Well its over

Alas it is the end of my sabbatical. 2 months off of work. In less than 12 hours I will be returning to work. Since I returned from the road trip with Lauren we spent the majority of our time laying down the wood laminate flooring and painting. Almost done with the house. Just have to finish a few rows in the living room and then the kitchen. Besides that I went to jits a bunch and finished off with a trip to prarie city with John and Soroush and finally tonight I enjoyed a beer while watching "funny people."

So here is the sabbatical recap...

Layed lots of laminate flooring
Went dirt biking twice
Visited ireland - Jameson and Guinness factories.
Visited Spain - Madrid, Zaragosa, Barcelona. Ran with the bulls and survived.
Visited France - lots of little towns. Watched 6 stages of TDF.
Visited Andorra - yeah, Andorra. saw some TDF there
US road trip - Bryce, Zion, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Arches, Hoover Dam, Vegas, Salt Lake, Denver,Grand Canyon, Dead Horse Canyon, mountain biked Moab in the rain. New Belgium brewery tour, Coors brewery tour, stopped by Snake River and Moab breweries.
Saw the parents for a few days in sacramento and then took then to tahoe and ruths chris.

All in all I cannot complain one bit. Perhaps the best 2 months of my life in many many years. I am so grateful to have had that opportunity. I can't believe 2 montsh is over and that I have been at Intel for 7 years. What a crazy ride. Thanks to my parents for coming out and watching George, Lisa for letting Jeff go to Europe, Jeff for planning and going to Europe, Lauren for planning a great US road trip, and of course George for dealing with the home construction and me being gone.

Ok, time for me to go to bed, gotta get up early and go to work after all. Only 6 years and 9 months til the next instalment of tour de sabbatical.

Road trip time

Off on a road trip with Lauren for the next couple weeks. Check
Laurens roadtrip blog at http://laurenkeithandtheyellowcar.blogspot.com

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HOME!

Made it home. Its been a couple of days now since we have returned. Overall it was probably the trip of a lifetime. I will be posting pictures to my flickr account shortly, stay tuned!

Returning home

Leaving the airport hotel now. On the way from Dublin to the us. Can't
wait to get back home. Tonight I sleep in my own bed

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Madrid

Spent today driving to Madrid and then we went to the palace and
cathederal almudena. We also saw a pretty impressive cathedral in
Zaragoza. Ate Spanish fast food , not impressed. Hung out in the room
resting. Tonight well get some dinner and hit a pub. Tomorrow the
prado and the reina Sofia(guernica is there) and then fly to Dublin
for the night. This picture doesn't show it but jeff has a sweet sock
tan, ask Jim to see it.

Tdf done

The tdf is officially over for us. We finished off by watching the
tour malet. It was amazing. We were right on the road and literaly
lance and the pelleton road a foot away from us up one of the final
switchbacks. Besides that we met a guy who road his motorcycle from
Germany and we camped with him for a few days. Both jeff and I have
been getting killed with allergies. We decided to get a hotel tonight
on our way o Madrid. First shower and level bed to sleep on in 4
nights. Well check out the cathederal in Zaragoza and then we will hit
madrid for a few dAys. Oh yeah Lisa saw us on the versus tdf coverage
so look for us. On the climb to the summit waving us flag and gator
flag.

Col de tour Malet

The summit.

Tour malet

We made it out of andorra. We watched from about 4k from the top. We
were right there and cheered the peleoton on as they climbed. Watching
it on tv and being here are totally different. I can't believe these
guys can even make it up these mountains they are crazy long and
steep. We camped next to some Aussies and. German who rode his
motorcycle there. Andorra was beautiful. We spent about two hours
waiting to get on the road. Then we drove 6 hours through the night to
the tour malet. And here we are. The picture below is from where we
are camping. Ok time to get some beer since we have a whole day with
nothing to do.

Look for us today at the feed stage. Ilini flag and gator flag. Camping in andora. Stage looks wicked

Perpignan

Yesterday we went to sagrada familia and today we went to the
cathedral of Barcelona. Then we drove to Perpignan in France and saw
the end of the stage. Pretty awesome. It was amazing to see it in
person even though they flew buy us we followed it up by watching the
jersey ceremony . Next We went Shopping and got a cable to listen to
the iPhone in the car instead of Spanish music. We also bought a
cooler and food. Now we are trying to find a place to sleep. Wish us
luck.

No estamos muerte

We made it. We ran with the bulls and survived. We actually werewithin
feet of the bulls. I saw one run right by me and then we dove under
the fences. Jeff actually helped pull a guy out fom under the fence
saving him from getting trampled. We made it into the bull ring and
were there for the amateur bull fighting action where the bull has his
horns taped. It was awesome and totally intense. Seriously the
scariest part was waiting for so long in the town square and then all
the false alarms for the bulls coming. What a rush and I never need to
do that again. Off to Barcelona.

--
"This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it.
Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I'm on.
What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my butt six hours a day. What are
YOU on?" --Lance Armstrong

High school Spanish kinda works

Yeah high school spanish works or at least I knew enough of it so far.
Thanks ms mungai. We survived the opening ceremony and wow. Was not
prepaired for that. A sea of humanity has a new meaning. Tomorrow we
run with the bulls.

