The Life Cycle ... in Reverse!

One of my favorite ditties goes a little like this:

"The life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, and get it out of the way. Then you live for 20 years in an old-age home and get kicked out when you are too young. You get a gold watch and then you go to work. You work for 40 years until you are young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college and party until you are ready for high school. Then you go to grade school, you become a little kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a baby, and you go back into the womb. You spend the last 9 months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in somebody's eye."

"Open" Presidential Elections -- Part II

Following up from the last question in my prior post, how critical (really) are "open" elections--where neither the sitting President nor the sitting Vice President runs as a candidate?

Another way to look at this issue to examine the effects of the only 4 "open" elections since 1900:

• In 1908, William Howard Taft, the sitting Secretary of War, defeated William Jennings Bryan, a former Representative from Nebraska. Since Taft was former President Theodore Roosevelt's hand-picked successor, his election did not lead to any immediate changes in policy. However, his later turning against Roosevelt's prior initiatives led to the former President running as a third party against his old friend in 1912, splitting the vote and effectively allowing Woodrow Wilson, the sitting Governor of New Jersey, to quash Taft's re-election bid.

• In 1920, Warren Harding, a sitting Senator from Ohio, defeated James Cox, the sitting Governor of Ohio, in an all-Buckeye election that made Harding one of only two legislators since 1900 to be elected President (the other was Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960). Given the immense unpopularity of his predecessor's involving the U.S. in World War I, Harding stormed into office on a promise of "return to normalcy." However, he is generally considered one of the most ineffective Presidents, and he died of a heart attack half-way into his term.

• In 1928, Herbert Hoover, the sitting Secretary of Commerce, defeated Al Smith, the former Governor of New York. A former businessman with little charisma or political skills, his single term was defined primarily by the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the advent of The Great Depression, and public backlash against Prohibition.

• In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of NATO, defeated Adlai Stevenson, the former Governor of Illinois. Eisenhower served two terms as President, but his election marked a number of significant milestones: he helped Republicans re-gain the White House after 20 years of Democratic control; he was the first general to be elected President since Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 (and the only one since); and he was the first President subject to the term limits imposed by the 22nd Amendment. He served a full two terms providing steady leadership, and is generally well-regarded by historians (despite a temporary reputational setback during the liberal activism of the 1960's and 1970's).

So, let's see ... since 1900 we've had 4 "open" elections, which have led to: the dismantling of Theodore Roosevelt's environmental policies and the eventual election of the man who pulled the U.S. into WWI; the election of a man generally regarded as one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history; and the election of a man who oversaw one of the greatest economic collapses in U.S. history. Granted, Eisenhower's victory in 1952 and his two-term Presidency were probably the exact right solution for a nation weary of WWII, the Korean War, and the Cold War. However, that still leaves "open" elections with a dismal 25% success rating.

I guess only time will tell how the 2008 "open" election will ultimately affect this country, but if recent history is any indication the outlook is not too promising.

"Open" Presidential Elections

Much has been made of the fact that the 2008 U.S. Presidential election will be the first one in recent memory to be completely "open"--meaning that a sitting President or Vice President will not be one of the candidates. So it naturally begs some questions ...

How rare are "open" elections?

Since 1900, there have been 27 Presidential elections, and only 4 have been "open." The 2008 election (the 5th of 28) will be the first one in 56 years, since Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 "open" election.

What causes an "open" election?

The 2008 election will be "open" because the sitting President (George W. Bush) is precluded from running for a third term by the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the sitting Vice President (Dick Cheney) is sticking to his vow from early in his first term that he would not seek the Presidency. The prior 4 "open" elections were caused by a variety of issues:

• In 1952, President Harry S. Truman withdrew his re-election bid after losing the New Hampshire primary (he was eligible for a third term because he was grandfathered into the 22nd Amendment), and the Democratic Party considered the Vice President (Alben Barkley) too old at the age of 74.


• In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge decided to retire and not seek re-election, and the Vice President (Charles Dawes) had a long-standing feud with Coolidge which caused the President to block his bid for the Republican nomination.


