The Big Terrible Thing
I enjoyed reading Matthew Perry’s memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. If you are looking for lots of Friends’ stories, you will be disappointed. This book is about Matty’s struggles with addiction.
Because I do not read the tabloids, the depth of his struggles was news to me. I had heard of drugs during one of the seasons of Friends. Which famous actor or musician overindulge in alcohol or drugs from time to time? Could it be more cliche? Reading this memoir, his addiction was at another level. It was hell.
The New York Times headline was on point: The One Where Matthew Perry Writes an Addiction Memoir.
December 8, 2023
In Spain, It Is Not About the Food or the Drink. It Is About the Company and the Conversations.
On a recent trip through the South of Spain, it struck me how one just orders a red wine or a beer. You don’t order a Rioja El Diablo 2015 or a Tripel Trappist beer from the monks in West Malle. You order the type of drink and that’s it.
In Sevilla, a red wine is often a basic Rioja and a beer is definitely Cruz Campo, a local brew. There aren’t many other beers on the menu. Belgian beer conglomerate InBev must be scratching their head why there incredible beer selection hasn’t found any footing in the South of Spain.
The answer is becoming more clear to me. It is all about the people you meet at the bar, and not about what your drink or what you eat. Just order some tapas and something you like to drink - beer or wine. The main course is the conversation of what happened last week or last night.
Luckily you don’t have to settle for cabbage rolls and vodka here. Gambas al ajillo, patatas bravas, or boquerones aren’t too shabby. Add a cold beer or any Spanish wine and you have a great starter menu.
And thus, many conversations and night adventures commence. Until around midnight that is, when for some local ordinance, this place closes down faster than a restaurant with rats in the kitchen.
November 4, 2023
Time for Cycling to Look Across the Pond
Rumors of serious shake ups in the cycling world have been rampant this year. “Remco is going to team Ineos”. “Wout is joining team Lefevre”. If you believe today’s rumor, this last one actually may be true, as “Jumbo-Visma and Quickstep are merging”. The world of cycling is turning into a Formula One circus.
This is one of the golden ages of cycling. Impressive young riders are making the sport attractive for television with their exuberant and attacking riding style. Netflix is putting a spotlight on the behind the scenes drama. Women cycling is equally fascinating and gaining in popularity. There are races year around with lots of young men and women competing in them.
And yet, new money should be pouring into the sport and giving oxygen to many new teams. That is not happening. Instead of consolidating around a few super teams like UAE, Jumbo-Visma, or Ineos, let’s share the richness.
Jumbo-Visma winning the three grand tours - the first time any team achieves this - is not a victory for the sport. It is a trophy in the trophy case in ’s-Hertogenbosch.
Let’s look across the pond at basketball in the US. In the seventies, this was a third tier sport with lots of fights on and off the court. Nobody thought it was worth investing. Jerry Bush and the LA Lakers changed that. After the dominance of the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics was finally broken by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. All three were super teams. After the interim years of Shaq and Kobe, the sport changed dramatically. Nowadays, there are so many great players and many teams with a strong bench. Having a star studded team like my Golden Gate Warriors is no longer a guarantee for winning the championship anymore. The winner of it all is basketball and the NBA.
By contrast, let’s consider European soccer. A few big teams underwritten by oil money and creative financial constructions dominate the sport. Other teams content themselves as talent feeder clubs. Let’s write it down once more: Manchester City, Bayern Munchen, Real Madrid, Ajax, and Paris St Germain will win their respective leagues. Juventus is having some “Italian” problems. How boring has this all become?
Cycling should take a page from the NBA playbook and broaden the sport. Through salary caps and the equivalent of a draft, let’s build separate tour teams around Vinegard, Roglic, Evenepoel or Thomas and classic teams around Wout, Mathieu or Mads. There is lots to gain in the long run from a wide peloton. The next months will tell which direction the UCI will steer (pun intended) the sport.
September 24, 2023
2023 Miles in 2023
Entering 2023, I had two goals: participate in the Aids Lifecycle Ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and ride 2023 miles in 2023.
