Independence Day Follies

As it should be, it's been hotter than blazes here in the Inland Valley over the holiday weekend.

Sunday I was down at the Farmer's Market before 0930...the mercury was already uphill of 80°F and rising fast. I grabbed my heirloom tomatoes and fled to the relative cool of the Ancestral Digs in time to bid Sister K a safe trip home into the Big Valley Inferno.

I made Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwiches for brunch and settled in to view the Giants vs Detroit Tigers game. Just watching the broadcast from scorching hot Detroit made me feel the heat. Alas, the Tigers won, spoiling the Giants' sweep.

Earlier Sunday morning my alarm roused me at 0500 to watch the Team Time Trial LIVE from France. Damn if the heat hasn't been keeping me up too late to stay awake at 0-dark-hundred! I fell back to sleep before Phil and Paul could even introduce the course. I woke up in time to see the last three teams stop the clock. My favorite team this season, Garmin-Cervélo, one of four American teams on the Tour this year won the day! My fantasy team, TeamCorduroyPlanet rose from the ashes of the cellar up a couple of steps to 37th overall.

Garmin-Cervélo's Dave Zabriskie added the Captain America helmet to his National Time Trial Champion kit.

I watched the Primetime replay and it was wonderful, colorful and productive. Defending champion Alberto Contador lost a few more seconds to my pick Andy Schleck in the overall or GC (General Classification) as Garmin-Cervélo enjoyed their first TdF Stage Win. 

Fourth of July...from the ridiculous to the sublime...

 


Sunday I failed to keep the eyes open to view the TdF LIVE again...and again I woke up in time to watch the sprint finish LIVE...

Team CorduroyPlanet's (read Team Garmin-Cervélo's) sprinter Tyler Farrar became the first American to win a stage of the TdF on the Fourth of July! It's a Big Deal for the French riders to win on Bastille Day, le Quatorze Juillet (the 14th of July), that celebrates the Storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution, so we Americans can have dreams along similar lines, too.

After the Tour broadcast ended, I tuned in the quintessential 4th of July Event on TV...

                   The 96th Annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs 
                         International  Hot Dog Eating Contest

Ladies and Gentlemen, now for the Most Famous Four Words in Sports...

                        ...Gentlemen...Start...Your...Enzymes!!!!!

Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Contest is Pure Americana meets the Ugly American, and I could care less who eats how many, how fast, where they ate 'em, or why they ate 'em. I'm down with Nathan's Contest because the contest Announcer and Chief Raconteur George Shea is an orating machine, and a National Treasure.

Shea was born with the "Gift of Gab" and honed his craft in Law School. Today when introducing the contestants, Shea said, almost in passing, this about today's winner Joey Chestnut: "His DNA is a blueprint for a Modern Archangel"

Unfortunately, ABC-TV (parent company of ESPN2, who broadcast the Hot Dog Contest) doesn't feature Mr Shea and his Over the Top Oratory, instead opting to have their motorsports motormouth, Paul Page yammer over the mostly disgusting video, drowning out the real phrase-smith's witticisms.

At least ESPN2's "Smartest Guys in the Live Truck" have the good sense to feature Shea's Eaters Introductions. Sometime after the holiday ends, Shea's Play-by-Play should show up on YouTube. Perhaps I should lobby the NHRA to resume drag racing on 4th of July Weekend so Paul Page will have somewhere to be besides Coney Island during the Hot Dog Eating Contest!

Every year I fire off an email full of impassioned constructive criticism to ESPN, and every year I'm treated to Paull Page droning out True Genius yet again...so much for my being the Everyman.

Continuing in the less-than-sublime sports vein, I enjoyed the Giants vs San Diego Padres game from AT&T Park in spite of the Giants' loss. Pablo Sandoval hit a two run into homer McCovey Cove, only the 56th Splash Hit ever.

