I am weirdly disconnected from my accident last night. I know that it happened, I can visualize the whole thing perfectly, but it seems like a dream. Not even a bad dream, just something that I experienced, but not in real life. I talk to the repair shop, I talk with my insurance agent, I talk with friends, and it all just seems like stuff someone else is doing as part of someone else's life. Maybe I just can't accept that my poor little car was thrashed so badly. Thinking about it, I do believe it will be okay in the end; I don't think the frame was damaged, or the engine, or anything fundamental, but it is going to take time and money to recover. The main damage will be to my wallet, yikes.
BTW thanks for all your well wishes. I *am* fine, but my poor little car is not :(
Heading home on the 405 tonight, about 30mph, two lanes closed due to construction. Suddenly the car in front of me hits the car in front of him who had hit the car in front of him. Bam bam. I slam on my brakes and try to swerve into the other lane but there is a car there. Bam bam.
Wow. Did that actually just happen?
I'm ... okay. Wearing my seat belt, air bag didn't deploy. Car seems ... okay. It can drive. Turn on flashers. I move over to the right gingerly, there is no shoulder due to construction, nowhere to go. Head for the next exit, there it is, I creep off the freeway and into a nearby gas station. Inspect the damage.
Ouch.
My poor little car is hurt. Badly. Cannot open the driver's door, so climb out on the right. Left front side smashed, headlight gone, wheel well collapsed. Right front side all scraped up too.
I call 911. Report a collision. I was involved, I'm okay. No, I have no idea who else was involved, or what happened to them. Yes, I will wait for the highway patrol.
I wait.
The patrolmen show up in force; three cars six people. I answer many questions, they take many notes, they leave. Apparently no other cars stopped, nobody else reported the accident. Huh.
I drive my car slowly to the repair shop. My daughter picks me up, takes me home.
Well it was a great tour, an *amazingly* great tour, and now it's over, and like always at the end of July, now I'm sad. No more getting up early to watch Phil and Paul and Bob and Craig, no more watching 200 lycra-clad athletes ride bikes around France, surrounded by the most amazing scenery as the climb the Alps and the Pyrenees, and fly through little villages, and pass through big cities brought to a standstill by their passing. Not until next year anyway.
Here are the highlights for me:
Fabian Cancellara dominating the Prologue in Rotterdam. How great was he, and how great was it to have the Prologue there, and how significant was the Prologue, as the time gaps in that 7 mile race determined the winner three weeks and 2,100 miles later.
Alessandro Petacchi winning stage 1 in Belgium. Who? Oh yeah, him, only one of the best sprinters ever, and we all thought it would be between Mark Cavendish and Tyler Farrar. Thus was heralded one of the best green jersey competitions in recent memory.
That weird standstill in stage 2, wherein the entire peloton except race winner Sylvain Chavanel finished together in the same time, at the behest of Fabian Cancellara. Sure there were a lot of crashes but neutralize the whole race? It sure hurt Thor Hushovd, and it sure helped Andy Schleck.
And then - dum dum dum - we had stage 3, the cobblestone stage! Won by Thor Hushovd, to his everlasting credit. And Alberto Contador did just fine, thank you, and Andy Schleck did too (by following in the wake of Fabian Cancellara). But Frank Schleck broke his collarbone, ending his tour, and perhaps fatally hurting teammate and brother Andy's chances for the overall victory.
Forward to stage 5, as Mark Cavendish tearfully blazed to victory, after Petacchi had claimed stage 4. The Manx Missile was back, and took stage 6 too, for good measure.
Stage 7 was cool as Sylvain Chavanel attacked on the final climb and ran away to victory, claiming the yellow jersey and the hearts of French cycling fans everywhere.
And then stage 8, that fateful stage, the first "real" climb in the Alps. Lance Armstrong crashed three times and lost 12 minutes, eliminating his chance to win. Meanwhile Andy Schleck took time on everyone and won, leaving Cadel Evans in yellow.