• In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson was unable to seek re-election due to being incapacitated by a stroke, but it is not entirely clear why his two-term Vice President (Thomas Marshall) did not seek the Presidency himself. Perhaps it was since the Wilson Presidency had become immensely unpopular over the United States' involvement in World War I.


• In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt decided to retire, and the Vice President (Charles Fairbanks) was surprisingly overlooked by Roosevelt, who instead supported his friend and Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, as his successor Republican nominee.
  

How critical are "open" elections anyway?

It has been suggested that incumbent Presidents and Vice Presidents have unfair advantages heading into election years, so that "open" elections tend to "level the playing field" a bit. I guess one way to gauge whether an "open" election is critical at all would be to look at all of the elections that have NOT been "open."

In the 23 Presidential elections since 1900 where a sitting President or Vice President has been a candidate, the incumbents have won 15 times, which seems to suggest an impressive 65% winning percentage and a definite advantage. However, this is a little misleading, since 13 of those victories were re-election bids by sitting Presidents (and 3 of those were by Franklin D. Roosevelt alone and led to the passage of the 22nd Amendment). While this does suggest that unseating an incumbent President is difficult, it does not necessarily follow that ALL incumbents have unfair advantages in an election that is not "open."

Since 1900, there have been 5 elections in which the incumbent candidate was the sitting Vice President, and only 2 have been able to gain the Presidency: in 1924, Vice President Calvin Coolidge succeeded President Warren Harding; and in 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush succeeded President Ronald Reagan. Otherwise, incumbent Vice Presidents actually have a not-so-great 40% winning percentage and therefore not really a distinct advantage.

So, what's the lesson learned here? I guess we can see that there's a BIG difference between a non-"open" election where the incumbent candidate is a sitting President and a non-"open" election where the incumbent candidate is a sitting Vice President. Therefore, the issue is not really whether an election is "open" or "not open" but rather whether an election includes a re-election bid or not, since it seems like the incumbent President (and not the incumbent Vice President) may have distinct advantages in election years.

Clinton in 2008: "Executives" v. "Legislators" in U.S. Presidential Elections

As we gear up for the party primaries heading into the 2008 elections--the first fully contested Presidential election in recent memory--I'm struck by how many U.S. Senators are jumping into the campaign fray on both sides of the aisle. Especially since all of the buzz surrounds the possibility of Sen. Hillary Clinton potentially becoming the first female U.S. President, it got me thinking about whether--gender, experience, political issues, and her husband's prior record aside--the U.S. is ready to elect a legislator to its highest executive office.

After all, the executive branch--by definition--is one based on decision-making, accountability, and the ability to execute ... in other words: leadership. On the other hand, the legislative branch--by definition and organizational structure--is one based on consensus-building, politicking, and the ability to legislate ... in other words: compromise.

Would American voters elect a legislator to its highest executive office?

Reviewing all of the Presidential elections since 1900 provides some interesting insights:

• Since 1900, there have been 27 U.S. Presidential elections.


• Of the 27 winners, only 2 were legislators (Warren Harding won the 1920 election as a sitting Senator from Ohio, and John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election as a sitting Senator from Massachusetts). The rest were executives of some sort: 13 sitting Presidents, 3 sitting/former Vice Presidents, 6 sitting/former Governors, and 3 others (William Taft won the 1908 election as the sitting Secretary of War, Herbert Hoover won the 1928 election as the sitting Secretary of Commerce, and Dwight D. Eisenhower won the 1952 election as the sitting Supreme Commander of NATO).
  


• Of the 27 losers (major parties), only 6 were legislators. However, 4 of those 6 losses came in the 11 elections since Kennedy's win in 1960: Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 election as a sitting Senator from Arizona, George McGovern lost the 1972 election as a sitting Senator from South Dakota, Bob Dole lost the 1996 election as a former Senator from Kansas, and John Kerry lost the 2004 election as a sitting Senator from Massachusetts.
  

