2009 was quite a year.  The most important and exciting thing that happened to me this year is that I bought my first home.  I’ve looked and talked and planned for several years.  The pieces all fell into place very quickly at the end of July for me to officially begin my search for a home.  The house I bought was the first one me & the realtor that assisted me looked at together.  Greg (my realtor & Lindsey’s father-in-law) found me the perfect house.

My other major purchase of 2009 was a Nikon D90 camera.  I’ve had fun playing with it this year.  Although, I haven’t ventured far from the automatic settings yet.  One of my goals for 2010 is to learn more about what all my camera can do.

Lindsey, Kelly, Hayley, & I saw the Paisley Party Tour stop in Tulsa in January.  It included Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, & Darius Rucker.

My mom’s birthday in January marked the beginning of a very bad ice storm.  I don’t remember ever having weather like that.  The ice was crazy.

In March, Kelly & I went to San Antonio for a few days.  We saw a bit of a history at the Alamo, had dinner on the top of the world, and even visited the beach.

In April, we took our annual trip to Dallas/Fort Worth for some NASCAR.  While down there, we visited the Sixth Floor Museum & Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated.  Jeff Gordon finally won a race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Memorial Day weekend I traveled to Charlotte, NC to visit Penni and go to the NASCAR races that weekend.  It was a weekend full of rain but it was a great weekend of visiting old friends and meeting new ones.

In June, I went to a couple of concerts.  The first one was Casting Crowns at the Church at Pinnacle Hills.  The second one was Chuck Wicks at the Poultry Festival.  I got to meet Chuck in person twice (once by accident) that evening.  It was great!  He’s hilarious and very down-to-earth.

Lindsey, Shelby, & I made last minute plans to go to Junction, TX in July to our cousin Lacey’s wedding.  We made Mom come too.  We took our time going down to visit Mom’s brother (our uncle) Mark and also to visit Dublin for some wonderful Dr Pepper.

In the beginning of October, Shelby & I traveled to Dallas.  The University of Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas A&M Aggies in the new Cowboys Stadium.  Shelby, our uncles Mark & Rod, and I went to the game.  It was an awesome game in an aswesome stadium.  I’m hoping we get to go again next year!

In mid-October, I traveled to Phoenix with a couple others in my department for an SAP conference.  Besides the conference, we took some time to do some sight-seeing.

The last trip I took in 2009 was with Shelby the first weekend of November.  We went back to Dallas/Fort Worth for the NASCAR race.

Here are the blog entries I wrote this year related to my year in review.

January 3, 2009 10:57 pm - The Nikon D90
January 4, 2009 5:54 pm - New Camera – Day 2
January 10, 2009 10:32 pm - New Baby
January 11, 2009 2:38 pm - The Red Coat
January 24, 2009 8:56 am - Tulsa Bound
January 26, 2009 6:40 pm - Family Tradition
January 28, 2009 1:34 pm - Be Still!
January 29, 2009 6:32 pm - Tulsa Time
January 29, 2009 8:27 pm - Ice Storm
February 1, 2009 12:02 pm - Ice Storm Aftermath
March 5, 2009 9:00 am - San Antonio Bound
March 6, 2009 9:25 pm - Where’s Dad When You Need Him?
March 7, 2009 8:31 am - 173 Years Later
March 14, 2009 3:03 pm - Life is like a box of chocolates
March 14, 2009 3:59 pm - A bit of history
March 15, 2009 6:38 pm - The San Antonio Zoo
March 15, 2009 6:57 pm - The Texas Beach
March 15, 2009 8:03 pm - Sea World
March 21, 2009 2:40 pm - Tower of the Americas
March 21, 2009 4:15 pm - San Antonio Re-Cap
April 18, 2009 4:05 pm - Who Dun It?
April 18, 2009 4:45 pm - He finally won
June 20, 2009 3:58 pm - Chuck Wicks Times 3
June 27, 2009 4:47 pm - Casting Crowns
August 9, 2009 4:58 pm - My New House
August 23, 2009 5:42 pm - My New House – Before
October 7, 2009 9:52 pm - Long Wait
November 6, 2009 3:32 pm - Shop a Little, Race a Little

As far as 2010, I don’t really have any plans for any major traveling.  I know we’ll go to both NASCAR races in Texas in April & November.  Other than that, this may be a year that I take it a bit easy as far as traveling goes.  I do need to catch up on here with some blog entries.  I really want to share what my house looks like now that I’ve gotten it painted and decorated.

The drivers contending for the 2009 championship are…

• Mark Martin
• Tony Stewart
• Jimmie Johnson
• Denny Hamlin
• Kasey Kahne
• Jeff Gordon
• Kurt Busch
• Brian Vickers
• Carl Edwards
• Ryan Newman
• Juan Pablo Montoya
• Greg Biffle

As you can see by the above list, Dale Earnhardt Jr didn’t make it in.  I really haven’t yet figured out who I think has the best chance to win the championship.  Although, my gut says Tony & Jimmie are very good early favorites to win it all.  It will boil down to whoever can have the most consistent (good consistency, that is) finishes for the remaining 10 races.  Who are you rooting for to win?