And then Stage 9 saw another contender eliminated as Cadel Evans broke his elbow and lost big time. Schleck and Contador put time into all the GC contenders as it became obvious one of them would win the tour.
Stage 12 was a doozy, the final Alpine stage; a huge break boiled down to Alexander Vinokourov attacking up the final climb, only to be caught by Contador, who attacked the GC peloton and put 10s into Schleck to win the stage. Fireworks! Also cool on this day was watching Hushovd lumber up the climbs to take sprint points and claim the green jersey. And Vino attacked the sprinters the following day to win stage 13.
The Tour moved into the Pyrenees, and stage 14 was another great shootout. Contador and Schleck battled to a standstill, while Denis Menchov and Samuel Sanchez fought a battle of their own for third place.
Probably the stage most people will remember best? Stage 15, another mountain battle; Thomas Voeckler won (!), but Schleck attacked and was pulling time on the GC group when his chain came off! Whoa. Contador wasted no time blowing past, and by the time the dust settled he had taken 40s from Schleck, as well as the yellow jersey (for good, as it turned out).
Stage 16 looked like a chance for a breakaway, and so it was, but the amazing news was that Lance Armstrong himself attacked and led the race solo for a while, before a nine-man break formed. He gave it his best shot and we were all rooting for him to win, but he was out-sprinted in the end.
If you ever want to see an epic battle on a mountaintop finish, check out stage 17, in which Schleck did everything he could to attack Contador and take time, and nearly did, but then didn't; he did win, but Contador was half a wheel behind. It was awesome cycling. And meanwhile Menchov and Sanchez pulled away and drew in their competition for third.
The final GC battle was the ITT, as usual, stage 19 through the vineyards of Bordeaux. Cancellara won, to noone's surprise (and his delight and relief), while Menchov posted the best time among the GC contenders, blasting away from Sanchez to secure third. And Andy did the ride of his life to challenge Alberto, but just couldn't do it; a noble effort that fell just short, leaving Contador the overall victor by 40s.
And the final sprint battle was the final stage, as usual, the parade up and down the Champs Elysees; Cavendish blew out to win, his fifth of the tour, and Petacchi finished second to end up as the sprint champion. Adding spice; the Team Radio Shack "28" jersey stunt (which raised the UCI's ire), as they won the team competition, putting Lance back on the podium as a winner in his last Tour.
As I said, a *great* tour, every day there was something new, something cool, and often a bunch of things going on at once. I already cannot wait until next year...
A great Sunday; we watched the final stage of le Tour, and then I went sailing with Meg on Westlake. Somewhere in there we had a marvelous late lunch, sitting lakeside and enjoying the day of the world. I have quoted Wind in the Willows many times: "there is nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats", and so it was today.
Is anybody out there? The Times of India reports 140 'earths' found... out of 700 new planets. All by NASA's Kepler space probe. I wonder how many of those 140 'earths' have intelligent life, and have launched space probes?
I found this rather amusing; for the past two weeks (since the end of the World Cup) the biggest sporting event going has been the Tour de France, but CNN only ran an article about it today, because of the Team Radio Shack special jersey story. I guess cycling really hasn't made it as a mainstream sport in the U.S. yet :)
I *must* get one of those jerseys; instant classic!
Alexis and I have been exploring Mini Coopers! How fun is that... they seem to be Alex' hearts' desire, and I must admit, they are really cute. Not to mention they're safe - well built, with lots of good features - and economical. Pretty fun to drive, too; with that little engine, they zip around like a go cart. Quite a practical little car for a teen. Anyway who knows but the exploration has been fun...
(In answer to your next question: Charcoal with black trim :)
The final stage of the 2010 Tour de France was a parade, as usual, followed by a bunch sprint, as usual, which Mark Cavendish won going away - as usual! Man he is just so much faster than everyone else, it is scary. Thor Hushovd got a great leadout and the camera was following him from the side as he cranked up his sprint, and suddenly Cavendish entered the frame from behind him and blew through, a yellow flash. Wow! Alessandro Petacchi finished a distant second to claim the green jersey; congratulations to him...
