Another baseball vid.....

OK, I'm definitely overdoing it on the baseball-themed YouTube vids, but take a look at this one:




If you haven't already figured it out, the vid was totally staged and the ballgirl had a lot of help climbing the wall. Still, it's pretty cool.....

My new bike!

Here's my birthday present to myself - a new road bike. It's a Roubaix Pro, made by Fuji. It has a mix of Shimano 105 (front shifters) and Ultegra (rear) components, which means that it has 20 very smooth gears. It's an aluminum frame, with a carbon front fork and rear carbon seat stays. (Carbon, compared to aluminum flexes more, so the ride is slightly more comfortable with a carbon rear.) The whole bike weights 19.2 pounds.

I bought the bike yesterday up in Northern Virginia, and in spite of dark clouds in the sky, I was able to take the bike for a ride down the Mt. Vernon Trail, from Teddy Roosevelt Island to Old Town Alexandria - about 17 miles round trip. It was a fun ride, and it gave me another chance to hang out on the flight path of Reagan National airport at Gravelly Point Park.

All of this was following lunch with my buddy Kevin at Moby Dick's Kabob Shop. (Yup, I didn't get the Moby Dick connection either, but at least the food was good.)

What I'm reading now.....

Time for a new feature here at CogentPassion - what I've been reading recently.

I'm currently into From the Third World to the First: the Singapore Story, as told by former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

I've been to Singapore twice, and am amazed not just at the city, which is vibrant, exciting, and well-run, but how just miles to the north (Malaysia) and miles to the south (Indonesia) are countries that without the leadership of someone like Lee are still backwards third world countries. As I've learned through the first ~150 pages, a lot of this is due to the iron hand of Lee. Sometimes this is good, though one can not read the Singapore story without noting the absence of liberty in Singapore.

Initial grade: 1 star of 5. It's a plodder, and at ~750 pages, it is going to take a while....

Just to catch up, here's two other books that I've finished this month:

Beyond Band of Brothers: the War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters. I was absolutely riveted by the HBO/Hanks/Spielberg TV series Band of Brothers about an "average" WWII infantry company. While Winters' recollections were a big part of the TV series, there's no substitute for hearing about the story of Easy Company first hand. The book repeats many of the stories of Band of Brothers, but adds the personal perspective and many lessons and leadership.

Rating: 3 stars of 5.

The Collectors, by David Baldacci

Standard Baldacci fare, involving Washington D.C. and the Camel Club. It's not anything like his initial thriller Absolute Power, but still OK beach/deck reading material.

Rating: 2 stars of 5.