fall fire

the chilly air of autumn has arrived in wisconsin, and we are loving it. this week's chill gave us an opportunity to make a fire in the fireplace for the first time. it went quite well.
the fire-building process was of particular interest to the cats, who may not have seen fire before.
i imagine there will be many more cozy fires in the months to come.

go tigers!

5 games left in the season, and the tigers are 2 games up on the twins. go tigers!

coming up, nobel prize week

next week is nobel prize week. despite the lack luster response to last year's day-by-day blogging of the announcements, i'm going to do it again this year. here is the schedule of the announcements.


the excitement starts monday. place you physiology and medicine bets.

saginaw, mi

i'm not sure why the volume is so low on this video, but i found it well worth turning up.

the internet

google is 11 years old today.
in a way, it's hard to believe that 11 years ago we didn't really have a decent way to search the internet. we certainly didn't have web-based email with gigabytes worth of storage. it's actually hard to remember that not so many years ago we didn't have the internet at all; no wikipedia, no itunes, no blogs, no nothing. i realize this realization isn't groundbreaking, but its weird to think how integrated into our lives the internet has become in such a short time (at least mine anyway). i use the internet more than i use tv, phones, cars, antibiotics, microwave ovens, almost any invention of the last 100 years. that's all i have to say about that.

andy and mandi got married

avon, colorado, is a beautiful place to get married, and that's exactly what andy and mandi did last weekend. their wedding was at beaver creek's mid-mountain cabin (beano's cabin, to be exact), and it was perfect in every way.

the ceremony site.

vows that made us cry.happy newlyweds.dinner.wedding revelry.

everyone's favorite wedding guest--beano cabin's regular porcupine visitor, a fat, human-accustomed, cute "wild" animal.dancing. the following day, we took the ski lift the top of the mountain for a hike to beaver lake. here is the view looking back at beaver creek resort, and the town of avon beyond.
mountaintop strolling.hikers.
aspens.beaver lake.the more feminine part of the crowd at dinner in beaver creek.
congratulations, andy and mandi, and thanks for a great weekend!

flirting with danger

david tempts a colorado porcupine with wine and sweet talk.

we had an awesome time in beaver creek colorado last weekend. we celebrated a beautiful wedding, saw good friends, had a wildlife experience (see above), and hiked in the mountains. more photos to follow.

world carfree day

tomorrow, and every september 22, is world carfree day (wcfd). the goal of wcfd is to encourage people to try to walk, bike, or take public transportation instead of driving (even for just one day).


i'm not telling anyone how to get to work tomorrow. i just thought i'd put wcfd out there.

#4

today marks 4 years of wedded bliss in the staple household. let's celebrate with a little counting exercise. hit it, feist and monsters!

ironpeople

the ironman race, a incredible feat of human strength and endurance, came to town last weekend. we have watched every ironman wisconsin that we've been in town for, and it never fails to inspire. this year, we watched gretchen complete her third (!!) ironman race, this time with her boyfriend by her side the whole way. we also cheered on veronica, who completed her first ironman race. it is truly incredible what they have achieved.

the ironman race itself starts at 7am with a 2.6 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and ends with a 26 mile marathon race. the mohs scale of mineral hardness says iron is only a 4 on a scale of 0-10 (on this scale, chalk is a zero, and a diamond is a 10), but i would say that the ironman race is much harder than that. the race has been well documented by the champion veronica herself here, and by part of her fan club here.

here is a little video of the swim start. there are over 2000 athletes treading water in the stinky, murky, weedy depths of lake monona, and they all start swimming at the same time. kind of amazing, and surprisingly emotional for the on-looker. i'll admit: i cried a little.


bikes awaiting their riders to complete the swim, peel off their wetsuits, and run up a long ramp (4 stories high, which doesn't really seem fair) to hop on their bikes and head out to the beautiful dane county countryside for a long bike ride.

ironwoman gretty, 13 miles into the marathon and looking fabulous.

veronica's tiniest fan, giving her best geraldo rivera impersonation.

the veronica fan club (note the yellow "V" visors).

veronica, looking great, with her eye on the prize: almost done!

congratulations again to all the ironpeople. you rock!

goodbye swayze

swayze, you'll be missed.
at least we'll always have this (featuring madison's native son chris farley):

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
Uploaded by tressage. -

late blight

a very sad and disappointing thing happened on many farms around the country this summer: late blight. late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a fungal infection that affects tomatoes and potatoes. once it hits, it devastates entire crops. the fungus came to wisconsin aboard a massive shipment of starter tomato plants from a large industrial farm. once plants infected with the fungus grow, the spores become airborne, and any susceptible plants in the area can become infected. our csa farm, vermont valley, was not spared (they didn't get plants from the infectious industrial farm, but were infected by airborne spores). our trusty hard-working farmers lost nearly 100% of their tomato crop. fortunately, they saved the potatoes by acting quickly to plow under all the above-ground potato greens before the plants were infected.

we love tomatoes, and receiving the news mid-summer that we would see very few tomatoes in our weekly csa share was a terrible disappointment. but worse yet was seeing the sad sickly plants. we visited vermont valley this past weekend to pick more basil than you can imagine (and some tomatilloes and hot peppers), and seeing the tomato plants made us feel very sad.

sad tomato plants.

david harvests hot peppers.

baa.

interestingly, late blight is the same infection responsible for ireland's potato famine in the mid-19th century. oh, the dangers of monoculture.

oh yeah...

oh baby!

check out what's growing inside of marta.


it's a healthy human female. that really explains a lot about the last few months.

ride the drive

madison hosted it's first "ride the drive," an event for madisonians to experience some major car-only thoroughfares by bike, foot, or skate. it was pretty sweet to ride our bikes down the middle of john nolen drive and east washington avenue. it also helps that the weiner mobile was there, serving up hot dogs for one dollar.

the route for the day is highlighted in green in this map:


background: weiner mobile, foreground: hot dog, eating beef frank

part of our motley bike gang.

cruising just under the speed limit.

john nolen drive, occupied entirely by bicyclists. beautiful.

thanks to the city of madison, and trek, oscar mayer, and our other local businesses for supporting events like this!