Sharks sign Marleau to extension

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks sign Marleau to extension:

Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson today signed center Patrick Marleau to a two-year contract extension that will keep him in San Jose until 2010. Marleau’s $4.5 million salary for the coming season will rise to $6.3 million each of the next two years.

“I think it’s really important,” Wilson said of today’s announcement, “not only for the continuity, but to recognize the players who have been through our experiences the past couple years, the guys who understand what we’re trying to do and how we’re going to get there.”

Okay, will all the pundits who had Marleau shipped out and unable to play for this team please stand up and eat some crow? Starting with, say, Bill Clement, who ran this one hot and heavy on XM during the playoffs?

No? Oh, sorry. Asking too much again, I see.

Don’t Trade Your Life for Tech

Nick Bradbury: Don’t Trade Your Life for Tech:

Those of us in the technology sector see it all the time: co-workers who put in incredible hours coding away as though they have nothing else in their lives.  And quite often, they don’t.

I used to be one of those people.

When I was working on HomeSite over a decade ago, I rarely left my desk.  If I wasn’t coding, I was answering email or doing some other work-related task.  I hardly slept, ate far too much junk food, and traded my health for what I thought was a successful career as a software developer.

If that sounds familiar to you, do yourself a favor and stop living this way.  It’s not worth it.  Eventually you’ll look back and wish you would’ve spent more time getting out and meeting people (non-geeky people, that is), and you’ll look down at your pizza-filled belly and wonder how you let yourself get so unhealthy.

Amen.

You Know You’re Old When:

How to Change the World: You Know You’re Old When::

Last night a cute blonde girl bought me a drink. However, she knew me because she’s my kids’ summer camp counselor. This incident got me thinking about how you know you’re old—today is my 53rd birthday. So I decided to start a list: You know you’re old when…

Happy Birthday to Guy! (happybirthdaytoyouhappybirthdaytoyoublahblahIhatethissong….)

I hate to use the term “old”, although there are days when I definitely feel it fits… I prefer “middle aged”, at least most days..

The first time I remember feeling, um, middle aged was when the last player in the NHL older than I was retired, so that the entire league was younger than me. That was, by the way, Sergei Makarov.

A big “middle aged” moment was when I was walking in the mall and passed a mother and her daughter walking the other way, and I realized I found the mother a lot more attractive. Another aspect of this: you redefine your idea of “girl” as you get older (I think “girl”, as opposed to “woman”, is a term for any female too young to consider dating, if you were in fact available to date) — and when you hit the point that you can buy a “girl” a beer legally, you’re definitely middle-aged.

And on a less fun moment, a big “you’re middle-aged” reality check is when you start having peers die of things other than accidents or alcohol….

I heard Eddy Money talk about this a while back, and his “you’re old” moment — he said he was on tour, and was trying desperately to stay up late enough to keep his drummer from hitting on his daughter… no word on whether he succeeded….

A time machine, dusty and proud…

One of the projects I’ve started this weekend is to clear out some clutter and clean up the “server room”, the room where we used to house the servers when we ran servers here in the house and had the internet piped in to serve them (today, we “merely” have a consumer DSL line to our usage, which is a heck of a lot cheaper since we don’t need the fast outbound speed or static IP addresses….)

One reason I’m doing this — I wanted to get my writing files out and accessible again. I’ve picked up my first freelance gig (which is nice), and out of happenstance had a nice long talk with a friend I haven’t talked to in a long time, and it might turn into another writing gig. I’ve been spending some time the last few days researching some ideas for that, and we’ll see whether they like them.

It was fun, and a bit weird, to get my writing out of the boxes and into a file cabinet. Some of it I knew was in there, like my novel-in-stasis and my published short fiction and unsold fiction bits — but also my old writing, the reviews in Amazing Stories (when it was a TSR publication), my writing for Macintosh Horizons, but also some of the tech writing I did when I was at Sun, including, which I’d completely forgotten, the README for NFS release 2.0.

Now, that’s an answer to a trivia question nobody’s going to ask…

Also, when I left Apple, I brought home about eight boxes of “stuff”; when I went to StrongMail, I only took in a couple of boxes of books and a few things, and those came back when I left, so I’ve had a bunch of things just sort of hanging around, and a lot of technical books inaccessible. It’s time to start cleaning that up and either putting the books in shelves, or donating or tossing them, depending on how useful they are.

