Thomas Bremser: The Amazing Wonder-Bike

Thomas Bremser, early in his million-mile bike ride
Thomas Bremser is a good buddy of mine who also happens to be totally, and utterly, crazy. Last year he ran the LA Marathon. He's also a bicycle commuter who would regularly make the ride out from San Bernardino to hang out with us in Riverside. A little while back he decided he was going to ride his bike all the way up the West Coast (which, according to countless LA based rappers is quite easily considered the "best coast"). He started that journey down in San Diego on April 6th.

I sat down with him when he made it up to Newport Beach and recorded the following interview. That was on April 9th. It's now April 20th and last I heard, he was up in Los Osos by San Luis Obispo. That puts him about 375 miles into his approximately million-mile goal of making it to Canada. Anyhow, do listen to the following interview and if you'd like to check out his blog, do so by clicking here.

Stream the interview here (21 minutes):

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Or download it from this site:
http://drop.io/bravefencerthomas

p.s. this is our 100th post!

Feel like listening to Ben Vargas talk about 2009?

Here's your final special guest "writer," Ben Vargas, seen celebrating one of his favorite holidays – his birthday, 2009-style.
Well, you might be wondering why "writer" was written in quotes up there. If you're not wondering that, then you've already figured it out. As you can see here, Ben didn't actually write anything. Instead he came over to my house one Friday night, here in January, and we sat down and had ourselves a little talk about 2009. We might have broached a couple of other topics here and there, but it was mostly about last year (with a little bit devoted to this year).

Anyhow, we recorded that little chat and I have it here for you to listen to. Well, we figured this would be a good way to end this "Year in Review, 2009" series we've been doing here. So if you'd like to give it a listen, you can stream it here (22 minutes):

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Or, you can go over here and download it, or stream it:
Clickity Click Click

While listening to this, you'll hear some sounds in the background. We actually recorded this while there was a small party in full swing on the other side of the wall from the room we were in. Another note, we recorded this about 3 or 4 hours into said party. Take what you will from that. Anyhow, check it out. Hope you enjoy it.

Ben Vargas is an Internet Production something or other at a company that sells things. Sometimes they sell things online, sometimes they sell things in stores. Like a lot of my friends he enjoys bikes, brews, and dancing with tall boys.

He and his wife, Kelly Vargas, have very recently started a blog together: Ravenous River Horses. Do check it out, yo.

If you missed any of the previous entries in this collection, here are the links.

• Angela Kim asks her father, "How old is too old for you?"
• Tawny Lynn Rose v2.0
• Kelly Mahoney learned some lessons in 2009, wants pizza in 2010
• Candice Brown gains a new family in 2009
• The Sloh Abides
• Erin has the ingredients for happiness in 2010
• Kelly Vargas wants you to know that you've kept her in a welcome prison
• Joe Zavella's the man who loves you
• Viet Nguyen used to be too young to live
• Jake Kilroy's take on "growing up" in 2009
• Keith Hernandez talks about travel and family in 2009
• James Park drops some truth bombs about 2009
• I talk about lessons learned, '09 style

Or click here to view all the posts on one page.

Remembering Science

Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad, hosts of WNYC's Radio Lab

Remember when science was fun? You got to poke at things and play in the dirt, you learned about animals and rocks and mountains. Too bad that was back in elementary school. Once you got to high school, for most of us anyhow, the good times were done and gone. Everything stopped being interesting. Your teacheer stopped being so enthusiastic. It was physics or it was chemistry and it wasn't about what physics or chemistry do in the world, it was about how memorizing Newton's Law, or Kepler's Law, or Boyle's Law, and remembering which element belonged in which column on the periodic table. Snoooooooooooooooze!

Anyhow, there's finally (actually it's been around for about 5 years or so) something that takes you back to those early days of learning about science, but this time it deals with everything. Not just rocks or mountains or animals or dirt and worms. We're talking about physics, chemistry, neuroscience...other-sciences? They present everything as brand new and explain exactly how everything works in simple and humorous ways. It's called Radio Lab and it broadcasts out of WNYC.

The hosts have such a great, cute, relationship with each other. One old and one young, they act like odd-couple best friends, who very often have differing opinions on sensitive subjects. This often leads into funny yet thought-provoking discussions.


Here's the link to an episode called Time in which they explain, well, time. And how maybe it doesn't really exist? It's good.

Click here to download Time by Radio Lab

If you like it, check out some other really great episodes by them including Memory and Forgetting, Sperm, Laughter, and This is Your Brain on Love. All of those can be found on iTunes by clicking here. If you don't have iTunes, you can get it for PC or Mac here.