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Archive: February 7, 2009
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 During the past week, as I've been in Carlsbad attending Aperio's annual sales meeting, I've gradually become aware that my pipe is clogged, or more specifically that as I "post" stuff it doesn't necessarily post - until way later. I think I've had a date mismatch problem between my laptop and my server, which I've now fixed. Just have to go back and clean things up. Anyway sorry about the weird delays and I'll keep a plunger handy.
(I know, nothing is more boring than blogging about blogging. Sorry.)
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Define
Last night Megan took me to a dance concert at her school called Define. I went thinking it would be fun, a little time alone with Megan, and a mildly entertaining "kids show" at the school. But, Wow, was it awesome! These kids were GREAT.
The concert consisted of twenty three quick pieces by different ensembles of dancers, some with large groups and some just a few, with different background music, sets, lighting, all with the general theme "define yourself, don't let others define you". In between every four or five pieces was a little slide show with voiceover in which dancers talked about dance, and about defining themselves.
I had three favorite pieces that stuck with me.
In the first, three amazingly talented dancers / gymnasts "dance" while hung from the ceiling in silk sheets. It was Circe du Soleil done by high schoolers, amazing. With the haunting background music to boot.
In the second, a boy plays the cello (beautifully) with a strong upbeat rhythm, while a single girl dances behind and around him. The coordination was perfect and enchanting.
In the third, my favorite, three young girls dance in front of a black screen, as accompanyment to Pricilla Ahn's Dream. The lyrics speak of the dream a girl has of growing up, what her life will be like. Behind the screen, three older girls dance synchronized to the younger ones in front, lit dimly at first, barely visible through the translucent screen, as if in a faint mirror. As the dance proceeds the synchronization is broken, the older girls go their own way, and the lighting slowly reverses, the younger girls fading in front of the screen as the older girls become fully visible. This amazing interpretation of the lyrics, combined with the emotion of the music and the skillful dancing was incredibly powerful. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.
That a high school could stage such an event is just amazing, a tribute to the dance teacher Hayley McLelland and to the kids themselves, as well as Oaks Christian School, which pushes the envelope of great education in every direction. Wow.
Define |
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I have a bunch of news about my weird disaster (in which you will remember, my trusty Kestrel 200 EMS was badly damaged by a coat hanger). Some of this you will not believe.
 First, Edgar at RR Velo reports my bike is on the mend, he has machined two new dropouts, one for each side of the bike (the left one was undamaged, but this way the stiffness characteristics on each side will be symmetrical, a great idea), and is in the process of bonding them back into the stays with carbon fiber. He says the frame should be repaired by next Friday, at which point he'll mail it back to my local shop, they'll reassemble it, and poof! I will have my bike back. Yay Edgar. fXf
(That's Edgar at right, with Greg Lemond.)
Next, during my Google searches to seek help I found "Ron", a blogger at The Cozy Beehive, who is a mechanical engineer and avid cyclist. We exchanged sympathetic email and he ended up blogging about my disaster. In the comments left on his blog, "Luke" linked a post from Matt Spohn: Holy Shit! in which he reports almost the exact same thing happened to him about a week ago. "The hanger is not replaceable, therefore the frame is toast." What are the odds of that? Matt, meet Edgar.
 Even more amazingly, in another comment left on Ron's blog, I met Brenda Lyons, an avid cyclist (mountain bike racer) who is also the SoCal territory rep for Kestrel! She seems really committed to keeping this happy Kestrel customer a happy Kestrel customer, how cool is that? Apparently Kestrel have refocused themselves on road bikes and have a new model out, the RT900, which they think can compete with the best in the world, to the point where they've sponsored Rock Racing for 2009!
I am trying to figure out if I can ride an RT900 somewhere - my friends at Nytro, for example, who are a Kestrel dealer, but who didn't have any Kestrel road bikes in their store, only tri-bikes. This would be a serious entry into the lust or love sweepstakes, not only is the RT900 beautiful, and featherweight (15.2lbs!), but we have history together. I could so see myself on another Kestrel, for another 10 years.
Anyway that's the news, as always please stay tuned!
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A day of work; I had originally planned to ride the PCH Rando 300K today, but I don't have a bike :( and the weather is crappy :( and I have/had a lot to do :( so I am doing it. Mood black as I contemplate my todo list and my weeks upcoming. And I have nothing in the near future to look forward to... (except maybe test riding an RT900 :)
Meanwhile, it's all happening...
 What are the odds? A mammoth discovery in downtown San Diego. "The remains of the adult Columbian mammoth were found in the East Village, where the Thomas Jefferson School of Law is building its new $68 million campus. Paleontologists from the San Diego Natural History Museum estimate they are about 500,000 years old." 
Was it really only a week ago that I rode Palomar? Wow. Long week.
In response to the Michael Phelps pot smoking incident, Dave Winer opines Don't boycott Kellogg. "What a bunch of stinkers they are at Kellogg's. They could score so many points by saying something like this: 'We don't encourage pot smoking, but we understand that some people do it. We have so many bigger problems to tackle in this country, and Michael Phelps is such an incredible young man and hero, we decided to be heroic ourselves, and cut him some slack, and keep him on the corn flakes box.'" Ah, but would it play in Peoria? (Or Battle Creek?)
 Cool ad from Aptera. As TTAC notes, "The Volt will have to compete with real cars in the real world, offering real advantages to real buyers." There's a new kid in town...
 Also from TTAC: Michael Furman presents the Second most beautiful car in the world (the 1938 Bentley Embiricos). I love this observation: "There are plenty of gorgeous women in the world... With most of them, the feeling you get when you first see them eventually wanes. Only the most beautiful get more beautiful over time." Indeed. I can think of a specific example :)
Wow: drugstore.com turns a profit. Good for them. I interviewed with them in 1999 (ten years ago), they have traveled a long road to get here.
Lifehacker: Ten Gmail Labs features you should enable. I'm slowly starting to think perhaps Gmail is going to replace Outlook as my everyday email client. Maybe not yet today, but certainly within say five years, and maybe within one year. We'll see. The rate of innovation and change is massively greater than Outlook for sure...
Mike Elgan: two attention-focusing apps kill distractions dead. A great idea; in today's "continuous partial attention" world you need to focus sometimes and get stuff done. That's what I need to do. Later...
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