Rob, Mark, Ryan, Ron, David

There’s also a text only 50 page PDF version here: Blog PDF.

I found a way to make charts and graphs on the fly with the new Google chart API. I added a Google-o-meter to show my miles per gallon for each gas stop on my Map for gas waypoints.

After many hours of work I have a map mashup which combines my GPS tracks with waypoints I collected over the last year.

I’ve been meaning to give my whole site a facelift for a while, and finally found (or borrowed) that time over the past few days. I’m using a two monitor Mac with the resolution turned all the way up, so I’d really like to know how it looks on your setup. Drop me a line with any thoughts Ryan!

There were definitely 400 people there for the second night of the Ditty Bops’ sold out visit. I was introduced to the Ditty Bops by my friend Staci a few years ago as her favorite band. After seeing them live, I’m headed towards that camp. Playing mostly acoustic instruments the two main girls and a couple of their friends played a show like few that I’ve been to. My ideal show goes about like this: sit down, reasonable volume (no ear plugs required), intermission instead of an encore, and small. I guess this sounds a bit like the symphony, but who to say they got it wrong? This one hit all those points. They even said on their second to the last song that it was the last one, and that they wouldn’t be leaving the stage, but that they would play an encore.

Anyway, I found a seat about 3 rows from the front where I could soak in all great tunes. With a single microphone (and pickups for the instruments) there was no place to hide. Their talent was astounding. Singing in multipart harmonies and playing stringed instruments I haven’t seen before, they definitely are at the top of their game.

They are definitely a quirky bunch. For a tour a couple of years ago they decided to take bikes on their next tour, from LA to New York. They didn’t just put them on their bus, they rode them across the country. Their new album is the first pop-up cd I’ve ever seen. Just like a pop-up kids book, the front cover has a slide down panel and the inside contains a ship that moves when you open it. Even the track list on the back is given special treatment. Only one song at a time show up in a little window in a cloud as part of a rotating list.

For some reason the video I uploaded doesn’t want to play, click the link below to view it.
Ditty Bops in Berkely

Read More Here:
http://www.thedittybops.com/

Watch More Here:
http://www.youtube.com/v/i4-LnHr34Lk
http://www.youtube.com/v/qkEaDXpqF4U

Tonight I went to see Michael Pollan the author of most recently “In Defense of Food”. I recently read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” which had a great story of food. The talk will be available from Stanford on iTunes soon and is worth a listen. He’s definitely an engaging speaker who kept the overflowing audience engaged throughout the hourlong talk and following 30 minutes of questions. There were so many people that the aisles were completely full of people, including me, and there was still a lobby full of people trying to get in 10 minutes before the start. He talks about the importance of eating healthly and not getting sucked into the “Nutritionalism” machine which tries to turn food into its parts. He convincingly argues that nutritionists and food scientists still don’t know what makes food work, and that extracting bits doesn’t always extract the benefit. His solution follows from the quote above, eat (whole) food not nutrients or edibile foodlike products. Like my stepmom says, the freshest food lives on the perimeter of the grocery store. I really like his idea of “Don’t eat anything that won’t rot.” If the stuff that eats the food we don’t isn’t interested in it, we probably shouldn’t be either.

Read more here:
Michael Pollan