Holiday Shopping Guide: B&W Zeppelin Review

I’m a bit of a speaker nerd, I believe in big speakers, powered by big woofers.  These big speakers need to be fed by amplifiers that run on grain alcohol instead of mere plebeian electricity.  The cables that connect the speakers should be thicker than my thigh and should look like pythons laid across a rain forest floor.  When a speaker system is turned on I think it should greet you with a hum and crackle like a city’s power substation.  I should want to rock out just by looking at a speaker system.  I’ve long believed that in order to accurately reproduce sound you need to move air the same way that the instruments or loudspeakers that made the original sound did.  That’s why I’m a bit frustrated with the B&W Zeppelin.  It’s too cool and too accurate to be real.  I feel like it’s a well crafted separates based stereo setup with 3 way speakers and a beefy amplifier hidden by some sort of holographic projection of a sleek lozenge shaped thing. 

I knew of B&W when I first ordered it.  B&W are famous for making some of the world’s finest loudspeakers.  Their 800 series speakers run close up to $20,000 for a pair and their signature diamonds and Nautilus series well exceed that.  I never thought they’d be the kind of company to join the ranks of Bose or Sony in providing cute little speaker systems that provide weakling sound with dismal clarity, and that’s what I expected out of a small stylish little shelf system.

I’m happy to report that B&W haven’t sold out, instead they’ve accomplished something rather remarkable, they’ve made a shelf speaker system that not only has a cool ipod interface but sounds fantastic.

First off the Zeppelin is built more like a tank than anything else.  A heavy rubber foot provides support for the unit which is made out of metal and heavy composite materials and trimmed with chromed plastic.  There are flush mount power and volume buttons, and a very solid mount that holds the ipod of your choice.  I was pleased with how solid the arm holds the ipod and how natural the ipod feels in your hand when you’re controlling it while it’s docked with the speaker system.    The covers over the speaker are taut and smooth.  The whole presentation is boxed up like an apple product complete with very elaborate nested packaging and carefully laid out accessories.  It’s pretty big too, it’s wider than my 24″ monitor and weighs more than my chair.  When you power it up a single color changing LED shines through the stocking like speaker shroud.  Red means standby, blue is playing, and blinking blue means paused.  When you hit buttons on the remote the light blinks back at you in a friendly acknowledgement.  If you really crank it the blue LED will begin to fade to red the higher up in volume you go to let you know that you’re damaging your ears and any nearby crystal.

The small remote feels like a stone in my hands and throughout the day I find myself wanting to pick it up and just toss it around and play with it.  It would have been nice if one of the buttons had a little nub on it so I knew where the center or the power was without looking at it, but it may have spoiled the feel.

Second the Zeppelin is dead silent, it uses a very smart active power management so that when it’s not playing music it’s a silent as the grave regardless of what the volume level is, however once you hit play it shows off the speakers within it very well.  The speakers in the Zeppelin come from the M-1 one of B&W nicest compact speakers.  These speakers are powered by 3 amps, one for left, right and a dedicated one for bass.  The result is that at half volume I become a bit self-concious even when I’m the only person rocking out, at 3/4 volume I expect to receive a noise complaint.

Right out of the box the sound was a bit bassy which is to be expected from any sort of desktop setup, but using the ipod I was able to set a custom EQ for the speakers in less than a minute which I found to be more accurate.  Once this was setup it seemed that the Zeppelin could do no wrong.  I feed it Dragonforce, to see how well it handled a huge range of bass and rapid fire guitar, then some Yann Tiersen for some french cafe music, then some Massive Attack, followed by the Pogues, over and over I kept queuing up files expecting to find a weak point in the Zeppelin’s armor and it just moved right along providing me with quality accurate sound, all the while looking so smug and sleek.

I was more impressed when I began to pick up the manual and thumb through it.  The Zeppelin has AUX inputs so that it can play sound out of your computer or cd player.  If I had a small apartment without too many audio sources this could easily be my full stereo setup.

