text:
News In Brief
to host free community practice tonight
The Seattle Supersonics are hosting a free community practice open to the public tonight from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Carver Gymnasium at Western Washington University. Fans can watch the team perform warm-up drills and participate in a full-court scrimmage. Raffle prizes will be on hand including Sonics tickets and autographed memorabilia, with the proceeds benefiting the Sonics & Storm T.E.A.M. Foundation. There is no admission charge to the practice and doors open to the public at 6 p.m. Seating and parking is on a first-come, first-serve basis. The gym is located at 516 High Street in Bellingham.
invited to Puget Sound Basin meeting
The public is invited to a presentation about the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project (PSNERP) on Thursday, October 30, held by the Whatcom County Marine Resources Committee and Whatcom County Water Resources Division. The PSNERP is a cooperative effort among government organizations, tribes, industries and environmental organizations to preserve and restore the health of the Puget Sound's marine nearshore. The purpose of the project is to identify significant ecosystem problems in the Puget Sound Basin, evaluate potential solutions, and to restore and preserve critical marine nearshore habitat. The meeting will be held from 6 - 8 p.m. at Whatcom County Council chambers. For more information, call 676-6876.
two city of Blaine gateway signs to be placed
The city of Blaine recently received approval from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to install the last two gateway welcome signs for Blaine. The signs will be located at the intersection of the truck route and H Street, and volunteers are needed to help landscape the two signs. The signs were designed by Dave Christianson and built by Signs Plus. Two signs have already been placed in the city, one on northern Peace Portal Drive near Marine Drive and the other at the junction of Bell Road and Peace Portal Drive. To volunteer with landscaping, call 332-8311.
Street parklet construction under way
Construction on the Martin Street parklet on Martin Street next to the red caboose downtown has begun and a retaining wall is currently going up. �This is the first step in converting the right of way into another small park, hopefully taking another step to improve the looks and enjoyment of the downtown area,� said community development director Terry Galvin. Three Blaine high school students, Jeff Harger, Tyler Clark and James Ruiz, are volunteering on this project as part of their senior projects.
death in Marine Park result of a suicide
A 45-year-old Point Roberts man took his own life in Blaine�s Marine Park last Wednesday afternoon. An autopsy performed showed the man died due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound from a semi-automatic handgun. According to police reports, the man left a suicide note that was found at the scene. One brass bullet casing was also found, as well as a wallet, micro-cassette audio tape and currency in both American and Canadian.
injured in Marine Drive hit and run
Two people were injured on Thursday, October 16 after a man hit them with his vehicle and dragged them in the 500 block of Marine Drive. Rodney Jacobson, 80, of Ferndale, was apparently at the Harbor Cafe lounge when a man and woman tried to prevent him from driving, fearing he had consumed too much alcohol, according to Blaine deputy chief John Brand. Jacobson hit them with his vehicle�s open door and dragged them about 15 feet � the two individuals received cuts and bruises and were evaluated at St. Joseph�s Hospital. Jacobson fled the scene and was arrested at home, and later released due to his age. Charges have been forwarded to the county prosecutor.
bag reroutes northbound border traffic
The Douglas Port of Entry shut down for an hour Saturday evening, after a suspicious package was found. A piece of lone luggage was found at the port, and appeared mysteriously placed to officials. Fearing a possible bomb, traffic was rerouted to the Pacific Highway truck crossing. Washington State Patrol requested the Blaine police department close the northbound I-5 276 on ramp and assist in rerouting traffic for about an hour. The mysterious bag was found to be an abandoned piece of luggage, according to officials, and not a threat to the public.
resident to compete in Pacific Idol finals
Ibidunni Ojikutu, a 23-year-old Blaine resident, has qualified for the the first annual Pacific Idol fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Ojikutu is one of 10 individuals aged 16-23 vying for the title of Pacific Idol on Saturday, October 25 at the Mount Baker Theatre at 7 p.m. Competitors were involved in two weeks of live performances and will perform two songs in front of a judging panel and live audience at the finals. The winner will receive cash prizes, along with recording time at a local sound studio, head shots by professional photographer and a one-time interview with Academy Award winner Tom Whitlock. For more information, visit www.3rdfloorevents.com or call 738-0432.


text:
- Presenter
- Hugh Dennis
- Participant
- Justin Edwards
- Participant
- Laura Solon
- Participant
- Jessica Ransom
- Participant
- Humphrey Ker
- Producer
- Dan Patterson
- Director
- Geraldine Dowd
Episode 2 of 8
Duration: 29 minutes
Hugh Dennis has another hilarious batch of improvised games and sketches featuring the talents of Justin Edwards, Humphrey Ker, Jonathan Mangum, Jess Ransom and Laura Solon.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
I've been doing stories off and on in Nita Lewis' flowerbeds for 20 years, I guess. She's had daylilies, which she set aside for irises, which she's now set aside for roses. And she's stuck with the roses for several years. The other flowers were nice, but there was something lacking.
Nita Lewis: And I realized my garden was missing the fragrance of roses. And once I started growing, I root them, so I have quite a few.
Walt: There is another distinct advantage of roses that I recognize from the Hodges-podge of flowers Miz Jo and I have in our yard. Everything else sort of has its season. A couple of good weeks and most flowers have bloomed out. But not roses.
Nita: They bloom from the beginning of spring until after a freeze.
Walt: And they bloom in waves. Hitting several peaks during the season. Nita Lewis says hers have already peaked for the first time, a little early this year. But she says if you'll remember to deadhead your roses, they'll put on another crop of blooms quickly. Deadheading is getting out in the garden and pulling off the dead blooms. Now, with a rose garden this big, that's a lot of work. But it's the work of the garden that makes it a good day for Nita.
Nita: I get my energy once I get to the garden. I feel better outside. I'm just not an inside person. So I'm happy when I'm in my garden.
Walt: I'm saying "yea" in the background like I identify with that. But maybe I should get out and fiddle with my yard more often according to Nita.
Nita: It's wonderful therapy. I recommend it. You can find happiness doing this that you can't find anywhere else.
Walt: I am reminded of the advice we've heard all of our lives to, "Stop and smell the roses along the way." And what better way to be able to stop and smell them than to have already planted some as you go. Like Nita Lewis has in her rose garden in Raymond.
715 South Jefferson Street
Jackson, Mississippi 39201
(601) 948-3333
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text:
We were, by my best guess, three—maybe four—hard-boiled eggs from Obed Summit, the highest point along Canada's Yellowhead Highway.
"Egg!" I yelled as my pedals labored against 15 feet of tandem, trail-a-bike and trailer that comprised, with gear and my three sons, a gross weight somewhere north of 500 pounds.
Quinn, my nine-year-old stoker, began shelling another egg by repeatedly smacking it against his bike helmet [32]. From the seat of the trail-a-bike behind him, his younger brother, Enzo, seven, stretched forward and salted my unlikely energy snack. These portable protein [33] bombs often made their way to me missing a few mouthfuls as the boys took a delivery toll—supplementing the chocolate milk [34] that served as their primary fuel—but this time I prayed for an intact shot of energy: We were going to need everything we had to make the 3,819-foot crest.
Collectively, we seemed to have realized this without saying much about it. A typical day saw us on and off our rig a dozen times before noon for plastic lightsaber sword fights, swimming holes and moose sightings. Today, we hadn't broken our cadence [35] once. It helped, I suppose, that one-year-old Matteo had buried himself in the caboose, sleeping off a full night of sleeping. Beth, on the single touring bike [36] I'd loaned her, had replaced her usual back-and-forth riding pattern with a resolute pace off our rear. The ramshackle carnival of conversations we'd been enjoying across Canada had dropped off to a word or two—necessary commands, sometimes a grunt of encouragement. When Enzo would point out a hawk on a fence post or a circling eagle, we'd turn our heads in unison for an appreciative look, exhale a few "ahs," then go back to pedaling.
We'd managed to best some substantial climbs [37], but in comparison with Obed they were bumps in the landscape. I treated the preliminary ascents and infrequent flats like test runs, working the gears to find the ratio that would ring true to my legs once our final share of free momentum off the rollers ran out.
"Here it comes, boys!" I said, gearing down as the cruelest bit of the Canadian Rockies rose in front of our wheel. I wanted my sons to understand that I needed them as I'd never needed them before, that I had to believe without hesitation in their youth, in the supple hearts crashing around in their chests, in the power of their fresh, lean legs. Instead, I shouted, "All the Jack Johnson songs in the world won't save us now!"
