We Must Protect This House

At our library system we allow people to bring drinks into the building. But I've known people to spike their QT quarts and the like in order to sneak alcohol into places they're not supposed to. So I've been thinking that maybe that could happen at our library. And maybe someone could even share such a concoction with a child at the library. So it only makes sense, then, that to make sure this never happens we stop allowing people to bring drinks into the library. This is just not the kind of place where kids should be getting drunk.

And while talking is already frowned upon at libraries, we do allow a reasonable amount of it. I've even heard the odd curse word here and there. And if I've heard that, it's possible that children in the library have heard it as well. But we must protect their innocent ears from such a thing ever happening again. The only solution that really makes sense is to ban all talking at the library. That way we can be sure that no profanity will ever be uttered in the presence of a child.

And while I've never seen this happen, I do know I've read of an instance or two where men have exposed themselves to children while in libraries. This cannot happen. But you can't ever tell which men might be vile enough to do such a thing just by looking at them, so the only surefire way to really protect our children from such predators is to ban all men from all libraries. It just makes sense.

Oh, and we should most definitely pass and enact DOPA.

A Night Off

July has been a long, hard month. Rewarding and fun, but busy. We've been very short-staffed at work and it's been hectic trying to keep up. Fourth of July week (one of our busiest weeks of the year), for instance, due to vacancies and vacations, we had only one of our three-and-a-half clerks. We're just lucky we didn't have any storytimes or programs planned for the week because the rest of us basically spent the week doing clerk work. That was probably the worst, but the month has never been relaxed. Things are finally feeling manageable as the summer reading program draws to a close and we are now fully staffed.

Besides work, it's been a very busy month for competitions. The Shawnee Mission Triathlon was Sunday the ninth. I had one of my best races ever, a four-minute PR on that course and my highest placing for that race (only my third try). My parents came to watch and it was a very good weekend. The following Saturday, the fifteenth, was a 10K trail run at Clinton Lake near Lawrence. It was the first year for this event with only around thirty runners, but I had a really good race. It was the beginning of a heat wave, humid, and absolutely still in the woods; afterwards I was wringing the sweat out of my shirt as though I'd swam in it. Last Sunday, the twenty-third, was the Midwest Mayhem olympic distance triathlon at Lone Star Lake, also near Lawrence. Well, it was supposed to be olympic distance, but one of the volunteers steered some of us wrong and we ended up biking four or five miles extra. I've only done it two years and already think this race is my nemesis. Last year the heat was awful and I didn't drink enough, having an awful run. This year I drank more, paced myself better, and improved my time, but the run still hurt worse than anything else I've done. I've been sore and extra tired all week, even though my workouts have been very light. Still feeling worn out, I'm taking tonight off, sitting in front of the tv, working on my blog, and reading. It's a nice and much-needed break.

Tomorrow: Oceans of Fun with the wife and some of her students followed by an after-hours teen event at the library. Saturday: the Prairie Punisher Duathlon in Gardner. Then July will be over and hopefully life a bit slower.

Fuck

Let it be a mistake.

Word for the Day

Where else but NPR would a weather report include the phrase "an amalgam of sun and cloud?"

A Break from the Kiddy Books

Even though I’ve got a pile of kids books on my desk to get through before they become overdue, I’ve been reenergizing with adult reads the last few days (even our book for next month’s teen fantasy discussion group is an adult one, Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys). Although I do have to recommend the YA book I most recently read, Dread Locks (Dark Fusion Series, #1), by Neal Shusterman. It’s a very nice reworking of the Medusa myth set in the contemporary world and starring a teen boy. Fast-paced, dark, and suspenseful, with a strong ending.

But the mythology theme seems to have stuck because I finally started a graphic novel series that Hadrian recommended to me a while back: Fables, by Bill Willingham. The premise is that Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast, Old King Cole, and countless other characters from tales and rhymes have had to flee their individual realms to the last safe haven available, the “mundane” world of New York City. There they have established Fabletown, an underground community with a mayor, sheriff, and such while blending in with the “mundies” and going about their everyday lives. I requested the second volume as soon as I finished the first, and expect to have read all seven before too long.

