I’m down in Kellogg, Idaho volunteering for a week long Adventure Race.
Here are racers from around the world, still clean and happy at the START …
They’ll race from Sunday 10am until the following Saturday night, finishing at a Blues and Beer Fest. Nearly a full week on bike, paddle and feet.
Check out our website. (I’m working on the BLOG portion.)
Rick (not me), Tim and Andrew, three ordinary guys, decided to take a trip of a lifetime: 11 countries in 44 days. 18 flights and 38,000 miles later they have three 1-minute videos showing what life is like around the world. …
Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.
That’s called Move.
They broke down their trip into three parts: Move, which shows them walking around, Eat, which shows the delectable food they ate, and Learn, which shows all the amazing things they did.
Click on the links above to see the other two movies.
The perfect surface for jogging, me thinks.
That photo is from Lausanne, Switzerland. But my favourite memories are of running the chip trails along the South Saskatchewan river in Saskatoon.
Traveling much, I come across hundreds of different toilets and showers every year.
Why are they so crappy?
Showers are one of the few things essential to my life. Why are HOT and COLD reversed so often? (When the hot water tap works, the flow and temperature is often unreliable.)
Is this 1911 … or 2011?
Couldn’t somebody get rich inventing a voice controlled, temperature-accurate shower?
In 1959, Heinlein published Starship Troopers. Military life was rough … but at least they had individually programmed shower routines.
I have seen a few good showers. The best of the best (surprisingly) were in campgrounds.
Due to remote location, campgrounds often must hack their plumbing, inventing unique solutions. Once in a while, that solution turns out better than the cheapest, minimum-code-allowable versions we get in cities.
This toilet in a Swiss campground worked perfectly.
A commercial product, it’s as steep and deep as any I’ve ever seen. No splashback. No need to brush.
It had an old style individual water tank mounted high.
Gravity does all the work, a simple mechanism. The force of water falling from just a few feet was tremendously effective in flushing.
I’m no plumber. (My IQ is higher than the maximum allowed.) But I’ve been studying plumbing since visiting Gandhi’s toilet research centre in the 1990s.
Why is toilet technology evolving so slowly?
My laptop returned, I’ve finally been able to post 100 photos from 9+ days in Lausanne for the World Gymnaestrada.
I tented for about $25 / night at Camping Vidy.
Aside from Gymnaestrada, the biggest highlight is the Olympic Museum. Very well done.
It’s a real city of fitness opportunities.
The Metropolitan Area of Lausanne-Geneva is over 1.2 million inhabitants. The headquarters of the International Olympic Committee are located in Lausanne – the IOC officially recognises the city as the Capitale Olympique …
Fond memories …
See more photos.
Any tips for booking a flight with Air Canada AEROPLAN points ?? …
I tried booking a trip to Asia online via the link above.
First attempt was 75,000 points AND $778.68 CAD taxes. … I’m guessing that’s normal for Aeroplan.
But what’s the advantage of using my points again? … I might find a NEW return flight for $778.68.
Once I use these points, I’ll completely abandon frequent flyer programs. I don’t use any one airline enough to make it worthwhile.
The most comical thing we do day-to-day as a species is thumb typing on a tiny phone keyboard.
Obviously voice control would be faster and easier. But what I really want is brain control. I would text somebody simply by thinking of the message, and thinking SEND.
But that’s impossible … Right ??
… Right. But not for long … For $100 you can already control iPhone graphics with your brain.
And at some fuzzy time in the near future you’ll be able to shift gears on a bike merely by thinking UP or DOWN in your bike helmet.
Click PLAY or watch the (painfully) Toyota sponsored video on YouTube.
(via Mashable – Bicycle Of The Future Shifts Gears Via Brain Waves)
After what seems like months I’ve finally got my primary computer, a MacBook Air, back in my loving arms.
I’m still recommending the Air. Especially, the NEW 11 inch with basic factory specs. That’s the best deal and all most people need.
Click PLAY or watch a review on YouTube.
Buy directly from Apple. A dealer in Europe could not fix it on warranty, but the first Apple Genius I met with did me a big favour, … he replaced the Clamshell top half as well as the Logic Board. Even though that FIX was not supposed to be covered by warranty.
No cost for a fanboy such as myself.
Apple has the best customer service anywhere.
… She’s right now shopping for boy-toy arm-candy ride-a-long talent in Vegas. Accessorizing.
Expedition Impossible is a 2011 American reality television series. The series follows thirteen teams of three competitors as they “solve problems while racing across deserts, over mountains and through rivers” across the nation of Morocco. …
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
Before its debut, Expedition Impossible drew comparisons to other reality television series, including The Amazing Race, Pirate Master, and Burnett’s own adventure race series Eco-Challenge.
Burnett has repudiated the comparisons to TAR, saying “There’s no taxis. There’s no hotels. This is very, very different. Here, you actually need to put yourself on the line, really be willing to cross the deserts and the mountains and use the camels and the horses. So, it’s a very, very much more difficult competition.” …
It steals much from Amazing Race, but is even better IMHO.
The Gypsies seem near certain to win:
John Post, 25, Pensacola Beach, FL. Sustainable Farmer
Taylor Filasky, 31, San Diego, CA. Video Producer
Eric Bach, 26, San Francisco, CA. EntrepreneurGroup of friends that, collectively, have traveled to over 40 countries.
Rick McCharles 