The boys didn't have a clue what I meant.
Neither did I.
I actually started to come out of the saddle—my second-rate-racer's body forgetting for an instant that it was heading up not a peloton but a mule train—then told myself to sit down and do the time, to work with the equipment instead of against it. An out-of-the-saddle sprint [38] would not only sap me, but also probably snap a chain [39], and maybe fold our whole contraption in on itself.
Obed has no switchbacks. It's a straight climb to a false summit—enough plateau to consider one's cursed existence—then onto the slope where the real work begins. I was busy negotiating the pain and focusing on a spot 2 feet off the front wheel when I heard Beth's voice:
She'd dropped in close behind the trailer and, like a seasoned coxswain for rowers on a faltering crew, was barking timed commands to help us find a pace. In the face of such stark grit and stamina—this trip was way over Beth's head—I had a moment's guilt that, the night before, after she'd drifted off to sleep, I'd shifted some of my heaviest payload into her four panniers. I quickly shook off the feeling, because if we were going to summit without stopping or, God help us, walking, I needed my full concentration (and because I'm a shameful little man who, in my secret heart, always wants to crest first). "Mush," she barked. "Mush!"
We began to slip into a solid rhythm.
"Mush," she cried.
"Mellow," the boys shouted, seeming to argue for a slower pace, which made no sense to me, but I was beyond caring.
"Room!" The boys yelled back.
I got it, located my groove and locked onto it. And on such trippy mantras our pace quickened and smoothed until—rare in life, even more elusive in the saddle—we somehow found that moment when a group, be it paceline, peloton, breakaway or family bike tour, morphs from mere teamwork into a single effort. For a few golden miles, it felt as if a cord were connecting us tighter than coiled steel. I howled with joy, Quinn whooped, Enzo rang his bell and Beth laughed loose and unbridled. Even Matteo was awake.
When the summit sign came into view, I spit in the face of the accumulated years of knowledge that make up the fields of structural engineering and human performance, and stood straight up in an attempt to hammer everything that mattered to me, all my imagined burdens and actual blessings, to the top of Obed. It was irresponsible, even derelict, behavior. But later, Beth would say that when Quinn and Enzo stood up and slashed at the pedals behind me, she'd never felt so proud.
Not one of us could have predicted such triumphs when we wobbled out of the driveway of our Portland, Oregon, home for a shakedown of the bike before starting our summerlong unsupported bike trip around Canada. Rumor had a few neighbors taking bets on a quick return and slightly slower divorce.
We had a friend following us with a vehicle from our front door to the Washington Ferry to work out any kinks. Then the plan was to jettison vehicle support and ride untethered as far as we could before snow chased us home. I figured we'd cover about 75 miles per day, camping about 75 percent of the time, then simply hop a flight home before the autumn leaves [40] lost the last of their brilliance.
This was not wholly unfamiliar territory, at least for me. With 130,000 miles of bike travel banked, it's something of a calling. I've crossed the length of the Australian Outback, half a dozen African nations, been all around America (once even towing Quinn, Enzo and my dad's ashes), rolled through South America on road bike tires, rudimentary Spanish skills and not a lick of Portuguese, and even plumbed the depths of Copper Canyon, Mexico, one winter by mountain bike.
But Beth, my wife, is one of those people who can't decide if spandex is a conspiracy specifically targeting women or is just designed to make everyone look bad, who'd happily ride a singlespeed not to be hip but to avoid learning how to use a shifter. Add to that a son celebrating his first birthday, plus the unpredictability of traveling with kids of any age, and I knew this could turn out to be the most arduous adventure of my life.
Still, we had our reasons—good ones—to tempt fate. Beth and I had always agreed that we didn't want our progeny to become the kind of disaffected kids who grow up trapped in climate-controlled, overscheduled, hermetically sealed childhoods suffering Xbox carpal tunnel and nature-deficit disorder. I guess she figured it was time to put up or shut up. My excuse is that I'm restless and unpredictable on foot—spastic and unwieldy even—but atop a bike, I'm poetry in motion. I fit into the world better on a bicycle.
All I had to do to pull the whole thing off was deliver on the promises I'd made of fresh roadside fruit dripping down chins and full days of sunshine stretched around spring-fed lakes, that we'd for sure see a moose and even venture inside the largest mall in North America, and that I'd somehow keep them safe through one helluva adventure.
We botched it immediately, of course. On the first morning, in a campground in Sequim, Washington, I rose early so that, as a surprise, I could brew gourmet coffee [41] for Beth and hand it to her while pointing out the sun coloring the sky over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Instead, I knocked the pot off the camp stove and as steaming coffee soaked my fleece pants I danced around in pain, disrobing and squawking obscenities—and our trip officially began with Beth emerging from the tent to find me wounded, pantless and cursing.
"Typical start?" she asked.
"Pretty much," I said. After dressing the injury and redressing myself, then taking a seat in the dirt beside her, I said, "Sometimes there's oatmeal, too."
Then there was our 437-pound rolling contraption, which was actually a stripped-down version of the original monster I'd concocted for the trip: a Santana triple (assembled with couplers), towing a one-wheeled trail-a-bike that would affix to a trailer—my own stroke of genius that would allow our entire five-person family to ride a single conjoined bike. The longest stretch limo in the cycling world. Unfortunately, riding that behemoth a mere 50 yards proved to be the most harrowing feat I'd ever accomplished on wheels. Picture a rolling Bowflex machine that tips from side to side without warning. After a morning of test riding, I was sweating buckets.
Beth was pale. "You're the expert," she said, bravely. "If you think we can do it with this setup, I'll soldier on."
I looked her in the eye. "It's too white-knuckle," I admitted.
She actually did a little victory dance, then said, "When I wasn't terrified, I was panicked."
"I'll undo the couplers," I explained, "and convert the triple to a double. I can muscle all three boys that way. But it means you have to solo on my old touring bike."
We had a moment there. It seemed the whole trip might be off before it was really on. But in the end, Beth simply put her gloves back on and said, "Just remind me how these shifty things work again."
We also wrestled over luggage. While I'd steeled myself for a protracted battle with the boys over the impracticality of lugging along Pokemon cards and sporting equipment, it ended up that I had only to evoke the prospect of all the roadside hobo treasures we might collect—pool floats, rocks, collectible animals—and my boys, recreating a scene from Lord of the Flies, instantly offloaded excess baggage. And most of their clothing. Beth was the holdout. Her necessities included the most recent 900-page Harry Potter (in hardcover) as well as a stack of cotton T-shirts, multiple bathing suits and several pairs of jeans.
"Cotton kills," I said. "You might as well ride wrapped up in soaking dishrags. And they'll be bricks in our panniers the first time they get wet." I held up my entire wardrobe for the trip, which could be palmed in one hand. "Wash and wear. Bring two lightweight, multipurpose, quick-dry outfits, wash one by whatever means necessary—stream, rock, rest-stop sink or garden hose—while wearing the other."
Beth said, "My cute jeans make me feel like a woman." Then she stuck her tongue out at me. That was her entire rebuttal. Juvenile. But effective. I double-bagged the jeans with the coffee.
Our darkest moment, as it often turns out, was also our turning point: Seven days in, on the Galloping Goose rail-trail, a dream cruise from Victoria to French Beach on the western end of Vancouver Island, Beth dropped off the radar.
It took the boys and me a few miles to realize she was missing. In our defense, as soon as we noticed, we heeled our yacht around and set off at full steam on a search and rescue. In my mind, anything might have happened: Beth had already suffered her first pedal gouge and, more horrifying for her, the initial assault of a biker's tan [42]. ("How am I going to look in a bikini now?" she'd asked.)
We found her lying in the dirt beside the road, fixated on the clouds, in a blood-sugar daze. Quinn and Enzo, having witnessed this behavior in their old man, began reviving her with bagels and cream cheese, plus sweet and salty granola bars [43] for good measure.
Beth's gaze was still slightly out of focus when she looked at me and said, "You bastard."
I nodded uncertainly. I was in agreement with the facts, but unclear where they were leading.
"Lying there," Beth said, now on her feet, "I realized something. You rented our house for the next two months."
She dusted herself off and accepted the handlebar—a promising sign—then said, "I can't go home." She looked at the Terry bike seat, patted it, and said, "This is my home now."
