We got together at Kevin and Darlette's place in Dallas this year for Thanksgiving. The weather was about as good as you could hope for...in the 70's and clear as a bell. Kinda like the type CA has all year long!
Which brings us to the age old question: Can you use DuraFlame logs to cook marshmellows for Smores? This question comes from a listener in Dallas, TX (someone called Kevin) and unfortunately the answer is.....no.
Not that any of this stopped him or us.
Actually no turkeys or any other living creature was harmed in this outing. It was a skeet shoot held at a practice range near the Love Field airport.
I like the fact that the skeets are bio-degradable. Can't say that much for the ammunition....the plastic shells with metal are going to be around long after we're gone and I can't imagine how much lead is in the ground water at this practice range.
Dick Cheney, eat your heart out!
A tradition that started last year in Dana Point (where we live) continued this year in Dallas. Like everything else in Texas (where we used to live), it's bigger. There were over 37,000 entrants in the Dallas Turkey Trot and it definitely felt like it since it took us a good 10 minutes to shuffle over the "start" line with the rest of the crowd.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...so here are some pics from Dana Harbor near where we live. The weather here has been unseasonably hot (or maybe it's the "new" norm...I hope not). Anyway, sunsets are hard to beat in OC!
Rumor has it the original designer of the Apple Store designed the MicroSoft store and there are similarities.
And there were lots of MicroSoft promotions throughout the rest of the mall. Money evidently wasn't a problem...there was a sunglasses stand that "got in the line of sight" that they just bought out and moved because they didn't want it to spoil the view.
What's not clear to me is what the long term role of this store is going to be...they are selling a wide variety of other company's computers and their software, along with some training classes, but I'd be shocked if they were going to generate anything close to the sales levels of an Apple store. I will give them credit for a lot of enthusiams..there were lots of yells anytime anyone left the store with a purchase. But I also noticed there were a lot of minutes between the yelps.
For remodeling. It's stripped down to the medal studs and there's a sign outside that indicates it's going to be the all new Apple store when it reopens (which I hope is before Christmas).
This is going to get VERY interesting!
This was my third year to go to “Pop Tech” which was started 10 years ago by John Sculley. It’s held each year in Camden, Maine and is limited to the number of folks who can fit inside the Camden Opera House (about 500). And Camden is gorgeous this time of year.
· Cost – TED is expensive ($10k) while PopTech is $3k (not cheap, but in line with what a lot of conferences charge these days)
· Karma – TED is a bit like being back in high school…you have the “cool kids” (i.e. the rich and the famous) and everyone else. PopTech is much more populist….every day for lunch you’re matched up with a random group of attendees which makes for some really interesting conversations and connections
· Impact – TED is focused on presentations (limited to 18 minutes in length…they are always very well done and can be found on TED.com) while PopTech has both presentations as well as follow-up (i.e. enrolling others to assist with helping out on some of the tough issues they are facing)
PopTech is a really amazing collection of attendees and presenters and entertainers – it’s a marathon of music, topics and presentations over a 3 day period (over 50!).
Here were some of the highlights and “fun facts to know and tell” from some of the presentations from this year:
· What’s A Trillion? – Just a few years ago “a trillion” was rarely used in describing debt and unfortunately now it’s a daily occurrence…to put it in perspective, a trillion seconds is 32 years long
· We Need To Get Over The 80’s – Most decades last 10 years and are easily recognized for what they stood for (the Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression of the 30’s, the Fab 50’s, the Swinging 60’s, etc). The 1980’s lasted from 1980 (when Reagan was elected) until last fall’s economic meltdown. We need to get over the “more is good” attitude that drove the thinking and values over the past 30 years and move on to a more sustainable, balance approach for our economy as well as our lives.
· It’s All About Passion – The Latin word for amateur is “amatore” which means “love” or “passion”. That’s the key to tackling some of the tough issues we’re facing today. A great definition of democracy is “government by amateurs” and is an accurate description of what the Founding Fathers were all about.
