Season update, best pic ever

It's a little past half way through the season now, so here's a brief summary of what's happened so far:
The race season started in the middle of February with the Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Phoenix. I might have won the road race, but the race was neutralized with 1 km to go due to a crash in another field at the finish line. I had to settle for 5th.
I moved to LA for three months to tackle some of the early season big races. In LA, I did my first pro mountain bike race (finsihed 17th). My team--Ten Speed Drive/BH Bikes--came out for the San Dimas Stage Race (things didn't go so hot at that one) and Redlands (pretty much the top race in the country that amateurs can get into). I then jumped in the team van and went to Texas for a stage race where I finished 6th.
Mid April saw me traveling north to Laguna Seca Raceway and the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA. The three races here were about as stacked as I will see all year, and included big time pro riders such as Levi Leipheimer, and Cristoph Sauser (current mountain bike cross country world champion). During the road circuit race, while passing one of the said pros (Levi), I saw a photgrapher's flash go off, and I knew there was going to be an awesome picture of me out there somewhere. Oh, and I finished in the top third of the field, which is not too shabby. The mountain bike race took place in brutal 90 degree weather, and was the largest pro field I've seen. Being a neo pro, I had to start at the back of the 140 rider field. Anyone who's ridden singletrack knows that being behind that many people is a death sentence, but I made the best of it and made my way up to 73rd place by the finish. Sauser won the race by 4 minutes over 2nd.
At the Tour of the Gila in May, a guy named Lance decided that he needed a good domestic stage race to get into shape before going to a race in Italy known as the Giro. He brought his teammates Chris and Levi. I didn't get to race Lance due to categorization restrictions, but my teammates did. Turns out that people like to watch Lance race (and eat and walk out of his bus, etc, etc), so there were a lot more people at this race than normal. I even signed two autographs that week...I like to think that was because I am a hot up and comer, not because Lance Armstrong was there. After four days, I was in 10th place on GC, but due to the main group letting a break get 11 minutes on us in the last stage, I fell to 17th. Bummer.
By this time (early May), pollution in LA was just getting out of control, so I bailed and went back to New Mexico. Next stop was the Teva mountain games in Vail, CO. Lance was in nearby Aspen for the birth of his 4th child, so the rider registered for the hill climb time trial simply as "MJ" presumably was him ("Mellow Johnny" for the name of his bike shop). Guess his 3 day old was more important, though, because he didn't show. I raced well and only got passed by Phil Zajicek (a top domestic pro). I felt good about that until I saw that he started 2:30 min behind me.
Right now, I've been sticking to local races and am gearing up for big races in Oregon, Illinois, and Virginia (with a stop-off in Omaha to hang with my friends Jonathan and Kara. Woot!)