And so it became, and we rolled on, and we did see the moose I'd promised (at a relatively safe distance) and the largest mall in North America (too close for my comfort). We saw goats and feasted on wild berries, and met characters we immediately entered into the personal folklore each family develops, and through it all, my first-day's coffee [44] searing remained the sole serious injury, and we sang and talked about things both sublime and ridiculous and rode on and on, just as I'd dreamed.
A rain that came up fast and late on our 47th day of riding chased us inside. I blinked away the last of it—cold, fat raindrops that made me stamp and shiver—so I could take in the truck-stop menu.
Beth eyed the flophouse motel beside the restaurant. A man standing outside the closed door of one of the rooms was blowing smoke rings into the downpour. A bar advertising dancers and "top shelf" liquor separated the two establishments.
"Is this a dump?" asked Quinn. Somehow during our trip, he had gotten onto a part-time quest to understand the hierarchy of the hotels and motels we passed. A true dump, which he considered the bottom of the scale, had not yet been checked off his list.
"There are different shades of dumps," Beth offered, in a bid for a teachable moment, a chance to instill our son with the wisdom that outward appearance might not so easily define inner character. That's when the waitress sauntered over and mentioned that if we wanted a room we'd need to see the bartender next door.
"It's a dump," I told Quinn. "But it's the only port in the storm."
We'd tried several other ports earlier. A campground touting a swimming pool and Putt-Putt golf had closed for renovations, and a provincial park by a lake was shut tight thanks to twin infestations of grizzly bears and mosquitoes. We'd have been willing to brave the bears.
"Order me whatever you're having," Beth said, then excused herself to the bathroom. I imagined she was hoping more for a hand dryer than a mirror.
In once-festive colors across a grease-stained marquee above the open kitchen I saw all the menu I'd need:
Prizes Awarded If Finished In One Sitting
The waitress was not in the habit of asking people to repeat their orders. She merely leaned on her hip and waited for me to correct myself. I reordered mac and cheese for the boys and said, "And two Trucker's Dreams."
She delivered an unsympathetic smile. "You might want to think about this, Chief. No one's ever eaten two Dreams at once."
Beth slipped back into the booth at that moment, and I said, "The other one's for her."
Miners and roughneck oil workers in stained long coats crowding the adjacent booths took a closer look at us. I pointed at our bikes parked outside to explain our appetites, but every man was looking at my wife. A woman who can eat her weight in hash is a keeper in the North Country. You could read their skepticism though: By then Beth had lost the last of the weight she'd gained with Matteo, and hour upon hour in the saddle during our trip had carved her into performance art. She resembled an Olympic swimmer with a boob job. If Beth ate the Trucker's Dream I might have to fight our way out of there to keep her, but she would enter into undying legend in these parts.
I didn't even have to know what the dish entailed to be confident of our success. A cyclist pulling a bike with panniers eats like a termite. One hauling 15 feet of bike train, three children and hundreds of pounds of gear knows no mortal bounds.
Three thick slabs of meat—roast beef, Salisbury steak maybe and something else unidentifiable—formed the foundation of the Trucker's Dream. Gravy formed an adhesive layer between each course. Sitting atop the meat slabs were three over-easy eggs, gravy, three cuts of breakfast ham, gravy, three massive mounds of mashed potatoes, each with its own pool of butter but—in a delicate artistic decision—no gravy. Instead cheese formed the adhesive. In the same dollop shape as the potatoes there were scoops of canned veggies. Then those crazy bastards behind the grill went for broke: Gravy secured a hamburger to the center of the veggie mountain and lettuce, tomato and pickles reached for the heavens from the patty. In a white-capped peak of mashed potatoes on either side of this spire stood toothpick flags of the Canadian maple leaf and Old Glory.
The room was a powder keg of expectation. In the fixed, full view of the big, dull eyes of men who often forget to take off their work gloves while they eat, I winked at my wife and, so in love with life and each other at that moment, we went to town on those entrees.
There was no sharing with the children, no talk of the meal's magnitude, no grim determination to soldier on, or rationalizing why we couldn't finish this or that part of the Dream. We savored it all, toasted our fortunes and handed out toothpick flags to the children when that was all that was left on our plates.
Then I ordered apple pie a la mode for the entire table.
When our waitress cleared the Dream plates she held them high and did a little ballerina turn for the room. Applause, hoots and a rumble of satisfied grunts filled the restaurant.
"I kinda like this dump," Quinn said.
We pulled over at Pirate's Cove for lunch and swordplay. Back in Saskatoon, we'd been forced off our bikes by snow and subfreezing temperatures, and hopped by air to Nova Scotia. It was now perhaps a day's pedal to Halifax, where a plane would wing us home: Beth's mother was dying. We dangled our feet in the water while the boys skipped stones. Thirteen was the record so far. What waited for us back home no amount of pedaling could fix.
Beth put her arm around my shoulder. Our Trucker's Dream prizes were stowed deep in the panniers: two pristine mud flaps featuring silver silhouettes of naked ladies.
"Absolutely not," Beth had said when we were awarded with them.
"They're folkloric, culturally significant markers in our lives," I argued. "We could secure them to the bikes as extra fender protection against wet winters."
Beth had rolled her eyes and said, "They're not coming with us unless we're riding to a divorce court." I wouldn't have her any other way, even when I think I want another way.
We agreed to ship them to a friend in Arizona, a bachelor who will, without guilt or shame, secure them to his commuter bike [45] and roll around the bone-dry desert [46]. And a bachelor, I trust, he will stay.
The last miles of our family's biggest adventure ever, a shared secret between us, a permanent summer in our hearts now, where we were never apart, featured perfectly spaced rollers—the rare sort that, for people with the right attitude and stamina and, say, 3,400 miles or so of Canada behind them, can be run like billiard balls. Without so much as a pause to think it over, I started to run the table. My legs pumped with staccato fury, and just like that we were tucked and untethered, achieving a full head of steam down, the divine hand of momentum back up, and a state of grace throughout that is no less real for its being temporary and perhaps imaginary.
"We serve no hills, boys." I yelled at the approach of the next crest.
"We serve no hills!"
"It's a roller coaster," Enzo howled back.
Which could be said of any of the rides, on and off the bikes, waiting for us back home.