The price could be a little off putting if you’ve never heard one yourself.  For 600 bucks you could have an array of different 100 dollar ipod docks with speakers hot glued onto the side, but none of them would have the same sleek solid appeal of the Zeppelin and none of them would sound half as good.  I give it a full recommendation.  If you can see if you can find a B&W dealer and visit their retail location to get a chance to experience it yourself in a pleasant quiet environment.  A noisy apple store during holiday season is hardly the best listening environment.

If you’re looking to upgrade your personal sound system or know someone who needs the sleekest and most accurate desktop audio system you really need to give the Zeppelin a listen.

How Life Should Be

Hippy Sarah: no, i havent’ fogotten my english…that would be bad, since i’m teaching it

Hippy Sarah: i am being much too influenced by british english however

Greg: do you drink delicious wine everyday?

Greg: and eat lots of non-vegan cheese and gluten rich bread?

Hippy Sarah: you know it

Hippy Sarah: wine is so cheap

Hippy Sarah: and produce is so cheap!

Hippy Sarah: and of course, baguettes are fabulous

Hippy Sarah: i can buy a bottle of wine, excellent cheese, and a baguette for less than 3 euro

Greg: what!?

Greg: that is living

Hippy Sarah: the food alone is reason enough for me to stay

Hippy Sarah: i’m telling you, you have to come some day

Krups BeerTender for the Heinekin Draught Keg Review

 

My friend Jamie has an awesome kitchen.  While renovating, he fitted the island complete with hidden kegerator and counter top tap.  For the home brewer and beer afficianado, this is the ultimate setup.  For the rest of us, there is the Krups Beertender.

First, the Beertender is beautiful.  With its matte black finish and accented chrome it fits in perfectly with my concrete counter tops and stainless steel appliances.  My 500w classic blender now cowers in the corner while my kitchen aide mixer makes puppy dog eyes and its new company.      

The Beertender is always waiting, always ready to deliver a delicious beer.  Accepting Heineken and Heineken Light mini draughtkegs available in almost any liquor store, the Beertender keeps forthy beer at just a pull of the tap.  Simply take home a new draughtkeg, pop a presupplied disposable tap onto the top, and slide it into the kegerator.  A winding of the hose through to the tap and the unit is refridgerating.

Not only does it serve beer, but it tells you when it’s time to buy more.  A scale inside the Beertender measures the weight and displays a top a visual representation of the beer left.  The only problem is, with tasty beer so close, the indication light quickly goes to empty.  

For a gift for the beer lover in your life, look no further than Krups Beertender.

Holiday Gift Guide: Roku Netflix Player Review

As a child I remember Christmas morning spent unwrapping presents with an afternoon following filled with newly acquired toys.  Probably the best gifts were the game systems.  These were gifts that took some unwrapping, some minor assembly, and offered hours of entertainment.  This is immediately what I think of when I envision giving the gift of the Roku Netflix Player.  It takes a few minutes to setup, and afterwards, if you and your loved ones have an addictive personality like mine, prepare to be entranced the rest of the day.

Setting up the Roku is easy.  I hooked it up to the tv, and despite not knowing my wifi password and the following router reconfiguration, had it up and running in under 15 minutes.  Automatically the 15 or so movies in my queue that were available as instant watchers were available to stream. With the simple on-screen navigation and easy to use remote, I pulled up a movie, let it buffer, and was watching it moments later.

It wasn’t till I started watching TV series that fun really began.  Curios about the show Heroes, I went to my computer and added season 1 to my instant queue.  It took all of 5 seconds for it to appear on my roku as an available option.  I devoured episode after episode till I had burned through the first two seasons and all of the current season up through the most recent episode.

I then moved on to 30 Rock, Dead Like Me, and The Office.  Though, not all the series were as broad or current as Heroes.  Some are tied to DVD release schedules coming in a season behind, some are missing episodes only available on disc, and a lot of series are just not available.  However, you’d be hard pressed not to find something entertaining to watch.

