July 18th and L’Alpe D’Huez
Is it just a coincidence that this year's stage to L'Alpe D'Huez is on July 18th? I think not. Clearly, it's the Tour organization's way of saying thank you Michael for your patronage and worship of the world's greatest mountain. I hear you Henri, I hear you.
I take comfort in the knowledge that tomorrow's winner will have asked himself "what would Michael do" upon his arrival in Bourg D'Oisans and will have answered the question correctly when he rounds the bend of the 21st switchback ahead of the pack.
Carlos Sastre? Damiano Cunego? Denis Menchov? Either way it's going to be a great stage on an already great day.
Fast Facts:
| Start town : | Bourg d'Oisans |
| Starting Altitude : | 719 metres |
| Distance : | 14 kilometres |
| Vertical Climb : | 1120 metres |
| Gradient : | 7.7% average - 12% maximum |
If you care, you can follow the stage live HERE.
The Black Cloud Above Me
On Friday, I paid my car off in full and on the way in to work, thought to myself how good this car had been to me. Never once had it broken down in an unsafe spot or cost me a lot of cash to maintain.
On Saturday, while driving to a friend's single malt Scotch tasting party, my car died at a gas station parking lot in Issaquah. I mean died hard. Luckily, I had purchased a premium AAA membership a few weeks before so I gave them a call since Amy was not abvailable. Two hours later, the tow truck driver showed up, took a look at the car, looked back at me and said "DuuuuuDE...." We towed it to the Saturn dealership and dropped the keys off. So I asked them to just fix what will enable me to get the car home. Lame.
I got a call this morning saying just about everything was broken beyond repair and that I needed $4,880 worth of repairs. The car itself is worth about $2,300 including the custom wheels/tires and the enhanced stereo system. If I'm lucky.
So GM must have a good racket. As soon as the customer pays off thier obligation, send a signal to make x,y,z break. In these times of low margins on automobiles, that's the only way to compensate the dealer.
Update: I received a second call from the dealer who gave me a new quote of $6,390. Lol. For a car that looks as good as mine both inside and outside and has had it's oil religously changed every 3,000 miles, I find that hard to believe. Granted it hasn't been into the actual dealer since the 50,000 mile service, but that was only 23,000 miles ago. I can't justify spending 3x what the car is worth wholesale so it looks like it's gonna get junked. Lame.
Losing My Religion
So, while the new site design was a great exercise in procrastination, it violates everything I hold near and dear regarding UI (user interface) design. Interfaces (even non-interactive like a simple web page) should be simple and intuitive. Greg also brings up a good point about the browser issue. Though it's certainly within my right to force a specific browser down someone's throat, it's just not smart when the market reality doesn't support it. While I'm not running a business (no ads ever on RCS!), I need to practice what I preach. Even though I personally advocate the use of Opera and Firefox, I should design my page so it can be enjoyed (ok, I'm being pretentious here) by anyone with any browser. Ahh, a new marketing slogan: "Raincitystory.com. The first corss-platform blog."
Hence, this gaudy design will be replaced in the next few days with something simpler. Stay tuned.
Heavy Lifting
Instead of doing the things I should be doing like working on my resume and searching for jobs, I decided to rebuild RCS. Significant changes on the back end code and the design. One thing that has been buggin' the bejezus out of me was the people who were using Microsoft Internet Explorer were seeing a very jacked up version of my site. Not because I'm a poor designer but because their browser wasn't standards compliant and incorrectly rendered the css and html that I had painstaking crafted. Unfortunately, all of my family back home in Ohio still uses IE despite my pleas to get them to use Firefox. Not only does Firefox and/or Opera render properly but they're faster, safer (MUCH!) and just easier to use. But change is hard. So now, you IE users will be presented with a rude box at the top informing you that you're missing something. Come on peeps. Let's take the plunge and start using a new browser. They're free.
1) Firefox
2) Opera (what I use)
Also, if you're using one of those correct browsers and have Javascript enabled (94.67% of my viewers do), you can change the look of this site by clicking one of the squares in the upper left hand corner.
My personal favorite background is the blades of grass. Leave a comment if you can't figure it out. The design is pretty far along but I'm not done yet so please where a hard hat while viewing.
Thanks for reading,
Michael
Meet Kirby.
Kirby. The Kirbster. The Kirbinator. Our secret blend of Kirbs and spices. Kirb.
A little over two weeks ago (it has been a teency bit crazy in my world of late), Amy went to a Washington Basset Hound Rescue benefit in Seattle just to give Sally some exercise. Though I didn't tell her, I didn't want to go. Not because I don't like dogs but because I knew there would be some dogs there that would break my heart and make me take one or more home. As a bleeding heart, tax and spend liberal, this is a weakness of mine. I got out of going due to some disaster at work but the end result was the same.
Amy didn't bring a dog home but she brought home some pics she'd taken with her camera phone of a boy dog named Sammy who had been abandoned by his owner at the previous weeks' Basset Rescue Benefit. Amy was appalled that he'd been abandoned in this manner but I thought it was just about the best thing this guy had done for Sammy. I been if you're going to abandon a dog, do it at a place where you know he'd be cared for and the Basset Rescue would no doubt do this.
When I saw his picture, I had little doubt he'd be ours soon. He's supposedly pure Basset but I suspect he's got something else in him due to the size of his noggin and his lack of droopy eyes. Anyway, he's pretty damn cute but we're his 5th home. It took us about a week to coordinate a visit with the Seattle chapter of Basset Rescue run by Alexa who must have the biggest heart in the world. I think she had 20! Bassets and a very old mixed breed dog the night we picked up Kirb.
We changed his name to Kirby because Sammy was just too close to Sally, our other Basset Hound whom we adopted in a similar fashion back in the summer of 2004 (Sally also had five previous homes). Kirby and Sally got along pretty well from the start and sleep together in the same (very large) crate every night. A few tussles over food every now and then but for the most part are BFF (best friends forever). The cats and Kirby get along well though Grace has asserted her dominance a few times (Kirby wasn't hurt, just humiliated) to let Kirb know who's the boss in the house. Even so, he's got a good home now and is one lucky dude.
You can see more pictures of Kirby in my Kirby Flickr Photoset.
On the subject of Sally, the story of her adoption (which we didn't even know existed until we adopted Kirb) can be found HERE.
