Travel site
Another shout-out to a friend building a site. Miguelito's NicheTravelGuide.com offers unique travel ideas for destinations throughout the world and relies on anecdotal travel advice submitted by site visitors. It's gradually building up stories (I've submitted two contributions on there, and mean to write some more.) Check it out.
Viva Espana
Pedro picked a pretty good time to be in Spain for work; Spaniard Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France today in Paris. This adds to what one friend pointed out has been a pretty big summer for Spain. The victories in the sporting world I can count in the past two months:- Sastre won the Tour today
- Spaniard Rafael Nadal won Wimbledon on July 21st in an epic match versus Roger Federer
- Spain beat Germany in the Euro Cup final on June 29th
Sastre claimed the Tour leader's yellow jersey on Wednesday after a huge win at L'Alpe-d'Huez and carried the jersey through today's finish in Paris. Following his victory there in the French Alps on Wednesday, however,
he wasn't presented with the yellow jersey by the usual 
Podium Girls. Instead, Sastre was congratulated on the podium by actor Michael Douglas and the Miami Heat's Pat Riley. Wait, what? Are you kidding me? What are these dudes doing hanging out together at the Tour de France, and why are they presenting awards? I hope Sastre didn't have to exchange bisous (that's the French "kiss-kiss") which is standard for the podium. I'm dumbfounded. And also dumbfounded that these two are not related. They look so similar...
he wasn't presented with the yellow jersey by the usual 
Podium Girls. Instead, Sastre was congratulated on the podium by actor Michael Douglas and the Miami Heat's Pat Riley. Wait, what? Are you kidding me? What are these dudes doing hanging out together at the Tour de France, and why are they presenting awards? I hope Sastre didn't have to exchange bisous (that's the French "kiss-kiss") which is standard for the podium. I'm dumbfounded. And also dumbfounded that these two are not related. They look so similar...T Shirts
A shout to Matty's new clothing company. I've got one of their shirts and I'm a fan of it. Check out the website at CircularEvolution.com. All the product photos were shot at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.
Beers
A couple things about beer.
I had the pleasure of attending a friend's engagement party this weekend (congrats Lewis). Someone brought a case of Coors Light with WIDE MOUTH cans that are now VENTED. I'm not sure how I ever enjoyed beer before the advent of this amazing combination of features. Thanks to the gifted can engineer who came up with that one. I thought those color-changing beer bottle wrappers (you know, the mountains turn blue when the beer's cold) were the pinnacle of excellence, but I now stand corrected.
Also, how about this news release from two years back about the head of the Coors family being pulled over for a DUI and having it reduced to a DWAI (Driving While Ability Impaired). Regardless of the charge, he was over the legal limit and driving. I'd call it ironic, but I don't think that's a strong enough characterization.
Finally, now that Coors is part of MillerCoors (though formerly there was SABMiller and MolsonCoors... now it's merged... I forget...) and Anheuser-Busch InBev have sealed a deal, I've read that Boston's own Sam Adams is now the biggest American-owned brewery in the US per this link. Go Boston.
I had the pleasure of attending a friend's engagement party this weekend (congrats Lewis). Someone brought a case of Coors Light with WIDE MOUTH cans that are now VENTED. I'm not sure how I ever enjoyed beer before the advent of this amazing combination of features. Thanks to the gifted can engineer who came up with that one. I thought those color-changing beer bottle wrappers (you know, the mountains turn blue when the beer's cold) were the pinnacle of excellence, but I now stand corrected.
Also, how about this news release from two years back about the head of the Coors family being pulled over for a DUI and having it reduced to a DWAI (Driving While Ability Impaired). Regardless of the charge, he was over the legal limit and driving. I'd call it ironic, but I don't think that's a strong enough characterization.
Finally, now that Coors is part of MillerCoors (though formerly there was SABMiller and MolsonCoors... now it's merged... I forget...) and Anheuser-Busch InBev have sealed a deal, I've read that Boston's own Sam Adams is now the biggest American-owned brewery in the US per this link. Go Boston.
Surveying the pollution
Following the cancellation of the Donner Lake Triathlon this week, I decided to head up to the mountains anyways to take advantage of a weekend on the left coast. While up there, I went on a long 3 hour mountain bike ride. I was tired and sweaty and my clothes smelled vaguely of a campfire from all the haze in the air. But I couldn't sense any ill effects from the smoke other than a dry throat. My would-be teammates and I were all a bit frustrated with not being able to compete and we couldn't help but question the race organizers' decision to call-off the race. What should the criteria be? What level of smoke would have been OK? Should they have let it go on and let competitors race at their own risk? On the one hand, the organizers are "not the boss of me" (I don't want to be told when it's OK to race). But on the other hand, they definitely are "the boss of me" (they're the ones putting on the race).