The small box has a price tage of just $99.  The best part is that it makes a great combo present with only one unit needed per household.  If the recipients aren’t netflix members already, not a problem.  Simply couple it with a gift certificate for one month starting as low as $9.

I highly recommend the roku gift this holiday season.  Check out more at Roku.

Learning From Mistakes - Minimalist Winter Backpacking

I thought I’d dig up an old trip of mine for this week’s post.  Several years back I was feeling pretty stir crazy in October, it had been over 40 days since I’d spent a night outside and that particular year I seemed to have the camping itch even worse than usual.  So early one Saturday in late October I tossed a handful of things into a backpack and drove up to the snowy Rockies.

I’d been camping in winter before.  Back in college I spent many cold nights in the back-country but at the time I had a very nice down sleeping bag, a fairly robust tent, good winter mountaineering boots, crampons, an ice axe some good telescoping poles.  I had picked up most of it because one person or another had told me “Hey you really need this.”  When I used them then it didn’t register very well how important all this specialized equipment was, however after college I sold most of that heavy mountaineering gear and switch to ultralight weight camping gear since most of my excursions occurred during the spring and summer.

With me on this trip I had a light weight backpack that had a simple 3 season tent with a partial fly and mostly mesh and super light nylon walls.  I had dumped the old mountaineering boots for some simple US Army boots which are fairly light for full leather boots and come with a great sole.  I had no ice axe, crampons, or other means of arresting my self in a slide and I had nothing to really protect me from the snow.  I had some light weight gloves, a thin bicycling beanie, a fleece and a shell jacket.  All I had on my legs was a pair of yoga/hiking pants.  I had a simple non stick pot and a simple stove along with some dehydrated cheese soup in a ziploc bag an a pair of trekking poles.

The dirt road to the trail head was fairly dry and I left the car and started up the path.  I made it about 400 yards before I came around a corner and found the trail covered in packed snow.  I broke out the trekking poles which helped me maintain my balance and continued onward.

Since the trail was close to Denver there was a fair bit of foot traffic on it, from people running in snow shoes, to a group of outward bound students headed up to a pair of lakes.  My goal was to hike up to King lake, reach the continental divide and hopefully cross it and travel about half a mile on the west side of the divide before swinging back over it and finishing the loop the following day.

Despite having a fairly light pack it was hard work constantly trying to get good purchase on the packed slick snow.   My boots had been treated with mink oil so for a while they were repelling water but after 4 hours of being rubbed against snow the waterproofing was failing.  The leather was no longer repelling water but absorbing it.  I wasn’t concerned about it though, I had a spare set of socks and it was a warm day so I was feeling good.   The sky was clear and cloudless, and it made the snow look stunning.  Marching into the sun caused the snow around me to look as bright as a white hot welding torch.  It was dizzying but at the same time immensely enjoyable.  The world was different and new and it was hard not to feel like a seven year old on a snow day.

After I’d been making slow progress for 5 hours the trail was becoming much steeper.  I ran into a woman who was coming down, she was well dressed in gaiters, mountaineering boots, and carried an ice axe and a pair of tekking poles.  When she came across me and saw my pack she looked very worried.  “Are you planning to stay the night?”  she asked, “Yeah I was planning to get up to the divide and setup camp then cross over and loop back tomorrow.”  “Where are your snowshoes?  You don’t even have gaiters, I don’t think you’ll make it.”  she told me, I was having a good day so I just smiled at her and said “ok” and continued on my way.  I’d been up in the mountains enough that I felt I could simply push through any limits that my gear or lack there of would impose on me.

I kept climbing and the path got steeper and steeper, after I broke through treeline I found a much bigger problem.   The packed snow trail that I had been marching up ended and there was smooth unbroken snow in front of me.  No one had been up here recently, and in order to get to the divide I had at least a mile of this snow in front of me.  I tried slowly weighting each foot hoping to build up a little bit of snow pack under each boot but more often than not I’d punch though the icy crust on top of the snow and sink in to my waist.  At this point my boots were soaked through and my pants were dripping from the knee down.  I summoned up some reserves and slogged through the snow for about 3000 feet leaving a trail of post holes every 3 feet behind me.