I also picked back up with Y: The Last Man, by Brian Vaughan. I’d read the first five volumes as the library received them but then forgot to watch for the newer ones. I just finished volume six, should get number seven soon, and am on the list for eight, which is still on order. It’s another excellent graphic novel in which all males on Earth mysteriously and instantly die. The only survivors, for unknown reasons, are Yorick and his pet monkey. Needless to say, the sudden deaths throw the world into a bit of chaos and turn Yorick into a commodity. He finds a few allies in his efforts to figure out why he is still alive while trying to find a way to Australia, where his fiancé was when he lost contact with her.

And, thanks again to Hadrian for getting me on the holds list as soon as the book was ordered, I just started The Blood Knight, the third entry in Greg Keyes The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series. This is a more traditional fantasy novel series, but an excellent one. It’s a bit too complex to relate much about it in a short space, except to say I’ve dropped everything else to start on it right away. If you like this kind of thing at all, I recommend giving it a try.

Just in Case You Missed the Headlines

I correctly picked this year's winner, although a lot of luck comes into play in something like that. Now I'll give it a rest and find some other things to blog about (and watch on TV and read about in my spare time, etc.).

That’s Not Supposed to Happen

This was going to be a post about the importance of consistency in winning the Tour de France. Levi Leipheimer has looked as good in the mountains as any of the main contenders, but a bad day on the first time trial set him back 5-6 minutes and basically blew his chances of winning. On a really good day you can gain a minute or two on the best riders on the really tough climbs, but usually they’re good enough to keep you in their sites and limit their losses. Yesterday, for instance, Levi broke away from the front of the race on a climb in the middle of the stage, but they reeled him back in on the final climb and he ended up finishing 9th and actually losing a bit of time. So you’ve got to be good, but you also have to be consistent. One bad day is all it takes to take you out of the race.

That’s what happened to Floyd Landis yesterday. He’d been looking the strongest of all the contenders and recaptured the yellow jersey two days ago. It was his race to lose. Unfortunately, he lost it. He struggled from the start of the stage yesterday, but stayed with the front pack until the last climb. Then he just couldn’t go, finishing 10 minutes behind the stage winner and losing 8 minutes on all his rivals in the final 11 kilometers. With only 1 mountain stage left in the race, there was no way he could recover enough time to challenge for the win. He announced during the first rest day he’s been fighting a degenerative condition in his hip since breaking it four years ago and will have to go through hip replacement surgery after the Tour this year. He’ll try to come back from that, but who knows if he’ll ever compete at this level again. Yesterday Floyd Landis lost what might be his only chance to ever win the Tour de France.

That’s what I was planning to write, anyway. But today Floyd did the incredible. He blew away the field on the first climb. His rivals tailed him at first, but decided they would kill themselves off at that pace and let Floyd go thinking he’d do the same. They let him get a gap of over 9 minutes while waiting for him to break, then started chasing in earnest. He would have to come back; those kind of breakaways always do. Except the most anyone could gain on him was a couple of minutes. Carlos Sastre finished the stage second, almost 6 minutes back, and the yellow jersey lost over 7. At the end of the day Floyd was back up to 3rd (from 11th), only 30 minutes behind the leader. He’s been the best time trialist of the contenders and should, assuming he has any legs left, ride himself back into yellow during the time trial on the next-to-last stage this Saturday.

To provide a bit more context for what Floyd accomplished today, let me share commentator Paul Sherwen’s report on the day:

The end of the Landis dream.!!!! Did I actually write that yesterday! How good it feels to be wrong. I have just witnessed one of the greatest racing days that I have ever seen. Yes, there was Claudio Chiappucci in 1992 on his way to Sestrieres but that wasn't the day after he had cracked and lost ten minutes.

