Sunday Round-up
We're off to a good start on the file room project at work. It's tedious and detailed work, but we're making real progress.
The books I ordered from Amazon came in - Mounted Archers of the Steppe 600 BC to AD 1300, and Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia 500 BC to 1700 AD. They will beef up my resource library for writing KA stories.
And my DVD libary got a big boost. I bought some used DVD's - Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah, Happy Feet, Pan's Labyrinth and The Promise.
My copy of Prag arrived from Denmark. I've watched it twice already. The gods! Mads is so fine and it's such a good story that I was in tears through most of the movie. And EZYDVD just sent me confirmation that Vol. 4 of Unit One is on its way. More Mads! Yippee! The downside is that these are the last episodes of the series.
I got out to see a couple movies too. Saw a terrific Japanese anime feature called "Paprika" about a woman psychiatrist who uses a new experimental machine to enter patients' dreams to help them work through their problems. Paprika is her dream alter ego. One of the prototypes is stolen and people working in the same facility as the psychiatrist are going bonkers. She has to find out who is messing with people's dreams and recover the prototype before the world of dreams takes over.
I also saw "Boy Culture". It's about a gay male prostitute working in Seattle. He is all business, and love has no place in his life. But, against his better judgment, he does fall in love. Three times over.
We're through the second week of the Tour de France and it's been a thrilling one. There's too much to catch up on, but today was the first day in the Pyrenees and Alberto Contador of Discovery Team and Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank duked it out on the last climb of the day. The drama, the strategy, the gamesmanship of professional cycling played itself out on the climb to the Plateau de Baille. Ras who still wears the yellow jersey for the best overall time in the Tour to date had to gain as much time as he could to keep other GC contenders at bay. In order to stay in yellow he was forced to take the lead with only a few meters to the finish. That allowed AC to sit on his back wheel and then slingshot around the Dane to take the stage win. At 24 years of age this is Contador's first Tour de France. He's a phenomenal climber and a ToF winner in the making.
Coming in second Ras still gained time on everybody else and keeps the yellow jersey. AC is now in second place on GC. Levi finished 4th on the stage. And Popo crossed the line in 10th place to put three riders in the stage's top ten and the Tour's top ten.
Other Tour highlights of the week:
Dane Michael Rasmussen takes the win in Stage 8, a tough mountain stage in the Alps. He won the stage, took the yellow jersey, and the polka-dot King-of-the-Mountain jersey! And, not known for his time trialing skills he has his eyes on the top podium in Paris and he rode like a man possessed on Stage 13. Not to take anything away from Ras, but it's worth mentioning that Gusev, Kloeden, Popo and Cancellarra all had equally good times, but all crashed on the rain-soaked roads.
Wild Card team Barloworld is showing that the Tour organizers made a good choice in selecting their new team for this year's tour. Mauricio Soler won Stage 9. Robbie Hunter took Stage 11. And Soler was third on the very tough mountain stage today.
Tom Boonen finally gets a stage win in this year's Tour! He took Stage 12.
And Alexander Vinokourov of Astana experienced the highs and lows of the Tour in the space of two days! He was favored to win the Tour this year. He had a bad crash in an early stage of the Tour and needed stitches in both knees and his arm. He stayed in the race giving his all every day culminating in an absolutely stunning performance in the Individual Time Trial yesterday. He set a blistering pace easily taking the stage win. Sadly, he was unable to keep up with the peloton today and was dropped. He finished the stage, but winning this year's Tour is not in the books. I do think his courage and perserverance this year will be the stuff of legend.
The books I ordered from Amazon came in - Mounted Archers of the Steppe 600 BC to AD 1300, and Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia 500 BC to 1700 AD. They will beef up my resource library for writing KA stories.
And my DVD libary got a big boost. I bought some used DVD's - Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah, Happy Feet, Pan's Labyrinth and The Promise.
My copy of Prag arrived from Denmark. I've watched it twice already. The gods! Mads is so fine and it's such a good story that I was in tears through most of the movie. And EZYDVD just sent me confirmation that Vol. 4 of Unit One is on its way. More Mads! Yippee! The downside is that these are the last episodes of the series.
I got out to see a couple movies too. Saw a terrific Japanese anime feature called "Paprika" about a woman psychiatrist who uses a new experimental machine to enter patients' dreams to help them work through their problems. Paprika is her dream alter ego. One of the prototypes is stolen and people working in the same facility as the psychiatrist are going bonkers. She has to find out who is messing with people's dreams and recover the prototype before the world of dreams takes over.
I also saw "Boy Culture". It's about a gay male prostitute working in Seattle. He is all business, and love has no place in his life. But, against his better judgment, he does fall in love. Three times over.
We're through the second week of the Tour de France and it's been a thrilling one. There's too much to catch up on, but today was the first day in the Pyrenees and Alberto Contador of Discovery Team and Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank duked it out on the last climb of the day. The drama, the strategy, the gamesmanship of professional cycling played itself out on the climb to the Plateau de Baille. Ras who still wears the yellow jersey for the best overall time in the Tour to date had to gain as much time as he could to keep other GC contenders at bay. In order to stay in yellow he was forced to take the lead with only a few meters to the finish. That allowed AC to sit on his back wheel and then slingshot around the Dane to take the stage win. At 24 years of age this is Contador's first Tour de France. He's a phenomenal climber and a ToF winner in the making.
Coming in second Ras still gained time on everybody else and keeps the yellow jersey. AC is now in second place on GC. Levi finished 4th on the stage. And Popo crossed the line in 10th place to put three riders in the stage's top ten and the Tour's top ten.
Other Tour highlights of the week:
Dane Michael Rasmussen takes the win in Stage 8, a tough mountain stage in the Alps. He won the stage, took the yellow jersey, and the polka-dot King-of-the-Mountain jersey! And, not known for his time trialing skills he has his eyes on the top podium in Paris and he rode like a man possessed on Stage 13. Not to take anything away from Ras, but it's worth mentioning that Gusev, Kloeden, Popo and Cancellarra all had equally good times, but all crashed on the rain-soaked roads.
Wild Card team Barloworld is showing that the Tour organizers made a good choice in selecting their new team for this year's tour. Mauricio Soler won Stage 9. Robbie Hunter took Stage 11. And Soler was third on the very tough mountain stage today.
Tom Boonen finally gets a stage win in this year's Tour! He took Stage 12.
And Alexander Vinokourov of Astana experienced the highs and lows of the Tour in the space of two days! He was favored to win the Tour this year. He had a bad crash in an early stage of the Tour and needed stitches in both knees and his arm. He stayed in the race giving his all every day culminating in an absolutely stunning performance in the Individual Time Trial yesterday. He set a blistering pace easily taking the stage win. Sadly, he was unable to keep up with the peloton today and was dropped. He finished the stage, but winning this year's Tour is not in the books. I do think his courage and perserverance this year will be the stuff of legend.