Mike Maney

Tag: fun

  • Snubbed Again

    I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that I didn’t make Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list of business’s hottest young rising stars…or the fact that I no longer qualify for inclusion on the list.

  • The 2009 Covered Bridges Ride

    The forecast for this morning called for a 100 percent probability of rain, 15 mile per hour winds and a high temperature of a balmy 38 degrees Fahrenheit.

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    Luckily, only the wind and temperature proved the meteorologists correct for my third — and Mark’s first — Central Bucks Bicycle Club Annual Covered Bridges Ride (it was the club’s 29th).

    This was also the first year I chose to ride the hilly, challenging 50 mile course. In past years, I’ve done the hilly 33 mile course. More importantly, this was the first ride Mark had done over 22 miles…and he rode it strongly.

    [Click here to see the route.]

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    This has become an annual ride for me, and I suspect it will now be for Mark as well (maybe Paul and Troy can come out next year and join the tradition). It is unbelievably well supported, with friendly volunteers manning the rest stops an handing out piles of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, boiled potatoes, bananas, oranges and cookies (someone made a stellar chocolate chip pumpkin cookie at the first rest stop).

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    Plus, there are covered bridges. Five of them on the 50 mile course. They are historic, wooden and the reason 3,000-plus people normally come out for the ride (the weather kept the numbers low this year, unfortunately).

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    Thinking we’ll do the 63 mile metric century next year 😉

  • The happiest place on earth (seriously)

    A few random lessons learned from last week’s family trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando:

    • I am pretty sure the phrase “Let me make the magic” when uttered by a tired bus shuttle attendant is equivalent to “These tourists missed their bus again so I have to make a side trip to drop them off at their hotel.”
    • You will spend more time trading pins with Disney’s cast members than actually going on the rides.
    • It really is a small world, after all.
    • Nine year-olds and six year-olds have the ability to make instant friends while standing in line to catch a bus.
    • Amazingly, people aren’t embarrassed to wear Boston Red Sox paraphernalia in public. Go figure.
    • If you think city governments have gone too far requiring restaurants to post fat/calorie numbers on their menus or calling for sugar/soda taxes, take a walk down Disney’s Main Street U.S.A. It’s like central casting for Wall-E (those of you who saw the movie know which part I’m referencing).
    • If you visit Disney, have kids and want to have a fun dinner, make reservations at Fort Wilderness Lodge’s “Whispering Canyon.” Don’t forget to ask for the ketchup (or catsup, depending on how you pronounce it).
    • A few quick ride observations: (1) Blizzard Beach is more fun than Typhoon Lagoon, (2) If you are hot, Kali River Rapids in Animal Kingdom will soak you, (3) Splash Mountain isn’t as splashy as you’d expect, (4) The new Toy Story ride at Hollywood Studios is a blast, (5) The Rock ‘n Roller Coaster with Aerosmith really is rockin’, (6) The Tower of Terror is actually ok for younger kids, and (7) For a bird’s eye view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks, make dinner reservations at The California Grill in The Contemporary.

  • Defining the cloud

    I didn’t find this book at Amazon…but I very well could have.  “War and Peace” would have nothing on the size and weight of a book attempting to definitively answer the question: “What is cloud computing?”

  • The Outer Banks 2009

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    Highlights from our trip to OBX in North Carolina in August 2009:

    Want to see more OBX 2009 vacation images? Click here.

  • I Didn’t Know That: Checking a jalapeno’s heat

    Stumbled across this tip today. For most, it’s a tip that will save them from burning their mouths; for those who like their jalapenos hot, it will help them pick the perfect pepper:

    Tip: How to Check for the Hotness of Jalapenos

    Ever take home a jalapeño chile pepper from the grocery store and have it either be so lacking in heat it may just as well be a bell pepper, or so hot a speck will create a raging inferno in your mouth? Here’s a quick tip for choosing jalapeños that can help you decide which ones to pick. Jalapeño chilies start out mild and progressively get hotter the older they get, eventually turning bright red (and quite hot). As they age, they develop white lines and flecks, like stretch marks running in the direction of the length of the pepper. The smoother the pepper, the younger, and milder it is. The more white lines, the older and hotter. Red jalapeños are the most hot, because they’ve been maturing the longest.

    Continue reading ‘Tip: How to Check for the Hotness of Jalapenos’ » (Via Simply Recipes.)

  • Me at the Open Source Oscars

    @Roebot catches me trying to pilfer some cool ThinkGeek paraphernalia at the Sourceforge Community Choice Awards in San Jose last week.

  • Tri-state governors announce head of new environmental task force

    Comfortable being constantly wet?  Check.  Ability to breathe underwater?  Check.

    Yet another night of thunderstorms, waking up to another morning of cloudy, gray skies dumping rain.

  • Off-Topic: My friend the ski model

    Picture 3.pngOK, maybe my friend Steve Keller isn’t a professional ski model in the same vein as those who huck themselves off cliffs for the cameras, but he *is* the face of Steamboat on their web site, in ski mag ads and even in one of the world’s greatest magazines.

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  • Philippe Kahn Successful in Transpac Sailing Record Attempt

    Congratulations to Philippe on his and Richard Clarke’s successful Transpac Sailing Record. I’m by no means a close friend of Philippe’s, but I have been lucky enough to have had an e-mail conversation with him (we have a mutual professional acquaintance). I’m not a sailor, but it’s fun following one I know.