Greg Maddux

Great story about Greg Maddux turning 40 at ESPN.com. He is the primary reason, along with the Sports Guy, that I'm a baseball fan.

The End of Innocence

Today is Easter, 2006. J, who is six, figured out the Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy scam a few days ago. I think it had been bothering him since he got a personal letter from the North Pole right before Christmas (courtesy of his Grandmother). It struck him as odd that SC had time to write him personally, what with all the toy building, list checking, etc. A few weeks ago, a personal letter from the Easter Bunny arrived. Now he's had trouble with the easter bunny before. I mean, who wouldn't? It's such a bizarre story to tell kids. And the redeeming value? Don't see one. At least with Santa, you get the "spirit of giving."

So, a few days ago, he asks M about it. "Does the Easter Bunny REALLY hide the eggs and bring the candy? Or is it mommies and daddies?"

M, not wanting to lie to him for obvious reasons, just asked what he thought. "I think it's mommies and daddies."

So there you have it. He wasn't even upset about it. Personally, I think the story was always a stretch, since rabbits don't have opposable thumbs. It should be the Easter Monkey. Makes just as much sense.

Terminator & MacArthur

This space has remained conspicuously empty since December. At least to the three people who read it. So I will attempt a resusitation. Or resurrection, depending on just how dead you consider a four month lapse.

When I was in college, we reserved seats in the common area by saying "Terminator" (ie, "I'll be back."). "MacArthur" also worked if you were going to be gone for a long time ("I shall return."). Clever, and also less emasculating than "backsies". So, I will claim "Terminator" on this small spot and return soon.

R.E.M.

Top 28 R.E.M. songs, in no particular order. No reason I chose 28, that's just where I stopped. No rules except "Hey, I like that song" while listening to R.E.M. on sort while working. Looks like I really like New Adventures in Hi-Fi (which, interestingly, came out while I was living in Athens).

Side note: M was once interrupted by Michael Stipe at a party in Athens. It was at a Christmas party hosted by Michael Lachowski, the once and future bass player of Pylon. Not very polite. :-)

• Leaving New York (Around the Sun)
• Around the Sun (Around the Sun)
• Drive (Automatic For The People)
• Man On The Moon (Automatic For The People)
• Find The River (Automatic For The People)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (Document)
• The One I Love (Document)
• Green Grow The Rushes (Fables Of The Reconstruction)
• Wendell Gee (Fables Of The Reconstruction)
• World Leader Pretend (Green)
• Begin The Begin (Life's Rich Pageant)
• What If We Give It Away (Life's Rich Pageant)
• What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (Monster)
• Crush With Eyeliner (Monster)
• Radio Free Europe (Murmur)
• Perfect Circle (Murmur)
• Shaking Through (Murmur)
• New Test Leper (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• E-Bow the Letter (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Be Mine (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Electrolite (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
• Losing My Religion (Out Of Time)
• Shiny Happy People (Out Of Time)
• So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) (Reckoning)
• (Don't Go Back To) Rockville (Reckoning)
• Chorus and the Ring (Reveal)
• Walk Unafraid (Up)
• Daysleeper (Up)
  

Enjoy.

Web Content Editors

I recently found out that a couple of people were actually reading this. Since I've slacked off so badly, they brought it to my attention. First, thanks for reading. Second, I will try to do better. Stuff happens all the time, so I should write some of it down. I read other people's blogs to see what is going on with them, so I should repay the courtesy to those that are interested.

So, in the "be careful what you wish for" category, here is what is currently going on in my head.
WYSIWYG Editors all fucking suck. It's not competely their fault, though. I'm talking about the Web Browser based kind - not programs like GoLive or Dreamweaver (they suck too, but I'm not concerned with them right now). The suckiness beyond their control is Browser support and differences in JavaScript implementation. If the browsers are all different, it's hard to expect an Editor to work the same in each place. Sigh. Get Firefox.

Here are the reasons for suckiness, and a list of what they should do.

Suckiness:

1. They spit out crappy HTML. Most people don't care much about this, but I do. If the markup is crappy, it's harder for me (as the developer), to figure out what is wrong. What's with all the font tags?
   