In June, I completed ALC 2023 and rode every single inch to arrive in Santa Monica.
The ride to LA surely added to my overall yearly mileage. When I checked Strava today, my cycling miles stood at 2,159 miles. I surpassed my 2023 mileage goal! 75 rides, over 85,000 ft elevation gain, and more than 163 hours in the saddle. I am proud of this meager achievement.
Let’s finish 2023 strong. There are still a few months left. I hope to ride at least 50 miles weekly on average.
September 10, 2023
Lisbon, Where Seafood Is King, Coffee and Beer Are Weak, and the Lifestyle Is Amazing
Purposely I hadn’t read much ahead of our trip to Lisbon. I wanted to be surprised by Portugal and Lisbon. I wanted to “follow my nose” in and around the city. My wife had done an amazing job planning our few days in the city, with outings to Cascais and Sintra, and lining up some great restaurants. Reservations are a must if you want a spot in one of the small restaurants during the high tourist season.
Our few days in Lisbon, at the tail of the World Youth Days when the city was bustling with youngsters, turned out to be amazing. The city near the bay and with its many restaurants and bars, is fun and happening. No wonder lots of young professionals want to work remotely from Lisbon for a few months.
The weather during our visit was hot, especially by Lisbon standards. On day one, the temperature was forty degrees Celsius. That was the perfect set up to explore the city during the cooler night too.
Fish is everywhere on the menu. I mean everywhere: sardines, cockles, muscles, octopus, and of course bacalau (cod). It is served in many styles: grilled, fried, or in a stew. It is surprising to learn that bacalau is hardly a local fish. Portugal imports tons of cod from Norway and other countries.
We tasted great Portugese white wines. Many of the them and their wine regions were unknown to me.
Beer in Southern Europe tends to be limited in their selection and of the lighter and crispier style. A refreshing drink on a hot day: Superbock and Sagres. A large beer is a few Euros.
I was underwhelmed by the coffee culture. Sure, there are cafes, yet, the coffee offerings are sub par. You may get a cappuccino made with milk or heavy cream. That is a bit surprising for a sailing folk, who conquered Brazil, and aren’t that far from Italy and Spain.
Lisbon is a very affordable city for tourists. Getting around town can be challenging. After all, the city is built on seven hills, so be prepared for some steep climbs. Don’t rent a car. Use public transportation. The iconic trams tend to be overly crowded. So we didn’t try them. A 30 minutes train ride is a few Euros. Hop on a tuk-tuk (prices differ on the size of your party) or Uber. We criss-crossed the city in Uber for 4 Euros(!).
We had a great time in Lisbon. It is a fun and vibrant city. There is a lot going on all the time. This is a city that lives!
August 10, 2023
More Than Just Cod
When visiting Portugal, it is easy to assume that the cuisine is cod all the time. On the menu of many restaurants in Lisbon you find cod. You assume that cod is a local fish. And yet, Portugues do not fish for cod in their own waters. Cod does not live in warm waters off the coast of Portugal. These fish prefer the colder waters of Iceland and Norway. As a matter of fact, 70% of all cod consumed in Portugal is imported from Norway.
So why is it that cod is on the menu of so many Portuguese restaurants?
First of all, Portuguese are fishing folk. They have been fishing the North Atlantic for centuries. In the 15th century, Portuguese explorers discovered cod fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. This led to a boom in the Portuguese cod fishery, and cod became a staple food in Portugal. Even in the US, Portuguese are now to be fishers. it was the Portuguese who ruled the Monterey, CA sardine canneries.
Secondly, cod is a very abundant fish that is easy to catch.
Thirdly, cod is an inexpensive fish, which makes it affordable for people of all income levels in Portugal.
Lastly, cod is a mild flavored fish, appealing to many people.
