Kind of like Daytona

There was a big race on Sunday. One with excitement, amazed spectators, blazing speeds, and an incredible finish that came down to the wire. I'm not talking about the 49th running of the Daytona 500, which happened Sunday, February 18th in Daytona Beach, FL. I'm talking about The Great Race that stretched from Los Altos, CA all the way to Mountain View, CA. Yes, I'm talking about the trek from my grandparents' place in LA across El Camino, some railroad tracks, Central Expressway, and a couple other four lane roads, all the way to the self storage place in MV. My ride? A lightening-quick, high-octane, tricked-out powered wheel chair.


This thing turned on a dime, it flew along with five speeds (five!) and covered the three mile distance in under forty minutes. This machine is a serious speed demon. I passed some people out for a Sunday walk and left them in the dust. And this ride is plush, too. Dual padded arm rests, a custom head rest, and four rubberized wheels; two in the front for major power and two in the back for serious steering. As they say, "Business in the front, party in the back." And did I mention it has five speeds?

And then we drank beer from the trophy.

Three big competitions recently. For competition number one I traveled to my company's New York office and participated in a trivia night hosted by Yahoo. Why a party hosted by Yahoo? Because the media team I work with gets wined-and-dined by a slew of websites that want our ads to run on their sites.

So the Yahoo party featured an elimination style bracket with the many agencies who were invited. The competition was Jeopardy-style with a host reading questions and the teams holding buzzers... and by the end of the night our team won it all. The other New York agencies were no match for our pop culture dominance. The prize was a huge four-foot-tall trophy from which we drank a celebratory beer. So a big win in the first big competition.

Competition number two was the "Has Beens Mile" featuring former athletes of the Tufts Track and Field team. Everyone used to be good, but now, pretty much all the alumni are Has Beens. It was a good race, but, sadly the race didn't go as well as the trivia. I came in second to classmate, former captain, All-American, and school record holder Nate Brigham.

So one win and one runner-up performance so far.

The third competition involved some margaritas, a roll of tin foil, and two ski tickets. We were at a Mexican restaurant ("Margaritas Cantina" or something contrived like that) with some friends, and there happened to be a bunch of contests going on. I got drafted for the Make An Ugly Hat Out of Tin Foil Game. And when the dust settled, I had a crazy tin foil hat on my head and I won two free lift tickets to Mount Snow in Vermont.

And that's how I almost one three competitions in a row. Thanks Nate.