2. They have dumb names. One is called "Hardcore". How stupid is that? Yes, I'm trying to pass that name through layers of "keep the kids away from porn" filters in school proxies. Fun. Some others: FCKEditor (looks like "Fucked Editor" everytime I see it, which is about right since it seems to take it's design queues from Microsoft Word). PinEdit, XXEdit, the list goes on.
   
3. Implementation is incomplete or too specific. Lots of PHP out there. Not all of us want to use PHP though. I want a spell check plugin for one of the editors - which is provided for WINDOWS via PHP. Um, how about the rest of the world? Not all of us use PHP, and not all of our customers use Windows. This really gets me when they claim to be "Cross Platform" on their website.
4. Documentation - yeah, RTFM. Except when the Manual is wrong, outdated, incomplete or not specific enough.
   

Ok, I was going to list the things a good editor should do, but that seems redundant now.

So, that all said, there are some good options out there, but they don't match my needs completely for several reasons.

1. Hardcore (previously mentioned). This is my current choice, and they seem to have changed their name to Asbru, but the product is still Hardcore. Sigh. On the plus side, they have examples for many languages (including JSP, yah!). Spell check works cross browser, too. On the downside, the HTML is awful. I had a few users get locked out of their content when trying to load it into the editor. I took a look and their were over 10,000 font and strong tags in there. WTF? Think there is a bug.
2. TinyMCE. This seems like a really nice editor - HTML is good, implementation is good. Simple to integrate. Documenation seems pretty thorough. Problems: Spellcheck plugin is IE only. Plugins are all PHP. And the kicker: I can't get many of the documented features to work. I'm still hopeful on this one, though. Plus, it's open source , so maybe I can write some of the plugins for it.
3. FCKEditor. Looks overbuilt, following the Word metaphor a little too closely.
4. The Gmail/Blogger Editor - Common Google, throw us a bone. Your editor is simple, easy to operate and has kick-ass AJAX spell check. How about making it available? Pretty please.

So that's been my day.

36 Years Old

On the occasion of my 36th birthday, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that I needed to renew my Driver's License. While filling out the application, I was presented with the following in the "Change Information" section: "Check here if sex has changed."

Needless to say, I laughed out loud in the otherwise quiet DMV. The part that kills me though is "Note: additional documentation may be required." May be? Under what circumstances won't you need additional documentation? And what does the documentation entail? Note from your Doctor? Photo evidence?

So this is why I had to install the scanning software on my PowerBook. Important stuff.

WTF?

I bought an HP printer/scanner/other stuff awhile back and installed the software on my workstation. However, since I moved the workstation to my new office space (yay!), and the printer is still here at home, I needed to install everything on my PowerBook. The fucking installer requires me to shutdown all running programs, then proceeds to handle that task for me.

So first question, as the title indicates, is WTF? What could it possibly be installing that won't let any other programs run? For that matter, if no programs are running, I wouldn't be seeing much (since the Finder, Desktop, doc, etc. are all programs running in the OS). Liars. My guess is just sloppy programming and they applied a band aid to fix it.

I showed it - I'm running Firefox while it installs (and writing this entry, too).

Fuckers.

Ok, it's finished installing, and didn't even need a reboot. So again, WTF?

Now it's doing the opposite - opening a browser window so I can register, starting up the scanning software, etc.

Back, and just in time

Sorta lost my train of thought there. Last time I posted, it was in the nineties and uncomfortable. Right now it's 41º and a lot has happened that I let pass without comment.

First off, I got stung in the hand by a bee on Monday. I'm not allergic, but damn that hurt. I couldn't work again until Wednesday (since my job involves thinking and typing - both were impaired). So to pass the time, I sat in front of the TV all day Tuesday without guilt. Luckily, Sci-Fi was showing a Firefly marathon starting at noon. So I watched nine consecutive 1 hour episodes. I should add that I did take some breaks, since I have Tivo to help me out. Good show. M and I are going to see Serenity tonight, which is a movie based on the same story/characters as Firefly.