The result is that cod is the most commonly consumed fish in Portugal. The Portuguese consume an average of 10 kilograms of cod per person per year. This sounds a lot, yet, Argentines consume 110 kg per year of their favorite protein, beef. Portugal is the world’s largest importer of cod. There are over 365 different cod dishes in Portuguese cuisine, one for each day of the year. Bacalhau à Brás is one of the most popular cod dishes in Portugal. It is made with shredded cod, potatoes, eggs, and onions.
Even so, when visiting Lisbon, go beyond the traditional cod dish. At Nossa Casa, a hard to get into small restaurant in the heart of Lisbon, when tasted an amazing cod in cream dish.
August 8, 2023
On Public Transportation
A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.
It is a place where you may run into Michael Bloomberg or Paul McCartney on the metro or train.
I write this from Lisbon, surrounded many thousands of youngsters attending World Youth Days (WYD. The logistics of this event must have been immense. Where do these hundreds of thousands of kids sleep? How does one feed that many youngsters? How do you set up port-a-potties for the 1.5 million people who attended the closing Mass with the Pope?
One thing was for sure. It was easy to get around town. Because Lisbon, like many European cities, has a great public transportation system, they had the infrastructure to support an event like this. A bus ride is 2 Euros. A 40 minutes train ride is 3 Euros, and trains run every 20-30 minutes. Out daughter, attending WYD, got a full pass to all public transportation systems. For the entire week, she could hop on any bus, tram, train, or metro system for free. What a wonderful thing! And what a way to absorb the influx of people into the city.
Imagine how this would work out it in the US. It would be a hotchpotch of temporary private bus and shuttle systems. When the event is over, we would be back to an inferior transportation system. Hello Los Angeles or the Bay Area!
Many years ago, I used to take bus 66 or the Mountain View VTA light rail to work. It was very slow, expensive, and perilous. VTA is in no way prepared to handle hundreds of thousands of people. Sadly, the Bay Area transportation system targets only few, often those of the lower social strata.
I hope that the youngsters from all over the world attending World Youth Days, or Jornada Mundial da Jugentude as it is called in Portugues, remember one more thing, in addition to the many life lessons they picked up from this experience. And that is the luxury and importance of advocating for a great public transportation system.
August 7, 2023
Cav, From Cycling Rodeo Cowboy to the Best Sprinter of the Tour De France
Mark Cavendish is the most successful sprinter in Tour de France history. With 34 stage wins to his name, he equals the record of the goat, Eddy Merckx.
Sprinters are a rare breed. All day, over 200km, they ride in the peloton, with the single hope to unleash their power in the last 350 meters of a race. They are the rodeo cowboys of cycling. Eight seconds is often all it takes. A great lead out train is a must. These are three or four team mates who single file guide the sprinter at an ever increasing speed to the finish line. There is some pushing and shoulder leaning to keep the sprinter in position. The sprinters hang on in the slip stream until the very last moment. Bam! That’s when they go. Mark Cavendish is the best of them over the past two decades.
It has taken me many years to warm up to Cav. He was rarely graceful in his victories. He was always on edge. Tantrum boy. He fought with anyone who asked a pointed question. His sprints weren’t as clean as he wanted you to belief.
My view on Cav changed when two years ago, the godfather of the peloton, Patrick Lefevre, added him back to his squad, in extremis. Cavendish’s career was all but over, He was physically not in form either. And yet, Patrick picked him up, on a gut feeling he says. No big contract. Heck, no real salary to speak of. It was a way to retire in style.
The luck of the draw came when anothe sprinter, Sam Bennet, threw a fit. Officially he suffered from knee pain. Unofficially, he wanted to join a different team. This created a vacancy on the Quickstep tour selection and Mark Cavendish was all too happy to take it. One more time sprinting for glory (and bonuses).
After years in a downward spiral, the tour of 2021 changed it all when he sprinted for the win: tour stage win number 30. He would add three more and in the green jersey he equalized the record of Eddy Merckx. It was one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history. Mark was grateful and showed a lot of grace. Finally.
Netflix’s Cavendish brings us the other side of the comeback, with the dark days, the family troubles, the mental and physical struggles. Hats off to a great warrior on two wheels.