I'm not sure why it's so difficult for a legislator to become U.S. President. I would like to believe that the system works so well and American voters are so savvy that they recognize true leadership and always match the best candidate for the job. I've heard theories that focus on the track records of various candidates: executives tend to have records of bold decision-making while legislators have records of waffling and compromise. I've also heard theories related to career cost-benefit analysis: once you've been a Governor, Vice President, or President, there's nowhere else to go so you'll fight like hell to get the job, whereas a legislator (especially a U.S. Senator) could have employment for life so why take the risks of potentially getting a job with a term limit?

As for the recent trend of the major parties running more legislators (in a losing cause), perhaps the advent of television and the Internet since Kennedy's 1960 victory have contributed to Senators being able to command a national following with relatively little effort? I don't know.

However, here's an interesting observation that bodes well for Sen. Clinton: most of the talk surrounding her has focused more on two intangibles (her gender and her husband) than on pure experience, capabilities, or political issues, but the exact same was true of the only 2 legislators to win Presidential elections since 1900. Warren Harding has drawn continual criticism for winning elections based on his "Presidential" looks (he hardly even campaigned for his successful Presidential bid), and John F. Kennedy was more popular for his youth, good looks, and pedigree than for anything else.

Regardless of whether American voters are ready to elect a legislator to the country's top executive post, perhaps history, human nature, and the power of technology will run in favor Sen. Clinton next year? Only time will tell.

BASE Jumping with a Wingsuit

I know that many folks will call these guys crazy, but sometimes I'm just amazed at the extremes to which humans will push their physical, emotional, and psychological limits. Check out this cool video:

Downstream Effects of Moore's Law

Those of you familiar with Moore's Law know that basically it states that computing power will double every 2 years. Occasionally, it's so interesting to experience a real-life effect of such a frantic pace of technological advancement.

In early 2006, a trade association I helped create made a strategic decision to launch a new online community in the form of a "niche" social network. We gathered 8-10 of our senior Advisors and planned our project. We estimated that our custom development project would cost the equivalent of $75K and take up to 6 months for a team of specialized developers to complete. Since we did not have that kind of extra cash in our budget, we would have to rely on donated services. Needless to say, the project never really got off the ground.

In early 2007, we identified a relatively new open source content management platform (Drupal) as a potential alternative solution. Drupal essentially provided an affordable set of hosted modules that could be assembled into a relatively customized online community. Suddenly, our "development" project from a year prior transformed into an "integration" project, which we figured would cost $15K and take 2 months for a team of general integrators to complete. Much better.

However, before we could really get THAT project off the ground, we discovered a company called Ning, a venture co-founded by Marc Andreesen, the technological co-founder of Netscape and one of the "Fathers of the World Wide Web." Essentially, Ning offered an online platform that made it easy to create, host, and manage social networks. In late October 2007, it literally took me 15 minutes to launch our group's social network. Granted, it will take us a bit longer to fully customize it and get the look/feel just right, but the basic components were live on the Web in 15 minutes. Oh, and did I mention that the basic Ning service is FREE (the premium services that our group will have to purchase still come to less than $50/month!)?!

So ... imagine this:
- In early 2006, our "development" project was estimated at $75K and 6 months of a specialized team of developers.
- In early 2007, our "integration" project was estimated at $15K and 2 months of a generalized team of integrators.
- In late 2007, our "activation" project was completed for FREE ($50/mo max) in 15 minutes by 1 non-technical person.

This is truly the power of Moore's Law in action on the business end of computing power!

The Power of Networking

In December 2001, when I first moved to the DC area from San Francisco, I knew very little about networking ... social, professional, or otherwise. However, I knew that I would have to build up a new "network," since I only had 3 contacts in this new sandbox I'd jumped into. I was told that I should check out a local group called Netpreneur, which put on events to connect/educate tech entrepreneurs.

At the first Netpreneur event I attended in January 2002, I met a guy named Joe Walsh, who was about 2 weeks away from starting a new job at a VA-funded non-profit called the Center for Innovative Technology. He has since moved on to greener pastures, but in the meantime he became my friend and made some terrific introductions for me.

Perhaps most important, we learned about the power of networking, which really hit home this week when I returned from a terrific business trip to Los Angeles.