For those of you that don't know, Firefly was a "space western" written and produced by Joss Whedon (of Buffy and Angel fame). Ten or eleven of the episodes ran on Fox a few years ago before they cancelled it. As per network tradition, it wasn't given a chance to develop into anything, even though the characters are great, the stories interesting, and the writing superb. After the cancellation, the fans organized a letter writing campaign that resulted in green-lighting a movie. The weird part is, Fox isn't the studio, it's being done by Universal. I've heard great things, so go see it.

The space western concept isn't as weird as it sounds. The idea is that 500 years in the future, the Earth's resources have been used up, so we moved onto different planets. The story is set in the frontier of this future, where there isn't much money or technology - just people trying to live off the local resources and trade. There are quite a few tongue in cheek references to traditional westerns (in one episode, the crew of Serenity (the ship's name is Serenity) moved some cattle. In another, they rob a futuristic train). Clever. Of course, there is also a big bad guy (the Alliance) that controls the central planets. Go see the movie. I've been told that prior knowledge of Firefly isn't necessary. And if you like it, the entire series is available on DVD, plus 3 episodes that never aired on TV. My copy was shipped by Amazon yesterday.

+----------------------------+

Ok, onto Baseball. Red Sox are tied with the Indians for the Wild Card, and are one game back of the Yanks with three to go (against the Yanks at Fenway). So a sweep means they win the AL East. 2/3 is a tie, forcing a one game playoff in the Bronx on Monday. 1/3 and we hope the White Sox take care of business against the Indians. Since the White Sox have clinched the AL Central, I'm worried. We have Wells pitching tonight, then Wakefield (yay!), and finally Schilling on Sunday. So who knows. Yankees are due for some losses - they've been hot lately. And the Red Sox offense should be well rested, they haven't produced much this month.

+----------------------------+

J started kindergarden. Seems to like it. He comes home from school excited every day. E's trying to say a bunch of words, but having trouble getting her point across. She understands a lot though.

+----------------------------+

Tom Delay was indicted a few days ago. And Bill Frist is in some trouble - the same sort Martha Stewart had. Maybe Frist will go to jail for awhile, then come back and host a cheesy reality show. Add those two to the Iraq and Katrina debacles, and maybe the Democrats have something going into the mid-terms. Maybe. Of course, being Democrats, I'm sure we will find a way to squander any opportunity. Not that I'm suggesting politicizing Katrina is a good thing, but this President has made the case OVER AND OVER AND OVER with a blunt object to our collective foreheads that we are living in a "post 9/11 world." Exactly. So being prepared to respond to disasters is a big piece of that. So what happens when we can't see the disaster coming in advance (as we could with Katrina)? I'm thinking trouble.

Say what you want about Clinton, but one thing he did right was put somebody in charge of FEMA that had experience with emergency management. FEMA, under James Lee Witt, was almost universally praised as a model of how a Federal agency should operate. In fairness to Bush, FEMA has traditionally been a dumping ground for political patronage. Clinton was really the first President to do this one right. But then again, we are now living in a post 9/11 world, as Bush keeps reminding me.

Ok, time to go to work...

More Winter Wonderland

There are a few pictures of E in the blog, but I think this might be J's first appearance. This is from last winter - early March actually. Right before he took the previous picture of me.

I shouldn't complain about the heat

Summer is pretty short here, after all. Spring and Fall are really nice as well. But summer is short. But right now, it's hot and muggy. I have no idea how I lived in Virginia and Georgia so long.

So, this picture makes me feel cooler. J took it - not bad for a 5-year-old.

The background is the river behind the house. I'm actually standing right above where the dog is standing in the picture from the previous post.

In February, I will be looking for a nice picture of August, most likely.

Surprise for Henry

Henry is the dog. He's an Aussie mix and a great dog. Well, usually. He has some bad Aussie habits like being very needy. He's also a strange dog. Our house is near a small river, and the dog doesn't much like to swim. What he will do is chase rocks if you throw them into the river. He moves his paws around under the water trying to find the rock. When he thinks he's found it, he sticks his whole head under water to retrieve it. Then he takes it up into the woods and leaves it. We don't really understand, but it's entertaining.

