Portland Sunday Parkways

Yvette and Meg heading to Peninsula Park

Following in the footsteps of Bogota and other cities, Portland shut down six miles of roads to cars so bikes and pedestrians could enjoy the roads without fear of getting crushed at any second, and called it Portland Sunday Parkways. At parks along the way they had stuff going on with musical acts and food (we indulged in the crapes). The pace was easy and a lot of people were out there.


Roads full of bikes

On the way back, we stopped by "Meg's Patch", a little chunk of land between a couple roads that gets full of wildflowers every spring. Meg's bike commute route takes her right by there and she likes the flowers. This time we got some pictures:


Triumphant in flowers

UPDATE: Here's a short video:



More photos here.
GPS data of the ride here.

Father's Day

Jim and Joan Upshaw

This last weekend, Meg and I headed to the coast to stay with her parents. On Saturday, Meg headed out with her mom to a day spa, while Jim and I went and scared some fish on Fall Creek. Sunday was Father's Day, and we started with a lesurly breakfast at the Drift Inn in Yachats, then went for a nice hike around Cape Perpetua. Photos here.

Meanwhile, my parents were spending Father's Day in the Happiest Place on Earth. I was able to catch them on the cell phone right after a character breakfast and before hitting the Matterhorn. Sounds fun to me!

Lyle Pearson 200

The 10 stages of the Lyle Pearson 200 (click to enlarge)

My flight from Taiwan was rough, and that was important as I was flying straight to Boise on a Friday for a bike race on Saturday. This is a 10-stage, 188 mile bike race with 19,000 feet of elevation gain. Luckily you do it as a team. Team Sockeye Brewing (yes, we had a sponsor!) consisted of Michael (the Captain), Lee, Mark and myself. I did leg 3 solo (painful), leg 7 with Mark (crazy fun) and Leg 10 with the full team (nice way to get to Sun Valley). With us, we had our official race driver and team manager, Wade.


Michael spinning up leg 6. Yes, that is snow.

Our original estimates were 12 hours, but we finished in 10:30. This race is also handicapped, so because of our lack of racing skill and, ahem, stature, we were able to take another 40 minutes off, giving us a final time of 9:47. That was good enough for 45 out of 58 teams. Don't worry, we are already plotting for next year!

Sunday was nice and leisurely with a mountain bike ride up Adams Gulch in the morning, lunch, then a drive back to Boise, followed by a quick unpack/pack session, then back in the car and drive to Portland...

Official results: Here
My Pictures from the race: Here
My pictures from the mountain bike ride: Here
GPS data for the full race (we passed Lee's Garmin eTrex as a "baton"): Here
My Leg 3 GPS data: Here
My Leg 7 GPS data: Here
My Leg 10 GPS data: Here
Adams Gulch GPS data: Here (GPS had some trouble with this one in the valley)

Back to Taiwan

Obligatory view out of hotel room

So, in a move reminiscent of Pixelworks, I was sent to Taiwan on short notice for the Computex trade show. Getting there was fine. The show went well. I saw Jim again. All good. Getting back, however, was a pain. I've lost all my privileges on United, so I get tossed in the back. The flight was full and I booked late, so I got a middle seat. There were two kids behind me and their favorite thing to do was play bongos on the back of my chair. I didn't kill anybody. I swear!