Here's a very dim picture of the view above Donner Lake...
Somewhat similar to a picture we took last year from the same spot...
Obviously a bit different from last year to this year.
The question of competing in bad air quality brings to mind the predicament of thousands of athletes heading to Beijing next month for the Olympics. An unscientific report from a BBC correspondent showed similar air quality measurements in Beijing to what was seen near Donner Lake. I'm guessing there won't be any cancellations happening there...
Wildfires and Triathlons
The table below shows shows the air quality for Truckee, CA over the past month as measured at the Truckee Fire Station. Why's the air quality in Truckee important? Truckee is where I'm entered in a triathlon this weekend. (Part of a triathlon relay, so I'm just signed up for the running leg.) And because of all the wildfires in Northern California, there have been very high levels of "particulate matter" in the air over the past few weeks. It's easy to see the score rise over the past month since the fires started. A score under 50 on the chart below is considered "good," above 150 is "unhealthy," and over 200 is considered "very unhealthy."
It also turns out that a score over 150 is considered "not good for triathlon-ing." The race has been cancelled. No refunds or anything.So that kind of stinks. But the upside is that I get to hang out in California...
More paint
The art in the alley isn't a covert, middle-of-the-night, guys-in-hooded-sweatshirts operation. Here's some artists putting up some new work in the middle of the day.
Here's one... Political commentary? Maybe an environmentalist message? I think there's a Modest Mouse song with lyrics like that.
More apocalyptic talk...
Here's one... Political commentary? Maybe an environmentalist message? I think there's a Modest Mouse song with lyrics like that.
More apocalyptic talk...
The porch
Not to brag... well actually, yeah I will brag.
The porch at Broadway (which will be sorely missed next year when we move on to our new digs) has reached a whole new level of awesomeness; I slept there last night. It was nice out and my room was still warm from the day so I grabbed my sheets and made a bed on the hammock. It was great. I recommend it.
The porch at Broadway (which will be sorely missed next year when we move on to our new digs) has reached a whole new level of awesomeness; I slept there last night. It was nice out and my room was still warm from the day so I grabbed my sheets and made a bed on the hammock. It was great. I recommend it.
Going neutral
So this is just a great site, and I can't begin to take any credit for stumbling upon it. cheatneutral.com is a service that claims to let you "offset" your infidelities by contributing to a fund that supports monogamous relationships. In reality, it's satire that goes after the idea of being carbon neutral and purchasing carbon offsets. I think the analogy is perfect.
Poke around the site a little bit to find out about the supposed benefit of being "cheat neutral." For someone who can't help but cheat on their significant other, they can simply contribute to a fund that supports someone else who's able to stay committed. Of course it's a little bit ludicrous to condone cheating. The site points out that carbon offsetting is equally irresponsible. When a business claims to be carbon neutral by paying someone to plant some trees somewhere, they're giving up on conservation (or fidelity in the case of this analogy).
I really think that being able to make an eye-opening analogy is the sign of true intelligence. You're able to draw parallels and make someone understand a topic they might not otherwise comprehend. In this case cheatneutral has made a brilliant analogy.
Poke around the site a little bit to find out about the supposed benefit of being "cheat neutral." For someone who can't help but cheat on their significant other, they can simply contribute to a fund that supports someone else who's able to stay committed. Of course it's a little bit ludicrous to condone cheating. The site points out that carbon offsetting is equally irresponsible. When a business claims to be carbon neutral by paying someone to plant some trees somewhere, they're giving up on conservation (or fidelity in the case of this analogy).
I really think that being able to make an eye-opening analogy is the sign of true intelligence. You're able to draw parallels and make someone understand a topic they might not otherwise comprehend. In this case cheatneutral has made a brilliant analogy.
Long Weekend
Happy 4th of July weekend. I hope you're getting some time off from whatever you're up to.
De Niro / Pacino
Saw this old school movie poster plastered to a wall for an upcoming cop movie with De Niro and Pacino. That seems pretty serious to me. These two guys are responsible for big time characters in some pretty big movies. Getting them together for a film? Very cool. I don't know anything about the movie, but the trailer's available here.
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