Hood to Coast: Longest Relay Race in the World!

This weekend we went out for a little journey. 12 people plus 2 van drivers completed the world's longest relay race: 179 miles. Legs are sore but everyone is doing okay. Yesterday I was saying 'never again', today i'm saying 'can't wait til next year!'.

www.hoodtocoast.com: :As the largest running relay race in the world, The Hood To Coast Relay stretches 197 miles from the top of Oregon's majestic Mt. Hood down to the beautiful Pacific Ocean in Seaside, Oregon. Over 12,000 runners and 4,800 walkers in Portland to Coast, share in the experience of this annual event now in its 26th year! Come join the excitement this August 24th and 25th, 2007!

Teams from around the world come to participate in the Nike Hood To Coast Relay, Portland To Coast Walk and Portland To Coast High School Challenge. Each race has a range of participants, from serious runners and walkers to teams just out to enjoy the adventure, (and maybe out-do one another in van and oufit decor!).

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Richistan

Richistan was written by Robert Frank, a writer for the Wall St. Journal and is a tour through the upper class, broken into 3 categories of rich, super rich, and ultra rich. Interesting enough to scan through in a 3-4 hour read, but borrow my copy . One constant is the lack of feeling content or happiness everyone seems to feel. At no matter what level and what they have, they also want twice as much. Flashback to scenes in the street of Shanghai where people seemed to have relatively nothing in a very small dwelling on the street but smiles all around. No, I didn’t ask them, it was something you could feel in the air. I’m not saying its better to be poor in Shanghai, but it all comes together in the ‘money does not buy happiness but it sure helps’ adage. These people are saddled with enormous amounts of obligations and many STILL spend beyond their income production which seems amazing if you are worth $20 million. Discussing the book with Chris Wilkerson he suggested I read Social History of the Rich, which sounded a bit more thoughtful than this book.

The journalistic writing style of this book makes it readable, but the lack of analysis makes me yearning for a bit more when spending the amount these books cost. There are quite a few nuggets of data and I enjoyed the tour, but for a guy who has spent several year wandering around with these folks you’d think he’d be able to make a few more astute observations than pointing out the obvious lessons. Maybe though, the world just isn’t that complex. Ultimately, happiness comes from a search within, and the physical motions and actions we take act only as distraction to a true course.

The Richest Man in Babylon

Josh recommended I take a read of this book. It’s a parable to remind us of the fundamental principles of creating a good quality of life. Fundamentals include saving 10% of what you earn, hiring experts to do things you don’t know how to do, and a host of other notes worth reading and re-reading every couple years. Also has stories of those who were unhappy in their lives living to spend rather than spending to live and not ever learning the mental rewards of hard work. It’s a classic, written in the style of Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and would go onto my ’10 books you should have read as a kid but didn’t’. Internalizing its lessons early and re-reading them periodically will lead to a better feeling of well being.

OLPC: one laptop per child

so, i'm writing this entry from an olpc at siggraph.

very nice little device for a couple bucks. keyboard is rough to use. feels toy like which is good for audience. suprised at all th features wreless usb audio ports etc. cute green handle.

this is not an iphone.