Archives for July 2003
I am so out of touch. I just came across
RSS.NET -- An open-source .NET class library for RSS feeds.
Just over a month until another season of
Texas Longhorn football gets under way. Of course, I will be in Austin to watch Texas take on New Mexico State on August 31st.
Jacob turned 3 a week and a half ago. We had a nice party with family and friends. This was the first party for him where he had a say in who was invited (kids from school). It seems like 3 or 4 of them showed up. We had a bounce house, hot dogs, and cake -- a good time all around.
Thanks to everyone for helping celebrate Jacob's birthday, he had a blast!
Well, here we are, the end of July...
Lance Armstrong won yet another Tour de France, his fifth in a row. Of course anyone who followed this year's edition knows that it was not really "yet another" race, as it was by far the most exciting, entertaining, and closest race in many years. I am hoping that one day we learn the "other problems" that Armstrong alluded to in various interviews (I've heard it might be back problems). Also, I can't wait for his new book,
Every Second Counts, to come out. You can read the first chapter
here.
By the way, Lance still has some racing left in him this season. He won the Altstad-Kriterium in Austria yesterday, and according to his website, he will be racing in the German Karlsruhe 2-man Time Trial on August 2nd. His site also mentions that he and Jan Ullrich will square off against each other (as well as other riders) in the 1-day World Cup event, the Championship of Zurich on August 17th.
Finally, don't miss the "Defining Moments of the 2003 Tour" show on
OLN this Thursday at 8PM ET/PT. It features an exclusive interview with Lance.
Sunday's stage of the Tour de France is practically a parade...all ceremonial -- at least until they get down to the end, then the sprinters come out. But what if the time gap between Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich stays around one minute (or even less) going into the final stage? Would Jan attack? Would USPS set a real high pace on what is normally a very leisurely day, so that any attack would be discouraged?
After Saturday's final Time Trial, I think they will either be neck and neck, or Lance will have added another minute or so to his lead. If he has added another minute to his lead, then I think Sunday's stage is a nice slow ride into Paris, but if they are neck and neck, how exciting would it be to see these two great cyclists go head-to-head, marking each other all the way into Paris? How about USPS and Ullrich's team, Bianchi time-trialing all the way in, and then a sprint shoot-out between Lance and Jan?
Whatever happens, it is bound to be exciting!
The amazing
Tyler Hamilton became only the 6th American to win a stage in the
Tour de France, winning Stage 16 today.
Hamilton, who has been riding with a broken collarbone since crashing at the end of the 1st stage, went out alone, first bridging the gap from the peleton to a small breakaway, and then dropping the breakaway. At the end of the day, Hamilton finished about 2 minutes ahead of the peleton, and has moved up from 7th to 6th in the overall classification.
As good as this year's race has been, imagine what it would be had Hamilton not broken his collarbone in Stage 1 and had Beloki not crashed out in Stage 10...
16 H 50 - Armstrong Goes Cross Country
It's like a Nike ad... Lance has cut out a hairpin turn and raced across a field to rejoin the peloton after racing off the road to avoid the fallen Beloki.
[www.letour.com]
This was the newsflash from
www.letour.com after the #2 man in the overall standings, Joseba Beloki, fell in the final kilometers of today's stage -- a downhill finish -- as he and Amrstrong were chasing down the leader, Alexandre Vinokourov, who had a 10 second advantage at the time of the crash.
Unfortunately, the crash has ended Beloki's Tour. Fortunately, Armstrong was able to think quickly on his seat and
avoid crashing himself. Armstrong now leads today's stage winner, Alexandre Vinokourov, by only 21 seconds.
Today was a good day for cycling, at least it was if you are a fan of the
United States Postal Service Team. The USPS team won today's stage of the
Tour de France, which was a team time trial, by 30 seconds over the ONCE team. At the end of the day, USPS team member, Victor Hugo Peña became the first Colombian to wear the Yellow Jersey. The Alps are two days away.
Here are the overall standings for the Tour, after today's race (note: the top 8 spots belong to USPS team members):
1. Victor Hugo Pena (Colombia) 13 hours, 44 minutes
2. Lance Armstrong (USA) 1 second behind
3. Viatcheslav Ekimov (Russia) 00:05
4. George Hincapie (USA) 00:05
5. Jose Luis Rubiera (Spain) 00:23
6. Roberto Heras (Spain) 00:27
7. Pavel Padrnos (Czech Republic) 00:27
8. Floyd Landis (USA) 00:28
9. Joseba Beloki (Spain) 00:33
10. Jorg Jaksche (Germany) 00:38
11. Manuel Beltran (Spain) 00:39
12. Jan Ullrich (Germany) 00:39
13. Isidro Nozal (Spain) 00:44
14. Angel Vicioso (Spain) 00:51
15. Tobias Steinhauser (Germany) 00:51
16. Mikel Pradera (Spain) 00:58
17. Angel Casero (Spain) 00:58
18. Jose Azevedo (Portugal) 01:01
19. Marcos Serrano (Spain) 01:04
20. Vladimir Karpets (Russia) 01:11
I've been almost completely out of the loop on weblogs, RSS, syndication, etc. for the past few weeks, so I am just now starting to digest
Necho.
My first pass at having my weblog app generate an Necho file is
here.