So, check out this cool chain of relationships:

Link #1: From Joe to Mary (2002)

Joe introduced me to Mary MacPherson, the multi-talented professional running Netpreneur. When the group decided to sunset its offerings a few years ago, Mary went on to head up marketing for Blackboard and she's currently building up her own consulting practice.

Link #2: From Mary to Andy (2003)

Mary introduced me to a guy named Andy Forbes, who is a fixture on the local DC area tech startup circuit. Andy and I have also become friends, co-networkers, and even co-workers for a while at NuRide (Joe introduced me to the Founder/CEO, too!).

Link #3: From Andy to Ben (April 2007)

Andy is a LinkedIn power user, so it was only natural that through LinkedIn he met Ben Cianciaruso, a local tech entrepreneur. Ben had recently sold his last company and was looking for a new opportunity. So, Andy introduced me to Ben.

Link #4: From Ben to Evan (June 2007)

I introduced Ben to John May, a guru on angel investing, Chairman of the Angel Capital Association, and founder of New Vantage Group. Ben attended one of John's monthly deal screening meetings. At that meeting, Ben briefly met Evan Loomis, who had recently taken over operations for The Wedgwood Circle, a national angel investor network focused on the arts (film, tv, music, theatre, publishing, etc.). Since I was in the process of trying to find funding for a friend's slate of three feature films, Ben introduced me to Evan.

Link #5: From Evan to Dane (July 2007)

Evan introduced me to Dane West, a local DC area former tech entrepreneur who had been working in the entertainment industry for a few years. He was co-chairman of a group called the Independent Producers' Alliance, which had just closed a $60M film production fund.

Link #6: From Dane to Marcia (October 2007)

Dane introduced me to Marcia Allen, his LA-based i-banker who helped him negotiate his IPA fund deal. This is who I met with last Monday. She's a wonderful woman with an incredible professional track record.

Link #7: From Marcia to ... ?

If all goes well, we will likely retain Marcia's firm to introduce us to her friends on Wall Street, and hopefully we can strike a deal with them. If not them, then I'm sure that Marcia can help us find other partners. If not her, then I'm sure that we'll eventually find what we need/want through continued networking.

There you have it! A multi-link networking chain that crossed the country and included both virtual and physical meetings. Yes, I may have known very little about networking six years ago, but I'm really starting to see the importance of it now!

Entrepreneurs Are "Risk Aware"

When I relocated from Silicon Valley to the DC area in December 2001, I was thrust into a wild period of "culture shock," going from one extreme on the entrepreneurship scale almost to the other. The experience--coupled with my ongoing travels and work with entrepreneurs from around the world--has helped me appreciate more some of the intricacies of this unique but critical sliver of an economy's machinery. Most specifically, I have been intrigued by the gap between non-entrepreneurs' perception of entrepreneurs and the actual reality, especially on one critical point: risk.

The "conventional wisdom" -- at least outside the world of entrepreneurs -- is that entrepreneurs are "risk lovers" or at the very least have a high tolerance for risk. However, my own experience has been that almost every successful entrepreneur I have met is more concerned with managing, mitigating, or timing risk, and only embraces risk as an essential component of an ongoing "risk-reward" analysis.

Yes, entrepreneurs have the genetic make-up to work with risk on a daily basis--not everyone has the stomach for that in their own lives. However, to say that this translates into being a "risk lover" or taking crazy/unnecessary risks is a bit of a jump. Instead, I would propose that entrepreneurs are simply more "risk aware" than most non-entrepreneurs.

For more on this topic, check out this interesting discussion.

Man v. Woman

Web 2.0: Whatever Happened to Web 1.0?

"Just Do It" (original)

Nike may have encapsulated the essence in a three-word tagline, but Theodore Roosevelt said it much more passionately and eloquently:

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

Life Lessons: Cal v. Stanford 1982 (aka "The Play")

I've always said that sports are terrific ways to teach (and learn) about life's most important lessons. As a Cal Bear, I have to appreciate the lessons from the wild finish to our 1982 Big Game with arch-rival Stanford:

(1) Don't ever give up on anything ... no matter how dire the situation may look.

(2) Don't ever take anything for granted ... even the surest things can disappear in seconds.

