Adventures in Onionism

Anyone who's hiked the PCT, CDT, or even the International Appalachian Trail knows about the slash, but if not, here's a pretty cool video explaining it. (h/t Radiolab blog ) Interestingly, This American Life also covered the US/Canada border a while back. And you can see it behind me at the monument. Those were the days.

Some people may misuse Strava and end up getting people killed, but when used appropriately, it makes for some cool maps . How many people know about my "super secret single track"? Not many. I like to think some of that is me.

We went here . There were horses. Some of which like to lick you. Some of which only have one eye. Some of which are gigantic.

This news is the worst. I realize it's a little more complicated than this, but not by much. (NPR's always wonderful Planet Money explains a few of the complications.) It's Econ 101: the marginal cost to Comcast of adding a new Internet customer is basically zero, meaning average costs continually decline, making for a natural monopoly , since laying competing pipes right next to someone else's would be ridiculous. The pipes for the Internet should be regulated like any other public utility. Instead, the US has the worst and slowest high speed Internet access in the world ( only mild hyperbole ) and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

The Boy Scouts stripped the charter of a Methodist church-sponsored troop after the church refused to fire the gay Scoutmaster. UPDATE: Sign this petition to get Amazon (based in Seattle, where this troop is) to stop donating to BSA until they allow equality.

I spent a weekend in Bend, OR. Unfortunately there was a smudge on my camera lens the whole time. I had a fun time visiting friends, meeting new folks, running around Smith Rock State Park, and sweeping the course of the Peterson Ridge Rumble 40 mile race outside Sisters, OR. The race course was fairly flat and the views weren't as good as Smith Rock, but it was a well-organized race. Coincidentally I ran into the race director last month when we ran R2R2R on the same day. This was pretty standard. Dry ponderosa(?) pine forest with very little understory growth. Smith Rock State Park Monkeyface The view west from Smith Rock South, Middle, and North Sisters More Smith Rock A nice place to rest during the race Smith Rock run: Peterson Ridge course sweeping. The course had a couple mile loop at the beginning I didn't bother to do since I was sweeping the course, not racing. Even if I had, I still think the course is a mile or so ...

I am really tired of the same 13-mile out and back in Crum Creek. And calling it 13 is generous since that's really maxing out three branches, with some repetition.

Surprised I hadn't stumbled across this website before. Sidetracked.com : long-distance adventures of all sorts.

I'll have to use clips from this Colbert episode the next time I teach labor economics and unionization. A rep from the College Athletes Players Association discussing Northwestern's athlete's bid to unionize, and John Malkovich discussing his movie about Cesar Chavez, which unfortunately has terrible reviews . UPDATE: Northwestern is adamantly opposed to the football players unionizing --the vote is tomorrow. Even if you don't like unions, there are a lot of reasons to think NCAA D1 sports are messed up, and that this might be a worthwhile shock to the system.