I was going to post about how excited I was that tomorrow is the start of the Tour de France. It is the first race in the post-Lance era and the field of podium contenders is wide open. Then the Spanish media got involved and started leaking information about a doping scandal. Things have gotten much wider. As of this morning, more than thirty riders have been implicated publicly. Several have been suspended by their teams, including yellow jersey hopefuls Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich. Cycling News has been tracking the developments, including links to all previous posts on the Operación Puerto affair.

If you have been reading my family blog, then you are aware that I have recently committed myself to commuting to work via bicycle. So far the positives of getting to ride 113 miles a week have outweighed the negatives of ditching my car. Then an encounter like the one that occured today makes me so irate that the scale begins to tip the other way. It is bad enough to be nearly run off of the road, but being flipped off for confronting the offender added insult to my near injury.

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Tempe, AZ has just finished installing the largest citywide Wi-Fi network. Look for states like New York and Connecticut to soon ban computer use while driving.

Did anyone watch Simon Cow’s America’s Got Talent tonight on NBC? David Hasselhoff looked like he pulled his outfit straight off of the Knight Rider cast’s wardrobe rack. That is probably why his shirt coat was so wrinkled, since it’s been hanging there for twenty years. I still can’t believe Hasselhoff is a star in Germany. NBC please, please send him back. Maybe he can sing at the World Cup finals halftime show or something?

One of the hot items last Wednesday at the PCA’s General Assembly was when the Strategic Planning Committee reported and recommended various changes to the GA’s rules of operations with the goal of simplifying future GA’s and making them more accessible. The GA voted to accept the SPC’s recommended changes. I voted for all of them except for one, which was to establish the Cooperative Ministries Committee. Folks, if we need a committee to help Mission to the World (MTW) and Mission to North America (MNA) get along, then we have a problem that is not going to be solved by establishing another administrative layer.

Now, if you have ever been to one of these meetings then you know that it can be somewhat intimidating to walk up to one of the ten plus microphones and speak your mind to the assembly. Most people are content to let others do the talking (and believe me…some guys like to talk). As we neared a vote on the first of the SPC’s recommendations, I actually found myself beginning to stand up and move in the direction of microphone number three. However, that same old guy who kept calling the question beat me to it.

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