I reached King Lake and it was beautiful, a large hanging lake at the base of a large granite wall.  I could also see how I would ascend to reach the continental divide but after slogging through the snow I was beat.  I shrugged off the packed and kicked aside enough snow to reach the grass under neath.  The more I looked at the ridge line that was the continental divide the further away it looked.  The wind was blowing hard up there and kicking up a plume of snow.  The longer I looked at the ridge the more comfortable the lakeside appeared.  My legs were exhausted and despite it being in the mid 20s I was sweating heavily from the hike up.

I setup the tent and stripped down and quickly passed out.  I awoke cold, the sun had dipped below the face of granite that king lake laid next to.  As soon as I was out of the radiant heat of the sun the temperature plummeted.  I got to work making food and the activity brought some heat back into my limbs.  The wind had died down and the lake was blissfully quiet.  I whipped up a large pot of steaming cheese and potato soup and watched the moon rise while walking along the lake side.

I expect in summer this wouldn’t be one of my favorite places to visit.  The ground was soft and if the temperature had been higher it would have been extremely marshy.  I expect when the ground is wet the bugs must love this area, feasting on anything foolish enough to hang around the lake for long.  Now though, the cold had transformed the place and I found it enchanting.

The lake was below freezing and had a thick skin of ice particles on it’s surface.  The water was still fluid though but when I dragged my fingers through it it felt more like syrup than water.  As the sun went down the moon came up and the entire area was covered in bluish light.  There wasn’t any sound other than my own breathing and despite the cold (my boots were still squishing wet) it was hard to feel anything other than peace.  I stood for a long time by the lake side and watched Orion cross the sky.

When I finally did turn in the lack of proper gear made itself clear again.  My body temperature had dropped while I had been by the lake and I was shivering good by the time I made it back to the tent.  I kicked off my boots and wore all of my clothing while in my sleeping bag but it did me no good.  Temps went well down to single digits and the 15 degree rating on the sleeping bag was hopelessly optimistic.  The whole night I got less than an hour of sleep and I laid as still as I could in the cold begging the sun to come up again.

When it became light enough for me to see again the inside of the tent was covered in frost.  It still took another couple of hours of waiting in the cold for the sun to finally get over the little slope I had pitched my tent beside.  Finally when I dragged myself out of the bag and into the chill morning air I found my boots.  They were still in the original shape they had been when I pulled my feet out of them but the water in the leather had fully frozen.  The ice had built up enough that I couldn’t pry them apart with my hands.  I ended up getting a rock and smashing them enough to break the ice.  When I summoned up the courage to shove my feet into those leather igloos the experience wasn’t all that pleasant.

The hike out was pretty easy and after a mile of following my post hole tracks back to the trail my feet warmed up enough that I could feel them again.

While I look back on the trip fondly there are some things I could have done which would have made the night much more pleasant.  The worst part of the trip was trying to get some sleep in a tent that freely let the cold air in and my body heat out.  My boots which were great for summer and spring camping really needed some gaiters to keep snow out of the top and either some goretex or a recoating of mink oil half way through the trip.  Ideally I would have brought snow shoes which would have given me prefect grip and would have kept my boots dry.  A winter tent would have made it feel 10 degrees warmer in the tent since they can be sealed to keep body heat in and the wind out, even better an igloo or quingee would have been great.  Snow shelters like those keep the internal temperature in the structure 32 degrees no matter what.  While it would have been 15 degrees in the tent, in the snow cave it would have been a toasty 32, twice as warm as the tent.

While I’ll happly shed weight and extras for summer camping I pack more for winter camping and feel much more reluctant to give up the extras that make staying in the cold much more comfortable.

Eric Starling is a webmaster and a photographer in Denver, CO.

