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I was bouncing back and forth between a couple of books for a while. I'm half way through Don't Know Much About the Bible by Kenneth C. Davis (that would be the old testament), just finished The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (a memoir from Bill Bryson growning up in the 50s), almost finished The Octopus and the Orangutang (about animal intelligence) and The Third Chimpanzee by Diamond (about the growth of civilizations, human geography, evolution, etc.).
Anyway, I recently picked up Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, a biography written by former olympian and teammate (Bowerman's, not mine......my former teammate, Jeff Pearlman, has been writting inflamatory interviews with John Rocker and books on Barry Bonds and his steroids) Kenny More.
This is, IMO, one of the most interesting books I've ever read. I've included a snippet from a review below, but for the few non-track enthusiasts who may be on my firend list (there's got to be one or two of you), Bill Bowerman was an elite track and field coach at the University of Oregon and co-founder of Nike. What is interesting is not so much the history of he and his athletes, but the fact that this book covers a huge chunk of modern history in general. A man who lived from 1911 to 1999 and was heavily involved in such a politicized sport like track and field (think "Olympics") gets involved in quite a lot. The biography covers his life as a kid living on the west coast in the early 1900s, as an all-American football player, a high school teacher, a major in the 10th mounatin division (elite ski troops....which I coincidentaly read a book on last year), a prominant coach at the university of Oregon having coached several olympians, national championships, and record holders, as an inovator in running shoe and track surface design, and as a man having to do battle with the politics of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and corrput US and international athletics governing institutions. The last chapter I read covered the scientific tests they did on distance runners to monitor the effects of altitiude training at Lake Tahoe before the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City at 7,000 ft.
Anyway, I could ramble on forever. Watcha been readin' lately?
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Snipit: Seen from the world of today's track and field, Bill Bowerman appears larger than life. As a coach at the University of Oregon, he is associated with names like Henry Marsh, Mac Wilkins, Steve Prefontaine, Harry Jerome, Bill Dellinger, and Otis Davis. He was the head track coach of the U.S. Olympic team in 1972, holding the team together through the hostage crisis there. He played a role in shaking the sport of track and field loose from the AAU and their perpetual power struggles with the NCAA. By carefully studying advances made by colleagues around the world, like his longtime friend Arthur Lydiard, he popularized many of the advances made in the science of training for his sport. He is credited, due to his massively popular book Jogging, with bringing the popular running boom to the United States. And his experiments in better footwear for his athletes, combined with the entreprenurial spirit of one of those athletes, led to the creation of Nike, Inc. The common thread running through all these stories is the athletes, who he named in his traditional fall season-opening speech as "Men of Oregon." Author Kenny Moore was one of these athletes, a national champion at several distances and a two-time Olympic marathoner who finished fourth in the 1972 Munich Games. Moore tells Bowerman's story from inside and out, working from the extensive primary materials collected by Bowerman's wife, Barbara, as well as his own interviews with dozens of the Men of Oregon. Bowerman's story is theirs, and in Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, Moore gives Davis, Jerome, Dyrol Burleson, and Jim Grelle, among others, their due......................
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For whatever reason, my browser would shut down everytime I tried to respond to Mike's last post. Anyway, I just discovered www.pandora.com which does exactly the same thing you described. It has been awesome. I love hearing new music and its a great way to introduce you to bands you've never heard before. A lot of stuff I sliten to doesn't get radio play, so here's my chance to pick up on some new bands so that I can buy their CD......BAHAHAHAHA who am I kidding. I don't buy CDs anymore. I download one or two songs from that artist and then move on with my life. Here you go Funk Storung, 99 cents! Don't spend it all in the one place.
In other news, I noticed a woman sitting next to us at a restaurant had a jacket very similar to the one I bought in San Fransisco, so I struck up a coversation asking her if she bought it in China Town because she didn't expect it to be so damn cold there (FYI, SF is supposedly a good 20 degrees colder than the surrounding area). That's what I did and I met another person who did exactly the same thing. Anyway, I was close.
The point of the story was that she mentioned that she lived there as well as Florida, NYC, and San Diego. I asked where in San Diego and it turned out she lived on the corner of Nobel and Lebon, which is right down the street from where Mike used to live (and I lived for all of 2 months). Small world, eh?
The funniest part was that she was real excited to talk to me about this stuff and was sitting across from, what appeared to be, a new boyfriend who wasn't too happy with our little conversation.
And that's my story.
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I prefer professional athlete! ; ^ )
Finaly those years of endurance sports are paying off. Follow along, if you will.
Obviously running and racing is something I Ihave always enjoyed doing, however, it is time consuming and in the end it doesn't pay the bills and any acolades one may receive doesn't mean much to anyone outside of the sport. One day quite a few years back I was looking at an award that was, in a sense, the culmination of all my training (everyone who races, no matter how fast or how slow, has something similar).
I had done a rough calculation of all the time I spent training and estimated the amount of wages I would have earned at 6 bucks an hour. As a result, I lost $30,000 I could have otherwise earned working at Mr. Pizza.
No, I don't really fret about it because, to be honest, I'd rather be running, fighting, warhammering, playing music, etc. than working at Mr. Pizza or even driving the car that Mr. Pizza could have afforded me. However, it did cross my mind.
However, for once it finaly seems to be paying me back. I started riding my bike to work. Its a 21 mile commute, one way, over some grueling hills. It is quite a workout. No matter how you look at it, whether you figure gas at $3.60/gal, or the reimbusement rates as a value for mileage (includes wear and tear on the car) at $0.45/mile, or simply the fact that our 1999 Sable is on the verge of dying and a new car would run $300-$400/month.....which ever way you work the numbers, each day I ride, I save money.
So, in a sense, I am getting paid to train. I'd love to say that I'm doing it for the environment, which I do care about, but to be quite honest, it's about the money.....and, in my own small, pathetic, insignificant way, saying F.U. to the oil companies.
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Suffering from many illnesses, he had been losing hit point for some time now, failing his last CON check at 69. R.I.P. Gary Gygax.
 MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69. He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax. Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies. Gygax always enjoyed hearing from the game's legion of devoted fans, many of whom would stop by the family's home in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, his wife said. Despite his declining health, he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January, she said. "It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them," Gygax said. "He really enjoyed that." Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity. Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children. E-mail to a friend 
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