During the game, I installed my new garden thermometer on the redwood tree outside my bedroom here at the Ancestral Digs, and watched it rise instantly to 90°F. By the time it started to cool off, the results of today's Stage 3 were posted to my fantasy league. Team CorduroyPlanet rose again to 19th Place. Thanks to my sprinters Tyler Farrar and the "Manx Missile" Mark Cavendish. I expect to cover most of the sprint stages with these guys, the two best sprinters riding today.

Now I'll watch the Prime Time replay of Stage 3. Thanks VersusTV!

One Begins, One Ends

From The Beginning
The 98th Tour de France began on the west coast of France Saturday, with a low tide processional ride across the Passage du Gois that connects France to Île de Noirmoutier.

In 1999 Le Tour actually was racing over this roadway that's only above water at low tide, when a big crash on the super-slick pavement split the field wide open. The Stage 2 crash separated several contenders by six minutes from the front of the race. That year Lance Armstrong's streak of good luck began, and he won his first of seven Tours de France.

Going back in history to 799AD, Île de Noirmoutier was the site of the first recorded invasion of the Vikings.

The Viking in today's race, Norway's reigning World Road Race Champion, Thor Hushovd finished third in the frantic uphill sprint at Mont des Alouettes. The last 20Km saw two crashes in the peloton that again split the contenders. Defending TdF Champion, Spaniard Alberto Contador was behind the crash caused by an inattentive spectator, and crossed the finished 1:20 behind the rest of the favorites.

Fans of Luxembourger, Andy Schleck saw this as a sort of delayed "Instant Karma" owing to Contador's taking advantage of Schleck's unfortunate chain drop on on the Port du Balès climb during Stage 15 in the Pyrenees during the 2010 Tour.

Now known as Chaingate, Schleck wearing the yellow leader's jersey, attacked Contador on the Port du Balès. As he accelerated away from the Spaniard, Schleck's chain dropped from his rear derailleur and jammed. Contador saw Schleck's mechanical trouble as he passed and began his counter attack in contravention of cycle racing's Gentleman's Agreement.

They say a True Champion doesn't take advantage of a mechanical, the Grand Tours must be settled mano a mano.

"The Spaniard took advantage to attack and went on to gain 39 seconds - exactly the amount of time that separated the two riders on the final podium in Paris.

 "I wouldn't have done that (attack)," Schleck said in an exclusive interview published in French newspaper L'Equipe on Thursday. "He said he didn't see it. But he looked like this [turning his head and looking over his shoulder - ed.] and then he attacked."

"A great champion doesn't do a thing like that. When Ullrich crashed into a ravine, Armstrong waited. When Armstrong crashed on the way to Luz-Ardiden (on stage 12 of the 2003 Tour), the other riders agreed to wait for him. That's what makes a champion. I was really very disappointed by his attitude that day." (From Cyclingnews' article here)

There will be ample opportunity for the two stars to settle it in the Pyrenees and the Alps this year.

When CorduroyPlanet publishes Sunday morning, I'll be up watching the LIVE coverage of Stage 2, the 23Km Team Time Trial. If you only watch one stage of Le tour this year, the Team Time Trial is the one to watch.

The Time Trial is known as "the race of truth"...it's just the rider against the clock. There's nowhere to "get out of the wind", and it's the ultimate test of the rider's form and fitness. The Team Time Trial is the same thing, but all nine men race together as a team. The Team Time Trial illustrates the beautiful dichotomy of Pro Bicycle Racing...it's an Individual Sport, but it's a Team Sport at the same time. The uninitiated can learn everything they need to know about Bicycle Racing at the Top Level by watching the TTT.

You can watch the full package coverage at noon PDT on NBC, and several times on cable network VERSUS 9AM, 1:30PM, 5PM, 6:30PM, 9PM, and 10:30PM

Aaa-and That's a Wrap
While I'm lazing in bed watching Le Tour LIVE, the last of the Diehard Skiers and Snowboarders will be getting ready to slide down the slopes for the last time in Season 2010/2011. Mammoth Mountain in the Southern Sierra, and four resorts in the Tahoe Sierra will turn their chairlifts through the Independence Day Weekend. It even made the news in Los Angeles.

