Lance Armstrong Coming to Davis for the Tour of California

Get ready Davis.  Not only will Davis host a stage of the Tour of California this year, but new reports are today confirming the rumors - Lance Armstrong will apparently race in the Tour of California for the Astana team.  See for example

• Kazakh cycling officials: Lance to ride for Astana
  
• Armstrong will start comeback in Australia
  

So Stage 2, February 15th, will be a big big Day for Davis.

Is your city walkable?

Just got an announcement from a friend of mine who has started a new campaign for trying to "raise America's Walk Score." They have launched a web site www.walkscore.com with walkability rankings of 2,508 neighborhoods in the largest 40 U.S. cities. If you go to the site and type in your address you can see how you score (Downtown Davis does really well). And if you support walkable communities they have a petition online to encourage Congress to support walking towns ...

Davis Hosting Stage 2 of the Tour of California 2009

Big big news for Davis. Stage 2 of the Tour of California in 2009 will start in Davis (after Stage 1 which starts and ends in Sacramento).

For more information see Velonews here.

Also see the SacBee story here.

• Stage 1, Saturday, Feb. 14 – Sacramento
• Stage 2, Sunday, Feb. 15 – Davis to Santa Rosa
• Stage 3, Monday, Feb. 16 – Sausalito to Santa Cruz
• Stage 4, Tuesday, Feb. 17 – San Jose to Modesto
• Stage 5, Wednesday, Feb. 18 – Merced to Clovis
• Stage 6, Thursday, Feb. 19 – Visalia to Paso Robles
• Stage 7, Friday, Feb. 20 – Solvang (individual time trial)
• Stage 8, Saturday, Feb. 21 – Santa Clarita to Pasadena
• Stage 9, Sunday, Feb. 22 – Rancho Bernardo to Escondido

Good sources for Air Quality Information for Davis

Just in case anyone needs it here are a couple of good sources for air quality information for Davis and the area

• Sacramento Air Quality from Spare The Air
  
• Davis Air Quality from AirNow.Gov

Hopefully the fires will stop sometime soon.

Jelly Bellies in the New York Times

Well, Jelly Bellies, a semi-local institution (they are based in Fairfield for those who have not seem them from I-80) has gotten some good press in the Times today. I hear they have a nice tour that kids and adults like but we have not done it yet.  I must say, I like their Sport Beans when I go for bike rides.  Anyway, just good to see local businesses getting some props in the Times.

Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter on KDVS Today at 5 PM

Brad Buchanan will be discussing and reading from his new book of poems, "Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter" (Roan Press) on KDVS 90.3 FM today (Wednesday) at 5pm. Please consider tuning in. Also available onlne at http://www.kdvs.org/listen/.

Why I am writing about this?  Well Brad and I used to play street hockey together in grad. school at Stanford.  No - neither of us started Google as did other street hockey players from Stanford.  But you should check out Brad's new book of poems from Roan Press and also can see some of his past stuff at an old blog here.

Roan Press is a new Sacramento area publisher. In the email I got they say 

"Please mark your calendars for Roan Press's first Book Launch Party at the Book Collector (1008 24th Street) on July 23 at 7:30 pm. Roan Press is a new Sacramento publisher with an interest in poetry, fiction, books of essays and other genres. We particularly welcome submissions from Northern California writers, but are open to work from anyone, anywhere. Please also watch for our website, www.roanpress.com, which is coming soon"

Street View for Davis on Google Maps

If you have not already heard, Google Maps has added the "Street View" function for Davis, CA where they drove around in a truck and took pictures of the front of every address.

See here  for a view of Central Park.

or click on the pic below.



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Oh - and here I am .... loading my car up for a trip.


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