ROY X CONE contest, 1.1.11 - 2.1.12

[Sansome1877]

Sansome, what..? how the..? Man, what you doing in those? Mine still look like new

I have been going out to the mines, quite a few times in the past couple of months. These mines are cut into limestone, it's pretty hard on the denim and looking at eltopo's boots, it's pretty hard on leather.

[zissou]

Hell yes, Mike. And you were worried that yours wouldn't have much wear

[mikecch]

H0ly cr@p!

[Sansome1877]

Thanks zissou and mikecch, I never thought I would have this much wear so soon?

[The Clerk]

I have been going out to the mines, quite a few times in the past couple of months. These mines are cut into limestone, it's pretty hard on the denim and looking at eltopo's boots, it's pretty hard on leather.

Ah, so they're just dirty then ;-)

[Farhad]

Farhad- that's a great jacket. I like Replay's older, high-end stuff. I have some '50s repro jeans they did in the late eighties or early '90s I think, and I'd stack them up against any other repro I've ever seen.

Thanks mark, I agree with you. Btw you're jeans are looking great.

[grooveholmes]

+1. Those jeans look amazing.

[stresMaldo]

Mike - the jeans look AWESOME. Love 'em

[zissou]

Thanks zissou and mikecch, I never thought I would have this much wear so soon?

After wearing them, and then seeing medine's cinch, I've been convinced that they are fairly fast fading, quick wearing denim.

Farhad- I meant to tell you great photo. I am envious of your sharp iPhone photos, maybe because I still have a 3G?

[ThisSunday]

Went to the Brooklyn Flea. Bought a anchor shaped coat hook and some pickles

Then on to Stuffed Artisan Cannolis. Not far from SENY but I didn't get to stop by

Random half eaten apple in the street

[ThisSunday]

Yesterday I had lunch in the park. Saw a bunch of Jarritos bottlecaps. Strange

Fit pics

[robbie]

Some pictures from Thursday and today.

We run errands over in Kearney pretty often, and occasionally we take Highway 30. It was part of the Lincoln Highway : the first transcontinental highway in the US. More infohere .

a lot of people call this part of the country 'fly over country', there is less here but personally I love the vast stretches of fairly un-interupted horizon.

The highway and railroad both run fairly parallel to the Platte River. Along the highway there is a town every 7 or 8 miles. This goes back to the days of the steam locomotive. The trains could move about that far before they needed more water. It works out pretty conveniently now as well. The trains are able to load corn/grain from the elevators and just progressively move west to North Platte,NE where they're shipped to California, etc.

Kearney,NE is the corporate HQ of the Buckle. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the 'Buckle Challenge' or not. But they pay kids to walk around Kearney. If you can get all the way downtown and then back home without some A-hole from the buckle trying to sell you a Ed Hardy T-shirt you win!

My wife wanted to check out some sales at our 'mall' so I dropped her off and hit up the local Goodwill. The pickings are usually pretty good, but I think I screwed up bringing the camera along. I did manage to find a few things of interest:

[robbie]

A few more along the hi-way en route to home, and tostadas this afternoon:

just after a nap

[ThinFinn]

Fit pics

Soooooooooooooooo perfect!...

[dkatz]

Great look, ThisSunday! I imagine it must feel great to be able to dress like that after how your winter looked.

Robbie - Buckle sounds pretty obnoxious. Though in all fairness I don't think you could make it to the back of Self Edge or BiG without someone trying to sell you $400 jeans...

Sixth months ago I had the opportunity to hop in my flatmate's truck the patch of land that the organization he co-founded (United Future Foundation) had recently bought for the purpose of building a primary school. In the ensuing six months I had the pleasure of watching my otherwise-mellow friend reach all stages (which I know well) of near-panic and over-extension as he ostensibly oversaw the building of a nascent school, the hiring of four teachers and the enrollment of 81 local nursery (kindergarten) and Primary 1 (first grade) students. I finally had the opportunity to revisit the site and was - to put it lightly - stunned. United Future Foundation has put up what I will confidently say is the nicest, most well-thought out and most well-appointed village school I have seen in my year and a half in Uganda (and I've seen a fair number of schools...). The fact that I know that my flatmate managed to pull this off between early September and when the school term began on 30 January makes it all the more remarkable; well I know how the best-laid timelines can be waylaid in Uganda.

Beyond producing a remarkable environment for 81 students (and more soon...) in what must be record time, my flatmate is one of the most critical individuals I have met in the development world. Though he and I do have some fundamental disagreements about models of development, I cannot think of a person I would rather be doing the work that he is doing (and I continue to try to get him to change my mind about development...).

The UFF bus picks up some stragglers on the way

If that isn't love in her eyes, I don't know what is.

