Remember the spectacular Coca-Cola Happiness Machine? Well the folks at Coke have taken the smiles on the road, with their new Happiness Truck. Here are 2 videos.
Category: Personal (Page 16 of 47)
Thank you snow gods. And sun gods too.
It’s been nice recently – as we mix in a few sunny days – to catch Greenlake before the day gets going. Here, I’m playing with an iPhone app called “100 Cameras in One.”
Our friend Jason Reid and the rest of the crew from Sonicsgate will be screening their second movie this weekend. Man Zou is the documentary the 4 filmmakers shot a few years back. The group landed in Beijing, bought some bikes, and rode down to Shanghai, filming everything they did on the way.
They will be screening it this Friday at REI, and I personally think it’s a way better “date night” event than your standard dinner and a movie outing. Here’s the info they sent via email:
Man Zou at REI Seattle – This Friday 2/18
Special event sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club, Q&A to follow
If you haven’t had a chance to see Man Zou yet, I encourage you to come out this Friday, 2/18 to the Seattle R.E.I. (222 Yale Ave. North) at 7pm and see it how it was intended to be viewed, on the big screen. The Cascade Bicycle Club is sponsoring the event and recently wrote a blog post about it if you’re interested reading more. Here’s all the specific info:
Friday, Feb. 18 @7:00 p.m.
Seattle R.E.I (222 Yale Ave. North)
Presented by the Cascade Bicycle Club
Tickets are $7 ($5 for Cascade members)
Official event website
Purchase advance tickets here
There may be other versions of something like this, but this 8x Zoom lens from the Photojojo store is the first one I’ve seen. Boost the productivity of your iPhone’s Camera for only $35.00. Add it to my shopping list.
I grew up in New Orleans, and if memory serves, the New Orleans Jazz left town for Salt Lake City when I was but a wee young ‘un. (Did you ever think about why a team in Utah would call themselves the Jazz? It would be like Seattle calling their team the “Heat.”)
But I do remember at least every few years, getting to go to the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena to see the Harlem Globetrotters. When you are a kid, it doesn’t matter that it’s not a real game, you just think they are the greatest players in the world. Meadowlark, Curly and the whole crew.
I’d forgotten about the Globetrotters for a while, but I’m pretty freaking tempted to take a walk back down memory lane and check them out when they visit “The Arena that Was Sponsored by Key Bank When There Was a Tenant Worth Sponsoring an Arena For” on Feb 20.
And this video from MyNorthwest.com is getting me that much closer….
Remember when the Super Bowl was simply all about the commercials during the game itself? Well how great is it that now we have YouTube, so we can watch all the commercials BEFORE the game itself, including all of the “Banned” ones that “didn’t make it.” (Don’t you just love that every brand has a “Banned” commercial now?”
According to early research, this Volkswagen gem is leading the pre-game hype for Best Ad.
If you didn’t have enough reasons to root for Green Bay over the Steelers this week, here are 3 more. I love the “Cheeseheads with Attitude” and the host of videos they have on YouTube.
I hate to admit it, but I’m getting close to an age where I *may have* passed the point of my peak athleticism. Now, I’m not ready to give in, so I took the bait from some friends and signed up for the Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon.
Some people will just run the race with quiet dignity. But, not me. I’ve decided that 13 miles is a long way, and frankly, there are a lot of reasons between now and June 25 for me to back out. So, now I’ve announced what I’m doing on this blog, and the faithful 4 of you who read it must hold me accountable.
So that means when you say, “Let’s go grab a beer” and I reply, “Let’s go run Greenlake instead,” I’m not saying I’m embarrassed to be in public with you. Nor am I curious to see what you look like in a rainstorm. I just need the run more than I need the beer.
Anyway, there are a number of months between now and then, so Mike Decklever, Rob Newton and I are putting together a couple of teams for some upcoming races, and you all should join us. March 13 is the St. Patty’s Day Dash, a nice little 4 mile run around downtown, followed by an Irish celebration at Fisher Plaza. Two months later on May 15 is the Beat the Bridge Run. Team “No Runner Left Behind” will be making its mark for the 5th or 6th year. This 5 miler has the extra challenge of making the 2 mile mark before the University Bridge goes up. If you haven’t done this race before, join us, as it’s one of the more run races to take part in. Plus, there’s a champagne breakfast at my house after the race for the whole team, so double bonus. I’ll get the team info set up shortly and set up a Facebook Page or something.
So how is the training coming? I have Ryan Bostick leading me on 3-4 mile mountain trail runs to get me acclimated to hills. And a number of different folks have joined me for regular trips on the Greenlake loop. So now that I’m about 15 pounds lighter from Jan 1, and up to a steady 3 miles in 31 minutes pace, I think the groundwork is pretty well laid. I’m not fast, but I’m not hopeless.
All of this is a long way of me saying, that I’ve planted my stake in the ground and not letting myself off the hook. So if you’re hitting a trail or going for a quick jog, drag me along. Left to my own devices, I can always convince myself that a powerpoint *needs* to be done instead of running.
One of the things I want to start doing in 2011 is travelling to more places that are off the beaten path and writing about them. The first stop on the tour was Northern Arizona, including a town called Jerome, and a follow up hike in Sedona’s Boynton Canyon.
Jerome is an old mining town built on a hill. It was a fairly populated place until the mine shut down, and then had as few as 50 residents in 1950. Since all the houses were still in good shape, just abandoned, a bunch of artists moved up and took them over. So now what you have is a kind of old ghost town with art galleries.
The notable feature of the town is that it’s built on a hill. A few streets run back and forth through the town at different elevations. So you don’t walk north, south, east, west as much as you walk up, down, left, right, navigating from street to street (which is actually the same street curving around) via a set of staircases. For example, here are the directions you get when asking how to get from our hotel to a place to eat. “Go down the hill there. When you get to Haunted Hamburgers, walk down the staircase about 100 yards north. At the bottom of that staircase, turn left. There’s one place down on your left. If that doesn’t look good, walk down the stairs to the next street and you’ll see another place.” We spent a little time in one of the most bizarre and enjoyable watering holes I’ve ever had the pleasure to sit down in, “The Spirit Room.” There a bartender – who made her way to Jerome via Kansas City, LA and Lima, Peru – managed a single open room with a jukebox and a pool table. River guides, large flamboyant Native Americans, 75 year old locals, confused tourists and some funny but odd young locals all took turns telling stories, dancing, whooping it up, and asking questions. It was an odd crowd, but one you could appreciate.
We stayed in the biggest hotel in town, which turned out to be the old mining hospital. The hospital shut down with everything else in 1950, and it was another 25 years before someone bought it and turned it into a hotel. They say it’s haunted, and I believe it, because I had some pretty nutty dreams.
The next day we hit Boynton Canyon in Sedona. Now Sedona isn’t really off the beaten path for people who live in Arizona, but for us Seattlietes, I think it’s a fair to lump in there. Plus, we were on some different trails for 4 hours or so and only ran across about 20 people.
If you’ve not been to Sedona, it really is about the most beautiful place on earth to go for a hike, bring a philosophy book, clear your head and just marvel at everything around you. You just can’t get away from brilliant red rocks, stunning vistas, and changing scenery. One minute we’re walking nextto a canyon wall, the next we’re at a vista, and suddenly we’re in an ice trail and I have a mild concussion from slamming my head on the ground. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating the concussion part, but I spent some time on my keister in the depths of that canyon.
So overall: Jerome – an awesome place to get away from everything. Boynton Canyon – like all Sedona trails, just a marvelous spot for walking and reflecting. Get down if you can. You won’t be disappointed.