Enumclaw Football Car Wash 2012

This will mark the 2nd year where I am not coaching High School Football.  It kills me as I love being out on the field with the players and coaches.  I want to stay involved and due to my work obligations it is to tough for me to make it out to practice every day.  I am not on the Enumclaw Football Foundation Board.  It has been a lot of fun being on the board for this 2012 season.  It is crazy to think it has been 10 years since I put on a Hornet Football uniform, feel pretty old here.

Football has really changed in Enumclaw since 10 years ago.  We have a booster club, summer football camp and 7 on 7′s.  The kids are asked to do a lot and one of the things the Foundation puts on is the annual car wash.  The players are giving cards to pre-sale.  For whatever the kid sells goes directly to his fund for camp.  If the player sells $300 worth of tickets that money goes directly to his summer football camp fund.

For the 2012 car wash we had perfect weather.  The cars kept on coming and coming.  We don’t keep a direct count of all the vehicles we wash because it is a lot but we probably wash about 400 cars in a day.  With our great location at Gamblin Motors Truck Center it is a great place to have a car wash.  We added  a twist to the car wash this year.  We wanted to get the cheerleaders involved.  After people got their car washed the cheerleaders asked them if they would be interested in test driving a vehicle.  Gamblin Motors worked with the cheerleaders for every test drive they got Gamblin Motors would donate to their booster club.

Tyson Gamblin Soliciting Test Drives

Enumclaw Bike Race

I have lived in Enumclaw my whole life.  How many Enumclaw Stage Races have I been too?  ZERO.  Until this past weekend I have never been to the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race.  I definitely have been missing out.  What a really cool event.

The stage race is broken down into 3 events.  Time Trial, Crit and Road Race.  This is a 2 day event running from Saturday to Sunday.  On Saturday the morning starts off with the Time Trial and then in the afternoon and evening is the Crit race.  If you are thinking about watching any type of bike race the Crit is the bike race worth seeing.  On Sunday the final event of the stage race is the grueling road race. Unfortunately for this year Saturday the weather was perfect and on Sunday well it was not so good!

If there is anything I walked away from this event is how the city of Enumclaw and residents need to embrace this event.  I am hear to say that I don’t know anything about bike racing and it is not something that I DVR or record to watch later  on tv.  The Crit race is highly entertaining and fun to watch and you don’t even need to be a bike racing fan.

What is interesting is how I even got involved with the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race.  It started with a simple tweet.  I have had a love hate relationship with twitter.  (Message me on twitter @tysongamblin)  Well I have really picked up my activity in twitter since April.  I have made some great connections and one of them is Mutual of Enumclaw (Message Mutual of Enumclaw on twitter @enumclawinsgrp).  They were tweeting about the Bike Race coming up.  I mention that Gamblin Motors would be interested getting involved maybe have a pace car (twitter handle: @gamblinmotors) *If you want to see more pictures check out Gamblin Motors twitter feed during the bike race some fun stuff.

Next thing later a phone call and a corvette rolling off the showroom floor and off the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race.

The Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race Pace Car

All through twitter I made the connection to get involved with an amazing event.  Everyone kept on asking me what does moesr and the hashtag mean.  People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords or phrases (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter Search.  So the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race (MOESR) social media team decided to track all the buzz about the event through twitter.

This was my first Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race and it for sure will not be my last and I look forward to attending more races in the future.  I know in a few years my little girl is going to take that first place ribbon in the 4 year old and younger bike race (She will be the fastest to the stop sign and back).

Tyson and Sophia Hawaii Trip Pictures

Here is a picture slide show of our time in Hawaii.

Tyson and Sophia Hawaii Trip Pictures, posted with vodpod

Jeri, Alan, Sophia and Tyson Gamblin at WSADA 2012

Tyson and Sophia at the WSADA Fairmont-Kea Lani Maui

Sophia’s baby bump

At Mama’s Fish House Maui

Sophia Gamblin Baby Bump

Job Relocation, Change Or Whatever You Want To Call It

So it has been an interesting week for me as I have finally made the transition from the Internet Department to the actual sales floor.  In the car business we call the act of selling the sales floor, I really don’t know why the term if called floor when reality the better term would be is lot.  The sales lot.

This transition has been  years in the making but due to the rapid growth with the Internet and learning new concepts and techniques of manipulating websites for Search Engine Optimization it has been very difficult for me to lose my post in the Internet Department.  We have made some giant strides the past couple of years and months in the Internet Department and finally got things under control with a solid game plan of how we are going to attack things for the next couple of months to a year.  No point of having a strategy when there is not a goal or objective in place.

So this week I moved my office from our Main Store location to our Truck Center.  It sometimes is funny how many people in our town and even my own friends don’t understand the lingo of the truck center and the main store.  People in Enumclaw label it this way, the one across the street from Safeway or the new one when referencing the Truck Center (the Truck Center is over 10 years old).  Now the Main Store is called the old store or the the one next to Mazatlan.

So if you ever want to come see me, I am at the Truck Center and this is what I aspire to look like.

Your Local Car Salesman

Tulip Fields of Skagit Valley

I had never seen the tulip fields of Skagit Valley until I started my relationship with Sophia. It is one of the most beautiful sights to see all that color scattered across the fields. Every time we drive up to Anacortes we always drive through the valley as we call the back way. It is always fun to see the fields transform from snow geese to tulips.