So today it was in the nineties and we headed down to the river to cool off. While we played in the water, the dog was running all over the place, which is normal. At one point, he came up to us from a new direction. At that point, we were on a little sandbar across the river. This particular point is an "ox-bow", and we were on the inside of the loop. The current runs into a corner there and foam, wood, and assorted other items get trapped. Apparently to the dog this looked like a reasonable place to walk across the river (it's actually about 4 feet deep there).

So Henry jumps down off the bank onto what he expected was solid ground. Entertainment ensues.

The dog plunged into the water and disappeared for a couple of seconds. Poor guy. He pops up out of the water and tries to climb back up the bank, but it's steep, so he's stuck. I had to wade out and calm him down. I pulled him up onto a log to catch his breath, then moved him into the open water to swim across to the sand bar. Completely soaked through from head to toe. And not interested in swimming.

But he grabbed a few more rocks I threw into a shallow area for him.

More on the Flat World

As I mentioned a few posts back, I've been reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, which so far I would say is a pretty optimistic appraisal of globalization and the 21st Century economy. He talks about the dark underside, but it's not emphasized the same way that, for example, Greg Palast handles it in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Of course, the topics of these two books aren't the same, but they are closely intertwined. Palast is taking a position on modern American politics, while Friedman is talking about "Globalization 3.0". To paraphrase him, Globalization 3.0 is such a difference of degree from what we call the "Information Age" that it is a difference of kind. We aren't going to recognize the political and economic landscape in the near future.

A few years ago (well, more like a decade ago now), I started working as a programmer and thought it would be a secure living for as long as I needed it. "Computers aren't going anywhere," I naively thought. I looked down at my home town and its long-term economic troubles rooted in the movement of labor overseas (in this case lumber and shipping, but it applies equally to textiles, automobiles, etc.). Not going to happen to me.

Well, from the perspective of mid-2005, I have good reasons to fear for my job. The last four years (post tech bubble) have been rough, although we have gotten by pretty well. I'm busier than I would like (should be working now, in fact). My profession hasn't been a lucrative as it once was, either. I'm lucky though, because I have skills that compliment my technical knowledge - primarily of the communication variety. So I've put together a niche for myself that is working out very well.

But reading this book by Freidman has me seeing things in a new light - or may it has focused things I already suspected.

A couple of interesting quotes:

The cold, hard truth is that management, shareholders, and investors are largely indifferent to where their profits come from or even where the employment is created. But they do want sustainable companies. Politicians, though, are compelled to stimulate the creation of jobs in a certain place. And residents-whether they are Americans, Europeans, or Indians-want to know that the good jobs are going to stay close to home (The World is Flat, page 211).

Well that's the truth. The "capital" isn't going to change it's opinion (mostly - some companies view social/societal obligations as critical to their success. Costco being a great example). But the politicians are pushing protectionism as a solution, when it really only hurts our position economically. Education is the real problem and solution. We have to create (or repair) a climate where it makes sense for companies to do business here. Content based curriculum standards and high-stakes tests (the current favorite) aren't the answer.

Strangely, I think the answer to the these questions about the future rests in concepts from the past. Specically, the "classic liberal education" available at many American colleges. Friedman talks about an interview he had with Colin Powell before Powell stepped down as Secretary of State. Friedman asks Powell if he remembers where he was when he realized the "world had gone flat". Without missing a beat, Powell replied "Google." The importance of the point can't be underestimated. The sum of human knowledge is at your finger tips, every day. It doesn't matter at all if students remember why 1066 is an important date in Western History (type "1066" into Google and see what you get). Not if they know how to find out. The tools of the information age have flattened the world by giving nearly everyone access to information, instant communciation and feedback.

Powell notes that he used to ask his staff for the text of a particular UN resolution, only to wait hours to get the answer. "Now I just type into Google 'UNSC Resolution 242' and up comes the text." His staffers noted that he doesn't ask for information much anymore. Now he asks for analysis and action. Big difference. Critical Thinking skills just got a lot more important.

Powell, according to his staffers, also kept IM sessions running with his British counterpart, Jack Straw, during summit meetings. Presumably encrypted. That is simply amazing to me.