The nicest village school I've seen.

My flatmate, the head teacher and teacher-trainer in what currently functions as the office

Lucky, the attack dog

I dig the innovative architectural details

Student head-shots

[Paul T]

Wonderful.

[dkatz]

One of the more interesting designs for latrines I've seen. Also the nicest village latrines I've seen.

The doorway on the front side goes to the teachers' latrines. Two doors on the back side go to boys' and girls' latrines.

The long walk...

A classroom to rival American schools.

They forgot to label the goatee.

My only critique: they seriously need to step up their game in the coffee-shop.

APC Madras

Canon DSLR camera strap, beaded in Karamoja (North-Eastern Uganda) in typical Karamajong (semi-nomadic tribe similar to the Masai) style

ROYxCone

Freeman

[robbie]

so awesome to see the good you and your colleagues are doing dkatz.

[dkatz]

^ hah, I never said I was doing "good"...

[entertainment!]

[ThinFinn]

Great thing there dkatz...school and latrines are great looking and to work with such young&lovely students is also lovely! Much kudos to your mate!!!

Entertainment - great progress there!

Missing dr.house! I'm a bit disappointed by your sympathy for this!

[DocBlue]

so many nice posts here...

[ranonranonarat]

nice work that you and your mate are doing there dkatz, you should be proud!

[Farhad]

Daniel- That's the best humanity has to offer. It must be an amazing feeling to be able to positively contribute and bettter the life of children. Very touching post and major props.

[tg76]

last thursday...

we headed of in the ute to the end of the first stage of the tour

were passed by an ambulance

heart sank

sure enough big crash early in the race and one of the guys in the team i was running round after smashed his collar bone and clavicle

but th race goes on, including his 14 yr old son riding with the elite for the first time

only 17 of them to run round after now...

finish line in dargaville, the kumera capital

great architecture of the town

great upside down river (murky on top, clear underneith

great shopping centre

friday...

red sky in the morning shepards warning

but then it looked nice by 7am

today i left ahead of the cyclists so i had time for a tikitour through some places id never been

random road through random bush by random stream

nzs biggest kauri tree dwarfed by Total Giant

[tg76]

after driving up and down and round crazy corners we arrived at the last decent of the next stage end

free range?

our bach for the night

i unpacked and set about cooking up 2kgs of bacon and making bacon sandwiches for them to eat as they came in, just finished when i heard the pilot vehicles go past, drove to the finish line, where the mornings warning finally came to play and the sky started to fall on us. i took the few elite guys in the team back to warmth and food then stood in the rain cheering for the rest

of course after they all came in the rain stopped

we headed off to that evenings prize giving in the village

its most famous resident

he used to play here

street art?

[dkatz]

tg - the bike nerd in me is jealous that you're getting to do race support! I hope your teammate heals up all right. I broke my clavicle once upon a time, shit HURTS.

Those are looking terrific, entertainment!

nice work that you and your mate are doing there dkatz, you should be proud!

Daniel- That's the best humanity has to offer. It must be an amazing feeling to be able to positively contribute and bettter the life of children. Very touching post and major props.

Thanks for the complements - I'll pass them along. To be clear, I'm not at all involved in what he's doing, other than supporting him as a friend. I have a lot of critique of this "direct" model of development - mainly that it contributes to the institutionalization of foreigners (NGOs and governments) doing the government's job for it, meaning that the people in the government who control resources actually have an incentive to "lose" more money (in their pockets) and keep their population poor and under-serviced. However, if anyone is going to be doing this type of development, I'm glad it's my buddy - he's massively critical of that type of development as well so I'm confident in his ability to do it "better". If any Aussies (or others, for that matter) are looking for a good place to put some money for the purpose of doing good - see http://www.uff.org.au/

[tg76]

wating for the take aways to be cooked, $97 woth of burgers and fries

went for a romatic walk on the beach by myself while mr and the rest had nana naps

found a giant dog

looking back at the bach, was very cool place, weird layout (belongs to some architect) had a spa bath and toilet in a hallway joing 2 of the parts of the house and a two story tree house sleep out thing

saturday, i relaxed and left half an hour after the race, stupid, spent best part of 2 hour drive avoiding the 478 riders

but when i got to the end i set up my mobile kai cart and got to work

shackin it like tom cruise in a bad 80s movie

blah blah

caught ferry to next stop

snakes on a plane? BEES ON A BOAT!

dropped my camera while unpacking on otherside FFFFFfffffff

missed scratch in sniff pics of striped marlin being weighed in and some other stuff

apparently im racing/riding as well next year

[pomata]

how do those 100% protein shake taste tg?

went for a walk today, spring is here finally

[ThinFinn]

how cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!...