[1] http://www.bicycling.com/
[2] http://www.bicycling.com/beginners
[3] http://www.bicycling.com/beginners/safety-etiquette
[4] http://www.bicycling.com/tools
[5] http://traininglog.bicycling.com/landingpage.aspx
[6] http://www.bicycling.com/gearfinder
[7] http://www.bicycling.com/whattowear
[8] http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/3899/bicycling&sz=300x250%7C300x600%7C300x1050&c=1411454659183&tile=&t=atf%3Dtrue
[9] http://www.bicycling.com/print/5049?quicktabs_3=0#quicktabs-3
[10] http://www.bicycling.com/print/5049?quicktabs_3=1#quicktabs-3
[11] http://www.bicycling.com/print/5049?quicktabs_3=2#quicktabs-3
[12] http://www.bicycling.com/news/advocacy/when-cop-says-stop
[13] http://www.bicycling.com/news/pro-cycling/lance-armstrongs-endgame
[14] http://www.bicycling.com/mountainbikecom/bikes-gear/2011-best-mountain-bikes
[15] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/core
[16] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/big-fat-lies
[17] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/bicyclings-50-golden-rules
[18] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/your-ideal-cycling-weight
[19] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/9-cross-training-tips-cyclists
[20] http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/riding-my-ritalin
[21] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/i-lost-320-pounds-riding-bike
[22] http://www.pricepoint.com/?utm_source=BICYCLING&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=145382&utm_campaign=BicyclingNews
[23] http://www.bikeyourbuttoff.com/bke?cm_mmc=bke.com-_-website-_-sfeature-_-bybo&keycode=242653
[24] http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/3899/bicycling&sz=120x30%7C120x31&c=1411454659953&tile=&t=
[25] http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/3899/bicycling&sz=120x30%7C120x32&c=1411454659483&tile=&t=
[26] http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/3899/bicycling&sz=120x30%7C120x33&c=1411454659780&tile=&t=
[27] http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.bicycling.com/beginners/safety-etiquette/fam-damily
[28] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php
[29] http://www.bicycling.com/print/5049
[30] http://www.bicycling.com/beginners/safety-etiquette/my-family-gave-driving-30-days-stick-it-man?page=0,0
[31] http://www.bicycling.com/ride-maps/featured-rides/six-best-cities-bike-vacation
[32] http://www.bicycling.com/gearfinderproductlist?gfpagetype=category&gfid=825
[33] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/power-protein
[34] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/fresh-legs-fast
[35] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/cadence-workouts
[36] http://www.bicycling.com/gearfinderproductlist?gfpagetype=subcategory&gfid=898
[37] http://www.bicycling.com/ride-maps/featured-rides/race-top
[38] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/supercharge-your-sprint
[39] http://www.bicycling.com/maintenance/repair-maintenance/breaking-chain
[40] http://www.bicycling.com/ride-maps/featured-rides/fall-foliage-bike-routes
[41] http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/bicycle-coffee-company
[42] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/injury-prevention/dont-get-burned
[43] http://bicycling.com/blogs/ramblingman/2012/02/16/fast-food-and-eating-on-long-rides/
[44] http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/say-yes-coffee
[45] http://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/2012-buyer-s-guide-city-commuter-bikes
[46] http://www.bicycling.com/ride-maps/featured-rides/desert-classics
[47] https://secure.rodale.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/OaeEntryPage?storeId=10057&mktOfferId=BKE55313&keycode=I3AW0D10&cm_mmc=Bicycling.com-_-Text%20Link-_-BKE%20Text%20Link%20Jan-_-OfferId_BKE55313_keycode_I3AW0D10


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Best Schools in Columbus
Columbus Preparatory AcademyCharter • Grades K-8684 students • 18 student/teacher
Arts & College Preparatory AcademyCharter • Grades 9-12230 students • 16 student/teacher
Columbus Alternative High SchoolPublic • Grades 9-12685 students • 18 student/teacher
Worthington Kilbourne High SchoolPublic • Grades 9-121678 students • 16 student/teacher
Clinton ElementaryPublic • Grades K-5346 students • 18 student/teacher
Olentangy Meadows Elementary SchoolPublic • Grades K-5715 students • 19 student/teacher
About Columbus
Columbus contains 245 primary and secondary schools. One of the highest rated schools is Columbus Preparatory Academy, with a rating of 10. It has 684 students. Public schools in Columbus are part of Columbus City School District. Cesar Chavez College Preparatory School is nearby and is rated worse than Columbus City School District. Nearby Columbus Bilingual Academy-North scores lower, with a rating of 1.


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The Lighthouse Blog
Police Reports: March 14 - 20, 2013
Published on Wed, Mar 13, 2013
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March 6, 8:39 a.m.:
A witness called police after a white truck pulling a trailer drove onto the Bell Road railroad crossing while the crossing warning lights were flashing and the barricade arm was descending. The long arm of the signal struck the front of the truck, which then stopped in time to stay out of the path of the approaching train, but the impact snapped off the barricade arm. The truck driver waited until the train passed then drove off, leaving the barricade lying on the road. Burlington Northern was advised of the damage. Police checked nearby restrooms but were unable to locate the fleeing driver.
March 6, 9:13 a.m.:
A crew arrived at the library park to pick up an outdoor bench for repairs, but discovered it missing, and called police to report the theft. An officer scouted around and found the bench still serving its intended function, just at a spot more convenient for weary athletes at the nearby skate park. The crew was advised of the furniture's new location.
March 7, 9:55 a.m.:
Police and school officials cooperated in an investigation that started when store personnel determined that a teenager had possibly shoplifted merchandise. The juvenile was identified, admitted to the thefts and returned some of the merchandise. His family is assisting in addressing both the property crime and the youth's use of drugs. A case report was forwarded to juvenile prosecutors for review.
March 7, 2:06 p.m.:
A youngster called 911 for help, reporting that his father had assaulted him for playing video games and forced him to run away from home. Officers contacted the youth, made sure he was safe and uninjured, and investigated. It turned out the complaining juvenile had received a spanking from his dad after he bullied a younger child and broke the little boy's skateboard. The parental rectification had left nary a mark, and the complainer was returned to his father, who had been out looking for him.
March 7, 4:19 p.m.:
A passerby came to police to report seeing juveniles hanging around an abandoned, shuttered building. Officers arrived, found a board covering an opening had been tampered with, and caught two young teenagers inside the structure. They were arrested, brought to the police station, and released to their parents after processing. An arrest and investigation report was forwarded to the juvenile prosecutor's office for charges.
March 7, 7:30 p.m.:
A business called police to report they had received counterfeit currency from a patron making a purchase. The customer refused to wait for police, paid his bill with a credit card and left before an officer arrived. Police impounded the bogus U.S. $50 note and collected the information from the credit card used by the man. The bill and information were sent to the U.S. Secret Service.
March 7, 8:51 p.m.:
A homeowner was hard at work cleaning gang graffiti off a neighbor's house when a rude trio of troublemakers sauntered by and tried to harass the Good Samaritan for his efforts. They left after a verbal exchange, and police caught up with them at the service station nearby. They were warned about their disorderly conduct, and their claims of innocence were duly noted before they were trespassed from the property at the request of the store's management. They departed in the company of one of their parents.
March 7, 9:55 p.m.:
A business called 911 for a medic response when they found an unconscious man lying on the sidewalk behind their store. Officers arrived first and found a 38-year-old transient who had fallen deeply asleep beside a now empty problem drinker-sized can of cheap beer. When roused from his slumber he was sober enough to say he did not need the assistance of officers to go somewhere else, and he did.
March 8, 10:52 a.m.:
The victim of a road rage incident called police, and officers met her in a business parking lot near where the offense occurred. She explained that a man in a gray Nissan pickup had almost run into the back of her car on H Street, then followed her until she parked and verbally harassed and threatened her before driving away. Officers investigated, identified the suspect driver, located and interviewed him, and prepared a case report for review by prosecutors.
March 8, 1:50 p.m.:
Blaine police responded to assist U.S. Border Patrol agents on a report of a person illegally entering the U.S. from Canada on foot. An officer located and arrested the teenaged suspect for possession of fake identification. After processing, the 17-year-old from Vancouver, B.C. was turned over to federal officials regarding his illegal entry, and was ultimately released to his father at Canada Customs.
March 8, 9:45 p.m.:
Police received mid-evening calls that shots were being fired in a residential neighborhood near Madison Street. Responding officers spotted a man running from the street into a house, and contacted him without incident. The sprinter said he'd run at the sight of police because he knew he should not have celebrated his friend's birthday by setting off a bunch of fireworks. The evidence of his crime littered the sidewalk nearby, and the 22-year-old Blaine resident received a gift citation for unlawful discharge of fireworks.
March 9, 12:10 a.m.:
An officer patrolling Boblett Street contacted a man to inquire what the heck he was riding down the road. It turned out to be a piece of mobile artwork borne of self-taught welding, wheels and the remains of an old riding lawnmower, wisely missing its blades. The young artiste made a midnight ride to the gas station to fuel his creation, and was heading back to his garage studio when caught. He accepted a warning for driving on city streets without a vehicle, and received a police escort to make sure he got safely home.
March 9, 8:35 a.m.:
While interviewing another person nearby, U.S. Border Patrol agents came across a man lying in the underbrush at Lincoln Park, swaddled in blankets, either very intoxicated or deeply asleep. An officer arrived and determined both assessments were correct. The transient from California was roused from his slumber and advised that both camping and open alcohol consumption were illegal in city parks. He thanked the officer for his one and only warning on the subject, and stated an intention to find his way to a new life across the border in Canada.
March 9, 9:33 a.m.:
911 received a call from a residence in Blaine, but the caller disconnected without saying anything. Dispatch called back but no one would respond. An officer drove to the residence and contacted the family there. Under questioning by police and parents, one of the tweens in the household admitted to having made the call. The youth has a past history of similar false calls to emergency services, and subsequent offenses will be handled as false reporting crimes.
March 9, 1:55 p.m.:
Dispatch reported a transient sleeping in the brush at Lincoln Park under the watchful gaze of his pet bottle of vodka. An officer responded to rouse the tipsy transient, who'd tried to trek to Canada. He was now willing to bus to points south, but WTA was off for the day. The officer's offer to chauffeur was gladly accepted, and once poured into a patrol car the gent was whisked away.