(all those quotes were from Friedman's chapter "The Great Sorting Out").

In The Demon Haunted World, the late Carl Sagan wrote:

If we teach only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience? Both then are presented as unsupported assertion.
...
It is a supreme challenge for the popularizer of science to make clear the actual, tortuous history of its great discoveries and the misapprehensions and occasional stubborn refusal by its practitioners to change course. Many, perhaps most, science textbooks for budding scientists tread lightly here. It is enormously easier to present in an appealing way the wisdom distilled from centuries of patient and collective interrogation of Nature than to detail the messy distillation apparatus. The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science (pages 21-22).

Chapter 1, at least, ought to be required reading for all high school students. Until you understand THIS, no diploma for you.

Wandered around a bit there, sorry. Thanks for reading.

Birth of Google

Wired has an interesting article about the origins of Google at Stanford University. Turns out Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the original system in their dorm rooms. The interesting part, to me, is how Google's original structure actually mirrors a real world phenomanon - source citations in acadamic journal articles.

The other interesting point is that two academics, from academic backgrounds, fell into a business together almost by accident.

A funny quote (BackRub was the name of the project from which Google grew):

The project grew into something of a legend within the computer science department and campus network administration offices. At one point, the BackRub crawler consumed nearly half of Stanford's entire network bandwidth, an extraordinary fact considering that Stanford was one of the best-networked institutions on the planet. And in the fall of 1996 the project would regularly bring down Stanford's Internet connection.

Cellular Emasculation

I know a bunch of people who resist cell phones, which I can understand. They are annoying, after all. Especially the people who use them (including me). I've been using a cell phone for 6-7 years now, and suddenly being without one was disorienting (more on that below). The thing about cell phones is that they make life easier and harder at the same time. If somebody wants to talk to me, they call. It only makes sense that they call me, rather than my house, since I'm the one they wanted to speak with. I can call home about groceries, find out where M and the kids are, or any number of things.

At the same time, you have to have the discipline to turn the damn thing off. People complain about how intrusive a cell phone is, but you CAN get away from it. Just leave it at home, or on your desk if you don't want to be found for a little while.

I've had Cingular for the past couple of years. Since we live in a rural area, service is spotty, and the cell tower here is apparently pretty old. Every couple of years, I switch to a different carrier hoping that their service will actually work inside my house (and more importantly, in my basement office). When we first moved here, we had Sprint, but they had zero coverage in the area (couldn't even roam). So we moved over to Verizon, which was a big improvement, but still pretty unreliable at home ("Can you hear me now?" "No, god dammit. I can't"). That led to Cingular, which really wasn't any better, but had the rollover minutes and family plans, which seemed like a good idea and saves a little money.

Over the past few months, I've been spending more and more time on the phone because of work, so the crappy cell connection in my office had become an issue. At best, I could put the phone on the window sill and talk using my bluetooth headset. Functional, but a pain.

So, crisis hits, having trouble with a web server and I can't make a fucking call. I have 3 bars on the phone until I start dialing, and the signal drops. Over and over. So the phone hit the wall. Hard. It was a nice phone, too. It's probably fortunate the web server wasn't handy, because frustration levels were running pretty high.

That was about three weeks ago, so I've been without a phone for that short period. As of yesterday, I'm back on Verizon, and I have a strong signal throughout the house and in the office ("Can you hear me now?" "Yes, finally. Thank you very little").

I got a Treo 650 smart phone (no, I didn't pay that much - cheaper with a contract). So far, 24 hours in, the phone is wonderful. Easy to use, sound quality is excellent. Works with my Bluetooth headset and syncs with Address Book and iCal on my Mac (wirelessly of course, also using Bluetooth). I can check email, surf the web (sorta slow, but good enough for scores and news). I can do all sorts of things I couldn't do before. Like talk on the phone while sitting at my desk. This is what is known as a "convergence device". Phone, camera, video, PDA, MP3 player, computer, etc. all wrapped up in one small package.

Nice, but the truth is, I really wanted a phone that let me make phone calls when I need to. Seems like I finally have one.

Tom Cruise is an Easy Target

But that doesn't make it any less fun. Plus, according to Operation Clambake, Scientology is dangerous anyway.