I was so confident this morning that Landis wouldn't come back into this race- yesterday his team sucked, he blew up, race over, yeah! - WRONG. Today the team rose to the occasion and set a pace from hell to set up this attack from Floyd on the first climb of the day, the Col de Saisies.

He knew that everyone was afraid of this final stage, but he wasn't, he had nothing to loose. His first attack blew away the yellow jersey and when he saw the damage he was doing, he took off on his own chasing an 11 man group which made up the early breakaway. Once he caught them he blew them away one by one.

I have seen a similar move on this same route before, it was in 2000 and the attacker was Marco Pantani. He was upset with his battle of words with Lance Armstrong, but after leading over a couple of cols Pantani blew up and abandoned. Pantani's attack did however set up for an incredibly bad ascent of the Joux-Plane for Armstrong who like Landis yesterday had forgotten to eat because of the pressure of the chase and blew up.

I was wondering if that would happen to Floyd. His coach Robbie Ventura gave us some insight. He said Floyd had done rides like this in training and could survive. However until the final climb of the day I never believed it- what a great day- now if nothing else goes wrong he should win the Tour and twenty four hours ago I wouldn't have put much money on that.

Joy!

Tickets Go On Sale Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.

The Violent Femmes will be at the Voodoo Lounge at Harrah's Casino on Thursday, September 21. I saw them last year and thought the show was awesome. It sounds really fun to go again.

And I know, I'm old . . .

Brilliant!

Check out this short video of Darth Vader as Monty Python's Black Knight



Thanks to Scott for finding and sharing

An Update

If you’re only going to watch one stage of the Tour de France this year, tomorrow would be a good one. It is the first day in the Alps with three terribly difficult climbs, and finishes with the most legendary ascent in France: L’Alpe d’Huez. The crowd will be huge and it’s very possible that the eventual winner could be decided.

It will be far from the only exciting stage, though. Some fans have almost gotten bored in recent years, since it seemed Lance used the same formula to win year after year. He would try to gain every second on his rivals during the early time trials, but wouldn’t worry about leading the race at first. Then he would put the hammer down during the first big mountain stage and usually end up in yellow. After that his team would be in front of the peleton and in control of everything for the rest of the race.

Not so, this year. We have already had 7 different riders wear yellow (one short of the record) and are only to the second rest day (today). Floyd Landis was the fastest contender on the first time trial and has that time advantage over his main rivals. The decisive stage to this point has been stage 11, the second day in the Pyrenees. The lead group was reduced to 18 strong men on the 4th of 5 climbs that day, then splintered even more on the last one. All that remained at the end were Landis, Levi Leipheimer, and Dennis Menchov, with Floyd taking over yellow. Levi looked really strong, but had lost almost 6 minutes to Floyd on the time trial and remained outside of the top ten overall. Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, Andreas Kloden, and a few others were close on the stage and remain within striking distance of the lead.

Floyd and his team, Phonak, haven’t felt they have the strength to dominate the way Discovery used to, though. They tried to avoid setting the pace the entire first week and let a breakaway duo win by over 7 minutes in the first mountain stage (one of whom, Dessel, took the yellow). They let Discovery’s Yaroslav Popovych take back 4 of his 9 minutes from Floyd in a break on stage 12 and rode tempo in front the next day while a pair crossed the line almost 30 minutes ahead of them. Oscar Pereiro took the yellow back on that stage and now leads Floyd by 1’29. They have chosen to give up the lead so someone else will have to work to protect the lead and they can save themselves for the important stages the rest of the week. That starts tomorrow, and we’ll see if Landis can get back his lead or if he gambled too much. It will be an exciting day (and week), to be sure.

The Internet Is a Series of Tubes

The Senator is an intelligent man, and knows that "bandwidth" refers to the size of the straps used to hold the tubes together.

