happy birthday to me : ) 32 years young.. dang.. i'm getting old. celebrated a bit tooo much this weekend. definitely too old for that. gonna spend the day today with my girls. prolly hit up the botanical gardens or something. -out surFy

as they say.. it was s fight in a phone booth. keller alumni are proud today.. although they lost 10 - 17, it was a close game. trinity sure didn't play a sharp as they could/have.. had they brought their "a" game it wouldn't have been near as close. the best part.. the haka - a traditional māori dance. if you haven't seen it.. well.. it's inspiring to say the least. maybe impassioned better describes it.. whatever you want to call it, it will give you goose bumps. trinity haka how would you like to face that dude? man child fo sho.. walking into the stadium itself brought back some funny memories. the sound of the band.. all the songs were exactly the same. groups of kids huddling everywhere under the bleachers.. gossiping. i must have heard "where's the party tonight?" ten different times. at that point in your life you don't realize how easy life actually is.. want i wouldn't give to go back to the 11th grade for a week : ) my uncle rico moment. i snapped a few pictures with the iphone.. sorry for the poor quality. pre-game time haka coming out onto the field.. it was a great night. hanging with some great friends.. donman, tBick & his beautiful wife, lisa.. and watching some good ole southern football. thanks for taking me guys! -out surFy

fugg.. no sleep last night. not even six shots of espresso helped. rough day.. to add insult to injury.. friday is the day that i take the girls to their mother's day out programs. it's freaking total chaos in the am.. imagine, if you will, trying to get a terrible two ready for school when she has no desire to do so.. it's a complete ass whipping. but not only that.. it's a total process. when them up, turn on cartoons, fix breakfast, wash faces & hands, brush teeth, brush hair, dress, la de freaking da.. trust me, it's not easy.. but i'm not complaining : ) i've got to rally though.. donman, tBick, and i are going to hit up the trinity vs. keller game tonight. i graduated from keller (barely) and lena from trinity so it's a bit of a pride thing. trinity is gonna kick the crap out of 'em but i can't admit that to lena.. it'll add one more weapon to her, already superior, arsenal. and.. congrats to my former teammate and friend adam myerson.. finishing 2nd in a very close race for the usa criterium overall lead. andrewD also had a very respectable finish, in vegas, in 15th place.. nice job andrew. -ouT surFy

ahhh.. not that i rode much this year but it's nice to just be able to go home and not think about riding.. ya know, just kick back and relax. maybe drink a beer or two.. take the girls for a walk (not in that order) : ) actually.. i'll probably work a bit in the shop. i have to finish hanging some sheet rock and then paint.. hopefully i'll have it all finished this weekend. i also still have some work left on the cabinet that i've been refinishing for the past three months.. not much.. just some sanding and finishing. maybe it's time to cut back some on the projects.. now that i think about it.. i still have the kitchen floor & counter tops, cover the patio, build a princess bed.. with slide, etc.. damn.. i have a lot to do. better start.. wow. i almost forgot.. check this out.. forever etched in the memory of those who participated in the o2 jackrabbit stampede.. this dude is no mf'n joke! long live the p40.. -out surfMaster surf

why surfernick?? when i moved back from cali the second time the group of guys i hung around with already had a "nick". so in order to distinguish between the two of us mark wiggins came up with nick the surfer.. a.k.a. surfernick. but where did surfer come from?? easy.. i was a total surf bum living in a beach front condo with three friends in san diego. i lived the total surf lifestyle.. very, very simplistic. i worked at a surf shop and basically lived by the tides. it was beautiful.. without a doubt the best time of my early life.. weeks after i moved there my car was stolen from our cond parking lot. all i had for transportation was my vision psycho stick. i was a little bummed at first but pretty much everything that i needed was within one mile of the condo anyway so the skateboard turned out perfect. my daily routine.. up before daybreak, grab my board (6'4" al merrick), and head to my home break. i loved surfing so much that i didn't care of it was flat or double overhead.. i still charged.. every morning of every day. i'd typically also get an evening session in as long as i didn't have to work.. and i was completely broke.. and i do mean completely. all of my money went to rent, utilities, car payment, and insurance. i had something like $30 a month left over for food.. so my diet consisted of white rice, bread, sliced turkey, and cheese. one of my roommates was a cook at a small local restaurant so, on occasion, we'd sneak in after they closed and he'd hook us up with a feast fit for an army : ) even as i type this entry i have a huge smile on my face. it just brings back so many good memories.. so many thing i haven't thought about in years. it's hard to imagine that lifestyle now... i was just a kid then.. no responsibility and nothing to lose. that year taught me so much.. [tear] -out surFy

not much to report.. peeps (ella) and i planted some flowers in the shop window planter. she also found an old treasure map so we dug for treasure in the back yard. miraculously she unearthed a sram red component bag full of money. she was really excited at first but then started thinking really thinking about it. she didn't believe that pirates had sram red technology back then. maybe i'll bury a wooden box this weekend so it's a bit more believable. here's the flowers. and my new hardwood floors for the shop ; ) THANKS CHOPPER! bugs and i doin' work.. -out surFy