The main excitement of the day occured before the start; Team Radio Shack unveiled their cool new "28" jerseys, all black (memo to self: get one!) only to be informed that they would be disqualified if they didn't switch back. Boo. So we were treated to the sight of nine riders sitting by the side of the road, pinning their numbers onto new jerseys, while the peloton soft pedaled through the neutral zone. Pretty funny. Later the team showed off their new jerseys while being presented as the top team in the 2010 Tour (pic at right). It is fitting that Lance Armstrong's team won, in his final Tour; he has always been about the team, and he came back to cycling to promote Livestrong, his "team" to fight cancer. Chapeau, Lance!
The final podium featured Alberto Contador winning his third tour, Andy Schleck with his second consecutive second, and Denis Menchov, who has won the Vuelta twice and the Giro, and has now been on the podium of the Tour.
It was a great Tour - the best really since I began paying attention, in terms of the competition and the route and all the side stories - and I'm sad it is over. More perspective in a future post, but au reviour Le Tour for now.
A quick post before heading out for a great dinner (!); spent a nice day watching Le Tour (congrats Alberto, although I was rooting for Andy, and yay Menchov!), working, and did a fantastic mountain bike ride up to Simi Peak. I forgot how much I enjoy mountain biking - and how technical it is - must do more often... (maybe tomorrow after sailing :)...
A key part of enjoying a mountain bike ride is of course the choice of music; Van Halen is great for gnarly climbs, for example, and UB40 for gliding singletrack descents. I do not recommend anything too mellow as you must keep your speed and concentration *up* for safety.
So, it's been a week since my Like-ing Facebook experiment; last Saturday I added "Like" buttons to all the posts on my blog. So far I'd say nobody has been hurt, but it hasn't exactly taken off either; I think like four posts have been "liked", by like eight people. So be it. In the name of science, the experiment will continue :)
Today was the traditional "penultimate day time trial", and the flat course through the Bordeaux wine vineyards provided plenty of drama. The competitors ride in reverse order of their standing on GC, so Fabian Cancellara went early, smashed the course before the wind came up, and then spent all day watching other riders try unsuccessfully to beat his time. Tony Martin was second (another early rider).
Later in the day the GC contenders fought it out; Denis Menchov had a great ride in the increasing wind to take over third from Samuel Sanchez. And Andy Schleck went out fast - wow! - nearly was the leader on the road, but ultimately Alberto Contador prevailed and ended up consolidating his lead in the yellow jersey. The Radio Shack boys didn't fare too well - Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden, and Chris Horner, but they still added to their team's overall lead and will end up on the podium tomorrow.
Tomorrow we'll have the usual parade to Paris and bunch sprint, with the extra drama that the green jersey is still up for grabs; Alessandro Petacchi has it now, but Thor Hushovd and Mark Cavendish both have a shot at it. One more day!
Interesting day... slept in [a bit], watched Le Tour [of course], worked, and then visited Loyola Marymount University with Alex; it's one of the colleges she's considering (she's a senior now, going into next year, wow) - the whole "college" thing is weird, I can't believe Alex is that old and we're about to lose her...
Cool: Spitzer Telescope finds first-ever Buckyballs in space. Buckyballs are molecules consisting of configurations of geodesic configurations of 60 carbon atoms, named after Buckminster Fuller. The lack of gravity in space enables these configurations to form, apparently, and they can be detected by their spectral signature...
Man does this look cool: new Tron Legacy trailer. I loved Tron, and this update seems excellent; they have extended the story nicely and the graphics are amazing. Did you know the original Tron was rotoscoped by hand? Yeah.