March 9, 8:43 p.m.:
A passerby called police when he spotted a person prowling around a residential construction project after dark. Officers arrived, searched the property and found a man hiding inside a large commercial dumpster on the site. The 34-year-old Ferndale resident claimed he had been looking for scrap lumber. He was arrested for trespassing and for attempting misdemeanor theft.
March 9, 10:23 p.m.:
Officers were dispatched to a late night 911 hang up call from a residence. They contacted the renter on site and discovered that the man had already abandoned his landline telephone service due to ongoing problems like this. The officer confirmed that the wired telephone line is not connected, making it hard to explain how or why the house keeps calling for help. The resident is working with the phone company on the problem, though a higher authority may be in order.
March 10, 12:55 p.m.:
A business reported that a customer had tried to pay for merchandise with a counterfeit U.S. $50 bill. An officer arrived and interviewed the patron, who said she had exchanged Canadian money for U.S. cash a couple of months earlier at her bank, but had no idea where the fake bill originated. Police confiscated the bill and sent it to the U.S. Secret Service.
March 10, 6:58 p.m.:
A passerby contacted police when he noticed a man in a pickup truck using binoculars to watch an apartment complex. Officers responded and found the pickup now unoccupied with the binoculars resting on the seat. Further investigation revealed that the elderly driver had likely tried to figure out if his friend was home before making the long trek upstairs to the door. Police were nonetheless appreciative of the report.
March 10, 9:34 p.m.:
An officer observed a car illegally parked on Runge Avenue. He checked back later and found the car was still there. He had the vehicle tagged with a written warning and a tow notice. The driver moved the vehicle and legally parked it a short time later.
March 11, 5:51 a.m.:
Sheriff's deputies asked Blaine police to check on the welfare of a man standing in front of a Birch Bay business possibly posing his pants-less physique to passersby. Officers arrived and found that the report of a fashion emergency was inaccurate, as the transient was actually attired in gym shorts and matching plastic trash bag lederhosen. He explained that his clothing needs were determined by the temperature and selected on the basis of budget. Since the approach of dawn heralded a new day's warmth, the gent tore off his hefty leg warmers, tossed them in a trashcan and wandered away.
March 11, 7:37 a.m.:
Rats! A resident called 911 to report that he had captured a rodent in his house but did not know what to do with it. An officer suggested that he take a short stroll to the nearby city gravel pit and release the rascal back to the wild.
March 11, 10:23 p.m.:
An owner was monitoring his business property remotely by security camera, and spotted a vehicle in his parking lot after hours. An officer responded to the call for police assistance, and found the vehicle was cold and unoccupied. The caller was advised that everything was secure at the business and there was no evidence of criminal activity, though it's likely he'd already seen that.
March 12, 12:05 a.m.:
Police in Kittery, Maine, asked Blaine police to watch for a man reported as missing and overdue. The Maine resident was en route to Anchorage, Alaska by car and reportedly had last spoken with a relative by cell phone from the Blaine area on March 6. Officers searched the community and did not find the man or his vehicle. The information was forwarded to other agencies in the area.
March 12, 2:21 a.m.:
An officer on overnight patrol saw that the dome light was on in an unoccupied vehicle in a driveway on B Street. The car did not appear to have been prowled and its security system was active. After weighing the chance of a possible morning jump-start against the certainty of waking the car's owner to come out in the driving rain at 2:30 a.m., the officer decided the owner would rather risk the jump-start. No one called in the morning to complain about the decision.
March 12, 10:55 a.m.:
A passerby complained that a construction company working on Jerome Street was not properly marking the roadway for the construction. An officer arrived and contacted the company. They advised that they were just cleaning up and leaving for the day, but would provide additional signage tomorrow.


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Why we created Paper.li
Clay Shirky: "It's not information overload. It's filter failure".
On the web, the amount of content vying for our attention is exploding. Some kind of content curation is thus needed, now more than ever. Such function has typically been provided by the editors of our daily newspapers or magazines. The last couple of years, however, has seen a shift in how we find & consume news. According to a recent Pew Internet study, 75% of news consumed online is through shared news from social networking sites or e-mail. The social network of a reader is becoming their personalized news wire.
Twitter has become a choice platform on which to share content socially. In fact, the service has so successfully simplified this act, that users are still (or once again) faced with the issue of content volume. What's more, for most of us, reading tweets in a dizzying stream is a sub-optimal experience to say the least. The act of sharing news socially has been solved, its efficient filtering and consumption has not.
This is where Paper.li comes in - filtering.
More than just presenting the news shared with you in an easy to read manner, Paper.li acts as a powerful relevance filter. To do so, Paper.li does 2 things behind the scenes: semantic analysis of shared content and it's ranking.
Semantic analysis
In order to provide an efficient content discovery and reading experience to a user, Paper.li needs to know more about the content being shared with that user. Paper.li thus semantically analyzes all URLs shared with the user, and assigns a topic (e.g. Technology, Health, Art, Environment, ...) to each. This is how Paper.li can provide topic sections in each paper.
Paper.li currently analyzes over 10 million links a day, in four languages: English, German, French and Spanish.
Contextual relevancy ranking
While semantic analysis of content helps in structuring its presentation (i.e. topic sections), there also needs to be a way to determine the relative importance of content items. This enables the presentation of news not in terms of chronological order, but in terms of relevance to the user. This ranking of content is done using Paper.li's own set of ranking algorithms, which take into account a mix of variables relating to both the context and the content.
Uses of Paper.li
Since we launched, we see the service being used in all kinds of manners. The obvious one has always been to read your own Twitter stream, i.e. a more personal usage. But over time, there is a clear trend towards using Paper.li in a more publishing mode, creating papers of interest to a wider community of users. While some personal papers of celebrities have a large readership, e.g. The Joe Rogan Daily, here are some other uses we see a lot of:
- work groups (based on Twitter lists or hash-tags)
- trade shows (generally based on Twitter hash-tags)
- news events (generally based on Twitter hash-tags)
- brands (generally based on Twitter or Facebook search queries)
- causes (generally based on Twitter hash-tags or search queries)
Launched last summer, Paper.li reached 2 million unique users in over 200 countries and publishes 150,000 online newspapers.
Where to from here
Here are some of the things we are working on:
- geographical expansion, including additional languages support for Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese & Chinese
- multi-device support, including smart-phones and tablets
- paper customization features, e.g. removing/replacing ads, manual content curation
- platform API - integrate other content sources, integrate Paper.li technology in other services & media sites, etc.
Paper.li basically wants to become smarter at what it already does as well as provide more publishing options to paper editors.
We are receiving hundreds of comments & feature requests on Twitter @smallrivers, this blog or by email email@example.com - keep it coming! We try our best to respond to all, and knowing more about your appreciation of the service and what you would like to see us doing in the future is key.


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This is a great time of year to get creative when it comes to wishing your nearest and dearest some festive cheer and creative agencies and individuals often also use it a chance to show off their talents or simply to have a bit of fun all in the name of
Christmas self-promotion.
We've picked a few of our faves below:
If you've got any other suggestions to add to this list please do let us know.
Have a great Christmas!
Little Printer -
We haven't 'Liked' something for a while but this just looks too cute to ignore. Thanks to the Creative Review Blog for the tip off.
Technical Director Lee Taylor talks about Silcon Roundabout
London Design Festival highlights -
If you're looking for edited highlights of the London Design Festival then Timeout might have the answer.
New RichMix website - a strong refresh
Everyone's favourite topic at the Key Trends seminar at last months' Online Marketing Show was of course mobile.
Fairly obvious but then again trends should be fairly obvious in order for them to become trends I suppose.
The main point about this particular trend seemed to be that there is still huge untapped potential with mobile and that even though millions are being made in app sales; most businesses still aren't fully exploiting the benefits of the platform.
Some interesting points were made about penetration and demographics of mobile users – iPhones apparently have an older, predominantly male user base where as android which has a far greater share of the market has a younger user base with greater equality between male and female users.
M-Commerce is big and going to get much bigger and is changing user behaviour – an example cited was that of a shopper who will browse the shelves of shop whilst simultaneously comparing the cost of a particular product across several sellers on their phone.
The idea of a physical shop becoming a showroom for users to look at, touch, feel, try a particular product with the purchase taking place elsewhere via the cheapest online vendor is a powerful one and something which I can certainly see becoming more and more prevalent as smartphones become commonplace.
Much excitement in the office at the return of Dallas!