3 Huge Figures of the Denver Design Community

Jamie: you are behind on blog posts my friend

Greg: i know

Greg: want to write one?

Jamie: hmmmm

Jamie: might want to post this, 3 huge figures of the Denver design community speaking tonight at MCA

Jamie: http://blog.seanklassen.com/my-awesome-friends/applied-ideas-volume-3/

Stephen Colbert - Single Malt Scotch Advice

Stephen Colbert you and your writers are genius.

Hey, Single Malt Scotch, you’re thirty years old. When are you going to settle down and get married… to my stomach.

5 Best National Parks in the Continental US for Photography

5.  Rocky Mountain National Park - Taking photos of alpine mountain settings usually involves a very heavy pack that gets heavier with each foot fall, once you’ve packed up a tent, food, stove, sleeping bag, clothes, and other extras, by this time the camera either doesn’t fit or you just can’t bear to add the extra weight of lenses, tripods, and multiple camera bodies.  Rocky Mountain National Park has the solution for this.  Trail Ridge Road runs for ~30 miles above tree line providing loads of access to trail heads that start above tree line allowing you to get right at the alpine goods.  The park opens early too so you can come in to capture the alpineglow at sunrise.  The parks lakes and stark mountain peaks are so varied that people will often ask “Where did you take that?!?”

4. Acadia National Park - If you want to capture the colors of fall there’s few places better than Acadia.  With beautiful roads with low stone dividers and a network of tunnels there’s fantastic shots to be had from the road.  Cadillac Mountain is the first place the sun hits the US in the morning and makes for great dawn photography.  From the mountain top you can see many great colors in trees but also have views of the sea.  Adding cool blues into the rich saturated reds and oranges of fall makes for some great contrast.  If you get closer to the coast windier days will give you stronger tides and it’s not too hard to capture the waves crashing against rock faces beneath fall foliage.

3.  Arches National Park - Arches is small for a national park, and it’s tucked up against stiff competition, Canyonlands has 3 major districts and takes up more than 10 times the space that arches does, Capitol Reef isn’t too far away either, but arches gets into the top 3 because of some amazing unique offerings.  First is great paved access to all major points in the park, the definitive Delicate Arch which adorns all of the Utah license plates is an easy mile hike up slickrock and just when you start to get tired you’re in an unreal natural amphitheater.  If you wait till sunset there are some incredible photos to be had at “magic hour.”  While there are numerous other arches to hike out to, and all of them are on well maintained trails or good 4wd roads, the best treasure of this park is the Fiery Furnace.  This literal maze of slickrock canyons maintains a cool temperature and is an endless playground for a climbing photographer and a perfect fortress of solitude for those seeking one.  A few ranger led tours go through the area daily and a pass costs 5 dollars to get into the area.  Take at least one ranger tour so you know how to get in and out without damaging the environment, once you’ve done that come back again and explore the area freely, you’ll be stunned at both the beauty of the landscape and the silence of the canyons.

2.  Death Valley - Given the number of national parks out there you’d think a big expanse of desert wouldn’t make it into the top 3.  Death Valley is home to much more than empty sands though.  The sheer diversity I’ve seen in Death Valley and the level of accessibility are just unparalleled.  You can see water get carried up though a salt flat in the pre-dawn and see it burn off in seconds as soon as the sun turns it’s angry glare down on the valley.  If you like mountain climbing telescope peak is at 11K feet and you can make a continual hike from Badwater Basin at -283 feet all the way up the mountain for the longest continual climb in the lower US.  The sand dunes that they shot the first star wars movie in are in Death Valley along with the amazing racetrack a dry lake bed that becomes so slick when wet that stones weighing hundreds of pounds are pushed around by the wind.  The other thing that makes Death Valley amazing is that most of it is accessible by paved road, and what isn’t found on a paved road is easily found on a dirt road.  There are a few roads that require serious 4wd vehicles, but most can be navigated by a passenger car or motorcycle.  Go in late fall or early spring to avoid the heat but expect cool nights, but the dark skies are perfect for astrophotography.  No matter where you go there’s always something new to take a photo of, and the amazing changes in elevation provide high contrast landscapes that you can’t find anywhere else.