Up for debate: Women most attractive at 31. Huh. I will conduct personal research on this subject and report back :)
Another research subject: Sex makes you smarter. Not so sure about virtual sex however, seems like it would lead to virtual exercise, and the health benefits of that are questionable.
The weather is going to be amazing, so get out there and enjoy it; I plan to do some mountain bike riding and some sailing ... and some working ... and some blogging. Have a great weekend!
Check out that stage profile, yep, what we have here is a bunch sprint. After the day-long parade with a breakaway dangling out front, it was a hectic and tumultuous sprint; for a brief while Thor Hushovd looked to have the leadout and the edge, but then Alessandro Petacchi blew by, and Mark Cavendish blew by Petacchi, and after the dust settled Cavendish had won another stage and Petacchi was back in the green jersey, most likely for good. Despite Hushovd's great work in the non-sprint stages he just doesn't have it in the sprints - probably still recovering from that broken collarbone earlier in the season...
Tomorrow we have the most excellent time trial through the vineyards of Bordeaux - and the yellow jersey and team competitions will be decided. Stay tuned...
Wow, where to start? I've had an amazing couple of days, but if I tell you that and no more would it be a tease? I can report I've been working a lot, and working out, and riding; did a nice loop around Miramar Air Base yesterday, that was fun, with the theme from Top Gun playing in my head... and I am now back home after a battle with traffic*, and of course blogging.
I've been reliving my past a bit; thinking about stuff that happened to me a long time ago, and how it influences me today... perhaps a think piece ahead on this, who knows. We have so much control over our lives, more than we realize, and you can make big changes in your life just by changing the way you feel about it at any time.
Paul Graham: The Top Idea in Your Mind. "I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought... I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower." Fascinating, because one way to view his point is that you can only be working with one box at a time... Paul is male, so I wonder ... would a female "philosopher of business" have the same insight? :)
We are still hunting for the killer app for the iPad, and yet sales have blasted off... My Mom is loving hers, but I still can't figure out what to do with mine except play with it. I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something here, can anyone help? There is a suggestion in the BusinessWeek article about 'personal information dashboards' ... huh. Would have to see it to get it, I think...
Comic Sans fights back. I love it. The whole fight about a type face is pretty comical :)
News you can use: What Duran Duran taught me about girls. "...bringing people together is what music has always done best." So, I'm Ole, and I like Duran Duran. Consider it The Reflex...
Blue Holes: Amazing underwater caves in the Bahamas. Wow, just when you think you've seen it all, you realize "it all" is so much more than you thought... even just on Earth.
Haven't had one for a while, but here's our ZooBorn of the day: a baby Hyraxes. Did you know? "Rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis) look like very large guinea pigs but actually are most closely related to elephants." Only ... smaller.
Today featured the ultimate mountain battle - three amazing climbs culminating in a mountaintop finish on the HC Col du Tourmalet - and Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador fought to a draw, with Schleck winning the stage (by about a wheel) and Contador keeping the yellow jersey.
After the usual break took off - doomed, as everyone knew, because the GC contenders would fight it out on the final climb - the peloton settled in and cruised over the first couple of Cat 1 climbs, descended into the valley, and then the hostilities began. Schleck's Saxobank team put down the hammer, and ground down the peloton to a small group of elite riders. At that point Schleck attacked, and only Contador could stay with him. They rode as hard as two guys can ride all the way up the steep climb, each attacking the other, and neither gave an inch. In the end Schleck won, but you could see Contador could have sprinted for the line, but choose not to... he kept his yellow jersey (by 8s), and most observers believe he'll open the gap substantially in Saturday's time trial. It was great to watch.
Meanwhile Sammy Sanchez survived a nasty crash early in the day to recover and keep third position, opening his slim lead over Denis Menchov slightly. Big winners on the day included Chris Horner and Ryder Hesjedal, losers included Levi Leipheimer and team Casse d'Epargne, who lost ground to Radio Shack in the team competition. (Lance hung tough on that final climb, as did Andreas Kloden, giving the Shack a good top three for the day.)