So I'm curious about Dr. Maverick's take on this: FDA OK's Brain Stimulator for Depression.

It's called "vagus nerve stimulation", and like all good marketing campaigns (religious or otherwise), it uses manipulative imagery to make it's point (check out the woman looking in the foggy mirror, lower right).

I do like the image of scientologists getting electrical stimulation though. I mean the leadership, not the victims. Here is what the VNS people have to say:

UNITED STATES INDICATION FOR USE:
VNS Therapy is indicated for the adjunctive long-term treatment of chronic or recurrent depression for patients 18 years of age or older who are experiencing a major depressive episode and have not had an adequate response to four or more adequate antidepressant treatments.

Of course, some Flintstones chewables should do the trick, so this is probably overkill.

Loose Ends

Wondering just how good Discovery Channel Cycling is this year? Reasonable question since Lance has been isolated twice so far - once on a relatively modest climb. Consider this:

• Armstrong safely in yellow 2:46 over Basso. Ivan isn't gonna catch Lance in a 55km TT.
• Yaroslav Popovych, who is also good against the clock, sits 6:28 ahead of second place in the young rider competition.
• By virtue of having two riders in todays break, DC took over the Team classification and are now 37 seconds ahead of T-Mobile. This is decided by accumulating the top three finishes on each team each day. With the TT on Saturday, DC should increase that lead.
• Paulo Salvadelli won today's stage. At 239.5km, the longest of this year's Tour. He also won the 2005 Giro d'Italia.
  
• George Hincapie won Stage 15, the hardest stage of the race.
• DC won the Team Time Trial on Stage 4 (admittedly a narrow victory over CSC, but a win nevertheless).

So yeah. Solid team.

--------

If you are keeping track of Dr. Maverick over at Got My Philosophy, I have a couple of fun sites to add. One is Wil Wheaton Dot Net (yes, the child actor from Stand By Me and Star Trek). I occasionally run across his blog (this time, because of the death of James Doohan). Wil has this gem in his FAQ, on a question about advice for aspiring actors:

I want to be an actor. Do you have any advice?

Yes, I do. Eventually, this site will have a whole section devoted to aspiring actors. My immediate advice is: study, study, study. Read the classic plays and see the great movies. And for the love of Bob, study! And read Backstage. Get yourself into some sort of acting program or workshop. Just avoid anything that tells you they'll give you a free book by L.Ron Hubbard. It's a scheme to recruit you into Scientology.

That made me laugh really hard. I got this link from the same place: Operation Clambake

Good stuff.

-------------------------

J comes back from his grandparent's house tomorrow afternoon. Expect pictures of J with the previously mentioned Jedi Starfighters. Speaking of J, he just started riding a two wheeler. Now we need to work on starting and stopping. The current methods are, respectively, "Dad, push me" and falling off the bike. I think we can improve on both.

------------------------

M went to play soccer tonight for a few hours. It went well, but her 34-year-old body is now suffering. She's trying to get in shape, so playing soccer with a bunch of college women seems like a good approach. She's hurting right now, though. So E and I had a short evening together. Dinner (grilled cheese: excellent; diced apples: excellent; corn: so-so), a bath and to bed, after roaming around the living room for a bit. All in all, she was easy on me. Since she has teeth coming in, that could have been really hard.

------------------------

I bought a 1,200 page Java reference book today. Should be an entertaining read. Actually, I've been reading The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman (patent abuse keeps me from linking to Amazon, but they are mentioned in the book in a positive light). In a nutshell, the book is about the rapid reduction in the size of our planet, metaphorically speaking. He goes into detail about the economics of globalization and the forces that have flattened the world - fiber-optic linking of the planet, open source software, the fall of the Berlin wall. It's really interesting, and surprisingly entertaining.

Ok, time to work. Indian kids are clamoring for my job.

George!

Wow, what a stage. 205km over six major climbs, culminating in the hors categorie Pla-d'Adet. Wow. George Hincapie is the only rider that has been by Armstrong's side through all six Tour victories (and it's really starting to look like seven).

