Not many more days in the Bay Area

We went to San Francisco today to have dinner with Reeves, Jasmine and Ella to celebrate John's birthday. Before we ate John took us to Mile Rock Beach so we could see it before leaving the Bay area. It was really nice. Only a few miles from his front door and right in the middle of San Francisco. Despite the closeness to the huge city it felt very remote and tranquil. Definitely glad we got the see the spot.

It is very sad to leave California and we will really miss days like this. At the same time we are also very excited to come back to Family and Friends in Colorado.

Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

I had the opportunity this week to go to Rio de Janeiro for work and had an incredible time.

My International Team at work - Left to Right

Marcelo - Brazilian Based in Rio

(Me)

Tom - South African Based in US

Antonio - Portuguese based in Rio

Antonio's family owns one of the best Rodizio Churrasceria grills in town. I ate more meat that day than any other week combined! Food is fantastic, people are so nice.

View of Christ from the top of Pao de Azucar - "Sugarloaf". Similar to our Statue of Liberty - this Christ was a gift from France.

The town is very active - tons of bikers, runners, soccer and volleyball on the beach.

(Rock climber at Pao de Azucar)

I stayed at Ipanema Beach. Mornings before work included waking up, deciding if I wanted to go for a morning run around the lagoon or at the beach, eating a fruit plate - and off to the office.

Morning Run at the Lagoon:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/263547

Morning Run at Ipanema Beach:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/263547

Then off to the office. Our office is the tallest building in the picture on the left - 42nd floor. Totally sweet views.

This is the view from our office - of Sugarloaf. This picture is literally taken from Marcelo's desk at work.
Alien landscape in all directions

(These little monkeys are very common. Very small - but intelligent faces!)

Amazing Race San Jose

Hello!

It has been far too long and the blog has seemed dormant! We have a really good posting to revive it!

Last weekend Julie and I participated in the San Jose "Amazing Race". It was a charity event inspired by the TV show and it was one of the most fun weekends I've had in a long time!

How did we get involved? Our good friends Jenn, Adrian, Jose and Perla knew the person who organized the event. Shauna did a kick-ass job putting this together. One day at a BBQ, Perla aske us if we were interested. Our competitive side shined through as we accepted the invitation. Next thing you know we were picking team t-shirts ("Patron" - imagine the inspiration behind that one!), picking a team name ("Perla's Playmates" - which was a triva team name Jose and Perla has used before). With that we were ready to rock!

Race Day:

We met for breakfast at Jenn at Adrian's house, the "Balzac Coffee Shop" to double check our list of race pre-requisites:

- Six fierce competitors
- 1 car to fit all
- GPS/Nav System
- Swim Suits (we didn't yet know why - just that they were required)
- Camera
- Spare Cash
- Rule and Regulations
- Lots of Attitude

From here we headed to downtown San Jose for the shotgun start.

(Perla, Jenn and Jose ready to head downtown)

From that point forward it was a seriously crazy day. I could write a book about it but I will start with the highlights:

- Burned at least 1000 calories on a city scavenger hunt. We scoured the city to find historical facts, boys traveling with 2 goats and our big time killer: the name of a stagecoach driver stamped in the concrete by the museum. We gathered these pieces of info for clues to our next location...

- Out of the way Ben Stiller - Our next location was a dodgeball tournament. We beat our team for an extra 50 points and we were all still in at the end of the game!

- Next location clue was a series of questions leading us to a crazy web url with our next location:

http://www.swingbatterbatterswing.i8.com/

We wasted so much time on this one! It was the bane of our existence that day!

- From there we were at the Flea market buying nopales in spanish, treading water in a pool with a 10 lb brick, dancing the irish jig and performing karaoke for tips, doing body shots and Irish Car Bombs, ordering lunch in swim suits, performing cartwheels, finding live lobsters, riding a scooter in a nacho libre mask and finighshing it all off with a great BBQ

It was a great time and I would love to do it next year. Here are the pics:

Racing the bartender with an Irish Car Bomb, then off to dance a jig for tips

Ladies doing kartwheels at the local firestation

Men doing kartwheels for the lovely customers at the Target Starbucks

The team on the fire truck

It was an All Star team - it was so much fun to play together for a day. We each had our own contribution to the team:

Baseball All Star: Adrian

Dodgeball Killer: Jose

Swim Champ: Joe

Persuader: Jenn (as in "Hi, you see, we're doing this race and we would like to stand in our swimsuits in your restaurant and order sandwiches", "Hi, yes we know we can't sing but we'd like you to give us tips to benefit the American Cancer Society in our race", "Hi, yes, you see, we're on a scavenger hunt and we need to take a picture holding a live lobster, yes, out of the tank.... Oh! Hi, you're his manager? I'm Jenn. You see, we are doing this charity race..." etc etc)

Team Stylist and Captain: Perla

Googler: Julie

(2nd Place Finish!)