4th of July/Tour de France

4th of July

Yesterday was the 4th of July, we had hot dogs and hamburgers, then watched "Cloverfield", interesting movie, it's Godzilla taken from the person on the streets perspective. Most of the monster films are taken from the Monster or Military perspective (always by a 3rd person), this was taken first person from the street view. This also meant a lot of jerky camera scenes which made me a bit sick. After the lights went out we went and set off some fireworks with the neighbors, one of which was celebrating his 4th birthday.

The fireworks were pretty cool, but I noticed an increase in price this year. I'm always very careful with fireworks, so I wore eyewear (of course I discovered on my last firework that the eyewear was tinted yellow, which took away from the effect, note to self, next year wear clear eyewear). The neighbors loved the fireworks, the little boy in me has always been a pyromaniac, so I loved lighting them off. It was raining, but that didn't dampen our spirits. Some of the neighbors set off very big fireworks, I've never liked doing that in a neighborhood, too many things that can catch fire.

Tour de France

Well the TDF has started. I just found out that one of my favorite sprinters, Tom Boonen, has been DQ'd due to a positive result for cocaine during the off season. I'm sorry, Tom is an idiot, I feel bad for him, but he should know better, it's a witch hunt and the big riders like Tom are a focus. This of course leads the sprints open to one of my other favorites, Thor Hushovd, I like Thor because he's a big guy, 180lbs, which is huge for a cyclist. As I have previously mentioned Astana is out, which is unfortunate, but we do have two American Teams in Garmin/Chipotle and Columbia.

It's great to see more American companies spending money on cycling. Cycling is an incredibly tough sport and anyone who thinks it's easy has never tried to climb a 20 mile long mountain, has never gone over 100 miles in a day, has never sprinted up a hill, has never fallen hard and gotten back up, nor have they gone over 20mph for more than a few seconds (the guys in the TDF will do over 30mph for an hour, and without help of a team). It's not a sport that requires big pads or hitting, but it does require tons of endurance, and they do have some hitting (I've seen people get punched in the gut or hit in the head with an elbow during a sprint).