I do miss running my BR350 Groomer...but not in Summertime Snow!

A Little Heavy Reading

Monday evening, after my San Francisco Giants suffered their heartbreaking loss in Chicago, I started knocking around the internet catching up on the latest bicycle racing news and intel. I've got about 36 hours left to chose my Fantasy Bicycle Racing teams for the Tour de France.

I deployed the full compliment of tools...web browser, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter...all guns a-blazing so to speak.

While reading about the "new kit" (read racers' uniforms) of Team Garmin-Cervélo, I saw a tweet from Anthony Watts: "Yet Even More Discussions About the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)"

Now nothing is more in my wheelhouse than climate stuff pertaining to the Pacific Ocean, and the PDO in particular.

Doing a quick scan of Anthony's blog Watts Up With That?, I found a week's worth of Climate Gold! Especially attractive to me was the article titled: "Earth’s Climate System Is Ridiculously Complex – With Draft Link Tutorial"

Talk about a home run! I'm always up for a thick read that wrestles with the chaotic factors in climate!

OK, TeamCorduroyPlanet has it's nine riders now, and is enrolled online for the Tour de France Fantasy League. The racing begins Saturday. It's looking like it will be an epic edition of Le Tour, and I'm feeling like the kid on Christmas Eve today!

Friday morning on my way to read up on the last minute pre-Tour news, I clicked through my usual weather sites to get a handle on the holiday weekend weather outlook.

I stopped by Watts Up With That? and looked at the Climate System post. It's going to be an all weekend read...I counted the Tutorial Links...there's 128 links! Clearly this counts as "Ridiculously Complex"...I'm especially intrigued by the Internal Earth stuff like Magma Tides...the Earth's core rotates too, and at a slightly different rate than the surface of our planet.

This is starting to look more like an all Summer read than a weekend read...

This 'n That

The rainy end to June kept me inside for a couple of days. I would have really been cranky, but there was plenty of San Francisco Giants baseball to keep me feelin' good.

The Giants hit the road after taking five in a row from the American League's Twins and Indians, and headed to Chicago's Wrigley Field, one of the last surviving old ballparks. Bought with the chewing gum fortune in 1927, Wrigley Field began life as Weegman Park in 1916, home to the Chicago Whales of the old Federal League.

I love Wrigley's ivy covered brick walls in the outfield, the way the setting sun blazes through the park and across home plate, and especially the outfield grand stands built on top of the buildings across the street.

During Thursday's game I saw a chef in starched whites and a tall toque serving fans on the top floor of one of the "across the way" bleacher buildings...style points for those Cub's Fans! Kudos to the cameraman for the inside glimpse, too.

The Chicago Cub's fans are good, old-timey baseball fans. Wrigley was the last major league park to add lights for night games. I decried the lights at first, but the Cubs held out against Big Sports Television as long as they could.

Add to baseball's Missing In Action List the Double Header. Scheduled Double Headers have gone the way of the passenger pigeon in modern baseball. So it was with extra joy that I watched the Make-Up Double Header Tuesday. The last time the Giants were at Wrigley Field, their game was rained out early hence Tuesday's rare Double Header.

Watching the games from muggy and hot Chitown while the steady rain fell outside here in the Inland Valley was really cozy. That the Giants got a week's worth of hits in the two games was a plus too! Thirty hits...18 in the day game, and 12 in the sunset contest was the tonic I needed to fend off the gray feelings from the gray, wet weather.

'n That
Up the hill, summer seems to be making a quick comeback after the Tuesday/Wednesday Winter Storm blew through. At Sutcliffe, north of Reno, on Pyramid Lake, a brush fire burned a car and a fencepost, and threatened a home before the fire department extinguished it.

The Teams are now set for the Saturday start of Le Tour de France. After dinner I'll pick my Fantasy Team. This years' Tour looks to be Epic! Lots of mountaintop finishes, with L'Alpe d'Huez just two days from the finish in Paris, and the day before the Individual Time Trial in Grenoble!

