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More people in Minneapolis ride their bikes to work than in any other U.S. city except Portland Ore., according to figures released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yay for Minneapolis! The City of Bikes

I got the clearance for full activity from the doctor today, so I’m going to get one day of riding in at least!

This is an excellent article. A great summary of why corn and grass ethanol is a bad idea.

The Great Corn Con -The Senate’s preposterous new ethanol bill.

Key quotes:

So, even if Congress mandated that all of America’s corn be turned into ethanol, it would yield only about 28.3 billion gallons, far less than the mandated volume. And, clearly, most of America’s corn is still going to be used for animal feed, family barbecues, and high-fructose corn syrup.

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In May 2006, former CIA Director John Deutch, who’s now a chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed that producing enough ethanol from switch grass (a fast-growing plant that’s native to North America) would require vast amounts of acreage. Deutch estimated that producing enough cellulosic ethanol to replace 1 million barrels of oil per day—roughly equivalent to 22 billion gallons of ethanol per year—would require planting 25 million acres of land in switch grass. That’s an area about the size of Kentucky, or about 5 percent of the 440 million acres of cropland in the United States.

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So, what about using more ethanol from sugar cane? Well, the United States could, at least in theory, grow more cane. But that wouldn’t make much sense, given that Brazil can produce it at far lower cost. And, thanks to pressure from farm-state senators, Congress has effectively limited the use of Brazilian ethanol with its $0.54 per-gallon tariff on foreign ethanol.

(Corn, Grass) Ethanol is not the answer!

In an attempt to increase the masculinity of potentially feminine clothing items I have become fond of, I have begun to refer to things as man-(item).

Man-pris (Capri pants for men)

Man-dals (overly strappy or leathery sandals)

The newest item is man-mocs. This one is tough however, because the moccasin, or it’s close cousin, the “penny-loafer” has been a staple of corporate-man in professional and casual settings for quite some time. It seems to have fallen out of favor with my peers, but I’m bringing it back. No socks, highwaters, and loafers. Summer comfort is written all over this outfit.

Yeti – Dock Jumper, originally uploaded by ajc3.

After years of practice and hard work, yeti is now jumping off the dock.

On Friday, I was lucky enough to be amongst the first to see a new film called "The Listening Project". This documentary sends a group of people around the world to open a conversation about America’s role in the world. It’s not a perfect movie, and it has it’s own lens and perspective as all movies do, but it is quietly powerful in the way that we get to listen in on what people think about America, in locations as diverse as Vancouver, Kabul, and Tanzania.

The filmakers are going to be bringing the movie to some film festivals now, and with luck, they will be able to have it shown in theaters from there. Check out the website, there are some extended interviews and journals from the "listeners" as they made the film.

From an article in the NYTimes Magazine – "When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten"

In 49 out of 50 states, the average annual cost of day care for a 4-year-old in an urban area is more than the average annual public college tuition.

Yikes!