Rachel got a new car! A 2009 Honda Fit Base Automatic - a distinct upgrade from the 1988 Toyota Corolla FX. The safety improvement is incredible, let along all the other modern features! The biggest problem was me forgetting my checkbook when we went to pick it up. The economy is definitely having issues though as we got this for a hundred bucks under invoice, which is fairly amazing for a Honda. Of course even the famed honda reliability has limits, my 95 accord had the front rotors warp fairly badly so I just had to get those replaced which was annoyingly expensive as they are press fit rotors which require extra effort. Anyway super happy with the fit, it's fun to drive, exceptionally roomy (which is amazing given it is only an inch longer than the FX it replaces.) and generally awesome!

We participated in the 2008 San Francisco SantaCon this year and had a blast. We started at pier 39 with several hundred other santas and roamed the city from there, providing SF tourists with some good stories and holiday cheer. Many photos were taken, view a selection of them here in the Santacon SF Gallery. Enjoy the video clip of santas dancing at 4pm in a north beach club, watch it now! Don't forget about going to Santacon next year.

We recently went to an open house at Heath Ceramics. A high end ceramics manufacturer in Sausalito and definitely an interesting visit. As a hobbiest potter, I was a little torn as to what to think about their setup. The 'handcrafted' portion of what they do is very minimal compared to what a traditional defined potter does. They use forms, slip-casting, and jiggers to make pretty much everything. The human element seems most prevelent in cleaning up the pieces before firing, and glazing them. I certainly understand why they do things the way they do, it is a fine line to walk to be able to make enough pieces to actually be a large business that can do global orders and still have some of the desirable characteristics of traditional pottery. Throwing by hand takes forever in comparision an automated factory lacks character. For example they can form a large bowl in 30 seconds with their not quite totally mechanized process. Cleaning it up, getting it glazed with a airbrush, and fired doesn't take much longer it terms of human time that goes in the bowl. The bowls will be almost exactly the same but just slightly different enough from each other that they have much more character than something that really is produced in a modern automated factory somewhere that turns up in a big box store for 30 bucks.

My qualms with the "marketing message" vs what I percieve as "the reality of the situation" aside, they have a great facility. Huge kilns with drop down walls made of spun glass are super efficent and I'm massively envious of them, big dry rooms, awesome glazing stations, and a wonderful clay mixing/recyling room. The tour was great because during the openhouse they actually have people at the various stations showing how all the tools work (typically the tours wouldn't have any demonstrations) and the workers are quite capable of knocking out piece after piece - though we were on the last tour and I suspect the workers all wanted to go home and get some use out of their weekend. ;) Their tiles were really nice and I know from making tiles myself what a pain it can be to do those right. The designs are all nice, mostly post modern, that for the most part have been around for 40+ years. The founder was a potter and is exhibited in various design museums, and I suspect her name and the assicated prestige of Heath ceramics really helps them in the business and global marketplace as being a status symbol since while they can knock out maybe more pieces than a tradition potter they are still very limited in production compared to a huge factory in China. I think that if one were able to afford it the pieces are great and much better than your big box store stuff. They do have seconds and overruns on tile availble at a discount, and the openhouses each year they sell everying at 20% off which is even better. If I ever end up with a house that needs some tile I would definitely check them out.

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Four plane rides and we have managed to get to Chan Chich Eco Lodge. The little plane was quite fun. :) The lodge is very luxurious and jungley, it has been raining quite a lot and all the rivers are super high but it was very nice the day we came in and it isn't currently raining - we slept 13 hours last night so that is a win. I am currently fighting off a bit of a cold but hopefully will make it, this place is so relaxing it's hard to imagine getting sick. We are having a great time so far!

Wedding Photos are available and have been for a while I've just been lazy about posting. You can see then in the gallery here on the blog. You can also see and order them from shutterfly.com The password to view them is 20080816 and you will need to make an account to be able to order.

Just in time for the debates, have yourself a chuckle at palinvoodoo.com's Sarah Palin Voodoo doll.

Speaking of politics, I really need to stop watching the news because the GOP's general horribleness frightens and angers me to no end.

Whirled is just what it sounds like, an online "world" har har - oh my side! Written in Flash, and thus very accessible from all the major browsers and computer platforms. Part casual gaming, part social networking, part creators pallet - it is really quit unique and has an array of wildly different things to do. I personally was highly entertained by a little game called "Corpse Craft" whose game play is described as: "Build an army of re-animated corpses to destroy your foes in this puzzle-action hybrid." Which is quite apt. The art is great, the story and game play entertaining. You play a game of 'implode' or 'collapse' or whatever else you want to call it on the bottom of the screen. As you destroy groups of similarly colored blocks you increase the number of resource blocks of the same color. You spend those resources to launch different types of re-animated corpses across the screen. The different corpses have different abilities that you are trying to use to destroy your opponents corpse re-animation factory on the other side of the screen, who of course is sending re-animated corpses to try and destroy you. It starts off quit easy and gets much harder for the last few levels. Regardless quite fun and doesn't take ages to get through. [via]

Rachel Diaz-Bastin and Eric Lundberg got married at 5pm at Cafe de La Paz in Berkeley in front of friends and family. It was a great time and we'll have pictures up soon. Thanks to everyone who could make it, we are super happy!
-eric and rachel

So I did the Marin Century ride today, which was quite an event. The longest ride I had done before was 45 miles up to the top of Mount Tam, so this was a change! Mostly it is just a long time to be riding a bike. There are several large hills on the route as you can see on the map and there was a bit of a cross wind and head wind from time to time. But, overall the weather was quite good. Sunny with a cool breeze most of the day as we were near the coast. The early morning views of valleys with clinging pieces of fog were classically Californian coast. There were 4 rest stops on the route, all with lots of good food and drink and restrooms. I had lunch part 1 at the second rest stop and lunch part 2 at the third rest stop. After about 60 miles my ass was starting to hurt - not surprisingly it continued to hurt more for the rest of the ride. My left calf threatened cramp up but never did. My right knee got a bit twingy after 80 miles and around 95 started to hurt if I put much force on it, so I mostly used my left leg to get me up the last big hill then coasted the rest of the way in. I thought it was interesting that I wasn't really slowed down by my cardio or my length strength but more due to the rest of me wearing out. That is to be expected I think since I didn't build up slowly to a 100 miles. The book The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling was pretty handy tool for figuring out what I needed to do to train, but I only had 6 weeks and there is only so much one can do. Oh and my right big toe had the outside edge go numb, but it's done that ever since that fateful backpacking trip in '98 so I was expecting it. I wore a lot of sunscreen but got a little bit burned on the back of my calves as the sun shifted around. I also had some king of bug fly into my shirt and get caught which involved me then pulling over and frantically trying to let said bug out as I could hear it buzzing around under my jersey. Eventually I got it to fly out of my sleeve! The total route was 106 miles with 6250' of elevation. From start to finish was about 9 hours for me. I was on my bike for 7 hours and 15 minutes, so lunch, rest stops, and bug removal definitely took up some time. My average speed was 14.3 MPH while I was on my bike. Definitely nice that they had a good spread of food when I finished (including free hagen-daz ice cream!) I certainly slept well that night. :)