We used the coordinates of checkpoints and a map to follow trails to the 6 checkpoints we needed. The checkpoints took us to the top of the tallest hill in the area - no small feat on the bikes and negotiating the course with the other 75 competitors. Cory got a flat on the way back, but that only set us back about 3-4 minutes.

At this point we were instructed to build a small waterfall out of pvc tubing - 20 pieces max that had been provided. There was a funnel at one end and a bucket at the other. Our goal - fill the bucket with 3 dixie cups with water from the lake 50 yards away. So for 10 minutes we ran to the lake, and back with our 6 oz. of water - pouring them in the funnel, having it run down our version of the waterfall we constructed and into the bucket. When the bucket overflowed we got our next set of 3 checkpoints to navigate. They were on the water...

Back in the 'yaks for another 5 miles of kayaking. By the end of this leg of the race my arms were ready to fall off! But we made good time and passed several teams on the water. This leg was nearly 2 hours on the water...

Along the way you have to remember to eat and drink or you'll simply run out of gas in a 12 hour race of non-stop exertion. We all did well at this with an alarm we set to chime every hour to remind us to eat drink.

When we got out of the boats we got our next 5 checkpoints to navigate. They had to be done on foot. Trail running/hiking only. According to the map it would be around 6-8 miles of ground to cover. And off we went. We found the first two checkpoints right away. The next two proved to be challenging as they were each at the very top of two large peaks of at least 1000 feet of climbing each...ouch! Eventually we found them and hit the last checkpoint on the way back to the Start/Finish line.

What a great feeling it was to be jogging down that last bit of trail and see the finish. I was seriously pooped out. It took us 7 hours to complete the entire course and we finished 1st place for the "Masters" group - which means our teams averag age was over 40. :o) We finished 2nd for 3-4 person teams and 6th overall. Not bad at all.

This truly was an adventure, and I can't wait for my next AR!

A Landmark Day

Ok, it's not really a 'landmark day' but it's a change. For the past two years this Blog has been about eBay and Internet Marketing - hence it's old name... eBay Jay. But I've found I really wanted to write and share more and so I've decided to make it my 'catch all' Blog. You may learn more than you wanted to know about me, but you're taking your chances reading my Blog anyway.

So - Bubba Jay it is from here on out.

Ok, let's get started with the details...lol. Guess who these folks are?

Wow, that's right - it's

Nicole and I... 180lbs ago. Yup - I lost 105lbs and Nic lost 75lbs over the course of the last year and a half. Actually we lost it all in a year, but have maintained that weight for another 6

months now. Here's an after shot from a few months ago.

I actually wrote a short 'story' about our weight loss and entered it into a contest that Weight Watchers had... for most Inspirational Story. And we won first place in our region, out of a few thousand in the US. A local news channel from NBC came out to interview us and were were on the news.

It was kind of fun. Here's a link to the NBC website and you can check out the short 1 minute video.

http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=160971

Ok, enough fat talk. I'll be back soon with more. Or as my Weight Watchers meeting leader Melanie says "we'll see less of you next time".