He also fully understands that clogs can occur in the tubes, in which case, one must use a router to clear them out. He knows that data is launched into the tubes much as a golf ball is struck. The point of data launch is tee one, and for net neutrality to work, those with the most money should have first crack at the tee, also just as in golf. This sort of knowledge is instinctual among Republicans.

Data is delivered to people on the net by young men and women, usually college students, called servers. They all work in large, rural compounds in Iowa and Wisconsin called server farms, so we never see them.

Once in a while the tubes will break, allowing all the data to gush out. You can then surf on this.

Let's Get ITT Started

The sprinters have had their fun. Robbie McEwen has three stage wins and a commanding lead for the Green Jersey. Tom Boonen has used time bonuses and consistency to ride in Yellow for a number of days now. But tomorrow should be his last chance to do so. Tomorrow the big boys come out to play. The past week hasn't been nothing. They've ridden hard for 6 tense days, putting stress on thier bodies and working hard to stay out of trouble. Not all have made it this far. Alejandro Valverde, leader of the ProTour and one of the main favorites to win the Tour this year, got caught up in a crash on stage 3 and had to go home with a broken collarbone. A number of others also ended their race this year in the gutter. There's been nothing easy so far; but now it's time for the real race to begin. Tomorrow is the first Individual Time Trial of the 2006 edition, and we'll find out who's going to contend for real.

Yes or No

Has OLN been on your TV at all in the past week?

It's FANtastic!

The Tour de France prides itself in being one of the most spectator friendly events in all of athletics. Except for barriers in the last couple of kilometers, the fans are allowed to line the road and get close enough to touch the riders. They scramble for discarded water bottles as souvenirs, run alongside their idols for short periods, dress in silly costumes (or not, as there is the occassional streaker), and have all kinds of intimate fun. An example from a recent stage:

Valkenburg mayor Constant Nuytens expects at least 400,000 people from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium to come to the streets and watch the event, but on the sides of the Cauberg main street climb, only 40,000 fans will be admitted.

"Entrance is free, of course, but once it's full, it's full," said Nuytens. The Cauberg will also feature two VIP-tribunes and four still cameras, and there is no space for camper vans like there is in the Alps or the Pyrenees. Dutch railways have increased up the amount of trains going into Valkenburg to 12 per hour for today, in comparison to two per hour normally.

The Tour de France visits Valkenburg for the second time in its history: in 1992, 600,000 people gathered to watch the race on the roadside. With beautiful weather announced for today's stage 3, and temperatures expected to rise well above 30° Celsius, the streets will be packed, many fans hoping to see Michael Boogerd or Erik Dekker win on home soil.

And those numbers are only for the spectators in the final city of the day, and don't include everyone lining the road for the preceding 150 miles of the stage. Of course, the intimacy can always create problems. One of the often used bits of video shows Lance Armstrong taking a spill at the bottom of an important climb as his handlebars get hooked in a spectator's purse strap. He's also talked about using as motivation to beat Ullrich's T-mobile team the fact that so many German fans were screaming and spitting in his face during the time trial on Alpe d'Huez. Now from this year's Tour there have been a few incidents like this:

Sandy Casar (Française des Jeux) finished 137th in yesterday's third stage after being taken out by a drunken spectator at the foot of the Cauberg. The spectator then got into an argument with Casar's DS Marc Madiot, while others tried to steal the Frenchman's wheels.

And this:

On Sunday evening, after the hectic "sprint royal" finale of stage two in which prologue winner Thor Hushovd was thought to have hit a plastic cardboard hand which cut deep into his upper arm, the Tour de France organisation has announced that it will prohibit the use of the marketing giveaways in the last two kilometres of flat stages.

Certainly, fans leaning over the barriers and waving the objects pose another threat in the sprint finishes, which are already very dangerous. Other objects such as still or video cameras should not be held over the barriers either, as they represent the same risk. [There is actually some doubt over whether it was a PMU hand or another object, like a camera, that cut Thor Hushovd's arm - ed.]

