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Someday, my child, all this will be yours

how else is he going to learn not to fall off that bike?

POTUS needs a safety lesson

Apparently Obama was riding along a Martha’s Vineyard trail with no helmet, and the bare-headed ride was caught by a photographer. Not a very good example to set…

No-helmet Obama

Let’s hope no one hits a pothole.

While Sasha Obama (yellow shirt) and another girl have enough sense to wear helmets, it appears President Barack Obama (second from left), his secret service agent and Dr. Eric Whitaker (far right)need a few bike safety lessons while on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

Whitaker, we should point out, is technically wearing a helmet, but they don’t work very well when they’re not fastened. (See the photo below).

“What kind of fool doesn’t wear a helmet while biking?” wondered Tribune photo editor Maggie Walker, who was so aghast after spotting the images that she emailed the White House. She’s waiting to hear back. (AP photos by Alex Brandon)

Via the Chicago Tribune.

recumbent or upright?

Hmmm. Should I get a recumbent or an upright bike? If the ZWEISTIL makes it into production, you won’t have to choose. The bike demonstrated in the following video is an entrant in this year’s James Dyson award competition.

From the website…

The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. It’s run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson’s charitable trust, as part of its mission to inspire young people about design engineering.

The winner of the James Dyson Award 2008 was Michael Chen, from Middlesex University in the UK, who designed Reactiv, a cycling jacket that communicates a cyclist’s intentions to other road users.

los padres on bikes

I got a call last week from my mom who wanted advice about bikes. Be still my beating heart! My folks, riding bikes!

Over the weekend, I received this cell phone pic… a new Trek Pure (lime green) for my mom and Trek Navigator for my dad. They’ve already ridden around the neighborhood several times and to a café for breakfast over the weekend.

client: Kenneth Lewis

One of nicomedia’s newest clients is Kenneth Lewis for US Senate, Inc. Kenneth Lewis is a Triangle-based lawyer who’s running for the US Senate. For this Democratic contender for the Senate seat currently held by Burr, my company is consulting on best practices in search engine optimization and helping the campaign reach into new media markets. (If any of my fellow bloggers would like to get in touch with Kenneth for a story or interview, send me an email.)

In less than a month’s time, the campaign has already raised more than $100,000, and looks on pace to raise more than $1 million by the end of the year. A July press release announced that

the Kenneth Lewis for U.S. Senate Campaign today filed its first campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission showing over $100,000 raised in the first 21 days of operation.

Kenneth Lewis said, “As a member of Barack Obama’s North Carolina Finance Committee, I know how difficult raising political contributions in an economic downturn can be.  I have also seen a campaign overcome these hurdles with a compelling candidate and an equally compelling message of change.  I am humbled by the early support I have received both across North Carolina and across the country.”

I met Lewis’ wife and his precocious daughter Evan at Camp Wellstone in June, and Holly convinced me that Kenneth stands a strong chance of unseating Burr. North Carolina is already showing a more progressive face in national politics: North Carolina’s electoral votes went to Barack Obama, and Tar Heel voters unseated the former chair of the Republican Party, Elizabeth Dole, in the last election. Kenneth’s business savvy and experience leading finance operations for the Obama campaign in NC will be welcome help to the national and statewide efforts to retread the economy.

Google (trail) Maps

Now that Google’s done mapping and photographing all the important streets in the world, they’re turning their attention to the auto-free zones.

Now Google Maps is expanding to biking and hiking trails. A Google employee on a tricycle rides around to snap the same wide-area views.

“Much of the world is inaccessible to the car,” says Daniel Ratner, a Google senior engineer who designed the trike. “We want to get access to places people find important.” — USA Today

View Larger Map

Google Maps Bike Paths and Hiking Trails, coming soon to a place off the beaten path near you. How long before the Google Tricycle rides the ATT I wonder…

best ad ever?

My friend Eric reminded me of this commercial, which aired during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

A beautiful score (by Jonathan Elias) and talented editing seamlessly link the various activities together as sport. The overall effect of the piece is that it really captures the variety and accessibility of sports, and I think this is one of the most moving ads I’ve ever seen.

WordPress 101: A beginner’s guide to WordPress

By request, here’s my presentation from WordCampRDU 2009.

It takes more than a day to build a rock wall. You don’t want to finish each day’s work with a smooth edge, otherwise the final result will be a series of adjacent rock walls rather than one integrated wall. So at the end of each day, you leave rugged “toothing stones” for two reasons. It marks where you will pick up when you continue your work the next day. It also creates the uneven surface to which tomorrow’s section will bond, linking today’s work and tomorrow’s.

My presentation concludes with three toothing stones: themes, plugins, and widgets. I was tasked with giving a 45 minute introduction to WordPress, so rather than try to cover everything WordPress is capable of, I chose to lay groundwork for a greater understanding. I hope the conference participants were (are) able to gain a foothold in the WordPress universe.

WordPress 101 makes the most sense when viewed in conjunction with the other presentations given today at WordCamp, and the toothing stones help make the learning experience more whole.

Other presenters include:

• Andy Beal
• Chris Gatewood
• Glen Ansley
• Lew Ayotte
• Brett Bumeter
• Angela Connor
• Jason Keath
• Wayne Sutton
• Alan Knox
• Beth Morgan
• Shayne Sanderson
• Hal Goodtree
• Matt Mullenweg

WordCamp RDU 2009, tomorrow

WordCamp RDU is tomorrow, Saturday, June 13th. See you there.

And, I’ve already upgraded nicomachus.net (and all the other WordPress sites I manage) to WordPress 2.8. If you haven’t upgraded yours yet, take a look at what’s new.

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