today was the day.. the day that every dad dreads. payback they say.. payback for all that i did when i was young. my parents always warned me that this day was coming.. but i never imagined in a million years that it would come sooooo soon. I took my little princess to target to do a little shopping. we thought we'd head down the school supply aisle to get a diary notebook or something.. and this is where it got hard. i hear her little voice yell "daddy" from the other side of the aisle. as i make my way over with the basket i realize that this isn't just any notebook, it a high school musical notebook with troy on the front of it. i just about fell to my knees and started crying.. but since we were in public, and i am surfernick, i remained composed and suggested some other notebooks. "how about the hello kitty notepad?" I asked. "no", i like troy.. he's cute. wtf.. he's cute?? you're 5! nobody should be "cute".. needless to say.. my life is going to be a living hell much sooner than i thought. my princess.. growing up toooo fast : ( not all was bad.. bret talked me into racing into the cotton patch crit today. i was a little bit reserved due to the fact that i haven't touched my bike since txtough but i decided to give it a try. surprisingly.. i felt pretty good. i wasn't able to much so i just tried to save all my bullets for one move. the goal was to try and get tyler up there for a cotton patch repeat.. mission accomplished. nice job tyler! also nice job to our former teammate and standout, andrew dahlheim, for his road race win on saturday.. it's good to see the young guys stepping up. other than that, it was a typical weekend.. working on the tdi and a little yard work - i definitely have the tightest looking rug on the block.. 602 tdi was a bit more of a trick.. i had an intercooler hose that kept blowing off and i couldn't figure out the cause. after a few beers and a little head scratching i found the cause to be a faulty made hose. two days and 200 mi's later.. all appears to be good. the fix 1.9 tdi.. notice the aveda hairspray. any product good enough for the surFnick's hair, is good enough for his ride. i mentioned earlier my horn project.. we'll here's what they look like. lots of engineering whet into the setup. my best mod to date. i'll devote an entire post, with sound, in the near furture. you can see one horn peeking out out of the lower right bumper grill full frontal.. the 8th wonder of the world. and, yes, it's very loud.. -out surFy

since mama has started working i'll actually have a little time in the mornings to blog : ) although.. working is WAY easier than watching to girls.. especially my 1.9 year old. she is hell on wheels! that girl gets into everything. if she's not suppose to do it, she does it twice. payback : ( contemplating what to get into next.. tristen and tyler are coming up for the cotton patch race this weekend.. actually they're racing the road race right now. they're staying at 602 tonight so we'll probably chill out and work on the tdi or rebuild the roof or something. i'm going to try and get a ride in sometime today.. i haven't ridden since the dallas crit. not cause i haven't wanted to.. it's quite the opposite.. it's cause we've all been sick. project 602 quarantine. hipp just returned from spain on vacation with x-laborer hoverHawk. check out his pictures here.. simply breathtaking. time to mow the lawn.. and drink a beer. ella and leo on the tricked out snapper. -out surFy

also.. from the dallas morning news. this is an article that bret and i did. i was a little misquoted.. i haven't quite raced in 23 countries.. but my travels have taken me to just about that : ) -out surFy

as always.. i'm running a bit behind. pretty much finished up the year with HHH and texas tough grand prix. didn't go as we would have like but it worked out pretty well. my boy tyler was off the front the ENTIRE day.. reminded me of the year that i went solo from the gun. i was in a bit better shape then.. tyler was able to stick it out only to jump a little early in the end.. finishing third - but first american : ). i'm proud of him.. he's come a long ways.. bazanna, helmig, and tyler. texas tough grand prix was off the hook! simply incredible. jumbotrons fired up, media everywhere, ghost bar afterwards.. what else do you need. from the "tron" - a special thanks to my boss, smitty, for the pictures and for making the trek out. bret (left) and i pictured from left.. max miley, tyler, bret, and i - i had to break out the longsleeve waiting for my fifteen minutes.. i still have eight left : ) me and my girls (bugs, peeps, and mama).. with my co-worker jim and his son, matty other than that.. it's pretty much the same old sheit. i've been doing all kind "stuff" around the house. including some updates : ) to the shop - new a/c unit, cable tv, x box, and a dvd player. i'll have some pictures of the madness up soon.. i'm re-sheet rocking it right now so it's a mess. a few new mods to the car.. including some oem hid lights : ) very pimp. also a few other lighting mods and a super secret horn mod. oem hid's.. w/ the super sick, amber driving led : ) here's my trunk lights. also.. for those who don't know, trinity high school (euless) is the #1 ranked high school football team in the nation right now. so not only do we have two starbucks and a yacht club.. we have something to cheer for every friday night.. you can find me here on friday evenings or mon, tues, wed, thurs, & sat days.. just kidding.. but seriously. -out surFy