What was next for Cavendish? He could have retired gloriously on the Champs Elysees. But that’s not the Mark Cavendish we got to know in the Netflix show. He continued on with the Astana team. He won another stage win in the Giro d’Italia and was ready for a final Tour de France, in search for that record breaking stage win. Except his retirement was cut short by a crash in the 2023 Tour de France. Cavendish fractured his collarbone in the crash and was forced to abandon the race.
I bet we will see him back, one more time.
August 6, 2023
Using iA Presenter for Impromptu Presentations and Keeping Notes in One Place
Last October, I explored new presentation tools. I was intrigued by the presentation as code idea, where you craft your presentation in text form, and the actual slides are generated for you. I started experimenting with Obsidian’s advanced slides plugin and with iA Presenter, a brand new tool from Information Architects..
This was all before the advent of generative artificial intelligence, changing many productivity and business tools.
Here’s a quick update on my experiment with iA Presenter.
After several iterations, the tool was officially released in 2023. I ended up buying a license to it, as it had served me well. I am able to create and evolve a good looking presentation in no time from a markdown text file. Being able to add a background image per slide was a great improvement.
Overall, you need to be willing to let iA Presenter do the layout. You give up control for a different and faster creation process. You can not add text, images or diagrams as you want. I ended up creating diagrams outside of the tool using a variety of tools. (There are even tools that create flowcharts from text file if you want to be extreme in your use of Markdown.)
Initially I linked to images by URL. Yet, I found that I had more options when I added the images to the tool. This increases the presentation directory size. When generating images using artificial intelligence with Dall-E, downloading and importing is the only way. I wish there was the ability to specify a common image directory, in addition to having it local to each presentation.
As my teammates do not have the tool, I have not been succesful with a collaborative creation process. I had shared the Markdown file in git in the hopes folks would edit the presentation in the source text format. That has not worked out. It requires a change of religion for many. I also share a draft presentation in PDF format for feedback. However, that’s been cumbersome for my colleagues.
Although iA added Export to PowerPoint, I haven’t used it. I imagine this will become more useful when folks will want to “borrow” slides to embed in their own presentations.
Because everything is a text file, I started using the tool truly as a notes+presentation combo. I write my narrative or idea out and intersperse the slides for when I need to present them. My text file therefore becomes quite long as it includes the full essay or proposal. The benefit however is that it all in one place. I don’t need to update both a Google Doc and set of slides.
There are a few features I hope can be added over time. First of all the ability to fold the Markdown so you can have a clear overview and outline of the presentation. Secondly, export select pages to PDF. (There is an easy workaround to this by duplicating the presentation and deleting the slides you don’t want). Thirdly, to support my notes+presentation combo use case, it would be create to be able to export only the non-slide content (my narrative).
I use the tool daily and foresee I will continue to use it in the notes+presentation mode. Yet, I do plan to experiment also with a few AI-powered presentation tools, such as the new Canva and Prezi, as well as Slidebean and coPilot for PowerPoint. I am however not a fan of the $10/month subscription model to try and use the AI tools.
Lastly, it is important to note that the support from Information Architects has been great. Even though they are a small team, I get great and direct answers to my questions.
August 4, 2023
Strava, Meet Facebook Groups and Facebook Messenger
Strava is the place for athletes and weekend warriors to track their runs, bicycle rides, or swims. It is where your team mates will laud your successes and support you through your failures. I’ve been using Strava Pro for many years now.
However, Strava lacks an important feature: the ability to organize, discuss, coordinate, and schedule your team events. Strava Clubs allow you to be part of a group. Yet, that’s about it. There is no option to create an event (publicly or privately). It lacks also the social community aspect, where you can discuss gear discounts, plan team outfits, or share advise on how to repair your bicycle.
In the teams I am part of, the organizers went to Meetup or Facebook Groups and Messenger to do that. To be honest, I am not a big fan of having to go to Facebook Groups for this. You quickly get sucked in to doomscrolling.
Facebook may be the watercooler for many, Strava can become the locker room for all active folks.
July 31, 2023