benschomatic

Montaña de Oro

MAM_18.02.07

Article on NYC's Other Music entering the online music store world. They plan on being priced at or just slightly higher than the iTunes Music Store but without the DRM and with better encoding.

The final tallies are in for 2006 and it was a fine year in the saddle. I commuted to work by bicycle every day from August to December and nearly everyday prior to that. I came up just shy of my 3500 mile goal likely due to a minor accident in mid-December that put me off the bike for over a week and then a holiday vacation away where I wasn't riding. Overall it was a great year with several solo rides, rides with friends, rides with Natalie on the tandem, and a few Critical Mass rides as well. I made it out to the Botanic Gardens quite a few times making that 40 mile roundtrip trek a little less of a task and more of an enjoyable outing. I hope to increase my daily mileage capabilities (maybe 60-70 miles) and possibly do a self-supported cycling/camping trip in 2007.

Another day, another best of… list. If you're not tired of the blogosphere telling you what you should be listening to, here are the songs that touched me in some way. Feel free to check them out. Download them all as a .zip file and grab the handy CD insert PDF to print out for those of you that still dig the compact disc thing. Or just take a gander at the PDF and hit the hotlinks to find out more about my favorite bands of 2006. Enjoy!

Ben's Favorite Music of 2006

(Right-click for PC folks. Control-click for Mac dorks.)

Download the CD insert for printing.

Download all 25 tracks as a .zip file (about 105mb)

Happy holidays and best to you in the new year!

Full house on Thanksgiving. Lots of hungry folks. Lots of food. Everyone chipped in with kitchen chores and also brought great side dishes and many, many desserts. So much so that we had pie for breakfast on Friday morning.
01. Bird in the oven.
02. Bird on a platter.
03. Reed & Sierra.
04. Tom & Kim.
05. Callie.
06. Nat & Michelle.
07. Michelle, Jane, Chris.
08. Josh.
09. Chris & Denise.
10. Kristina & Ari.
11. Nelson.

Another montage I put together earlier this year after several visits to the Northbrook Velodrome. I got pretty hooked on watching the races out there. Even got to know some of the lingo; Snowball, Madison, Danish Win and Out, etc. Looking forward to the 2007 season.

A little video put together from Friday's Chicago Critical Mass ride. A good turnout for November. Temperatures were downright balmy.

Some pics from last weekend's visit from the Schneider family. Paul hadn't been down in 4 years! Mom & Dad were overdue for a visit as well. We explored some neighborhoods both familiar and new and got Paul down to Millenium Park on Sunday.

01. What some call the Bean.
02. Family Portrait
03. Ma Schneider gets creative.
04. They're in there.
05. The Approach.
06. Paul gets Crowned.
07. Gehry made this.
08. Sonic trellis.

Just in time for Halloween-y. Prepare to be terrified. AlterNet lists its Thirteen Scariest People in America.
Who are they?