· Innovation Is Everywhere – It was encouraging to see some amazing examples of innovation during the week from a wide variety of areas, including:
o A “dirt battery” that is powered by microbes has just successfully completed field testing in Africa
o New bio-degradable packaging from mushroom roots (mycelium) can take the place of Styrofoam
o Re-Char is a biomass that’s buried in the soil that sequesters carbon while enhancing the soil’s agricultural output
· Data Visualization Is Amazing - There are some new and dynamic ways of “making the invisible visible”. Check out the Natale Project for an example that shows the impact of immigration from countries from all over the world at http://tinyurl.com/yzt4a6x
· “The Wisdom of Crowds” Is Growing on the Internet – People getting together from all over the globe to tackle huge issues using the Internet is happening all the time. Two examples:
o Climate Predictions – You can sign up to help forecast what’s going to happen in various parts of the globe in terms of climate change at http://climateprediction.net. So far over 400,000 folks have signed up….plus you get the benefit of having your computer run faster if you sign up if you have a GPU on your computer.
o ReCAPTCHA Project – You know those irritating words you have to fill out for entering certain websites? The inventor of CAPTHCA has now created ReCAPTCHA that has users fill out words that have been scanned from old books and newspapers that need to be verified (since the scanning is pretty marginal for documents that old). They are digitizing 45 million words a day now!
· Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. That sums up Michael Pollan’s book (“In Defense of Food”). He was the best presenter this year – shared some amazing stats such as it used to take 1 calorie of energy to make 1 calorie of food before WWII….now it’s something on the order of 10 calories of energy for every calorie of food. A vegan in a Hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat eater in a Prius. We’re “eating oil” and it’s a major contributor to a lot of our other huge problems such as obesity, health problems and global warming.
· The Power of Human Networks – Another great speaker was James Fowler, co-author of “Connected”, who spoke on their work. It’s old news about “six degrees of separation”…what’s new is the impact that the “three degrees of connection” that exists. You don’t realize it but you have a big influence (both good and bad) to your friends and friends of your friends.
If you’re interested in going to next year’s Pop Tech, check it out at www.poptech.com.
They've got some awesome bike paths here and some amazing scenery to go along with it. We've been in California 10 years as of this month and I rode my bike down to Salt Creek Beach where we first went to the beach (and where we were very lucky...Tom, our eldest, was 12 years old at the time and wiped out on a wave and ended up in the emergency room).
The most creative part of the show was when they played each of the 5 military theme songs and had all the veterans in the audience stand up....I'll wager that you would not recognize the Coast Guard song on a bet (I sure didn't).
Then they had the fireworks. It was not the biggest fireworks show I've been to...far from it. But it was one of the closest firework shows I've been to....literally on the other side of the wall we were standing next to. As a kid one time we creeped up to where they were firing off the rockets and one of them landed right next to us and gave us the shock of a lifetime. We weren't quite that close....but close enough!
Let's begin with the appropriate position:
That's because driving in Italy is not for the faint of heart. Couple of reasons for this:
a.) even the major roads aren't very wide....they are typically 2 lanes with big metal fences on both sides. Oh, and did I mention the have NO shoulders? If you get in trouble, I guess you're supposed to do "whatever it takes" to get to the next exit. I saw a woman trying to change her tire in the middle of the road on an expressway (and I'm really glad it wasn't totally dark yet so I could at least see her while there was time to react).
b.) you are totally screwed no matter which lane you pick....if you pick the lane on the right, you're going to have cars freaking you out coming on the road without even acknowledging your car might be occupying the same space they will be in very soon (i.e. next 2 seconds). And if you're silly enough to pick the left lane, you're going to have cars so close to your back bumper they are going to feel like they are in your back seat of your car.
And what is it about Lancia drivers? They look like Batmobiles and it seemed like every car that threaten to drive right over my car and keep going was a Lancia. Oh, my kingdom for a side winder missile on my rented Fiat.
And you can understand why a lot of the great race car drivers are from this part of the world. After they've driven on this roads, a real racetrack probably seems tame.
One final note on our trip to Italy....when we finally got to the airport, we had to get on a van to go to the plane. And it seems like the driver had no idea where the jet was. We drove around for about 15 minutes (including on the runway) until finally one of the passengers started banging on the window and told the guy where the plane was. And we finally got on board.
All in all, a terrific time in a terrific place. We will be back.
St. Francis was born into a wealthy family but in a case that reminds me of what Buddha did, he renounced all of his wealth and starting helping the poor. He started the Franciscan order that’s one of the most enduring in all of organized religion.
The town of Assisi has been here for thousands of years. The Romans were here first and built a rather impressive temple in the middle of the town (and in what had to be the worst case of remodeling gone bad, they built the buildings around the old temple).