1. Yellowstone National Park - Yes it can be crowded and Old Faithful has been photographed more than Madonna, but the real thing to photograph in Yellowstone is the wildlife.  Huge herds of bison are often found by the road side, bears are all over the place and even packs of wolves can be seen within a circuit or two of the park’s excellent roads.  Bring a long telephoto lens as most of the large animals don’t take kindly to flash bulbs or those that get too close.  In winter all of the animals are covered in snow and frost.  The steam from the geothermal vents throughout the area, make all the critters look like frozen ghosts.  The steam also creates some amazing shots at both sunrise and sunset.

Eric Starling is a webmaster and photographer in Denver, CO.

December Urban Monarch Book Club

Two books have caught my attention for the next Urban Monarch book club.  Both of these are recent releases of novels that are decades old.  Relevant though still today.  

• Metropole
• Inverted World

Which one would you like to read? Any alternate suggestions?

Holiday Gadgetry

I’ve been compiling an Urban Monarch holiday gift guide for the 2008 season.  I’ve got most of the slots filled, but I’m looking for a few more items.  Any gadgets you’re longing for this holiday season?  Anything shiny that has your eye?  What are you wishing to unwrap this year?

No Laptop, Will Travel

Today is a monumentous occassion.  I’m leaving for Dallas for the weekend and I’m not bringing my laptop.  For the past four months I’ve been working 60-80 consistently.  For the year before that, I worked remotely.  So, no matter when I travelled the laptop was in tow.  This weekend, it is the first time in years this has occurred.  Amazing.

Burn off Fat in the Cold; Go Snowshoeing

Winter is always a problem, during spring, summer and fall there’s more than enough stuff to do in the mountains or even around town that’s outside and physically challenging.  Once the cold rolls I want to fire up the xbox far more than I want to step on the scale.  Winter just didn’t seem to provide a lot of opportunities for exercise.  Skiing is expensive and there’s always congestion traffic in order to get up there and most back-country sports require a huge dollar and time investment in order to get started.   Several years ago I stumbled upon a craigslist ad for some snowshoes and found them surprisingly cheap.  My original idea was to rip the crampons (metal spikes that go under your feet for walking/climbing on snow) off of them to make some cheap mountaineering boots.  Instead I discovered the best winter activity out there.

If you want to burn a bit of holiday fat off in the winter time you could go to the gym and choke down the stagnant air laced with artificial smells disguised to hide the fact that people sweat.  Run in place like a hairless hamster while being subjected to whatever 80s hair metal the front desk jockey has queued up for the evening, OR you could hop in the car, drive to the first place that has snow on the ground more than 4-5″ deep and go for a run, climb hills, play in the snow and remember what it was like when you were 8 and working out was fun instead of labor.

I find that people tend to snowshoe for 2 main reasons, they’re either looking to burn some fat during the holiday season and just want some place to do it that’s quiet, peaceful, and challenging.

The second group is awed by the beauty of winter.  The outdoor world really does change under a heavy snow fall.  Snow absorbs sound and so much of the outdoor experience is auditory, just the change in sound, the heavily weighted trees and reformed mountains is enough of a change you feel like you’re rediscovering things all over again.  Since walking on snow is also less of an impact on the plant life under it and because trails are nearly impossible to find when they’re buried under multiple feet of snow you can hike where you please, across frozen lakes, off trail and climbing hills and peaks that are otherwise off limits for conservation purposes.

For the fat burners small running snowshoes are likely going to be the best bet.  Redfeather makes a good lineup of light, simple snowshoes on the cheap that make you feel like you’re wearing your regular running shoes.  Atlas also makes an excellent lineup of smaller shoes that do not drag when you lift your feet up.  This makes for a very natural running stride.  These will have a small simple crampon and be around 18-20 inches in length.   You can easily keep them in your car and go for a quick run on your way home from work if you pass by an empty snow  covered lot, or jog around a frozen over lake.

