I spent a good portion of last night hitting the refresh button on the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website. The reason is because Annaliese has been working tremendously hard on the Cynthia Lummis campaign, and last night they won the GOP primary.
She began working on the campaign over 7 months ago, while I was still working on CHALQ. We’d talk a lot about how similar it is starting a campaign and starting a business: finding good people to work with, creating a fun and productive culture, raising money, and building a reliable infrastructure early.
Annaliese had a lot to do with building out the infrastructure starting out. Within a few days of her mom announcing that she’d be running, Annaliese had the campaign email system, calendars, and website running. Just a few weeks after she’d started working on the campaign, the volunteer network was being filled out online and money was being raised on the website. They offset the cost of building the website in the first week or two fundraising online.
All of this hard work is difficult to rationalize sometimes when your goal is so far away or seems unattainable. The uncertainty of a campaign or start up is the most exciting, nerve wracking, frustrating, and fun characteristic simultaneously. And just like a start up co-founder who gets people around him tied up in his success and failure, I couldn’t stop refreshing the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website last night.
I really enjoyed my first start up experience, and I’ll be at it again soon. Just like Annaliese. Good luck in the general election!
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Authorities reported today that a woman whose body was found in Lancaster over the weekend apparently died from natural causes and was not stabbed to death as originally thought.
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I’m talking to a friend nearly every day now that I had completely lost touch with. Fantasy sports is, and always has been, the most effective social network online for me.
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Wilco played an outstanding 2+ hour concert last night at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn. I could not have been happier with the set list (plenty of Being There tunes) and Nels Cline’s additions to songs like ‘Kingpin’. I’ve never seen someone manipulate, bend, and dominate a guitar like Nels does. I’ve also never seen someone incorporate an eggbeater into their guitar routine.
Highlights for me were:
- ‘Kingpin’ and ‘Far Far Away’ from Being There
- ‘Can’t Stand It’ from Summerteeth
- ‘I’m the Man Who Loves You’ and ‘Pot Kettle Black’ from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
- ‘The Late Greats’ from A Ghost is Born
- ‘Hate it Here’ and ‘Side With the Seeds’ from Sky Blue Sky
As great as Nels was, when ‘Can’t Stand It’ came on I missed Jay Bennett quite a bit. I don’t know if Bennett wrote that song, but it sounds like him to me.
As Jeff walked off the stage after the second encore, he told the crowd they’d be back when the new album is finished. It can’t come soon enough.
Update: I did forget to mention that there was a totally sick Double-Clap.
None of the pictures from my iPhone turned out very good so here is a picture I found from someone who was at the concert last night.
(via brooklynvegan.com)
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From the Washington Post:
In a handwritten letter to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Kaczynski said he objected to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s loan of the 10-by-12-foot cabin as part of a large exhibition that looks at the FBI’s first 100 years.
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dihard:
Have you noticed that every Olympic swim event is also a record smasher? It seems like every swimmer (and not just Phelps) is seconds ahead of the daunting green world record line, smashing it to smithereens. So how is all this smashing possible?
- Tech Doping – The new Speedo LZR RACER suit, which was developed by scientists from NASA, “feels like a rocket coming off the wall,” said Phelps in a team interview. “The water just runs off the suit.” The suit has “ultrasonically welded” seams that mimics a shark skin, holds in the swimmer’s abdomen in the best position, allowing him to take in 5% more oxygen, and takes an athlete 30 minutes to get into. The suits are so powerful that US Swim Coach, Mark Schubert believed every swim record could be smashed at Beijing.
- Pool Depth – The pool in Beijing, known as the “Water Cube,” is 3 meters deep, instead of the previous depth of 2 meters. This allows swimmers to dive deeper and continue their push off “dolphin kicks” for a longer period of time. Olympic medalist and commentator Rowdy Gaines says, “It’s just deep enough to where the waves dissipate (and) the turbulence dissipates down to the bottom.”
- Pool Lanes – There are ten lanes in the Water Cube, instead of the usual eight, leaving the outside lanes open. This reduces turbulence and enables swimmers to go faster. “It’s by far the fastest pool in the world,” Gaines says.
- Practice – Sponsorship for swimming has increased, which allows athletes to avoid retirement for longer, and thus practice more. Mark Spitz, the Olympic swimmer with the most gold medals before Phelps, retired at 22 after the Munich games due to his inability to make a living as an amateur athlete. Back then, the Olympics only allowed amateur athletes to compete. Phelps, on the other hand, is now 23 has an estimated annual earnings of $5 million, and will be awarded an extra $1 million dollar bonus from Speedo if he reaches or beats Spitz’s record.
- Non-Tech Doping - Gary Hall Jr., previous Olympian 50-m freestyle champion, seems to think so. “Can suit technology distract from another issue?… I’m telling you this, I train with an international group of swimmers and all of them have stories and a few of them have had offers.” Hall likens today’s “blame it on the suit” situation to that of the ‘76 East German women’s Olympic swimming team. Though, he seems to be the only one speaking out about this so perhaps he’s just bitter he didn’t qualify for Beijing.
- “Top Secret” Technology Math Tool - Professor Timothy Wei, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., helped develop top-secret, state-of-the-art equipment and mathematical techniques that USA Swimming coaches have been using to help to make swimmers go faster. He uses water flow diagnostic technologies to see how each swimmers’ motion affects the flow of water. Learn more from (or become more confused by) this video.
What other profession besides sports could you be accused of “Tech Doping” and it was considered a bad thing?
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Fantasy Football leagues are about to get started. Who do you take #1 overall?
I still think it is LaDanian Tomlinson. He has been a top five RB for six consecutive seasons. It doesn’t get any more consistent then that (maybe Manning).
I’ve heard a lot of people at my office say that Adrian Peterson would be their #1 pick. Luckily, they don’t read this blog. I hope I get the #2 overall pick in that league. Along with Peterson’s huge upside are some considerable durability issues. He’s been hurt in the NFL, and he had similar issues at OU. He had 6 games where he rushed for 50 yards or less. He is a sure first round pick, but you’d have to be crazy to chose him over LT.
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I’ve got an extra Wilco ticket for August 13th at McCarren pool. I paid $100 for it on craigslist a while back. If anyone wants to buy it off me just send me an email.
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