The “server room” is, of course, a dumping ground for everything in the “I need to deal with this someday” for both of us; Laurie still has a bunch of boxes from when she left Adobe, and all of her cookbooks are in there (15 boxes) waiting for me to finish the living room to get them back in the shelves, as well as much of my native art that has been waiting for the remodel to have a place for display again… Now that the living room is headed towards paint-ready, I’m pullling that all out again and getting it  up on the walls again. I may even be able to walk in the server room again soon.

And browse through those Sun technical support bulletins. Ah, the days of SunOS 3 — anyone else remember when Sun ran 68000 chips?

One of those “what were they thinking?” moments…

So I’ve been more offline than on, working on the remodel in the front half of the house. I’ve got all of the door trim in (finally), and I was hoping to finish off the entryway walls today, so I could start on the baseboard.

I took off the faceplate from the lightswitch that runs the porch light, so I could put a box expander on it after adding the tongue and groove that’s going up — only to find there was no box. They simply cut a notch in the drywall, stuffed the switch in it, and then used drywall screws to hold it down, then screwed the plate to the drywall.

This is, how do we say it? Not up to code. no, frankly, it’s a bloody stupid idea on any number of levels.

So now I have to go buy a box, cut open the wall, retrofit the box in, and fix this properly.

In remodelling the house over the years, pretty much every project has run into one of these “what were they thinking?” moments, where you realize the previous owner was pretty good most of the time, but then started improvising or cutting corners, and now you get to figure out how to fix it.

Things like — realizing he used exhaust pipe to duct the forced air and air conditioning instead of using ducting. So when we replaced the air conditioner, we also got to re-duct most of the house.

Stuff like that.

my one goal — my PRIMARY goal — in my remodel work is that whoever buys the house off of us, whenever we decide to sell, and starts remodelling it to their needs doesn’t say things about me like I say things about him…

It is amazing what a little trim does to finish off a room, though. Especially since we’ve been living with it half-done for two years (gah). I see the light at the end of the tunnel; next week I should have the front entry, the living room, hallway and master bath all ready for paint, and then it’s making final decisions on the dining room and getting those changes in.

THAT is going to be interesting, because it involves opening up a wall into the weight room (and library), and pulling the existing door and replacing it with a larger set of bifolds (I think); and unfortunately, I don’t know what I’ll find when I open it up, other than, well, trouble — because it was done by one of the tenants after the owner retired and moved out, when they started running a stereo repair shop in their garage and hacked things up to allow them to lock away that part of the house away from the living spaces (while leaving access to the bathroom — ever see a house with, I kid you not, an airlock in it? we had one). Those were the same people who used a piece of stereo zip wire to ground an electrical outlet, so I’m not holding out much hope…

Especially since when we tore off the old base moulding to get ready for the new flooring in the front of the house, we noticed that part of the wall was built ON THE CARPETING. they just laid the base of the wall over the carper. That’s how we know we have a larger door opening in that wall; we just need to figure out how best to bring it back…

Something tells me I”m going to be taking a few names in vain soon.

well, off to Lowes for more STUFF. if there’s one given to remodelling, there’s always a part you need that you don’t have…

Sharks’ Marleau wants to stay

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Marleau wants to stay:

Marleau put it simply:

“I think Joe has made a commitment here and I’m looking to do the same.”

So we can put the Marleau rumors to rest for good… (in reality, the rumors were being driving by teams that wanted him and a few wonky media wits, not by anyone in San jose).

Michalek closing in on long-term contract

San Jose Mercury News – Michalek closing in on long-term contract:

Sharks left wing Milan Michalek may be close to getting a lengthy contract extension, but the deal doesn’t appear to be done just yet.

A Web site in Michalek’s native Czech Republic is reporting that the Sharks are giving Michalek a six-year, $26 million deal. But while there were indications that an agreement could be imminent, both Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson and Michalek’s agent, Allan Walsh, stressed that none is in place.

This is great news, a potential UFA off the market early, and Michalek is a key player.

Wilson has intimated a couple of times that there’s work being done on extending Marleau, also, and while Ottawa made a strong play for Patrick, the Sharks have made it clear they’re not moving him unless they’re overwhelmed by the offer, so this is probably a matter of time.

Mark Smith is also a possibility for coming back — there’s a contract on the table, but Smith would like more playing time, and the Sharks have given him the opportunity to explore whether he can get it from another team. I expect that’ll be resolved before camp opens, but the Sharks have not put a deadline on it that I’ve heard.

FWIW, tickets for the three san jose pre-season games go on sale saturday.