Le Tour is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Tour first climbing the Alps this year, so the final week will be contested in the Alps. Nearly as good, Stage 2 is a Team Time Trial, easily the most beautiful and intriguing test of the riders and teams.

This
Wednesday night, Blogger was acting up again, even though I stayed up until nearly 3AM, I couldn't save, schedule or publish CorduroyPlanet so I put it in my CorduroyPlanet Tumblr que. I strive to have new content five days a week, posted by 6AM Pacific.

Should you be one of my early-bird readers, and the new CP is  MIA, try the Tumblr Link in the CorduroyPlanet Toolbox, unless it's one of those rare tardy blogs, CP will be there. When Blogger rights itself, I'll get the days' offering up as soon as I can.

Thanks again for reading!

Summertime, and the Livin's Easy

The weather forecasting isn't though!

Yuppers, our weird weather continues. Yesterday the Tahoe Sierra had Red Flag Fire Warnings to begin the day with snow and thunderstorms to round out the clock.

Here in the Inland Valley it rained all day Tuesday, then Wednesday was grey and cold until late afternoon.

KCRA3's weatherman @MarkFinan was on the case. In the past 24 hours he tweeted: 

"Updated rain total for Sac... .55. Only .01 from the record for the date. Another perspective.. we average .18 for the month" at 8:43PM Tuesday


"Approx 70 lightning strikes in the last hour near Sonora, Twain Harte-Yosemite" at 9:18PM Tuesday


"1991 deja vu... June 28 .56'' then temps 105-111 for 4th of July. 2011: June 28.. .56'' then temps warming to over 100. Weird" at 9:47PM Tuesday


" Temps still only in the low 70s. Ave is 92 at this time of year." at about 4PM Wednesday


"The high today was only 74" about 7PM Wednesday



My other go-to WeatherDude, KTVU2's Bill Martin posted this YouTube Video on Facebook Wednesday at around 7PM

Head Spinning Time

There I was...minding my own business...just relaxing while doing some online planning for my Monday Fishing Trip...A new tweet appears in my Twitter Timeline...for the second time in as many days I felt my blood chill...

It was Anthony Watts' @wattsupwiththat tweeting some High Sierra Weather News: "Winter Weather in California in June" I clicked the link and that's when my blood suddenly ran cold when I read:

"WEST SLOPE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA-
233 PM PDT MON JUN 27 2011


…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 2 PM PDT
WEDNESDAY ABOVE 7000 FEET…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO HAS ISSUED A WINTER
WEATHER ADVISORY ABOVE 7000 FEET FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW OVER
THE WEST SLOPE OF THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA…WHICH IS IN EFFECT
FROM 2 AM TO 2 PM PDT WEDNESDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: UP TO 5 INCHES OF SNOWFALL OVER THE CREST TO
INCLUDE CARSON PASS ON HIGHWAY 88…EBBETTS PASS ON HIGHWAY 4
AND SONORA PASS ON HIGHWAY 108.
* ELEVATION: EXPECT SOME SNOWFALL ABOVE 7000 FEET WITH MOST
ACCUMULATION ABOVE 7500 FEET.
* TIMING: BEGINNING AFTER MIDNIGHT AND ACCUMULATING BY 3 AM PDT."

The WWA was issued by the Sacramento NWS Office. I regained my composure and hit the Reno AFD for some reassurance...and there was a Red Flag Warning for much of the Eastern Tahoe Region for high winds and low humidity before the cold front arrives Wednesday.

The Reno office, obviously in Fire Drill Mode, said nary a word of snow, but the AFD did say an inch of precip was possible Wednesday.

Bedtime Tuesday Update:
Before bed I looked at the latest Reno AFD. It's all over but the crying:

"WENT AHEAD AND DROPPED THE RED FLAG WARNINGS FOR THE REST OF THIS
EVENING. WITH THE SUN GOING DOWN AND COLD FRONT MOVING THROUGH THE
REGION... THE HUMIDITIES HAVE RISEN WELL ABOVE THE RED FLAG
WARNING CRITERIA OF 15%.