A cool side note: after the break formed Carlos Sastre attacked, and he stayed out most of the day until he was caught midway up the final climb. Good for him; it didn't work, but it was great to see him try it.
And so ... tomorrow we have a pure sprint stage, and then it is Saturday's time trial which will decide the winner. The green jersey also lies in the balance with points available tomorrow and Sunday. And chapeau to Anthony Charteau who has won the polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains...
A long day of work for me - drove down early, many meetings - but overall things are going quite well. I've been working on a project which is taking shape, and it's great to see it finally moving... tonight I find myself in San Clemente - all the hotels in Carlsbad are occupied by ComicCon, apparently - and so I did a rather weird ride, lots of residential streets, kind of fun though as you never know what will be around the next corner, and the next...
I don't necessarily agree with the New Yorker on most things, but Borderlines hits the nail on the head. "The problem of illegal immigration isn’t a matter of violent criminals storming the walls of our peaceful towns and cities. It’s a matter of what to do about the estimated eleven million unauthorized residents who are already here." I think of this every time I drive through the useless border checkpoints along I-5 between Oceanside and San Clemente, which I did tonight...
NewScientist: Why Facebook friends are worth keeping... (linked to the Google cache, to bypass the paywall.) Apparently those "weak ties" to your not-really-best-friends have more value than we might think. Maybe I should be friending more people? Maybe.
WRONG: Guy Kawasaki explains why too much money is worse than too little. He's making a valid point - that companies develop bad habits if they have too much money - but not having enough money kills a company more surely than anything else.
A re-introduction to JavaScript, on the Mozilla website; great article, linked as much for me (so I can find it later) as for you (so you can find it now).
Massively cool: create a 3D hologram with your iPad... best part, no funky glasses required :) Seriously this technology could lead to some amazing things... a home entertainment room with 3D?
Apple's billion dollar data center will be done this year, and TechCrunch [as many others] wonders why are they building it? Their answer: "iTunes in the cloud", and they might be right... of course another possibility is streaming movies, and that's my own guess...
On Slashdot: the rise of small nuclear power plants. "The prevailing wisdom is that nuclear plants must be very large in order to be competitive. This assumption is widely accepted, but, if its roots are understood, it can be effectively challenged." Yay.
Most excellent from Jeff Atwood: Groundhog day, or the problem with A/B testing. It celebrates Groundhog Day, one of the most excellent movies ever, and then goes on to make solid points about the virtues and limitations of A/B testing of software... yeah, it's a stretch, but let's give him credit for celebrating the movie :)
Google had a big announcement day for a series of image search enhancements they're rolling out... some UI improvements, and some new functionality, and ... image ads. Cool for the most part, blech for the ads...
Wow, Lance *almost* pulled it off, and I think everyone was pulling for him to do it. He almost won from a nine-man break, almost putting a great punctuation mark on his fabulous Tour de France career. At least he gave it a shot!
Today we had the "queen stage", a huge climbing day with two Cat 1 climbs and two HC climbs... and [unfortunately] a rather long flat run after the final climb down to the finish. It was tailor made for a breakaway, and indeed there was one, and among the twelve riders in it was #21, Lance Armstrong himself. Also in it was Ryder Hesjedal, ensuring the peloton wasn't going to give the break too much leash. After a while they were joined by Alexander Vinokourov, Carlos Sastre, Sandy Casar, and Anthony Charteau, the current KOM leader. That was the status after the second Cat 1 Col d'Aspin. Soon Casar attacked, and soon after so did Lance! The peloton absorbed the break as other riders attacked off the front, even as Lance passed Casar on the lower slopes of the HC Col d'Tourmalet. For a while he was all by himself, and we all wondered whether he'd be able to hang out there all day, with two HC passes ahead of him...