NHL not likely to put its reputation on the line

globeandmail.com: NHL not likely to put its reputation on the line:

Thus, the choice for the league is going to come down to this: Does it reinstate him, as both Tocchet and the Coyotes so desperately want, on the grounds that he was mostly guilty of stupidity and poor judgment? Or does it ban him from the game indefinitely, fearing that the merest hint of gambling — even if it involved sports other than hockey — would call into question the integrity of the league?

Okay, what’s going to make the league look more stupid — letting Tocchet back into the game, or trying to make a statement that the league won’t tolerate gambling, when it was working with a casino in Pittsburgh on arena funding, allows the canadian lotteries to do sports betting on NHL games in NHL cities, and has actively talked about the possibility of moving a team to Las Vegas.

Tocchet made a mistake. Got stupid. Got caught. Is doing his probation.

If one really wants to start talking about comparative legal problems, Mark Bell was convicted of a felony DUI and is going to serve six months in prison — and hasn’t been suspended at all. And Rick Tocchet has been suspended since this broke, isn’t seeing any jail time, never accepted a bet on hockey — and may be banned for life.

Doesn’t this just seem a bit of a double standard? If Mark Bell can play, why can’t Rick Tocchet coach? And no, I”m not recommending they suspend Bell instead…

I’ll do pictures soon…

Posting has been light again, mostly because I’m focussing more on the remodel work. I just finished trimming out the front door, and I’m getting close to finishing off the entry way. I still need to do the base moulding, but we’re getting suprisingly close to “paint ready” in the living room and entry. still need to trim out the hallway and bathroom and do the dining room, which is a significant amount of  work, but I could be paint ready for everything but the dining room by the end of next week; maybe further than that. we’ll see. Happy with the progress and quality, so what the heck.

one phone interview so far this week, and one more in an hour or so. Things continue to bubble, nothing boiling.

And Laurie and I have started planning our post-Labor-day vacation. All that’s decided is that it’ll include a couple of days in Portland and then the northern oregon coast (Astoria and Newport definitely, everything else is tentative. If someone wants to say hi while we’re in town, drop me email and we’ll try to work out the schedule.

Portland is probably going to focus on a photo trip to the zoo, and up the Gorge, since we haven’t done that for a while (and especially not in a while when it hasn’t been miserable and November… ). I want to spend some time doing photo work and birding around Fort Stevens, and some birding around Yaquina head in Newport. Beyond that, we may just — gasp — sit on a beach or something. (us? nah).

I’m trying to decide if I want to put in for a day in Cannon Beach or not as part of it. We’ve mostly decided to do more exploring and less driving, so we’ve cut out the southern coast, and once again Fort Bragg and the Mendocino coast has been relegated to “it’s close enough we’ll go there when we take a long weekend”, which, of course, we never do… (grin)

Oh, and the hockey talk continues over on Two for Elbowing, for those that forgot that blog exists…

Let Rick Tocchet Coach Again

Spare Me the Moralizing and Let Rick Tocchet Coach Again – FanHouse – AOL Sports Blog:

Given how Rick Tocchet is unlikely to face any jail time for his crime, he will be free and available to work, should the NHL let him.Tocchet will, however, face the possibility of a suspension from the NHL, which would bar him from such employment.

Jes is right here. There’s no reason not to let Tocchet back into the league.

Wow. I (mostly) agreed with Tom Benjamin this morning. here it is early after noon, and I”m agreeing with Jes Golbez. everyone keep an eye out for life-ending meteors in the upper atmosphere…

San Jose Mercury News – Ex-Shark Mark Bell gets 6 months in jail in drunken-driving case

San Jose Mercury News – Ex-Shark Mark Bell gets 6 months in jail in drunken-driving case:

Former Shark Mark Bell will be back in San Jose next summer. Rather than hitting the ice, he’ll spend six months in Santa Clara County Jail on a drunken-driving charge.

Bell, who was traded earlier this summer to the Toronto Maple Leafs, pleaded no contest Tuesday to drunk driving with injury and hit-and-run charges stemming from a Sept. 4 accident on the Milpitas-San Jose border, Assistant District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson said.

Bell is not eligible for time off his sentence and must pay restitution to the driver of the other car involved in the crash. He will be able to serve his sentence after the upcoming hockey season.

So, next question. Will a DUI on his record affect his ability to get a visa to enter or leave the US? Or did he plea down to a charge that won’t mess that up?