Tulip Fields of Skagit Valley, posted with vodpod

Enumclaw Ford Drive One For Your School

The Enumclaw High School Football Program and Choir joined forces this past Saturday for a fundraiser. In the morning was a pancake feed and in the afternoon was a test drive program sponsored by Ford. Of course when I showed up to help everyone wanted to know if I was going to test drive a Ford. Most people forget that I sell used Ford’s all the time so it was not the first time I have driven a Ford. I was not going to leave without help raise some money for the Football team and Choir. So I decided I wanted to drive the new Taurus.  It was a lot of fun to drive a new car and it was even better to have fun with all the Ford people.  What a great event and beautiful weather you couldn’t ask for much more.

I AM SIGNING MY LIFE AWAY...

I am Back

Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated my blog. For those who follow me… cough, cough, OK I understand that when I write these I am not writing for any particular audience. If anything this Blog is for me to track events in my life and update some of the things I do at work. A lot has changed since I wrote last. Sophia and I have a dog and most importantly Sophia is pregnant with our first child. It is going to be a girl, so I better get used to a lot of pink, dresses and bows.

So I promise I will be updating this blog more now… (NO FINGERS CROSSED)

California Love

Sophia and I made the trip down to Southern California to go to my favorite place on Earth which happens to be the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland.  When I was in college I had a year round pass to Disneyland and this is odd because I went to school at Central Washington University.  I would make at least 2 trips down to California a year so I could go to Disneyland.  In college we would make the journey south via car but this time we decided to save a full days worth of time by flying.

Since graduating from college I have been absent from Disneyland for 2 1/2 years.  For some that may seem like not that long but for me that is a very long time to be absent from Mickey.  Sophia on the other hand has not been to Disneyland since she was 10 so in a way it was like going for the first time.  We made the trip down south not only for Disneyland although it was a huge bonus we went down for my brother-in-laws graduation from UC-Irvine (Go Ant Eaters!).  Here is a little video of him getting hooded!

It was so nice to go down to California because we definitely were missing the sun.  This May and Junes weather has been awful so seeing the big yellow thing in the sky was nice.  We flew in Thursday night so we had all day Friday to go to Disneyland.  Before we got into the park I bought an app for my phone that shows you the wait time for rides, it actually worked very well.  The only downfall about the app was I was always on my phone and I would see that Space Mountain would shut down every other hour.

We had some rough luck with rides breaking down.  We were on the platform for Thunder Mountain railroad when it closed down.  Some of the changes to Disneyland is the comeback of the 3-D adventure of Captain EO.  Seeing Michael Jackson as the space captain promoting peace and love was life changing!  The Jungle Cruise offered some new jokes, Indiana Jones line is still extremely long.  I am still disappointed in Pirates of the Caribbean when you enter the village there is that new smoke screen of one of those computer generated captains from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 or 3 I do not know which movie it was because I did not even see #3.  When riding the Matterhorn you are putting your life in Walt Disney hands as it is one of the most sketchy rides ever.

The ride of the day without a doubt was at California Adventure and it was Toy Store Mania.  It is a 3-D game where you play carnival games with your goal of scoring the most amount of points.  I was happy with my score of 75,000 points as it was the best out of our group.  The guy next to me on the ride scored the days all time high of 425,000 points.  How he did that I have no idea but after seeing what he looked like and how he ran up the stairs to get back in line it makes complete sense on how he scored 425,000 points.

Saturday we drove down the 101 as far as Laguna Beach.  After our stroll through beach towns we made the trip back to Irvine to see Robert’s graduation.  Next think you knew it was Sunday and we were heading on back home to rainy Enumclaw.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OUR PICTURES OF THE TRIP

M…I…C…K…E…Y… MOUSE

Sophia and I are going to Disneyland on Friday this week and we can not wait!  We are ready to get away from this rainy weather and finally get into some sun and of course go to the Happiest Place on Earth!

So the question is what ride do we go on first!?

It’s Wedding Season

“What do you like better, Christmas or wedding season?”

“Yes, um, the answer would be wedding season.”

- Wedding Crashers -

Well it is that time of year… It is nice as this year Sophia and I get to enjoy weddings instead of planning for one.  The first one of the year was my cousin Erin’s where the reception was at my parents house.  It was a lot of fun to have family in town.  The night before the wedding a couple of us guys went indoor go kart racing at Sky Kart in Tukwila.  I have not been to this indoor track since I was in High School, it was a blast.  I definitely woke up the next day sore, I never thought driving a go kart crashing into the wall would make me sore, I guess it is a sign that I am getting old.  It was a lot fun as we definitely rocked the jump suites that I am sure no one wears but we had fun with it.

The wedding was beautiful.  The weather did not co-operate with us as it was cold and rainy for the reception.  We made the best of the poor weather and enjoyed getting together to celebrate Erin’s wedding.  It was fun for Sophia and I see the action behind the scenes preparing my parents house for a wedding.  We are excited for all the weddings to come in 2010, just glad we are not stressing out planning one.

Rule #35: Never commit to a relative unless you’re sure they have a pulse.

Rule #16: Give me an up-to-date family tree. That was your mistake. You made me look like an idiot.

Rule #76: No excuses. Play like a champion!

Rule No.5: “You’re an idiot”