But it was not to be. A nine-man break formed, with no GC contenders, and they made it all the way to the finish, but Pierrick Fedrigo out sprinted the rest of the break, leaving Lance to finish sixth. I was a little sad but it was fun watching it all unfold however :) Also great on this day: Thor Hushovd does what he always does, race his bike in the mountains as well as the flats, and as a result he took enough sprint points to reclaim the green jersey from Alessandro Petacchi. We'll see if he can keep it, but it is cool that he can compete for the green jersey without actually being one of the top sprinters.
Tomorrow is a rest day - much needed, you can be sure - and the day after we'll have fireworks for sure as it will be Andy Schleck against Alberto Contador mano-a-mano on the hilltop finish to the Tourmalet, which they'll climb from the other side to the way they took it today. Will be amazing!
Just another manic Monday, wish it was Sunday... calls and meetings and status reports and emails and waaaaaaaah! If only I wasn't so busy working, maybe I could get some work done. I did manage to sneak a nice 20 mile ride into a two hour gap. And I did have a delightful conversation with a good friend. And I watched the Tour stage which was amazing, if frustrating. And ... I did blog a bit...
Huh: China passes USA as world's biggest energy consumer. That's surprising. It's not all those people though, it's all that manufacturing... And China passed the USA as the world's biggest polluter some time ago :(
Los Angeles dreams of a new downtown river park. Yes! LA is a great city but the downtown of LA is not so great... we need some development there, freshen things up, revitalize the center...
Scott "Dilbert" Adams admires Apple's response to the iPhone 4 reception issue: High Ground Maneuver. "If Jobs had not changed the context from the iPhone 4 in particular to all smartphones in general, I could make you a hilarious comic strip about a product so poorly made that it won't work if it comes in contact with a human hand. But as soon as the context is changed to "all smartphones have problems," the humor opportunity is gone. Nothing kills humor like a general and boring truth."
It *is* noticeable that someone all the other smartphone vendors have gotten drawn into this mess...
I lost one of my longtime favorite bloggers Halley Suitt for some reason - but found her! - and am catching up on old posts, like this one: What?! You're not lost in a book?!: "I can't believe how few people around me take the time to read for pleasure." Same! Good night, off to read a little before falling asleep...
TDF stage 15 / climb! / Voeckler wins from break, Contador attacks, takes yellow after Schleck's mechanical
Oh what a day of racing we had today, and it will set up some intense racing in the days ahead!
As you can see from the profile, we had a long day in the mountains with the massive HC Port du Bales 20km from the finish. An early break of ten riders took an eight minute lead to the base of the climb, and then immediately exploded. Crowd favorite Thomas Voeckler rode strong, preserved two minutes of the gap to the summit, and soloed down the back for a well-deserved stage win.
Meanwhile behind him the real fireworks were exploding, as Team Saxobank ground the peloton down into just the GC leaders. With 5km to go Andy Schleck attacked! and had pulled a gap when suddenly his chain came off. (Replays were inconclusive as to why, but it looked like maybe the retractor on his back derailleur caught the chain.) Immediately after Alberto Contador attacked himself, taking Denis Menchov and Samuel Sanchez with him. After futzing with his chain for about 30s Schleck remounted and chased, getting back to within 20s at the top. The descent was amazing, with Contador, Menchov, and Sanchez all taking turns pulling to open a gap, and Schleck and Jorgen van den Broek working to close it. The result was a 49s gap at the finish, putting Contador into yellow for the first time this tour, by 8s.
There will be a lot of controversy over whether Contador should have stopped and waited - Team Cervelo owner Tweeted "Contador just gained a great chance to win, but he lost the chance to win greatly". My initial reaction was that it was bad luck, and that's racing, but on further review I think Contador might have waited just a beat or two to see what had happened. Menchov and Samuel probably would have waited, too. Still in the heat of the moment you have to react, and Alberto reacted like he always reacts to anything - by attacking.