Pageant of the Masters: Replicating Paintings with Live Performers

Pageant of the Masters: Replicating Paintings with Live Performers – Gadling:

That’s the idea behind Pageant of the Masters, a two-month long series of performances in Laguna Beach, California in which famous paintings are replicated by human performers meticulously covered in layers of paint that match the original creation.

The result is 90 minutes of three dimensional, life-size reproductions of masterful paintings. The performers stand absolutely motionless on stage and blend in with the backgrounds of the paintings. The living portraits are accompanied by a full orchestra performing an original score as well as a narrator who tells the story of the paintings featured.

It’s all really quite amazing.

Yes, it is. Growing up in SoCal, I got to go to a number of pageants, and it is truly stunning work. See it if you possibly can.

One year was especially noteworthy — one of the kids playing cherubs in a painting slipped. To suddenly see a part of the painting “come to life” (sort of) as a reminder that these really were people-based, life-sized reproductions was something that burned into my memory.

I keep meaning to take Laurie down to see it, but never have. One of these years…

Why Full Text Feeds Actually Increase Page Views

Previous discussion is here…)

Techdirt: Why Full Text Feeds Actually Increase Page Views (The Freakonomics Explanation):

However, in our experience, full text feeds actually does lead to more page views, though understanding why is a little more involved.  Full text feeds makes the reading process much easier.  It means it’s that much more likely that someone reads the full piece and actually understands what’s being said — which makes it much, much, much more likely that they’ll then forward it on to someone else, or blog about it themselves, or post it to Digg or Reddit or Slashdot or Fark or any other such thing — and that generates more traffic and interest and page views from new readers, who we hope subscribe to the RSS feed and become regular readers as well.  The whole idea is that by making it easier and easier for anyone to read and fully grasp our content, the more likely they are to spread it via word of mouth, and that tends to lead to much greater adoption than by limiting what we give to our readers and begging them to come to our site if they want to read more than a sentence or two.

Interesting piece following up on a discussion I’ve been involved in. I can see the logic, too. Consier me, if not fully convinced, heavily swayed.

Ricci still set to retire

San Jose Mercury News – Buzz: Ricci still set to retire:

Yes, that was former Shark Mike Ricci hanging out with a longtime hunting buddy at a Willow Glen bakery last weekend, but stifle any rumors. His unruly locks won’t be back on the roster when training camp opens next month.

Even though there has been no formal retirement announcement, Ricci’s days as an NHL player appear to be over. A neck injury kept him out of the final 41 games with the Phoenix Coyotes last season, and at 35, he’s an unsigned free agent. All that relentless effort to clear pucks took its toll.

Ricci and his family are moving back after two seasons in Phoenix. Having sold their house in Willow Glen last year to former linemate Jonathan Cheechoo, they’ve bought a home in Los Gatos.

And don’t be too shocked if the Sharks find a role for him in the organization.

Here’s hoping the Sharks do. thanks, Mike, for a great career. Enjoy life.

(and for the trivia experts out there, can you guess who the “longtime hunting buddy” probably is? Hint: it’s another ex-shark)

The NHL is a good investment….

National Hockey League – CBS SportsLine.com:

But for those who scratch a little deeper, NHL franchises have clearly become attractive properties, fetching sale prices that defy logic. In the last couple of weeks alone, two franchises sold for premiums considerably above their appraised values, and a third team’s owners rejected a bid from someone willing to pony up the same way.

From the outside, it has tended to come across as irrational behavior. But to experts in sports economics, the recent surge of interest in NHL franchises is being interpreted as shrewd, calculated investment strategy that is likely to be emulated by others.

“The fundamentals that we’re being told about these teams certainly don’t support the sale prices we’re seeing, but the numbers don’t lie,” said John Vrooman, a Vanderbilt University economics professor who specializes in professional sports franchise valuations.

“The true value of a team is reflected more in the purchase price than it is in the rhetoric. Owners always poor mouth and say they’re losing money, yet these franchises appreciate at rates that make them a high-performing investment, way beyond what we would think.”

(hat tip: kukla)

Looking into the numbers behind the Tampa Bay sale

I’ve been researching the Tampa Bay sale a bit. Some bloggers (and some newspaper reporters) have been looking at the sale price ($206 million is the reported number) and using it to justify all sorts of statements, from the “owners get rich when they sell a team” to “hockey has failed in the US” (popular in Winnipeg, but it’s really unclear to me how they made this leap of logic).

But is it really true? The numbers, when you look at them in more detail, aren’t quite so rosy…

The numbers as I’ve been able to find: Absolute Hockey is a new partnership led by Doug MacLean and backed by Jeff Sherin, a real estate developer, Oren Koules, a hollywood type best known for the “Saw” series of films.