Lovely illustration with one eye on commercial viability - great work from Vic Lee (as seen in the Creative Review Illustration Annual).
Relationship advice from the streets of Shoreditch - 'Lets Adore And Endure Each Other'


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Thanks, Scott! This is *exactly* what I was looking for. I'm planning to attend a small group industry conference in a month and am determined to lay out a game plan to make the most of the investment. Since I won't know ANYONE there, it's important to have a game plan to meet people and gather as much feedback as possible within the scope of the conference. One thing I'm definitely going to do is blog about it (and leave comments on the blogs of others with an interest in my area), so that I can refine my own thinking. The best outcome would be if someone read my stuff and, because they already know where I'm coming from, approach ME! :o))
By Scott Berkun, March 2003 (Read in Belorussian)
Conferences are what you make of them. If you're not sure why you're going, or what you want to get out of the experience, you're unlikely to get it. This essay gives one perspective on conferences, and how to make them more valuable and engaging experiences. Professional conferences take a very conservative approach to training and education, forcing attendees to take responsibility for getting value from the experience.
(Planning good conferences and training events is a separate topic. In short: Attention spans are short, yet most conferences have changed little).
Conversations are more valuable than the sessions
The surprise is the most interesting, informative and educational moments are not spent in the sessions themselves: it's in informal interactions with other attendees. The lectures, talks and panels might provide some new ideas, but are one-directional, and you can get the slides or books by the speakers later. However, the unique, personal, and insightful conversations you have with other people can only happen at the event.
This means that you need to invest time in connecting with other people. Like going to a party where you don't know anyone except the host, you must have a plan. Otherwise you'll end up standing alone in the corner, holding a beer, hoping someone will talk to you. If the conference is well designed, there should be workshops or BOFs (bird of a feather) sessions, where smaller groups meet for an afternoon or a full day, and talk about a specific subject of interest. Often these are scheduled early in a conference, granting you a people you know and can talk to through the rest of the conference.
How to spend your time
Aside from finding ways to meet people, consider the types of sessions available at most events. When I look at the advanced program for a conference, here's how I rank the different kinds of sessions:
- Contributing to something: All events have ways to participate. Anyone can submit a paper, panel session idea, or workshop proposal. There is no better way to meet others and access the most interesting and friendly people than participating. Even the process of submitting something is rewarding: you'll spend some time trying to express your work in a way that others can get value out of, which always improves your ability to think and communicate about what you do. Even if your submission isn't accepted, you will have benefited. You'll get feedback from the experts on the review committee about your work and your writing, which you could argue is a free service to you. Volunteering is a great way for anyone to transform a dull event into a fun and engaging one.
- Workshops: Academic events have slots for small/mid sized groups to spend serious time discussing a topic. The requirement for entry is usually a position statement, expressing your point of view on a subject, and your references supporting why you'd be a useful member of the workshop. These are consistently the most enlightening sessions, and give you the largest opportunity to meet and interact with intelligent people interested in a topic that you are interested in. Even in a bad workshop, ask around for people who want to go out to dinner. Sometimes the conversation over dinner is better than the workshop (but the workshop gives you access to the right people to have an interesting dinner conversation with).
- SIGs / BOFs : These tend to be loosely organized, and it's often hard to find out which ones there are. Basically these are informal workshops, called special interest groups or Birds of a feather sessions. Sometimes they're short meetings where people agree to create a new alias for discussion. Other times there is an agenda, with speakers, and it's like a mini-session. Anyone can start one of these by following the information listed in the advanced program. They'll help by giving you a room and a time.
- Tutorials : These are half and full day sessions with an invited speaker. You typically have to pay extra to attend these. The sessions are often lecture based, which means a lot of sitting and listening. If you need training on some aspect of your job, and can't find it local to you, tutorials are great. However, the sessions are often large, and for popular topics or teachers, can be hard to get into. Ask about tutorials you're interested in, especially about the quality of the speaker.
- Panels : A panel session has 4 or 5 invited speakers sharing a time slot together. In better panel sessions, there is a diversity of points of view, and everyone is comfortable sharing them. But too often, panelists shy away from the intended topic, or avoid disagreeing with their co-panelists. They often feel pressure to represent their company or organization, which inhibitsactive and provocative discourse. This is why most panel sessions suck. It's up to the organizer to avoid making this happen, but since they're grateful for the panelists to attend at all, it's usually hard to exert control over the tone of the session. Worse, some panels don't allow for discussion, giving too much time to prepared presentations from each panelist. For these and other reasons, panels are a wild card, and often result in a fairly bland experience for everyone involved. When it works though, and the right people are invited and facilitated by the organizer in the right way, it can be the most enlightening session you'll see at a conference.
- Posters: Some conferences have poster areas, where professionals or students put together summaries of their work for people to look at. This can often be a lot of fun. I like the fact that it's an active environment: you walk around to different displays, and drive the experience (instead of the persistent passivity of almost every other kind of conference session). Posters are a great thing to stroll through if you get bored in the other sessions. Sometimes there are scheduled times where the posters are manned, so you can ask questions of the people that did the work. This can be great fun. Don't be shy: usually they're thrilled that anyone is looking at their stuff, much less asking questions. However, posters have a short summary that appears in the proceedings, and if it's a research project, similar material probably exists on a website. So you can get some of this experience after the conference.(If you read a paper later and find it interesting, email the person that wrote it and tell them so. You'll get a direct line for any questions you might have).
- Demos: Some conferences have demo sessions, where each person or team gets 10 minutes to demo a specific design or research project. This can be fun to watch if the time limits are short: You'll see actual designs and work, and judge for yourself how useful or interesting it is. If the demos are short, it won't be long before one demo ends and another one takes the stage.
- Paper sessions: At more academic conferences, there are paper sessions, where the authors of selected paper submissions get a chance to talk for 15 minutes about their paper. This is the biggest waste of time for conference attendees. First, if there are proceedings, all of the papers are available to you to read or skim at your leisure (think: flight home). Worse, these folks were accepted on their ability to write a good paper, not on their ability to engage or communicate through a presentation. In many cases, the presenters simply talk through the same outline and structure that is in the paper, sometimes even scrolling through the actual text of the paper, reading highlight. It's a very poor use of 15 minutes of air time. Nothing will make the paper authors day more than to get a short note from a peer or a colleague telling them they enjoyed the paper. Even better: those short emails can lead to connections that might be reinforced at the next conference.
How to build a plan
A day before the event, sit down with the proceedings and the small guidebook or agenda that they often provide you with. Go through with a pen, and mark anything that looks interesting. If you find things that sound cool but vague, flip open the proceedings and check them out. If it looks like something better captured in a paper, then it's probably not worth going to. Circle all of the sessions that look interesting, and if two or more occur at the same time, flag the one you want to go to first.
Then during the actual conference, go to the first session you've marked. Have a plan to bail after 15 minutes if you're bored. Odds are it's not going to get better. Go to the next session in that time slot that interested you. Repeat the same thought process. Worst case, you can always return to one of the other sessions. The result is that you maximize your time spent in sessions you will actually enjoy, and minimize your time spent bored, hoping things will get better. If you run out of sessions to go to, head over to the trade show area if there is one. During sessions is a good time to introduce yourself to the various people manning the different booths. I've had some of my best conference experiences in conversations that started this way.
After hours conference socializing
Most conferences have scheduled social events or dinners one of the nights of the conference. I find these events are often nice, but are in places and environments where it's really hard to meet new people. Often, people spend most of their time at these events with people they already know, or the people they came to the conference with. If you are attending the conference alone, these events can feel very cliquish and elitist. I don't think anyone intends for this to be so, but often nothing is set up to minimize or inhibit this social tendency.
If you can manage it, you want to try to have met enough people in the workshops and other sessions in the previous day, that you can wander around at the social, and say hi to people. If you made some decent connections, you'll be able to jump in on some conversations about meet more people. If you have a few drinks, and can get into the right mindset, you can have a lot of fun bouncing around between different groups.
Structured receptions aside, everyone at a conference eats dinner, whether there is something set up through the conference or not. If you can find other folks and take them to dinner, you'll find its a great way to build some relationships. When 4:30 or 5pm rolls around, every single person at the conference is thinking about where they're going to go to dinner, and who they're going to go with. Try to set yourself up with a plan early in the day, and ask people you run into or meet what their plans are. Often they'll say that don't have any, which is your ticket to make some.
