Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Accepting his 2008 TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us — it’s as simple as asking a teacher “How can I help?” He asks that we share our own volunteering stories at his new website, Once Upon a School.

It’s a TED talk so of course it is inspiring. It’s also pretty damn funny and I found myself laughing out loud at the gym. It runs about 24 minutes so, sit back, relax and enjoy. If you only watch one TED talk this year, this will be the one.

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary or the war in Iraq. I’ve read a lot of stuff but Lindsay Campbell at moblogic.tv said it best and provides some interesting facts and figures:

If you think you might end up in hell some day, bring a coat because I bought a gym membership and Hell hath frozen over.   I’ve been looking to supplement my three hours a day on the bike with some other workouts so I joined the same gym Amy works out at, 24-Hour Fitness.  I’ve never been a gym person but I’m desperate enough that I can look past that temporarily.  Up until this morning, I had just done 65 minute runs on the treadmill. 

My shins were hurting today so Amy suggested I try the Stairmaster.  My Dad had a nice commercial one of these a few years back and I never really thought they provided much of a workout.  It was too easy to cheat when you started to get tired.  I felt the design was flawed and never really paid attention to these type of machines.  This one is a little different with a real set of stairs on a treadmill like belt.  There’s no real way to cheat or you will fall off, similar to a running/walking treadmill. 

Amy said her previous record was level 6 for 45 minutes so of course I started at level 8 and set it for 61.  This thing was a monster.  Even though I must have looked like I was just plodding along like a lazy bastard, I estimated my heart rate to be in the 160’s and within 20 minutes, my t-shirt was completely soaked.  I struggled through another 30 minutes and then upped it to level 9 for the last 10.  When I was done, I was so knackered that I could barely stand.  I walked over and did about 36 minutes on an elliptical trainer next to Amy which didn’t really do anything for me.

Sure, the view from my deck every night is awesome but it sure sucks to have to climb back up every night.  At the end there, you see the murderous profile of Thames Rd, one of the three options I have to get home from the Broadmoor Valley.  While not the longest, Thames is the steepest but I’d grown very tired of climbing Farthing Drive.  Thames is about 1.08 miles long and averages 11% with two pitches that exceed 15%.  According to my PowerTap, I was averaging about 355 watts but was still only going about 6 mph up the thing. 

Those other three humps beginning at mile 5 were the repeats of the road that leads up to the Broadmoor Golf Course.  It’s one of the most bizarre hills I’ve ever ridden.  Though it’s about a mile long at 8%, it looks as if it’s barely a rise due to the big mountain ahead (Cheyenne Mountain) and three other ridges that can be seen from that road.  On the first club ride I did out here, I completely misjudged it and lost over 100 yards before the summit of the climb.  When I got up, everybody was laughing at me and said that hill gets newbies to Springs all the time.  I wasn’t laughing…