They’re buying the Tampa Bay Lightning and other properties for $206 million, from Palace Sports and Entertainment. Palace Sports bought the team for $115 million eight years ago, and have reported about $70million in losses since. (throw enough zeroes at it, and it starts looking like real money).

So if you just take those numbers at their base value, Palace has put in $185 million to reap $206m, a net profit of $21 million. Seems like a not-bad investment.

Life’s never that simple, and raw numbers don’t tell the real story. Just on these numbers, starting with $115m and adding in about $8.5m per year for every year, your rate of return is a lousy 2.3%. That’s worse than investing in money markets, S&P 500, or even 12 month CDs over that term (right now, I can get 5.35% from ING on a 12 month CD). They seem to be selling this off having made money — but they could have made more money with less (or zero) risk by simply parking the money somewhere.

There are complications here, of course.

The first one is that losses generated by the team can be used to shield profits by the owners elsewhere. Part of that $70m/ loss will get recovered by keeping money elsewhere from going to Uncle Sam. Let’s assume (since there are no real numbers available) that half that loss is a “paper” loss, that it’s recaptured away from the team. In other words, every year the owners were writing a check for $8.5m to cover operating losses, but writing a tax check that was, say, $4m less to the government because the losses shielded profits elsewhere. If you roll that tax gain back into the the franchise as an asset, you see a rate of return around 5%.

That’s actually a decent rate of return for that time period. Maybe not great; at least it’s not insanely bad.

On the other hand, let’s look at that $206 million number. It’s not for the hockey team.

It’s for a set of properties including the team. The three key components:

The hockey team.

The lease at the arena and the right to operate it

Two pieces of property near the arena totalling 5.5 acres.

The property is on the books and assessed at $17.5 million. They are evidently (from researching them through the tampa papers and local real estate info I could find) properties that have high potential for condos or mixed condo/retail development, except that the market is down right now. But in a longer-term look, these properties have a huge upside to someone experienced in Florida real estate. Oh, gee, one of the partners is a Florida real estate developer. What a coincidence.

So, what are these properties worth? well, they’re assessed at $17.5m, so I’ll go with that, but their value to someone who can develop them is a lot more; This is, if you ask me, the investment upside of the deal.

The arena operations? Tampa’s arena is one of the more profitable in the country; it grossed $18m last year, and is on pace to match that this year. Half of its light dates are non-hockey, but it’s also a business much like a movie house: much of the “profit” goes back to the act, not the house.

But the ticket take isn’t the only story; there’s signage, naming rights, sponsors — and every team/arena deal differs in how these are split between the sports team and the arena, but some of those dollars end up with the hockey team (and factor into the $70m loss above), and some end up as part of the arena management agreement.

All told, it’s not unreasonable to assume around a 10% profit off the arena management — say, $2m a year or so. It’s value? A good round number would be 6x or 7x that profit number, or $12-15m.

So now we can get at least into the ballpark of the value of the hockey team.

$206m for the sale, minus $17.5m minus, say, $12m, or about $175m.

The franchise was awarded in 1991 for $50m. If you just look at that price and the $175m, you get a rate of return of 7.2%. That’s pretty good over 15+ years. But that ignores that the owners were continuing to “invest” by covering operating losses every year. Even at $3m a year, that drops the rate of return to well under 4%, and given the numbers the current owners have announced and taking into consideration both tax advantages and the probably profit on the arena side, your rate of return drops under 4%.

That’s a lousy investment over that time period, even trying to make it as rosy as I can. It wasn’t bad for Palace, but the earlier owners — they didn’t do well.

How does this make things look for the new owenrship?

I’m encouraged. here’s why

Doug MacLean — as a hockey guy, he understands the core of the franchise. By the way, while it looks like all of the money is to be made away from the team — and that’s actually true! — if you don’t own the team, none of the other opportunities exist. you can’t do the arena without the team, and you can’t develop the property without the arena. So to some degree, the Lightning need to do what the Sharks do, which is manage expenses and limit the “losses” in such a way that the arena income and tax offsets make up for the losses.

In other words, you don’t need to be profitable to be profitable. But that doesn’t mean you should assume that any loss is acceptable… By my guesses and assumption, a team like the Sharks or Lightning can “lose” about $5m a year in “team losses” and do okay because of the other aspects of the situation. That’s roughly where I’d put the “break even” point on the entire financial picture, as opposed to just looking at team numbers, if the team manages the arena and the partnership can take advantage of the losses in the taxes.

