Larry the Cable Guy

As we were walking through campus, we noticed a crowd of people. Turns out Larry the Cable guy was "Gittin' her done". I snapped a couple of photos as he signed autographs.

Later the Husker cheerleaders insisted on a photo with me. Erin found this ironic since I'm cheering for the Jayhawks and not the Huskers this game!

Home From Europe!!!

We are back home after ~3 weeks traveling. Our itinerary turned out to be as follows:

Rome
Tuscany Region including Montepulciano, Siena, Florence, Pienza
Cinque Terra
Milan
Prague
London

I'll post numerous interesting snaps over the next few weeks but here's one to get you started. In Rome, we looked at the ruins including the Colosseum and Palatine hill area but Rome is also the home of more modern ruins as evidenced by the following snap I took:

Bike picture, latest sign design

Yuki celebrates

Yuki celebrates a simultaneous Husker & Jayhawk score!!!

Jackass II

I caught the new Jackass movie yesterday. It was pretty funny. Some of my favorite bits include the one pictured, where Johnny Knoxville clings to a giant rocket as it shoots across a lake. I also liked the "Toro-totter" where 4 guys are on teeter totters going up and down trying to avoid a rampaging bull. Everyone ends up getting gored.

test

group pic after dinner 9/20

Campaign Poster & Card

Huskers vs. USC

Huskers were on top early. If the game only lasted 14 minutes Huskers would have won! As it turned out, they lost 28 to 10.

GuS Reviewed

I heard about GuS recently and was anxious to test it. GuS stands for Grown Up Soda. GuS is "...the first soda made
truly for adult palates. It’s less sweet than typical flavored sodas, juice drinks and bottled teas." I tried 4 flavors: Dry Meyer Lemon, Dry Valencia Orange, Star Ruby Grapefruit, and Extra Dry Ginger Ale. I must say GuS is a tasty soda. It's a refreshing change from the sweet Pepsis of the world. I recommend GuS as a product, but the price is a bit out of line. At $2.50 per bottle I'll stick to RC Cola except for special occasions.

Initial Italy Snap

Barb and Rick dropped us off at the train station this morning and headed back to Rome for their Chicago flight. Steph and I trained to Florence - Pisa and finally to the Cinque Terra on the Italian Riviera. Here is a snap from there. It is from the top of a castle - one side faces the see, the other the town. It is neat.

Paul Tangeman at 60

Debbie's sister


Jason with Debbie's brothers


Debbie with Holly, Jason's mom


This is Luke Trevison, he's way cool.




Nello Trevison, Jason's dad

Europe Report

So far so good. We had a couple really nice days in Rome. Saw the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Colliseum, various ruins, etc... Then we drove up to our Villa which is quite close to Montepulciano. Visited Siena, Montalcino with plans to take a train to Florence tomorrow. Taking lots of photos to post later.

Looking to Avoid Natural Disasters?

Time recently ran a Katrina - One year later article and included 4 maps of the country with risk assessments due to Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Floods and Wildfires.

Earthquake risk takes out the entire western side of the country and a good chunk of the mid-west. Floods take out much of the center and East coasts while Hurricanes take out the balance.

Overlaying the maps shows three small parts of the country that seem to avoid all 4.

1. Portions of Northern Michigan including the Eastern part of the peninsula
2. Small sections of North Central Nebraska
3. Small sections of Northwest Kansas

Sturgis '06

We hit Sturgis on bikes. Mike tried to trailer his like a pansy, but the truck broke down so he had to ride up like a man! No problem from either one of our Honda Shadows. It was my 4th trip, and the 1st for Erin and Mike (though probably not the last!!)

Yuki Takes Tahoe

On a busy Saturday night on the exciting Lake Tahoe casino strip, Yuki was set loose!!!

Jake reaches the half-gallon mark!

Intel Core 2 Duo - Best deal now!

With all the hype about the performance of the new Core 2 Duo we decided to get one. After assessing the major players (and a few of the fringe ones too) it was pretty clear that HP had the best combination of technology, price, performance available. Surprisingly, Dell was not terribly competitive - quoting shipment dates some 2 weeks after HP for a comparable system for $500 more! Plus HP includes (though they don't advertise) the new Intel 965 Broadwater chipset. Surprisingly, I had to call to confirm. Neither Dell or Gateway seem to have an 865 offering at the moment. The other requirement was the E6600 Core 2 Duo processor. It is the first processor that includes 4M of cache vs. only 2M for the lesser versions. HP through in a free "All-in-one printer" which we didn't really want but what the heck - we'll see what it can do besides consume expensive ink!

Here are the details of the system:
Your customized HP Pavilion d4600y CTO Desktop is estimated to be built by August 17, 2006.

Your customized PC includes:
- Genuine Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor E6600 (2.4GHz)
- 2GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x1024)
- 250GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
- LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
- 16x max. DVD-ROM
- 9-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio
- 802.11 b/g Wireless LAN PCI Card
- 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7500LE, TV-Out, DVI, VGA
- Sound Blaster Audigy 4, 24-bit ADVANCED HD Audio
- HP Multimedia Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
- Microsoft(R) Works 8.0/Money 2006/MSN Encarta Plus

Starbucking!!! Starbucking!!! Starbucking!!!

Jason aka "The Denny's Guy", Winter and Bill)

Starbucking recently played to a select audience at The Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma. The event was unique in that Winter, The Denny's Guy and Bill were all present.

Nuvi Time

Looking to buy our first GPS unit for our upcoming travels we ended up deciding on the Garmin Nuvi 350 for its strong auto capabilities coupled with its portability features.



Shopping for the best deal on the Nuvi was interesting as well with a ton of variation in price. Sam's Club prominently featured the Nuvi for $699 while Best Buy also featured the Nuvi in its Sunday Circular for $799 - and I thought Best Buy could be counted on for decent prices! Another consideration in buying local is the additional taxes of ~$50.

I ended up going with pcnation.com where the Nuvi was featured for $605 with free FedEx 2 day shipping. Also, the company is based in Illinois which means no tax! The Nuvi arrived and seems to work quite well.

Salty Dog

On the way out to California we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Home to many a land speed record.

Here Yuki contemplates the vastness of Salt Flats.

For reasons unknown, Yuki was compelled to roll in the salt after he ran on it.

The result was a salt-covered, but happy animal!

For a cool movie featuring the Salt Flats, check out "The World's Fastest Indian" starring Anthony Hopkins.