Diffuse Directions

I guess I'm still recovering from my trip to the mountains. You could say I'm a little like a sleepwalker. There, but there's no there there...does that make sense? The only thing lighting me up today is politics, but I try to keep CorduroyPlanet a Politics-Free Zone. All I can do is go grab baggy...here we go...

The SF Giants suddenly look like last year's model, they've won three in a row, and the batters have come alive! They aren't gaining on the Arizona Diamondbacks who are also on a tear.

Sunday's Formula One Italian Grand Prix was awesome, featuring a daredevil pass for the lead, and good racing from front to back.

After more than two years of sad news from a fading space program, NASA announced a new heavy lift system to fly in six years. This huge rocket will carry the shuttle's replacement Orion, a space capsule for NASA's 21st Century. Russia announced that their Soyuz capsule will resume trips to the International Space Station in November. The noise about abandoning the multi-billion dollar ISS due to lack of resupply was just too disconcerting for my sensibilities!

For the most part, the Tahoe Sierra dodged a big bullet over the past few days. Lots of lightning strikes started a few small fires that fire crews handily doused with the help of lots of soaking rain. Tuesday afternoon one thunderstorm along Interstate 80 was throwing down 650 lightning strikes per hour!

I don't know if the rain made it out to the Black Rock Desert where they're still tidying up after Burning Man, but I found an amazing tidbit from Burning Man's aftermath. 2000 bicycles left behind by the 53K burners will benefit the Reno Bike Collective and other bicycle organizations.

Reno Travis with the 2,000 bicycles left on the playa at Burning Man 2011. Most will go to the Reno Bike Collective and other bike organizations, some will be repainted and added to the BRC Yellow Bike program.

I did the math, in round numbers, one of every 25 burners donated a bicycle. Bless their dusty hearts!