WINDS WILL CONTINUE TO GUST THROUGH AROUND 11PM...SO WILL LEAVE
THE LAKE WIND ADVISORIES INTACT FOR NOW. MAY END UP DROPPING THOSE
BEFORE 11PM AS WELL...BUT WIND READINGS STILL SHOWING GUSTS OVER
30 MPH NEAR AREA LAKES.

REST OF THE FORECAST LOOKS GOOD. CONVECTION ON THE WEST SIDE
OF THE SIERRA DEVELOPING PRETTY WELL...WITH SOME LIGHTNING SHOWING
JUST HOW UNSTABLE THE CONDITIONS ARE. PRECIP IS STILL GETTING
SHADOWED FOR OUR EAST SIDE FOR NOW. AS THE LOW GETS CLOSER INTO
THE RENO- TAHOE AREA OVERNIGHT...EXPECT PRECIP TO SPILLOVER
FAIRLY EASILY WITH WETTING RAINS INTO WESTERN NV AFTER MIDNIGHT
AND INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING."

I looked at all the webcams before sundown...all rain and no snow. Down here in the Inland Valley the rain was quite heavy at times. I was happy to luxuriate indoors watching a rare SF Giants double-header from Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Giants extended their winning streak to seven games, the longest of this season. #GoGiants!

Things of Beauty

What a pitching clinic I watched this evening!

On his first trip back to the mound after getting destroyed in his last start, 21 year old San Francisco Giants pitcher, Madison Bumgarner put his previous debacle behind him and fanned 11 batters while giving up only one walk to tally the win.

In his last start, the first eight batters he faced got hits...yes eight hits in a row! He was pulled after getting the first out, but all eight hits became runs. Bumgarner struck out the opposing pitcher, gave up a ninth hit, and got the hook.

Tonight it looked like the young pitcher had ice water flowing through his veins.

The rest of the team looked like the World Champions they are too.Besting the Cleveland Indians 3-2 to sweep the three game series, the Giants are back on track, and back atop the National League West.

If Bumgarner's amazing comeback wasn't enough, the Giants' relief pitcher Jeremy Affeldt got the save by striking out five of the six batters he faced. Affeldt who's been on a roll for the last three weeks or so, had a curve ball that was flat-out un-hittable tonight. It was an amazing thing to see. A thing of beauty if you will.

The game was the national game on ESPN, seen in much of the country. (The Giants are the defending World Champions after all!) I put my new gadget the radioSHARK2 to good use synching the radio play-by-play through my computer with the High Definition TV broadcast via Comcast cable.

The Giants' broadcasters are too good not to listen to. Giants' play-by-play announcer, Jon Miller is a Hall Of Fame broadcaster bestowed with Cooperstown's Ford C Frick Award in 2010.

Miller cracked me up during a lull in the action when he did his Vin Scully impression. It was truly laugh-out-loud funny. Scully is the Hall Of Fame radio voice of the LA Dodgers. Miller's impression was spot-on and good natured, but still wickedly funny because it was so unexpected.

After the game I started scanning the web for some San Francisco Bay Halibut intel. SturgeUrge and I are heading onto the Bay Monday to salve our sturgeon wounds from last week's Monday fishing trip.

While looking at a "Halibut Try Report" from Tomales Bay, I read: "The water is still a little cold north of Hog Island. I guess it's late again, and things will heat up soon..."

That was like a light switch going on in my memory. I've heard something akin to that every year now since at least 2002...it's always a fishing report...salmon, Baja Bluewater Big Game, NorCal Albacore, even Sacramento River Shad...

I'm calling it a Bona Fide Trend...make that a Bona Fide Decadal Trend!

Did I mention that we may get rained on mid-week? Of course there'd be a Gulf of Alaska, mid-winter style cold front headed my way...I've been entertaining a trip up the Hill for a few days of R&R on my Pickup.

I'm really wondering what my pickup did to incur Mother Nature's Wrath like it has this year!