One idea I've used is to tell everyone I met that day to meet at 6pm at a hotel lobby, and for them to tell others the same. Then whoever shows up goes to a nearby restaurant together, breaking into groups if necessary. If you ask enough people odds are good you'll have a nice sized group. If things go well, and you've got a fun crowd, you might head out for drinks afterwards.
I think smart conferences provide ways to facilitate this, by having guides or delegates from the conference lead this sort of process, especially for people that have never been to the conference before. It's in their interest to help people make social connections at the conference: the more connections new attendees make, the more likely they are to return.
Take advantage of the trip
If you traveled to another city or country to attend the conference, take advantage of the opportunity. Most corporations will allow you an extra day or two, especially if you're willing to cover those extra expenses (tell the hotel this when you check in, so you can get separate receipts). Part of what can make a conference effective is it's ability to give you new perspectives and ideas, and a great way to facilitate that is to take advantage of what's unique about the venue you are in.
- Avoid chain restaurants and stores. You can go to these places at home. If you have to pay out of your own pocket for better/more interesting food or experiences, it's worth it. Also stay away from hotel restaurants. They tend to provide decent but safe and tame food choices.
- Stay at the conference hotel if you're new, but otherwise.. If you want to maximize your chances to meet and socialize, staying at the conference hotel can be a plus. But otherwise, take a chance and stay in a bed and breakfast, or somewhere downtown. Often they are about as expensive as professional hotels (sometimes much cheaper), and might only be an extra block or two away. I've found that having a short stroll each morning through an actual neighborhood in that city, gives a very different perspective on attending a conference, than only taking an elevator ride to the conference level of the same hotel. Most American hotels look and feel exactly the same. Many bed and breakfasts have individual charm and character, often in the spirit of the locale.
- Take a road trip. Early in the conference ask around for people who might want to take a short road trip one night, or skip out on one afternoon's sessions. If you end up going with other conference attendees, you have no reason to feel guilty about this. Your odds of learning something, and making connections are probably infinitely greater if you do something together outside of the conference, than if you do something inside.
The benefits and drawbacks of going with coworkers
It's common to attend a conferences with coworkers. This can be great. You're likely to bond more, and spend time together in a way that doesn't happen at work. I've made lots of friends from work by meeting them for the first time at conferences. It's natural that if you work the trade show booth with someone, you're likely to learn a lot about them, and have a chance to meet people who may share your sense of humor.
However, if you have 2 or 3 friends that you're traveling with, you might find it easy to fall into a pattern where you spend most of your time with them. If it's assumed you'll all eat dinner together every night, odds are your not going to meet many new people, or experience other kinds of social situations. I'm not suggesting you should avoid your coworkers (though sometimes there's good reason to), instead, just be aware of how you are spending your time.
One trick is to go to dinner together with coworkers, but require that everyone bring someone they met at the conference ( the only downside to this is you potentially can bore them to death, if you and your coworkers have trouble not talking about your company).
Relax and have a good time
I've seen many folks take conferences way too seriously. I find that I learn much better if I'm having fun, and enjoying the people I'm with. I can't do that if I'm fixated on getting to every session on time, or not staying out too late, or trying to achieve any specific objective. If I'm relaxed and enjoying my time away from the office, I'm more open to new ideas and approaches for what to do when I get back. I believe strongly that this is the primary reason my employer is sending me: to learn. Therefore, it's my job to figure out what kind of environment and state of mind I need to be in tobest facilitate that objective.
I'm not saying that business trips and conferences should be converted into vacations. Instead, I think everyone should be thinking about what the real opportunities to learn are, and that they tend not to happen if you're fixated on cramming in as much knowledge or sessions in as short a time as possible. Instructional design and educational psychology principles support this. The first rule of training you learn is that most people don't learn very much when they are under stress.
And as much as we like to think we're critical to our teams and companies, they can live without us for a few days. Plan your time before your trip so that while you're away, you can stay away. If you have people that work for you, set them up to cover for expected situations that might arise. Give them your hotel phone number or cell, and let them call you if they need you. Otherwise, you don't need to check in or check your email every day. Really, you don't. You think you do, but you don't.
If you find it hard, I bet it's email addiction, more so than a real logical reason to see what's going on without you. I personally find it hard to stay away the first day, but after that, it's not so bad. I usually try to remember to sync up my email before the flight back, so I can catch up on the plane flight home.
How to justify going to conferences
These days its harder for folks to justify attending conferences. I have a few suggestions that might help towards making the case to go.
- You are an asset to your company. All assets require maintenance and enhancements. If instead of being a person, you were a piece of machinery, part of the corporate budget would go towards maintaining and upgrading you. Well, despite being human, you are an asset to the company. They should be investing the same percentage of budget towards maintaining and upgrading your skills as they do for the rest of the corporate assets.
- Offer to train others in what you learned when you return. You can pitch your trip to a conference as a way to bring back skills and knowledge to the rest of the organization. If you have any experience in training or teaching, you can use that as your justification to attend instead of other co-workers. Get extra copies of the tutorial notes from other sessions. This is often a cheap way to get some extra coverage.
- Trip report.Arguably one form of teaching others, the trip report is a write up of the sessions you attended, written for other folks in your group. The best trip reports make it easy for folks to dig up the right reference, or trigger people to come ask you questions. There's rarely much value in 10 page trip report documents: no one reads them. Instead, a 2 or 3 page summary, with URLs and pointers to stuff for specific questions gets much more mileage.
- Connect the value of the conference to business goals. If ease of use or customer satisfaction are company or division goals, you can claim that sending folks to conferences on those subjects will help pull in more expertise and knowledge towards helping the business. This argument puts less of the focus on your professional goals, and more on the company.
- Recruiting. One of the reasons to send people to conferences is to recruit for open positions. If your team has had trouble filling certain jobs, or know that new openings are coming for your group, you can offer to do recruiting work while you're there. Most conferences have job posting boards, or allow you to rent a booth for your company at the trade show.
- Professional development. If you have career discussions with you manager, tie your career goals and future development to specific kinds of training or growth opportunities that you need. This might force you to rethink which conferences you're going to (the cool conference might not be the one that's likely to help your career/skill growth the most). In some organizations, folks will get to go to conferences provided they are presenting or participating in a session. If you don't know what your group's policy is, ask.
- Split the costs. If you believe the conference is needed for your professional development, then you should want to attend regardless of who pays. Offer to split the costs. Or ask just for the time off without having to use up vacation time, and you pay your own way. This can be a way to prove the value of the conference, if you return with great stuff and teach others on your team. But it can also set a precedent for you paying your own way. You might position it as a trial: if you can show that it's valuable, your manager will pay next time.
Random tips that didn't fit anywhere else
Some of these might be general travel tips, but they're related – here goes:
- Don't use the conference bag, or lug around all the crap they give you. First, it makes you a mark as a tourist to carry the conference bag around outside the conference. Second, traveling in packs of people all using the same bag, all wearing name tags, makes you look like a cult member. You rarely need to lug around all of the stuff they give you (I recommend dropping off the proceedings at my hotel room as soon as I get it). Instead bring a light bag, with enough room for the small conference handbook/schedule, some paper, a pen, maybe something to eat, and some business cards. Travel light. You'll feel much better at the end of the day if you haven't been carrying 15 lbs of stuff all day. Don't bring your laptop so you can read your email. Go talk to someone instead.
- Don't wear your badge outside the conference. There is nothing sillier than a grown adult with a name tag (Unless it says Rupert or Cornelius on it). When you go back to your room, or leave the conference hotel, you are no longer at the conference. Take the badge and put it in your pocket, or with your wallet/purse so you don't lose it.
- Ship your proceedings and stuff back to your office. If there are proceedings and other materials, such as books you've purchased, arrange to have them sent back to your office. Find a nearby shipping store, and drop off your stuff the day before you leave. This saves you the burden of packing 10 lbs of stuff into your luggage or carryon. Sometimes the conference center has a little office that will do this for you. It's usually not too expensive and you may be able to expense it.
- Sit near the back if your not planning on staying. If I'm at a conference that has concurrent sessions, which most do, I usually plan on bailing if I don't like it in 10 or 15 minutes. Knowing this, I tend to sit in the back. It makes it easier to leave without annoying people or the speaker. The downside to this tip is that sitting in the back does make it harder to connect with the speaker in the first place. An alternative is to always try to grab an aisle seat.
