Yesterday was a good day.  A great day, even.  One might even say it was... flawless.

The day began early for me, a pleasant little 140-mile drive down to Aperio's new office in Vista, followed by a nice ribbon cutting ceremony; it was day one.  The building itself is wonderful and the move went spectacularly well.  I have been part of several corporate moves, and never have I seen such a smooth operation, a tribute to thorough planning by a few and careful execution by many others.  All day everyone was able to "just work"; remarkable, really.

After work I did a bike ride, one of the best training rides I've ever done.  About 35 miles, round trip, from Vista to San Luis Rey to Oceanside.  I thought my legs would be dead from the Hemet double, but I felt great.  The middle 16 miles out and back were on a bike path that parallels the 76 highway, smooth and flat.  In the dark it felt like I was stationary, with the earth spinning beneath me and the trees and buildings flying past at 20mph.  I love that feeling.  And there was a weird / amazing crescent moon, framed directly in front of me as I rode toward the ocean, exhibiting the phenomenon known as earthshine.  Thank you for arranging that :)  And just at the right moment, my iPod selected the Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime.  Chills.

Finally late at night, exhausted after watching Kansas outlast Memphis in overtime, I watched a movie called Flawless.  I'm not a Demi Moore fan but I am a Michael Caine fan, and this movie really "worked" for me.  Maybe it didn't live up to its name, but it was much better than I expected.  (A side note: it attempts to single-handedly revive smoking as "cool", as a by-product of its 1960 setting.)  The thing I liked best was the contrast between the too-cool-to care young female reporter and the actually-cool-but-modest aging hero (Moore), and the reversal of their roles in our perception as the movie unfolds (most of the plot is told as a flashback).

So, what else is going on?  Well...

It doesn't look good in Zimbabwe: Opposition braced for dirty war as Mugabe clings on to power.  We can't be surprised but we can be sad, this poor country has been through enough, hasn't it?  The endgame looks to be drawn out... 

You will remember the airplane on a treadmill?  Well now we have the helicopter on a turntable!  Is it the same?  No.  Can you spot the crucial difference?  Paging Mythbusters... 

I'm linking this just so I have an excuse to run this illustration: Asia's fight for Web Rights.  I love the metaphor of a life trapped inside the keyboard, trying to break out.  I'm imagining that right now as I type and it is kind of creepy. 

American Digest chronicles the hapless scribes of the LA Times.  "The Pig Ignorant Journalist of the Year to Date goes to Carol J. Williams, Caribbean Bureau Chief at The Los Angeles Times, for her record setting article of March 28, A day in a Guantanamo detainee's life.  Ms. Williams' effort to 'expose' the 'conditions' at Guantanamo ran to a length of about 1200 words.  But that was not the record.  The record came today when the Los Angeles Times was forced to issue a 370 word correction to her screed.  That's a one to four ratio."  To an ever larger extent the mask is slipping, and the incompetence and bias of mainstream media journalists is laid bare.  How anyone can believe anything at all they read in the LA Times is beyond me. 

Exhibit B: CNN's Amanpour Equates US with Khmer Rouge.  "Two million Cambodians killed on one side, three terrorists in perfect health on the other side. Three terrorists who are now preparing to have their days in court, with high-powered legal teams fronted by the ACLU.  Christiane Amanpour sees no difference."  Sigh.

TTAC asks "Is there any good reason to buy an SUV"?  You know my answer.  No, there isn't.  Not even that many bad ones...