My sporting life has come nearly full circle. After a long time doing this, I read today what seemed to me as a great article done by Scott Reid for the Orange County Register. You can check it out here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gardner-team-clemente-2052427-san-volleyball. It really made me happy to read this and have come so far in my career.  I'd really like to thank Scott for the well written article and also Steve Zylius for the cool photos he put together with the story. Steve, everyone seemed to like the "Vogue" like picture of me on the net seen here :

I am happy to be part of something I will now refer to as the brand "U Caan!". A new worldwide athletic apparel company has joined forces with gabegardner.com to provide sports apparel to clubs throughout the USA. Please take a look at the international site here.

Caan was originally founded in Greece, and later brought to Turkey through a collaboration with owner Nejat Sancak . Nejat, who also serves as a volleyball manager, coach, and Fivb instructor has been a good friend of mine for several years. It was through our friendship that the idea to bring Caan to the USA market was launched. It continues to look as though Caan will be a brand that will be in the USA for years to come!

Today we decided to change the look of the first page most users will arrive at when they get to gabegardner.com - the pic will no longer be of me overlooking one of the most beautiful places in the world...but instead me spiking in the bronze medal match of the 2007 World League in front of 15000+ people in Poland vs Poland. It was a great match! Hope you enjoy!

This photo is me and the family on Lake Como for my 32nd.

Today was a great day. A day on Italy's famous Lake Como for my 32nd. I was pretty excited because although Julie, Harper and I had visited it recently, we came this time with the whole family (Fowlers) and were able to take a high speed boat around the lake. As most of you know, its a little different perspective once you are actually on the lake looking around.

The lake itself was beautiful. We were all so happy to be cruising around and looking at the boats windows. You could see so many of the great houses just sitting on the water, as if they had been there for years.

We arrived at our destination, Bellagio (yes like the hotel in vegas, definitely inspired by this place). It was a cool little town on the point where Como splits. Imagine this town, and actually the photo, and being taken from the crotch of como's legs looking up towards the mountains of it's....well you know. Depends if you consider Como male or female. But really, there were some beautiful mountains. All in all, a great day and place to visit. Only tough part of the day was growing older...its not that bad though.

It was a great trip down south to Latina, Italy. Not because of the volleyball...but because of the location and friends. Latina is about 1 hour north west from Rome on the med sea. Our hotel and balcony of our room were right on the ocean, and looked out onto the sea. What was cool about the friends was that USA team mate Riley Salmon and family were playing for the opposing team who beat us bad. After the beating, Riley and his family were nice enough to take us out to dinner and let us eat nice. In fact I had one of the best pieces of meat I had every had in Europe...carne de pepe verde. It was truly a delight to wash down with 2 bottles of chianti. Thanks for both the beating and the dinner Riles!

So today Julie Harper and I are eating lunch in our team restaurant. There is never any parking, so you just either park on the curb, or go with what is available and park where ever you see something. I found a nice spot right in front of the restaurant, but it was partially over a crosswalk. Apparently, this is a big no no in Italy...so while I was eating the restaurant owner warned us of cops outside. I went outside to find them ticketing my car.

I tried to explain to them that I was leaving immediately, and that was not good enough. They asked to see my drivers lisense, I gave them my CA DL, and they laughed. Said if I was a foreigner, I had to give the penalty of 74 Euros (about 125 dollars) immediately or they would tow my car into a garage in the city. I was pissed, but what could I do, I had to run down the street to the ATM and pay them immediately so Julie, Harper and I could drive home! Nice way to pay $125 in less that 5 min!