- Ask lots of questions. Learning is a contact sport. If you don't make your experiences engaging for yourself, you are guaranteed to be bored. Talk to speakers, paper authors, booth people, the folks sitting next to you, whoever. Ask for recommendations for books, websites or other conferences. If you don't become an active participant in your own learning, don't be surprised if not much of what you experience is relevant to you.
- Some conferences serve breakfast, some don't. Know this before you end up 15 minutes into the first session, sitting in the middle of the room (making it hard to get up and leave), and realize you're starving. Same for lunch or snacks. Sessions tend to start early, so you probably won't have time to grab something before the conference if you don't plan for it.
- Get some exercise every day. Yeah, I've said this before, but it's worth saying again. Your mind functions better if your body has been active too. Most hotels, especially the fancy corporate conference center types, have nice weight rooms or pools. Take the time to get some exercise at least every other day. Skip a morning session or skip out early if you have to, to find time for this. If you hate exercise, and are in a city, go for a long walk instead of taking a cab.Personally, if I don't exercise every day I'm really not a nice person to be around, and I struggle with sitting and listening for hours on end.I stress out easier, and am generally less happy.I think most people are more likely to enjoy the conference,and return home healthy if they break a sweat a few times while they're away.
- Take smart notes. Think about what the notes are good for – you're writing for the future version of you. What level of detail do you need?
Finding conferences to go to
There are a few different places to go, depending on what field your looking for. ACMis a good place to start for any computer science related field. Most of their subgroups have annual conferences. Google searches with your topic of interest + "conference" can often be the fastest way to find leads.
For UI design related stuff, the STC maintains a good list here .
Last notes and conferences I've attended
Your mileage may vary on all of the above. Everyone has different travel and learning preferences. So I don't recommend following this essay very closely. Instead, I hope it helps to raise some questions and thoughts about what you might want in a conference, and how you might go about getting the most of the time you spend there.
For reference here's a list of professional conferences I remember going to.I've been to many others, but these are the major ones I can remember. The recommendations in this essay may be biased towards CHI since i've been there a few times:
CHI 2002, Minneapolis, MN
CHI 2001 Seattle, WA (Presented)
CHI 2000 The Hague, Netherlands (Presented + Interactionary!)
IDSA DesignAbout 2000, Seattle, WA
Interact 99, Edinburgh, Scotland, (Presented)
Tech Ed 99, Dallas, Texas (Presented)
CHI 99 Pittsburgh, PA
Microsoft PDC, San Jose, CA 97 (Presented)
Internet World 97
Internet World 96
WWW7 Paris, France (Presented)
CHI 97, Atlanta, Georgia (Presented)
CHI 96 Vancouver, BC, Canada
CHI 95 Denver, Colorado
24 Responses to "#24 – How to get the most out of conferences"
R. Mullen |
Rob |
Did you stop going to conferences for the last 7 years?
Scott Berkun |
Hi Rob: No, just haven't bothered to come back here to update the list :) It's much longer now, for better or worse.
E. Pyatt |
Excellent recommendations – especially the one about wearing the badge outside the conference. The last thing I want to do in a "foreign" city is to look like a tourist. I suspect wearing conference swag away from the hotel is a good way to become a target of crime on top of looking silly.
The co-worker issue is interesting. Ideally I think it's good to mix mingle time with co-worker time, but I really appreciate the co-worker bonding time, especially if it's someone you don't work with everyday back at home.
One thing you didn't mention was co-worker presentations. Do you want to support your co-workers or do you want to learn something new from outside the organization? A guideline I have is if I can attend all sessions from my organization the entire day, then I tend to favor learning from outside the organization.
One tip I might add is to attend some of the planned lunches/sit-down dinners. I find that when everyone is at a table, the conversation tends to be more inclusive (at least some of the time). Or if not, you can at least listen in without appearing rude (unlike a cocktail party). Lunch can also be a good time to "mingle" away from co-workers, because you can regroup for dinner or drinks later.
Ron M |
Liked this article too. Good advice. Following the event on Twitter is all the rage now too. For example #united2010 (A fresh produce convention in LV) is running as I write this. Great way to meet folks, find good swag, learn about interesting happenings, even food places.
Ivan |
Great advise. Thanks for sharing
Jennifer |
This is very good and practical information, thankyou
Paul@Training & Conference Venues |
The tips are pretty useful as I go to lots of conferences around the world. To be honest, going to a conference with coworkers can be really awkward, especially if you feel tired at the end of the day, and you want to escape the evening dinner.
Tom |
This is all spot-on advice. I attend my share of conferences (LISA, Gartner, etc) and he's hit one of the big ones:
Avoid (only) hanging out with your coworkers. Meet other people, and learn from their experiences. Take something NEW back to your company that you've learned from someone you've never met before.
Scott has also "solved" the "4 hours to decide on dinner" problem. *You* pick a restaurant, and all day invite people you meet to be in the lobby at a certain time. Leave on time with whoever is there. 90% of the time people don't really care *where* they eat as long as it is quiet enough for conversation and has acceptable food. Don't try to over-optimize to find the absolute best dinner solution. Go for "good enough" and on time.
Richard Leigh |
Hi Scott,
Just posted a link piece to your essay here. Hope you enjoy… I've summarised and adapted it for our particular purposes. http://campfirefff.tumblr.com/post/17671438777/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-conferences
Richard Leigh |
oh, and did i say… thanks for all the great thoughts & tips!
Trina |
Hi Scott! This is exactly what I needed to know going into my first symposium. Good and practical!
http://www.mrwolfe.nu/what-i-do/ |
Excellent blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I'm planning to start my own site soon but I'm a little lost on everything.
Would you suggest starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option?
There are so many options out there that I'm totally overwhelmed ..
Any ideas? Thanks!
Jaqueline Friedberg |
It is your point of reference in how we conduct our actions often changes our viewpoint. Sometimes this alteration is good and sometimes this alteration is bad but it is our point of view that influences the way we feel.
[...] already say Phillip Jeffrey at lunch. I skimmed Scott Berkun's tips on conference attendance and am doing my best to move around, have backups and talk to [...]
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[…] Scott Berkun says that you shouldn't be afraid to leave a session if you aren't enjoying it. There is no point hanging around bored, unhappy or otherwise dissatisfied for 60 – 90 minutes when you could be riveted somewhere else. Give speakers 15 minutes to warm up to their subjects and impress you, and if they fail, walk out – quietly and unobtrusively – to try the next session on the list. […]
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Investing In the Natural Gas Highway and Related Transportation
Joseph is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
The future of long-haul transit and commerce may be in liquid natural gas (LNG). Depending on which state and market, liquid natural gas as a fuel source can be as much as $1.50 a gallon cheaper than traditional gasoline or diesel fuel. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions significantly (23%-30%) when compared to these other, more traditional fuel sources. LNG also has the potential capability of leading America to energy independence, because according to the US Department of Energy, 98% of the natural gas consumed in the nation comes from North America.
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Natural gas powered vehicles are getting their filling stations, and Clean Energy Fuels is on the front lines, building up America's natural gas infrastructure. Investors looking to invest in America's Natural Gas Highway, as well as domestic natural gas transportation in general, should keep an eye on Clean Energy Fuels. Cummins and Westport are also companies to consider for natural gas transportation exposure. There are many ways to play the upcoming potential boom in natural gas, and companies correlated with LNG-powered transportation, or the building of LNG infrastructure, are a good way to get exposure to the gas.
Jharry1 owns shares of General Electric Company. The Motley Fool owns shares of Clean Energy Fuels, Cummins, General Electric Company, and Westport Innovations. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Clean Energy Fuels, Cummins, and Westport Innovations. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is this post wrong? Click here. Think you can do better? Join us and write your own!


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Dean's Advisory Council
John Willis
Managing Partner
Willis Stein & Partners
Recently retired, John Willis was responsible for managing the affairs of Willis Stein and the firm's private equity funds. He was responsible for initiating investment opportunities, structuring acquisitions, coordinating due diligence, negotiating debt financings, working with portfolio company management teams on an ongoing basis and arranging for the disposition of investments.
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Photo Friday: Tiny
Canon 20D, Canon 100-400L IS @400 mm f/5.6 1/200
In the winter, seeds and berries are often scarce, and birds
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