For those winter explorers who want to get into deeper higher snow and trudge up steep hills all while bringing calories I suggest large shoes.  30+ inches is what I tend to use and I’m fairly small and not too heavy.  For those that enjoy climbing look for a shoe that has a very aggressive crampon.  The metal spikes under the shoe tend to come in two formats either a simple sawtooth design that’s made out of steel about 1-2mm thick or a very big burly thing that looks more like the mouth of a shark.  For those that do climbing the bigger the crampon the better.

These shoes tend to be heavier, and running in them would be a chore, but the floatation they provide is far better and they are built to take serious abuse.   Tubbs makes an excellent lineup of shoes.  I use an old pair of mountain 30s, and the adventure line is also a very good model.  Tubbs also come with a lifetime warranty and seem very good about honoring it.   After abusing my shoes for years I busted one of the mounting points for the buckle.  I called Tubbs up and they sent me enhanced new buckles that I was able to install in just a few minutes.

Some people may be turned off by the 300+ dollar price point of new large snowshoes.   There’s many ways to trim the expense though, craigslist, seems to be a hot  bed of used snowshoes with many 300+ dollar models selling for around 100.  Add in a pair of used ski poles and you’re set.  You don’t need fancy foot wear, either your hiking boots will do just fine or if you plant to get into really deep snow a pair of gaiters will help to keep the snow out of your boots.   It’s not uncommon to find older big snowshoes for around 50 bucks.  While the old style “tennis racket” snowshoes look a bit cool and retro, they are had to maintain, and much more prone to failure.  Still they can be picked up cheap and they do work pretty well.  Often they will not have a crampon so if you’re planning any climbing be cautious.  REI also sells their old rental equipment.  They use very nice Atlas snowshoes for their rentals and buying them used from their quarterly REI yard sale is a great bargin.

If you have any questions about a particular model of shoes or if you’d like any suggestions on where to go in your area feel free to leave a comment.

Eric Starling is a webmaster and a photographer.  He lives in Denver, CO and is highly skilled at falling into spruce traps.

UM Book Club - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow Part IV

Pages 181 - 266 (Ch 17-end)

In the final reading section the book is quick paced.  I found myself fervently consuming the remaining pages all in one sitting.  I was so caught up in the story, my mind moved from the analyzation of the book to the plot and character interaction.  This has definitely served as a testament of Doctorow’s writing.  I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.

Marcus and Ange meet with the journalist Barbara to divulge all of the information on the prison and the following xNet.  Immediately following the meeting, Marcus starts receiving emails from hacker turned DHS agent Masha.  As a side note, everytime I read that name a certain website comes to mind.  

Fearing his security, Marcus and Ange plan to go underground with Masha’s guidance.  Things go awry and Marcus backs out of the agreement.  Zed comes back and serves again as a guide to Marcus.  Shortly after Marcus is whisked back to the prison, undergoes torture, and is rescued by Barbara and a team of local law enforcement fellows.  Charges are mostly dropped, and Marcus lives happily ever after with Ange working on a non-profit derivative of the xNet work.  

This book serves its intention well.  It renewed my excitement about technology and opened my eyes a bit more to things going on in current news.  Suddenly I’m paying more attention to global stories about Australia’s interim terrorist prison and local stories about the operation of government funded security cameras in my neighborhood.

Tasty Whiskey Drink

1 part bourbon (Jim Beam)
3 parts cherry energy drink (Bing)

Crazy delicious!

Dear People at the Grocery Store

I need a bus pass to get to work.  I had plenty of time to get one and get to work should 10 of you not decided that you needed to return your carpet clearner, get quarters for laundry, cash in your lottery winnings, and tender your coinstar receipt. People cashing welfare checks, I have nothing to say to you.

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