So ends a nice weekend; it was so great to have nothing specific planned - the weekend had infinite potential - but now that it's over I wish I'd done more with it. Today I watched the Tour (great stage!) and worked, and spent some quality time reading poolside and drinking Pastis :) but now it's Sunday night and on into another week. A complicated week. So be it!
Have you noticed how the size at which you view pictures totally changes them? I was looking through some pictures of friends today and it is weird how different they are at different sizes. Some look great postage stamp sized (like in a Facebook profile), and others become amazing when you enlarge them. Weird.
Slight seepage from the BP well, now capped, has been detected. Let's hope it stays slight. I guess the plan is to drill a new well which will relieve the pressure. fXf!
According to NOAA this past June was the hottest in recorded history. Whew. And based on this weekend, this July is going to be a contender, too.
Meanwhile, Mt. Everest is losing ice. The pictures at right show a glacier in 1921 compared to the same one in 2010.
Wow, what a shootout! A *great* mountain stage today, featuring the world's nastiest HC Port Port de Pailhères, 10 miles of climbing at 8%, followed by a steep descent and then the Cat 1 Ax-3 Domaines to a mountaintop finish, 6 more miles of 8%. Wow.
Chapeau to Christophe Riblon who survived all the way from the early break, which had about 5 minutes at the base of the Pailheres. From there steady pressure by Astana splintered the peloton, with various amazing attacks - Carlos Sastre took off, among others - and there were only GC contenders left by the top of the climb. The descent was uneventful, and on the final climb Contador and Schleck marked each other, leaving Denis Menchov and Samuel Sanchez free to take off and engage in their battle for third. Jurgen Van Den Broek lost a little time - he's still in fifth, but barely - and Levi Leipheimer lost a little more time, sinking to seventh, his chances at the third podium spot diminished. All in all it was an exciting bike race, and we can only look forward to three more stages in the Pyrenees.
Tomorrow we have more climbing including the HC Port de Bales, but there's a considerable descent from the last climb to the finish, so it could be interesting. Seems like Contador is content to hang with Schleck, feeling that he has an advantage in the final time trial, and Schleck is content to hang with Contador, with the yellow jersey on his back. Either might attack tomorrow however; it has been a great, unpredictable tour so far, and there is much riding left.
I'm not a big fan of "Web 2.0" websites and social media; mostly there is a lot of hype, and the signal to noise is *really* low. (I challenge anyone to show me a Twitter feed that's worth following.) I make an exception for Facebook however; I like it a lot, and find myself using it more and more often. I don't have a lot of friends - right now, around 80 - but they're actual friends; people I care about, and for many of them this is the only and best way I know what they're up to. Quite a few people now use their Facebook as a sort of blog; they send messages, report status, post pictures, and so on, and it's fun to follow them this way.
A little while ago Facebook added a feature that allows any website to implement a "Like" feature. This is cool if you have a blog; you stick a little HTML in your pages, and poof! your readers can "Like" stuff you've posted, and their friends on Facebook will see that. So this morning I decided to add "Like" buttons to all my posts. We'll see whether this makes sense - I'll be able to tell from my referer logs when people have "liked" a post and their friends have clicked through. It might be kind of fun to see who-all is out there on Facebook that even reads my blog. (It could be you!)
So, the grand social experiment is under way. If you think this is cool, please "Like" this post :)
Alexis and I have been exploring Mini Coopers! How fun is that... they seem to be Alex' hearts' desire, and I must admit, they are really cute. Not to mention they're safe - well built, with lots of good features - and economical. Pretty fun to drive, too; with that little engine, they zip around like a go cart. Quite a practical little car for a teen. Anyway who knows but the exploration has been fun... 
We are still 
Have you noticed how the size at which you view pictures totally changes them? I was looking through some pictures of friends today and it is weird how different they are at different sizes. Some look great postage stamp sized (like in a Facebook profile), and others become amazing when you enlarge them. Weird.