George is also the only Armstrong teammate to win an individual stage of the Tour in that time. USPS and now Discovery Channel were built from the ground up to win the Tour for Lance, each year making small improvements to the line up to make a victory possible. On a few occasions, they tried to get the supporting players a stage win. They tried a couple of times in 2003 to get Roberto Heras across the line first, but Joseba Belocki was just to close. Last year, they put Floyd Landis into a break, but he ended up having playing a tactical role in a victory for Lance.

The truly amazing thing is that George isn't supposed to be climbing mountains. He's a talented racer, but a big guy. His strength has always been the single day Classics, especially in the spring. Races like Paris Roubaix. Although, over the last three years, you see him more and more in the mountains, putting on that Prefontaine pressure.

I followed the stage today via www.cyclingnews.com's live update (no OLN for me this year). So I'm sitting in my office, frantically clicking "refresh" as the leaders ascended Pla d'Adet.

Wow. What a day.

In the picture, you can see a white armband on George's right arm. It says "Fabio" on it. Ten years ago, Motorola racer Fabio Casartelli died while descending the Portet d'Aspet, and the riders passed his memorial on that descent today. Hincapie and Armstrong were Casartelli's teammates.

In the last seven years, the race passed the Casartelli memorial in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and this year. Armstrong won the day in '01, '02 and '04, only losing out to Gilberto Simoni in '03 (the year of his 5th victory and most questionable form). In '05, it was Hincapie.

Wow.

Trying something different

For six years running, the US Postal Service team's basic strategy for winning the Tour de France was as follows:

1. Keep the team safe and rested in the first week. Get whatever time advantage the Team Time Trial can provide.
2. Demoralize the competition in the first long Individual Time Trial, usually before the mountains start. A win isn't needed, but a psychological blow to the favorites is the goal.
3. Blow the competition away on the first real mountain stage featuring a mountain top finish. Again, a win isn't needed, just time over the "heads of state" as Paul Sherwin calls them.
3.5. The Prefontaine Approach, Team Edition. USPS puts it's formidable climbing group at the front and pares the pelton down to just the elite - climbers and GC contenders. One by one people peel off because they can't handle the sustained pace. Fast enough that nobody, or few, can attack. At its best, this strategy results in Lance and one of his teammates being the only two left (happened twice in a row in 2002, with Roberto Heras at the top of his form).
4. Play defense. If an opportunity to take time presents itself, grab it.

Johan Bruyneel is the architect of this strategy, along with Armstrong of course. Discovery Channel, which is the same team, organization, management, etc., uses the same strategy. You saw it in the Alps if you were watching. 20 guys left and 5 or 6 are Discovery Channel riders.

So today, finally, the competition tried something different. With 44km and two major climb to go in the stage, T-Mobile attacked hard on a false flat. Looks like they had four riders their, including Guerini, Kloden, Vino and Ullrich, and they managed to isolate Armstrong. Rasumussen, Basso, Mancebo and a few others tacked onto the elite group too. Then it was Basso's turn, and he attacked repeatedly to try and hurt everyone/get away. No such luck. Rider after rider tried to get away, so the pace was moving around like a yo-yo, with riders coming and going from the group.

Armstrong kept his cool, kept his pace even and didn't panic. With 40k to go, it would be hard to get away for good.

So up the Port de Pailhères (15km, 8%, HC), fast descent down the other side, and then a climb to the finish at the Ax-3-Domaines ski station. Armstrong waits, and then starts his attacks, working over everyone in the group, and bringing back all but one of the riders out front (a small group of non-GC threats had been out most of the day).

Georg Totschnig won the day. Armstrong finished second, 56 seconds back. But ahead of Basso, Ullrich, Leipheimer, Landis, Manceba and most importantly, Rasmussen, who lost 51 more seconds, leaving him in second still, but 1:41 back of Lance. Basso now sits at 2:46 and Ullrich at 4:34. Vinokourov ultimately paid for his effort, losing 3:00 to Armstrong.

