Well it was a nice weekend, resting and relaxing (if you can count hosting fifty sixteen year olds relaxing :), but it's Monday night and I have a maximally busy week ahead.  In fact, I have a maximally busy two weeks ahead, bisected by the Solvang Double next Saturday, and this following the 508 last weekend and a busy last week.  Whew.  Anyway it's all good, although blogging may be intermittent...

Speaking of the 508; I was looking at the race stats; less than half of the solo competitors finished.  I'm still disappointed that I couldn't make it, but I was in good company.  They say it was the hardest 508 ever, because of the wind.  Wow, what a great year to be a rookie.  Well next year I'm going to finish no matter what.

If you think the Nobel Peace Prize is as preposterous as I do (and believe me, it was preposterous long before it was awarded to Barack Obama for doing nothing; take the fact that it was awarded to Yasser Arafat for being a terrorist, for example) then you will enjoy this: for the Nobel Peace Prize, a better idea.  (The punch line, courtesy of an article in Time Magazine; it should have gone to nuclear weapons.  Which makes sense when you think about it.)  My own vote would be for the Seawolf submarine, for sheer coolness. 

Another great comment: Obama fails to win Nobel Prize in Economics.  Which if you think about it, he's affected world economics a lot more than world peace...

And check this out: Decline is a Choice.  In which the point is made that by screwing up the U.S. Economy, President Obama may have unwittingly contributed significantly to a decline in world peace.  Let's hope not, but it is a cogent argument.

Oh, and the health care reform bill isn't such a good idea either: "PWC concluded that the cost of health insurance for the average family will rise by $4,000 by 2019, as compared with doing nothing."  I must tell you, this administration is even less competent than I feared.  Yikes.

Did you know where HTML and hypertext came from?  Xanadu, of course... 

And when we mention Xanadu, we run a gratuitous picture of Olivia Newton-John, because, well, that's what we do.

And so this fireplace has been named the most beautiful object.  Well it is pretty cool, but I don't know how it compares to a Seawolf submarine... and I do know how it compares to Olivia Newton-John :) 

Live in the Vast Plane: "Why is it that laptops and the internet have been around for a generation and yet the infrastructure we live in still doesn’t support them?  I’m talking primarily about travel... it’s bizarre to be in an airport and see business travelers scanning the scene hungrily - not for food, but for electrical sockets."  This is so true.  It's true inside airplanes, too; give me WiFi and power, please.  (Give me Virgin America every time, for this very reason.) 

The Dyson "bladeless fan"; the picture at right shows the blades.  What a crock.  It might be a nice fan, but it is not bladeless.  I know, I know, everyone loves their vacuum cleaners too, but I think Dyson is better at marketing than engineering... 

Here we have bullet impacts in slow motion.  R e a l l y  slow motion.  As in 1M frames per second, how cool is that?  Very cool.  [ via kottke ] 

And finally, since this is Columbus Day, here's our sailing picture of the day...  [ via the horse's mouth ]