(3) You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish with teamwork, innovation, effort, and creative problem-solving.

and, most important of all ...

(4) If you're a trombone player, don't ever, ever, EVER walk onto a football field until you're absolutely certain that the football players are finished playing football!

One more lesson I've learned: the older you get, the more perspective you get. While many folks are familiar with this famous kick-off return, what's been lost to history is the way that the Stanford team had just seconds before pulled off what THEY thought was a miracle last-minute come-from-behind victory.

To emphasize these points, please enjoy the first [longer] video for proper context (and to give Stanford its proper due), as well as the second [enhanced] video (to see exactly what the heck actually happened on the field).

Enjoy these classic sports moments!

New 7 Wonders of the World

For those of you following this online voting, here are the results announced over the weekend (in no particular order):

• The Great Wall of China

• Petra in Jordan

• Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer

• Peru's Machu Picchu

• Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid

• The Colosseum in Rome

• India's Taj Mahal

In case you're curious, here are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (again, in no particular order):

• Great Pyramids of Giza

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

• Statue of Zeus at Olympia

• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus

• Colossus of Rhodes

• Lighthouse of Alexandria

Only Pessimists are Truly Happy People

I've been using this George F. Will quote since I was in high school:

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."

Wet Oatmeal Kisses

I just spent the past week (4th of July holiday) on the road with my family, including my 3 wonderful kids. It made me appreciate even more this old column from Ann Landers:

WET OATMEAL KISSES

The baby is teething. The children are fighting. Your husband just called and said, "Eat dinner without me." One of these days you'll explode and shout to the kids, "Why don't you grow up and act your age?" And they will.

Or: "You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do. And don't slam the door!" And they don't.

You'll straighten their bedrooms all neat and tidy, toys displayed on the shelf, hangers in the closet, animals caged. You'll yell, "Now I want it to stay this way!" And it will.

You will prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't had all the olives picked out and a cake with no finger traces in the icing and you'll say: "Now THIS is a meal for company." And you will eat it alone.

You'll yell, "I want complete privacy on the phone. No screaming. Do you hear me?" And no one will answer.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti. No more dandelion bouquets. No more iron-on patches. No more wet, knotted shoelaces, muddy boots, or rubber bands for ponytails.

Imagine. A lipstick with a point. No baby-sitter for New Year's Eve, washing clothes only once a week, no PTA meetings or silly school plays where your child is a tree. No carpools, blaring stereos, or forgotten lunch money. No more Christmas presents made of library paste and toothpicks. No wet oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy. No more giggles in the dark, scraped knees to kiss or sticky fingers to clean.

Only a voice asking: "Why don't you grow up?" And the silence echoes: "I did."

Sales Process

I can't remember where I first got this diagram of "The Sales Process" (so I could give credit where credit is due), but everyone who's ever seen it has asked me for a copy. So ... here it is.

Who's On First? Then and Now

There's nothing like the original (below), but when you're ready check out this very clever parody starring President Bush and Condi Rice, as well as this version set in a movie rental store.

Juggler Piano

Here's one of my all-time favorites!

The Buzz on "The Secret"

For my birthday last month I received a copy of "The Secret" (both book and DVD), which is quickly becoming a worldwide marketing phenomenon. A #1 best-seller, this self-help book has already gone over 5 million prints, and the DVD has sold over 2 million copies. However, before you go rushing out to get yours, I'd be careful.


First, you have to know that "The Secret" itself is basically one of positive thinking: relying on a universal "law of attraction," it espouses that you can achieve (or acquire) anything in life simply by continually thinking positive thoughts about it. Honestly, I had to struggle through the book, and I have yet to watch the 90-minute video.

Why? Well, I was actually following the arguments in the beginning, since I also believe that you can't achieve anything worthwhile in life without dedicating yourself to the effort. However, I kept waiting for the next [what I thought] logical step in the reasoning: if you continually think positive thoughts about your goals, then you are much more likely to take some actions toward achieving those goals.

[NOTE: I once read an insightful quote from Mark Cuban (and I'm paraphrasing here), "If you catch yourself daydreaming about the life you'd like to lead, stop and ask yourself what you've done today to turn that life into a reality."]

