Archive: July 19, 2011

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birds of a feather (New Yorker, 7/11/11)

Tuesday,  07/19/11  09:08 PM

"birds of a feather" another awesome New Yorker cover celebrates summer! ...and friends... what would one be without the other

 

TDF stage 16 / mountains - great racing! Hushovd wins from break, Evans takes time on GC

Tuesday,  07/19/11  09:11 PM

Today's Tour de France stage 16 was a pure pleasure, it had all the elements of great racing, with many riders motivated to get in a break, a chasing peloton, a tough final climb that made a big selection, and a nasty descent which enabled Thor Hushovd to win from the break and Cadel Evans to take time on all the GC contenders.  For me this was the stage of the Tour so far; if you haven't watched the Tour and want to watch one stage, make it this one. Alberto Contador roused himself to make some great attacks, and broke clear of the Schlecks and some other contenders like Ivan Basso, but couldn't shake Evans and Samuel Sanchez, who seem to be the strongest climbers this year.  And Thomas Voeckler continues to amaze; not only was he in the mix all through, but even answered a couple of Contador's attacks himself before losing a little time in the end.  He is truly a worthy yellow jersey wearer and I look for him to keep it again tomorrow, only to lose it on the Galibier Thursday.  We'll see. By the way there were two Norweigens in the race, Hushovd and Edvard Boessen Hagen, and they finished one-two.  What are the odds of that?  And kudos to Ryder Hesjedal who led the break up the climb and then worked perfectly with Garmin teammate Hushovd on the descent to get the win. Tomorrow's stage is similar to today's, with perhaps more climbing; it is interesting that they have the intermediate sprint after a cat 3 climb, which may allow Philippe Gilbert or perhaps Hushovd to take points from the pure sprinters like Mark Cavendish and Jose Rojas.  And then we have a serious cat 1 climb into Italy before a long long long descent and then a final cat 2 climb before a descent to the finish.  It could definitely be another day for a breakaway, much like today, as well as a day for a selection on GC, much like today.  Stay tuned! [ Tour de France 2011: all posts | index ]

 

we're off!

Tuesday,  07/19/11  09:28 PM

Final post before getting on a plane tomorrow and heading to Europe.  It's going to be great!  I don't know how much time I'll have for blogging, so I apologize in advance if I have to catch up later.  Please have a great time if we don't see each other :) Sorry for posting so much about the Tour de France, I know, you don't care, but I do, and this is my blog, eh?  We're actually going to be in Paris for the final stage on the Champs d'Elysee next Sunday, how cool is that?  And there's a nonzero chance we might go down to Grenoble for the time trials on Saturday, too.  So I'm afraid there's more Tour blogging ahead! Want to see something sad?  This isn't a Tour de France stage profile, it's the value profile of my house over the past ten years, according to Zillow.  As you can see, the last five years erased the gains of the first.  Now the more-than-$64,000 question is, what will happen from here?  Is this the bottom and will prices recover, or are they going to go down further?  Susannah Breslin: How not to be unemployed.  I am always stuck by how useless the "normal" advice for job-seekers feels.  I especially liked her emphasis on networking over resume sending.  That feels dead-on.  Awesome counterpoint to country-level rights: this painting is not available in your country.  What's especially ironic is that this picture is on Flickr, where it is rights-restricted :)  John Gruber, regarding the new Google+ app for the iPhone: "An interesting app for a service I do not enjoy. It does not solve my fundamental problem with Google+, which is that it feels like work to use."  See, that's my problem too.  In fact, it feels like work just to explain why I don't want to use it.  Doonesbury on teaching creationism.  I love it.  Why can't we fix Medicare once and for all?  Geoff Colvin makes too much sense in Fortune.  Okay, that's it, we're off.  Have fun and stay tuned!

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