Bienvienido Barcelona

We made it to Spain. Still on the road driving to Pamplona. Dinner
tonight has been Tex Mex doritos and snickers bars. Gps is working
pretty well( thanks mike). Still an hour away from camp ground. Car is
good4 door with ac. Lauren I posted a non beverage pic just for you!

Off to London

Off to London and then on to Spain. Long day ahead of us. 2 flights
and 4 hours of driving. Coffee is key. Met some us soldiers at the
bars last night. Temple bar was great. Only a micro hangover today

Beer has food valuebutfood doesn't have beer value

Went to Jameson and guinness plants. Had a few pints and got to taste
wiskey. Good times. Tired as hell. Tomorrow London to Spain. Camping
in Pamplona. Off to the pubs for dinner. Go lance!

Ok I lied

Two tall boys instead of one :)

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And we are off

Beer number one! Chugging a beer before the flight. Talk to u in Ireland

Depature Eve

Had a great week so far. Got to jits 2x and had fun. Got the garden sprinklers hooked up. Cleaned up a heap of vomit at 3am on saturday, but thats a story for another day. Played a bunch of xbox, had some great meals with lauren, george and I spent some quality time together. And now onto the big stuff.....

Well I have most everything packed. Lauren has done a great job in letting me know what I should pack from her experience. Jeff and I will meet up tomorrow morning at 9:30ish and split up the tent and cooking gear between our packs.

Put californication and the hammer on the iphone.

Getting nervous for sure. But excited at the same time. I think the best way to some up my feelings right now is to quote Owen Wilson:

"I'm, like, 98% excited, and maybe 2% scared. Or maybe it's backwards. Maybe I'm 98% scared, and, like, 2% excited. But that's what makes it so great... I'm so confused!"

Bet you didn't see that coming.

Getting George already to hang out with Lauren for the next couple weeks as well.

I plan on posting alot more now that we are getting the show on the road. Starting tomorrow, as much as possible I will post. Probably won't be checking emails too often, but I will do my best. I will have the phone on in europe and have some calling and data plans that we plan to use only at a minimum (but I expect jeff to make at least 1 ten minute call home a day, whats the over under on that?).

Here is the pseudo official plan:

July
3rd leave sfo
4th land in dublin
5th fly to london then to barcelona drive to pamplona and camp
6th camp pamplona
7th run with the bulls, drive back to barcelona
8th peripgnan
9th andora camping probably
10th possibly camp in andora
11th possibly saint gironas france, but we might skip this all together
12th tourmalet, may stay here or book it to spain depending on when we can get off the mountain.
13th madrid hotel
14th 8pm fly to dublin and stay at dublin airport hotel
15th 9:50 am leave dublin for us

I think alot of that is up in the air, but we shall see. Ok, time to finish packing, more tomorrow.

Great party last night

Great party last night! Thanks to everyone who showed up. Only 4 days to go until Europe. Scary and exciting.

--
"This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my butt six hours a day. What are YOU on?" --Lance Armstrong

It's here

800 sq ft of flooring has arrived. Time to get to work.

Tdf dry run

> See that guy in yellow and black? Yeah that's lance Armstrong. He
> race in the Nevada city crit this weekend. Guess who won? Amazing he
> broke away with 20 minutes left in the race, no one could touch him.
> Learned a few things to prepair for tdf. 1 mutliple frame capture is
> key. 2 be prepaired to high five lance when he's right in front of
> you. More pics posting tomorrow.
>

Middle weight champion of the world

Middle weight champion of the world. On xbox at least.

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Dirt biking completed

Hit the motocross track with shane, john, soroush, marshall and his daughter. Good times with lots of big air. Best day of riding ever. Finally learned to wheelie. Hit some awesome jumps. Photos located at this place. Beer time now. George ate my in-n-out hamburger off the table while I was taking the dirtbiking stuff apart. At least he appeared to really enjoy it. Trying to hit jiu jitsu in the morning, but I am freaking exhausted right not. We shall see. No matter what though, its officially sabbatical. Thanks for all the well wishes from everyone. Might hit up "hangover" tomorrow night.

Dirt biking

Only people in the park. Learned how to do my first wheelie thanks to
Shane! Shane is in sabbatical starting today too!

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Later cube!

Almost eod for me. Sabbatical is starting. Lunch time and then
dirtbiking. Still getting questions at work brain is trying to hold on

4 Days Til Sabbatical

4 Days until sabbatical 09 begins. After 7 years working at Intel, employees get 8 weeks of continuous paid leave. So for the first time in ~12 years I get a summer vacation.

Here is the sabbatical plan

Day 0 (Friday June 19th): get out of work after lunch and head straight to Prairie City OHV park with my dirt bike. Ride with Shane, another guy going on sabbatical the same day. What a great way to celebrate.

Day 1: Do nothing. Maybe play some ufc on xbox while still in my chonies.

July 3rd: Leave for Ireland - hit up the Jameson plant and Guinness factory. Fly to spain - run with the bulls and sight see. Drive to France - follow Lance along the tour de france in the pyrenees mountains. Bounce back and forth between France, Spain, and Andora following the tour, seeing the sights, camping along the way.

July 15: Fly back to the US.

July 21: Mom and Dad arrive in sacramento

July 24: Lauren and I take off on the US road trip. Follow this trip here.

~August 5: Meet parents in Tahoe.

August 9: Return home

August 11: Mom and Dad leave:

August 16th: Cry.

August 17th: Start the next 7 years.