"When Armstrong went I had nothing left," Ullrich told Eurosport. "We had to go on the attack, but it just didn't work out. Armstrong matched everything we did." (via Velonews)

So, Lance consolidated his lead, but it was exciting. T-Mobile and CSC (and Rabobank) have to take risks if they are to unseat Lance. The silver lining is that Discover Channel should be a little rested for tomorrow's crazy stage.

Loose Ends

Adam Stern got his deput Major League hit tonight. The umpire called time and Derek Jeter made sure the ball made it back over to the Red Sox dugout. Nice gesture.

Also, after J and I went to see the Sox a few weeks ago, he told pretty much everyone he saw about it. Which is really nice. I'm glad it made such an impression on him. Those are the moments you remember. We took him to his regular barber, who also sells collectibles (mostly coins). The Barber got a full account of the game from J during the hair cut, so he got out a North Adams Steeple Cats home run ball and gave it to J. The Steeple Cats are the local summer college league team. A steeple cat is a cat that lives in a church steeple, if you were wondering.

Sox win, 17-1. I promise this isn't a Red Sox blog. Really. During the winter, it will be a Carolina Basketball blog.

Ok, BSG time. Later...

BSG, Star Wars, TdF and Geekdom.

I'm a strange brand of geek. A programmer, a cyclist, a sci-fi fan, a sports nut. Such is my, um, curse. I've also been told I have communication and social skills. Odd combo.

So today, I drove to Boston for a meeting and came away with a nice contract for some interesting web based educational tools.

Quiet day at the Tour de France. Chris Horner did well, though. Couldn't quite close the deal, but he ended up 10th on the day. Not bad for former bike shop employee California surfer dude cyclist. Nice guy, too. I met him once (at the Athens Twilight, a few years ago. He won).

Red Sox are up 12-1 over the Yankees at the mid-way point.

On the way home from the meeting in Boston, I stopped at a toy store and bought a Jedi Starfighter for J. Actually, I bought two. Obi-Wan's and Anakin's (pictured to the left, from starwars.com). This little spaceship may be the best Star Wars vehicle since the Millenium Falcon and Slave I. Part Tie Fighter, part X-wing. It's a perfect vehicle to bridge between the prequels and original trilogy designs. So I bought both, and J can pick one. Then we can save the galaxy far far away together. I will post pictures when M returns with the digital camera.

Still 12-1. Yanks on their third pitcher.

Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica starts tonight at 10:00. This is highly recommended. Excellent writing, special effects. etc. I saw an episode of the original recently, which was laughable. But the new one is great. It's a "reimagining" of the series by Ronald Moore, whose credits include Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. DSP was the "dark" Trek series. Which means it was good. This version of BSG is dark as well. Get the mini series and watch it (available on DVD, so get it from Netflix). I'm not sure if season 1 is out on DVD yet, but Sci-Fi just did a marathon. Set your Tivos (what? No Tivo? Come on, get with it).

A-Rod just struck out. 2 outs, 2 on, top of the 6th. David Wells is still in the game. Matsui thrown out at first to end the inning. Green monster is fucking with Matsui now. Good times.

Curt Schilling came out of the bullpen last night at the top of the 9th to thunderous applause at Fenway. He walked to the mound with cameras flashing like he was the World Series hero or something (oh, wait...). He took a moment, a rather long one, to hold a cross around his neck and pray. Then he promptly gave up a hit and a two run homer. Yanks win 8-6. Apparently, God was contemplating Sean May and Raymond Felton as teammates on the Charlotte Bobcats (or something equally important).

Sox have the bases loaded. Millar scores, Sox 13-1. Looks like Yanks are getting the janitor out there to throw a couple of pitches.

I also stopped by J's room to get a couple of pilots for the Jedi Starfighters. I found Anakin from Episode I, which violates my sense of continuity. And Threepio, which would just be wrong.

Whoa! WTF? I just stepped away to get my pizza out of the oven and the score is 17-1.

Ok, dinner is ready. Beer is cold. BSG starts in 30 minutes. And I think the Sox have this under control.

This entry ended up following the the Sports Guy's "running diary" style. Not my plan, but whatever. SG is largely responsible for my interest in the Red Sox, so I should have acknowledged that in my long entry about baseball. Sorry SG. Go read his columns. Good stuff.