Hushovd alright

Crédit Agricole's Thor Hushovd, who suffered a cut on his right upper arm in the finale of stage 1, has received several stitches to his wound in a Strasbourg hospital. He was able to leave the clinic at 19.00 in the evening. "Thor lost a lot of blood," said his DS Roger Legeay. "It was a terrible sight. The cut itself isn't that bad though. The doctors said that he would suffer more from the contusion, though. He won't feel so well in the next 5 or 6 days during the race." But fortunately, the Norwegian rider will be able to continue the Tour de France.

Still, the fan interaction is awfully unique and worth a few little problems. These links go to pictures that will give you a better idea what I am talking about:

Aggressive Spanish Basque fans get in Lance's face

This guy got in the way of a patrolling motorbike

A nice photo essay from a tourist

This guy's getting support

Another photo essay

Stumper

Me: Those are due on the 12th.

Patron: When is that?

Uh . . . The day after the 11th and before the 13th?

For Those Who Know Bones

I had to take her in for surgery this morning before work. She's been urinating blood and, after trying a couple of other things, they took and x-ray and found three cherry-sized kidney stones. Hopefully this will take care of it.

Yellow, White, Green . . . Polka Dot?

I'm going to assume that everyone has at least heard mention of "the yellow jersey." It is one of a number of visual indicators of the different classifications in the Tour de France:

The Yellow Jersey (maillot jaune) - indicates the leader of the general classification (GC); the overall leader of the race.

The White Jersey (maillot blanc) - indicates the highest placed rider on GC who is under the age of 25; the Best Young Rider competition.

The Green Jersey (maillot vert) - indicates the leader of the sprint competition; the points classification.

The Polka Dot Jersey (maillot à pois rouges) - indicates the leader of the climbing competition; the King of the Mountains. It is white with red polka dots.

Even though each team has sponsored jerseys with particular colors, those leading in each of the categories get to wear that jersey instead. If a rider is leading two (or more) categories, the second placed rider gets to wear the less important one.

Additionally, each country holds a race to determine its national champion each year, and each current national champion generally wears his national champion jersey instead of his team one. The world champion gets to wear a white jersey with rainbow stripes. The olympic champion gets to wear a golden helmet. There are probably other special colors, too, just never lose track of that yellow jersey.

The determination of the yellow and white jerseys are pretty straightforward. The green and polka dot ones are a bit more complicated. Each stage finish is worth a certain number of sprint points for the top 20-or-so riders (it varies depending on the flatness of the stage). And tucked within each stage are a few intermediate sprints worth points to the first three riders to cross them. So the wearer of the green jersey has done the best job earning a combination of stage wins and intermediate sprint points. The climbing points work much the same way, except they are awarded at the top of peaks. The harder the climb, the more points. Climbs are categorised from 4 (easiest) to 1 (hardest), with a few climbs rating HC: too hard even to rate on the scale (Hors categorie/outside category). The wearer of the polka dot jersey has earned the most climbing points.

In addition to points, each of the sprint competitions includes time bonuses. Thus we have seen the lead change hands each of the past two days despite everyone finishing in the same time. Thor Hushovd won the time trial prologue, but George Hincapie finished second by less than a second. On the first stage George got a 2 second bonus on one of the intermediate sprints and took over the yellow jersey (becoming only the 4th American ever to wear it) for today's stage. Hushovd, Tom Boonen, and Robbie McEwen (the stage winner), top sprinters all, earned enough bonuses today to jump ahead of Hincapie, and Hushovd will be back in yellow again tomorrow.

Testes

You scored as President. President 81% Environmental activist 69% Mayor 63% Ruthless dictator 31% King/queen 31% What type of world ruler would you be? created with QuizFarm.com

You Are 64% Cynical

You're a full blown cynic... and probably even skeptical of these results. You have your optimistic moments, but most likely you keep them to yourself.

How Cynical Are You?