THOUGHTFUL RAMBLING No. 9
"The Faceoff For Facebook"

When did a billion dollars stop sounding like a lot of money?

If you believe published reports, sometime in the next 72 hours, either Google or Microsoft will pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion for as much as a 10 percent stake in Facebook. Pretty impressive for a four-year-old company led by a 23-year-old CEO.

The prize is hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue on one of the hottest social networking sites on the web. That, and if you are Google, the pleasure of unraveling the advertising deal Microsoft presently enjoys with Facebook. The thing is, even with all that, I’m still not sure I understand it. Not to the tune of a billion dollars plus.

I have a page on Facebook. I check it almost every day. And I think there are some fun and interesting aspects to it. I like the ability to share pictures, though I can do the same thing with KodakGallery.com. I like that I can follow my favorite teams and presidential candidate, though ESPN.com and FoxNews give me the same ability. I like that I can communicate with my friends, or at least the ones on Facebook, but I’m certainly more knowledgeable and reliant on Outlook. The biggest thing is, I don’t recall any real advertising or marketing presence. And I pay attention to that kind of stuff.

I was concerned that maybe I just wasn’t getting it. Admittedly, with good reason. When the Facebook rep came to the agency to tell us how to get onto the site, she said we could just use our email address from college. I informed her they didn’t have email when I was in college. She giggled. When I said we didn’t really have computers either, she choked. I think I have dress shoes older than her.

I shared my opinions with a number of friends at the agency and many seemed to share my observations. The working Moms all said they simply don’t have the time.
But clearly someone does. According to Datamonitor, global active memberships in social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are expected to reach 230 million by the end of 2007. What’s even more incredible, is that all that explosive growth is expected to peak by 2009 and plateau by 2012. Seems a bit scary to wager a billion five on a segment expected to stop growing in five years. But hey, someone clearly sees the value in all this. The cash infusion aside, Facebook is apparently looking for new ways to monetize the traffic on its site and has planned to make an announcement regarding online advertising, November 6.

For their sake, I hope it’s a doozy! I really don't want to have to rebuild my page on some other site.

TRIATHLON No. 2
"The U.S. Open"

Every train has to have a caboose. Every Homecoming parade has to have a float with the Queen on it. And every U.S. Open Triathlon has to have somebody finish last.

It wasn't me.

This morning, I competed in the first ever Toyota U.S. Open Triathlon in Dallas. It was the final race in the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon series that also included races in Minneapolis, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. There was a professional division with elite triathletes from all over the world. One of them, a guy named Greg Bennett, won the previous four races in the series and stood to pocket $460,000 if he could win today. That'll push you.

The pros did an Olympic distance course with a mile swim in open water, a 25 mile bike and a 6.2 mile run through downtown Dallas. There were also hundreds of amateurs who ran the Olympic course once the pros were finished. Showoffs.

The rest of us did a Sprint distance course with a half-mile open water swim, a 25-mile bike and a 3.1 mile run. We went last after all the pros, all the international athletes and all the Olympic distance athletes. Which wouldn't have been that big a deal, except it was 66 degrees with complete cloud cover and a brisk wind. All the athletes had to exit the transition area by 7:15 a.m. ready to compete, which meant no shirt and no shoes. We hit the water an hour and 45 minutes later just after 9 a.m.

That's a lot of time to think. And shiver.

When my buddies and I did our first Triathlon, The Fray's "In Over Your Head" was playing on the sound system as we headed in for the swim. We thought that was pretty funny. This morning, when I boarded the bus to go down to the lake for the swim, "Come to Jesus" was playing. Not so funny. In the deep recesses of my mind, today, that was a reasonable possibility.

