gmo

Inexpensive to get to from the east coast and under 6 hour flights from DC, Iceland was a great short visit.  With mosts flights arriving early morning and departing late afternoon, and 24 hour daylight in the summer, no days are lost to travel. This means you can do Iceland in a long weekend, or less. The People The population of Iceland is 350,000, which is half of the population of Washington, DC, or 6% of the entire DC Metropolitan area.  60% of the residents live in the vicinity of Reykjavík.  The people are extraordinarily nice.  The only rude people were ones getting off planes from other countries.  Everyone in any store, restaurant, hotel or otherwise, was extremely friendly. Icelanders begin learning English in 2nd grade, along with at least one other foreign language.  With only three local television channels, their English is refined via Netflix (no subtitles).  While Icelandic is the language they all speak with each other, most Ic...

Wednesday at Wakefield is a very popular and hotly anticipated mid-week race series.  While they are supposed to be training races, people take them very seriously, as its an opportunity to show off your MTB prowess in front of the regular local racers.  I enjoy these races as they require every bit of mountain biking skill you have in order to be successful.  The race begins with a steep uphill sprint, leaving you gassed immediately, requiring you to hang on for dear life as you careen around corners, over roots, and through rock gardens. I drove through a brief but torrential rain storm on my way to the race.  When I arrived, the rain was gone, but wet grounds and puddles were evidence that the course was not missed by rain.  Generally, once the first race has already begun, the second race is not cancelled unless there is a lightning storm.  I chatted with a couple of other riders who shared my despair for the conditions.  After some warmup runs ...

If I judge the leadville race this year on finish time alone, it was probably my worst race yet, coming in with a chip time of 11:15:00.  But based on the total suffer-factor, it was probably my best race.  Meaning some parts of the race were actually gratifying, I had no leg cramping, and did not puke even once.  Throughout the entire race there is a continuous misery, but there are varying relative degrees of misery.  But the degree of misery soars when you are about to puke, have just puked, have a splitting headache, legs  cramping, etc.  Thankfully my race did not get to that level, which, of 7 years of leadville, is a first.  So, you could even say it was my best race ever. Because I didn’t race last year, I was put in the last corral, with all of the newbies and people who previously lacked the grit, guts and determination to finish the race in under 12 hours.   This starts me off at a disadvantage because there are about 1000 people ...

Here's a quick synopsis of the Jingle Ball 2013 at Verizon Center.  Performers were Jason DeRulo, Fifth Harmony, Robin Thicke, Fallout Boy, Flo Rida, Enrique Iglesias, Paramore, Austin Mahone, and Miley Cyrus Jason DeRulo Was okay.  I think he is an artist who can generally hit good high pitch notes.  When the pitch got high, he just stopped and let the audience fill in.  Seemed to me his voice wasn't able to hit the highs so he just left them out.  He had some male dancers.  They looked like ammeters, maybe chums who he hooked up to share the stage. Fifth Harmony Not a powerful enough voice to make a mark. In an arena setting, you need a good beat.  With their soft voices and reverberations around the arena, they sounded like a mumble. Robin Thicke I assumed we would hear Blurred Lines and then I'd be bored through the rest.  I was surprised.  He was entertaining.  He commanded the stage, good confidence, good entertainer. ...

"It's a really nasty hole. You DONT want to hit that wrong. If you get stuck in that hole I can't go in for you. We'll just have to wait until it spits you out." These words were spoken by Brooks, an expert kayaker and regular Great Falls waterfall runner who's house I arrive at the evening before our river run. I went there to speak with him, and the rest of the group (Jeremy, Alex, and Kathleen) to discuss what we're likely to encounter and develop a game plan. As the most inexperienced of the group, I need the information, and understanding it is very important. Following directions and being in the right place means we all have fun. We're discussing a rapid aptly named 'shoulder snapper'. It's the first rapid we'll encounter. No time to even warm up, and no easy way around it. The DC area, already waterlogged from Hurricane Irene, received another 9 inches of rain this week, causing local flash flooding. While the storms di...