However, that next step never came. I couldn't believe that this book actually proposes that "The Secret" to lifelong happiness is to simply *think* about what would make you happy. Worse, millions of people around the world were (quite literally) buying into this notion!

Then again, I guess I'm not alone in my critique. As with most phenomena of this sort, it seems like the backlash against "The Secret" is almost as furious as the mad rush to support it. In a frustrating paradoxical cycle, that criticism also fuels more sales.

So, after reading this post you're probably going to buy your own copy anyway, right? ;-)

"Real" Worlds: Virtual and Physical

A while back I heard Esther Dyson say something to the effect that one of the major movements in the next 5 years was going to be the emergence of our "online personas." She envisioned that someday soon we would all be busy managing our various "virtual identities" and leading "virtual lives" that complemented our "real" ones. In fact, she suggested that a tremendous paradigm shift would have to occur where we would no longer make a distinction between our "virtual" worlds and "real" worlds, opting instead to draw the distinction between our "virtual" worlds and our "physical" worlds, since they would both be equally "real."

Here's my personal data point to suggest that this paradigm shift has already occurred:

A couple of years ago, I had my first (and to date only) academic article published in an academic journal. The topic and journal are irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion, but if you're interested you can find it here (on page 167). What's important is that I wrote this article with two co-authors--one in Australia and one in Texas--who I never met or even spoke with in person. We met via an online community we all belonged to, we collaborated on the piece via email, we submitted our article to various journals via the Web, and we were accepted for publication via email. There is no doubt that the end result is clearly "real," since I even received a printed copy of the journal issue in which the article appeared. However, that item was really just a manifestation in my "physical" world of the work product generated COMPLETELY in my "virtual" world.

I would venture to guess that saying my experience is not unique would be a huge understatement.

New Blog: Geek Dad

In the same spirit as my prior post about CEO Dad, here's a new blog from Wired.com called Geek Dad. Check it out!

Two Cool Videos From OK GO

Here It Goes Again

A Million Ways

LA or DC? Which Is The Lesser of Two Evils?

I'm in LA this week taking time out from the DC-area life to hang out with my friends from the entertainment industry. I thought this quote from Fred Thompson was entirely appropriate (and hilarious!):

While talking with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show this week, he referred to his tenure in the U.S. Senate prior to his long-standing run on Law & Order, "I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

Sweet Electric-Powered Sports Cars

Here are some high-priced, high-powered alternative cars for the guy who can't decide whether to drive his Ferrari or his Prius:

Tesla Roadster

Venturi Fetish

In case you're wondering, my birthday is May 18th. ;-)

Nieve Tropical

I realize that this site is in Spanish, but here's my dad's new venture in Spain: Nieve Tropical.

Anyone for some shaved ice and a dip in the Med?

Kristine Elezaj

Speaking of cool people we met during Bullrun 2007 ... check out Kristine Elezaj's music on her MySpace page. She was one of the drivers in the rally, and we had a launch party for her new EP in Key West. Since I got back home, her three songs have been constantly blasting on my computer, in my car, and even in the home sound system (my kids love it!).

So ... when can we expect the videos, live tour, and more music?!

CEO Dad

OK ... some of these CEO Dad comic strips occasionally hit a little too close to home!

Bullrun 2007

Last month I spent 10 days with some old high school buddies on a cross-country car rally (well, more like a rolling party!) called Bullrun 2007. Some of you may recognize this event as the namesake for the highly popular reality TV show on SpikeTV. In fact, several of the reality show teams also participated in the rally, including the eventual winners, Mike and Morgan Alsop.


We started in Montreal on Saturday, May 12th, and ended in Key West on Friday, May 18th (yes, that's my birthday!). In between, we made stops all along the Eastern seaboard, including Boston, Atlantic City, Staunton (VA), Savannah, Orlando, and Miami.

We had an absolutely fantastic time, driving some cools cars and meeting all sorts of terrific people. However, it wasn't ALL just fun and games, our team also raised over $30K for the Susan G. Komen Foundation!

We're already making plans for Bullrun 2008!