Footy is back

In the spirit of education for the world (and to highlight a great concept) I present to you the newest Footy commercial playing on Australian television. Just watching this one-minute clip makes me excited for the start of the season on Thursday. The action, the athleticism, the drama - WOOO, there goes my heart rate again! Whenever anyone asks you what Aussie Rules Football is like, THIS is the best definition I've ever seen.

Riding the Line

Many times in life I think you can make a choice about how far to go, whether to hold back or push ahead, take risks or slow things down. The real challenge isn't making the decision, it is dealing with what comes next. If you take the current stock market as an illustration - at some point, the traders and mortgage lenders made a choice to be more risky and see how far they could take it. Now we find out that they went too far and we're now paying the price. I found the same thing in a triathlon this weekend, there is a point at which you can push farther, but the price you pay later is much much higher. If you don't push as hard you'll actually end up with a better overall time. (Pace on the bike is generally the factor - go out too hard and your run will SUCK!) For me, being slightly out of breath is the indicator in triathlon - once that hits I know I have to back down. I don't yet have a financial indicator though, so at this point I just keep putting more money away and hoping that I haven't pushed too far and am too risky. I guess I won't really find out for another 40yrs so that gives me a little buffer to cover any small screw ups. Do you think that the bankers, lenders, traders that are now being blamed for the "economic downturn" know when they've pushed too far? Do they get slightly out of breath and know that last trade was too much and they need to slow down? Maybe what we need on the stock market floor are a few treadmills so that people could discover their redline, and know how to ride it without going over.

I love Lance

Though this post does confirm which side of the 'Lance' fence I sit on personally, I'm not a fanboy-to-the-end that is going to study his every move and discuss ad-nauseum his personal choices and decisions. With Lance in Australia for the Tour Down Under, the increase in cycling news stories across the board has been very interesting. We've now gotten so far past anything actually newsworthy that the papers are discussing 'what-ifs' and ancient history. To set the record straight, I will not be flying to Adelaide just to catch a 2-second glimpse of the great LA. I may try to catch some of the race on TV and will at least read the daily summaries online. I wish all the cyclists in the tour the best, especially considering the recent string of blazing hot weather in South Australia.

The reason I'm posting today though, is due to one of those 'what-if' stories found recently in The Age discussing Lance and Ironman triathlon. Turns out that at some point we're going to see Mr. Armstrong hitting the long course and going "as fast as I can." Personally I can't wait for that - it would actually be a chance to see Lance for more than 2 seconds and should make for some really good competition considering the age group he is in. There are some other wicked-fast guys in his group and battling it out with them will be fantastic. I'm just glad that I'm not in the same group!

Tour of Missouri 2008

The Tour of Missouri came back through the Show Me State for its second year. This year's lineup had a pretty impressive showing by Pro Tour teams, featuring (among others) Team Columbia, Liquigas, and Garmin-Chipotle. Thought I would share a few pics from the festivities down at the Branson time trial. We had a killer opportunity to meet Jonathan Vaughters, director of Garmin Chipotle and hang a bit with Mike Tamayo, director of HealthNet/Maxxis. We were at the start for the team warm-ups and then made our way to the finish where we caught George Hincapie and Mark Cavendish. The bike photo is Cavendish's TT bike. Cuh-razy.

So, a good time was had by all. That is, except for the guys riding the Branson "hills". It was stupid steep.  See pics at my Flickr page.

Hitting the big time

Since it probably isn't in his character to trumpet achievements in the blog-o-sphere, it is my pleasure to introduce one of the most-recent examples of Tim's awesome work in the graphics world. The crew at his office have worked for quite a while pulling things together and the result is pretty darn cool. I'm just chuffed (Aussie for 'pleased/proud/excited') that my brother works on music videos - watch out MTV!

Ha Ha Tonka "Caney Mountain" from Barkley MDFX on Vimeo.

Life Zero

I'm a big fan of listening to podcasts while I work. For the most part, a lot of the work that I do is technical animation and video stuff that doesn't require my full attention. That may sound a bit odd and counter-productive, but it's a lot like listening to music while working around the house. I have a task and it's just a matter of executing.

So, while listening last week I came across a podcast called "Life Zero". Started by a guy named John Flowers, it is a "lifestyle design concept" based on simplifying your life. He has 10 "rules" that apply to living "Life Zero", and for the most part, I think they're great rules of thumb.

1. Only what you need (living free from excess)
2. Eliminate Baggage (don't hang onto negative emotional stuff)
3. 6 months, lose it (if you haven't used something in 6 months, donate it)
4. New in = old out (get something new, something old goes away)
5. Share things (experience, property, point of view)
6. No debt (bad stuff like credit card debt)(he even says no to home loans)
7. Travel more (always prepared to travel)
8. Make friends (reach out and be social)
9. Choose your environment (be conscious of how you design your surroundings)
10. Find your joy (find what you love to do and do it)

He tends to get extreme in some cases and it's not for everyone, but it's a great place to start. Rachel and I have recently been discussing the stuff that we collect and with Josh talking about it too, this podcast has made for interesting listening.

Life Zero site

Balance

One of my favorite topics over the past years has always been balance - my instant messenger icon is usually a yin-yang, I've done ballet, and pulled a double-major through undergrad....balance is a key. This was highlighted during one of my recent photography classes where we discussed White Balancing. The new digital cameras all get create their own reality of what color 'white' actually is, which then sets off a whole chain of events on the rest of the color spectrum. The balance part though still comes through because as you change the definition of 'white' you also compromise on other colors. Set your white balance to 'flourescent' to minimize the tint of interior lights and you'll end up emphasizing the greens of the same picture. This can be useful in some situations, harmful in others and just 'interesting' for some portion of the time. Using the balance to your favor is the skill I'm supposed to be working on - so check out these shots of the coastline and see where your balance finds you.
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