The swim was tougher than expected, mostly because you can't see shit when you're swimming in a lake. We had to swim 350 meters out to a bouy, take a right hand turn, swim 100 meters to a second bouy, take another right hand turn and swim 350 back to shore. With all the wind, the water was kinda choppy and I kept swimming off the most direct route, kind of zig zagging my way through the swim. Every time I looked up, the same guy was cutting in front of me. And every 10th stroke, my right goggle filled with water. Before I started, I was concerned I might not have enough water for the bike ride. After my swim, and the 47 gallons of lake water I drank, that ceased to be a worry. I was just hoping there was no flesh eating virus bacteria in that particular lake.

Come to Jesus.

By the time I exited the swim, about 1,400 of the 1,500 bikes that had filled transition area 1 were gone. By mine was still there. Waiting. I knew coming in that the bike would be the toughest part of the race. After dropping off my bike yesterday, I drove the bike course from Cedar Hill to Dallas and let's just say that 45 minutes was enough to keep me up all night. It was 25 miles of up hill and down -- mostly up -- but it was fhe first hill that worried me. It was a long, curving beast right out of the gate that started climbing and ultimately, went straight up.

Two weeks ago, I competed in the Flower Mound Triathlon that featured a 17-mile bike course with what we thought were 4 really big hills. At the time, we referred to them as "Son of a Bitch 1, 2, 3 and 4." I won't say here what my name for the new hill is, but it's not nice. And neither is the hill.

It was everything advertised. But all the way up, all I could think was "don't quit." Yesterday, my little league football team won its third straight game and during that stretch I've been preaching to them to not give up and to never quit. When my lungs were burning and my legs were aching, little Nicholas Brunsteter's face popped in my head saying "Don't quit Coach! Keep going!" I love those kids.

The next 23 miles were kind of a blur. Gutting it out uphill, enjoying the downhill portions when I didn't have to pedal. It was a fascinating tour of sights and smells ranging from McDonald's, Popeye's, Starbucks and a squished skunk. That was bad. As was the intersection where the policeman failed to see me coming and neglected to stop traffic. The car stopped. The policeman apologized. We're good, but still...

Come to Jesus.

At 8 miles, I could see the Dallas skyline on the horizon for the first time. It was 4 inches tall. At 20 miles I caught a new glimpse through the trees in front of me, now close enough to put a little life back in my legs. At 22 miles, I could see the Jefferson Blvd. aquaduct that would carry me over the Trinity River and into downtown and transition 2 at Renunion Arena. It was the one last hill I had to climb. I almost didn''t even mind it.

A block from the grassy knoll, I coasted downhill, around the corner and into Reunion Arena with my family, my Mom and friends cheering me on. I parked the bike and as I headed out to the run, Matthew and Caroline came running over and high-fived me and told me I was doing great. That'll take you at least a mile or two.

The three miles through downtown were relatively flat and uneventful. At the 1.5 mile mark, I passed two guys sitting at the bus stop. One of them, who was pushing about 350, said, "You got it buddy! Do it for all us big guys!" It's nice to inspire people. Even if they're drunk.

4 hours and 11 minutes after the first pros hit the water, I crossed the finish line back at Reunion Arena, exhausted and elated to have finished without the paramedics anywhere in sight. As in Triathlons before, the kids came running up to hug me, not caring that I was sweaty and stinky. That's the best part about kids and pets - they just don't care.

I got a really cool medal for finishing the inagural U.S. Open Triathlon. That, and a renewed sense of accomplishment. My goal was to break 3 hours. And this afternoon, I found out my time was 2:46:17. I didn't even finish last in the old guy age group.

As for Greg Bennett, he won the pro race today by :21 and took home the $460,000 prize he was chasing. He finished in 1:44:41. A full hour, extra half mile swim and 3.1 mile run ahead of me.

I suppose that's something to shoot for... for somebody else. For me, I'm just happy to be in the race. In the first triathlon I competed in, I heard a high school kid ask his buddy, "why would anybody pay to do this to themselves?" I'm still not sure what the answer to that question. is. But sitting here sore and tired and a million miles from wanting to do another Tri, I know I will. It's hard and it hurts, but it beats sittin' around.

Next year, 2:45.