The drivers spent the past couple of days doing a whirlwind media tour in New York City.  Here is a clip of one of the appearances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWEqW4LagVM

Jeff Gordon won on Sunday, April 5, 2009 not only for the first time at Texas Motor Speedway but also for the first time since October 2007 (47 races ago, if you are keeping count).

This was the first race I attended with my new camera.  I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work given the high speeds.  (I was spoiled to the sport/action setting on my old camera.)  I think my pictures turned out ok for my first try.  Here are some my favorites (picture-wise and subject-wise).

I probably say this after every race when I share pictures but I love seeing the crew members lined up on pit road during the invocation and the national anthem.

Dale Earnhardt Jr started 20th and finished 20th in the race after having a little connection with the wall.

Jimmie Johnson started 9th and finished 2nd.  Jimmie & Jeff battling for the win made the last few laps pretty interesting.  Given the wind at the track on raceday, I’m surprised the drivers could keep their hats on riding around the track.  Jimmie’s trying a different technique by wearing his backwards.

We’ve been lucky to have a direct view down pit road and of the exit of pit road when we go to TMS.  From this view, pit stops sometime look like mass chaos with cars and crew members everywhere.

This is Max Papis.  I love this photo.  He’s so enthusiastic.

Boogity! Boogity! Boogity! Let’s Go Racin’, Boys! When I’m seeing a race in person or even later in the season when DW isn’t an announcer, I so want someone to yell this.

You can see all of the pictures I took at the race by visiting my Flickr photo album.

Friday was the longest day of my vacation.  We were at the track for 12 hours or so.  Friday included two Nationwide series practices, a Sprint Cup practice, qualifying for both the Nationwide & Sprint Cup series, and finally the Craftsman Truck series race.  Plus, SPEED TV was filming Trackside Live and we watched that for a while.

The photo above is of the tunnel we walked through many times over the course of the weekend to get to the track infield from the grandstand and back.  It is really weird walking through that when cars are driving at full speed overhead.

Jeff Gordon won the pole for the Sprint Cup series race.  The above photos is of his crew pushing the pole winning car into Victory Lane for the Coors Pole Award ceremony.

I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of Junior’s winning banner.  I pass it each time I’m at the track and have, thus far, resisted.

Brad Keselowski qualified on time for his first Sprint Cup race.  He was driving the Hendrick Motorsports 25 GoDaddy.com Chevy.  I’m glad that I was there to witness his first Cup race (more on his finish on Day 6).

Driver introductions for the Craftsman Truck race were a bit unorthodox at Texas Motor Speedway.  Instead of coming out onto a stage to wave to the crowd, the drivers actually came down out of the crowd and onto the track.  As you can see in this picture, track workers led 3 drivers at a time down the stands and then out onto the track into their respective Chevy truck for their ride-around.

Click here to see all of the photos I took on Friday.

Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

At this point in 2007, Jeff Gordon was leading the Sprint Cup standings (and was 344 points ahead of 2nd place).  He & Jimmie Johnson were tied for the most wins so far with 4 a piece.  After today’s race, Kyle Busch leads all drivers this year with 8 wins and is leading the standings by 242 points.  Both of those stats are alarming to me.  First of all, I expected Kyle to do ok in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing.  I figured he’d have 1 or 2 wins and probably make the Chase.  Instead, he has 8 wins and is a sure thing for the Chase (if not the championship).  The 242 point differential between Kyle and 2nd place is a big surprise to me.  Jeff Gordon had 4 wins at this point last year but was farther ahead of 2nd place than Kyle is with 8 wins.  This makes me think that it may be any one’s ballgame once the Chase starts.  Kyle has definitely had some great finishes this year (very reminiscent of Jimmie Johnson at times in 2006 & 2007 when nothing seemed to stop the team from a top 5 or win).  Unfortunately, he has a handful of very poor finishes (including Martinsville, which is a Chase track).  He will more than likely need no stumbles (or bad luck) in the Chase to keep his roll going and end up 2008 Sprint Cup Champion.

Until today, Dale Earnhardt Jr was 2nd in the Sprint Cup point standings and had been gradually shrinking Kyle Busch’s points lead.  Unfortunately, a 22nd place finish dropped him to 4th in the standings behind Carl Edwards and teammate Jimmie Johnson.  Junior isn’t known to be a great road course racer so I’m happy with the finish.  I’m just a little upset he lost all of the points he had been gaining.  The series is on to Michigan next weekend where Junior won the spring race.  Did I mention I’m going to be there in person?  I’m hoping for a repeat performance of his win in June. 

A belated congrats to Ron Fellows.  Ron was driving a JR Motorsports car last weekend in Montreal and brought home the 3rd NASCAR Nationwide series trophy for JRM in 2008.  (Mark Martin & Brad Keselowski have both taken home trophies this year.)  Now, it is Landon Cassill’s and Junior’s turns to win one for JRM.