If MacLean can keep the team competitive on a decent budget and help the organization succceed, they ought to do fine. I’m especially happy to hear they’re planning on moving in and being local owners. that’ll help engage the business community and it’ll also keep someone with motivation to make it work close at hand and watching.

Second, they have a guy from the entertainment industry; increase the entertainment factor, and you can improve your attendance and ticket revenues.

Third, they have those plots of land, and a good person to figure out what to do with them. If they can make that work, they can turn this into a great investment. As it is, it’s a good investment, from what I can see.

Followup 2: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations

Chuqui 3.0.1 Beta: followup: Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist:

The answer seems to be there’s no really good answer, but it seems clear people (at least those that care enough to discuss the issue) would rather see ads in the feeds than truncated feeds.

well, the Freakinomics folks moved to truncated feeds with their move to the times, so we now have a living experiment, if we get real data out of it:

Online Spin » Blog Archive » Freakonomics Sparks Debate Over Partial RSS Feeds:

Not surprisingly, it was Dubner’s recent post announcing the move to the NYTimes that fostered especially vibrant discussion, both congratulatory and protesting. On one hand, many cheered Freakonomics’ upgrade into the esteemed NYTimes stable. However, roughly six hours after Dubner published his announcement, roughly 100 of the 120 comments were in protest of Freaknomics’ move from full to partial RSS subscription feeds, forcing feed subscribers to begin their flow and then abruptly transfer attention to the NYTimes site via a separate browser window!

A sampling of the comments in Dubner’s post underscores the dilemma that online publishers face as they adapt to a more open Web, heightened competition, attention scarcity, savvier readers, rising expectations and RSS syndication:

What I want to know is not how many people complain — but how many people drop the feed. This is complicated by the fact that they swapped sites as part of the transition and that’ll muddle the waters.

But what matters here, and hopefully, after some time the numbers will be made available, is who votes with their wallet. And, frankly, if the people voting with their wallet weren’t generating revenue anyway, or some other kind of positive contribution. It might actually give us some data to go with all of the opinions. Scary thought.

Joe Pavelski gives back…..

WCFcourier.com is the Waterloo-Cedar Falls homepage for all local news, sports, entertainment and events happening in the Cedar Valley:

n another way to give back to the community that supported him so well during his days as a Waterloo Black Hawks player, San Jose Shark Joe Pavelski has been conducting the Joe Pavelski Hockey School this week at Young Arena.

More than 50 budding hockey stars signed up to spend eight hours a day with Pavelski, who is providing them with on-ice and on-land training.

(hat tip: kukla)

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Smith staying or going?

San Jose Mercury News – Sharks’ Smith staying or going?:

Center Mark Smith remains the lone Shark from last season’s lineup without a new contract, but his agent said Thursday that San Jose put an offer on the table and money isn’t the big sticking point.

It’s playing time.

“San Jose is such a strong team at forward and at the center position that it limits his opportunity to play an expanded role,” agent Brian Feldman said from his Michigan office. “We’re just trying to find an opportunity where he’d have that expanded role.”

Feldman added that Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson “has been nothing but first class in terms of being patient with Mark and letting Mark explore options.”

How to Change the World: My Visit to Trek: Two Guys in a Barn

How to Change the World: My Visit to Trek: Two Guys in a Barn:

The Discovery Channel Team dominated this year’s Tour de France with three riders in the top ten (Contador-1st; Leipheimer-3rd; Yaroslav Popovych-8th) and first place in the team classification. The team used Trek bikes called Madone. Honestly, the most bike riding that I do is to a park less than a mile from my house, but I recently visited Trek.

Trek so rocks. Way back in the ancient days and I was an active bike rider and lousy road racer, I road a hefty piece of steel, and like most of my compadres, we saw our first Trek bikes. They were using this revolutionary new frame metal called — gasp — aluminum. We all wanted one. I swore to myself I’d have one some day…

Fast forward many years (and pounds…) — and I’m the proud owner of a Trek T1220, which I rarely use because my personal meter is still pointed far closer to the “fat and lazy” side, but it’s going to stay around until that changes, because I’ll be damned if I won’t some day ride a century on that beast…. And until I do, it sits in a place where I have to look at it and be mocked.

But, you know? I never have liked my Univega mountain bike all that much. Maybe I’ll set the goal that if I can get to 50 miles a week on the road and trails, I’ll let myself upgrade…

Hmm…

But man, talk about a success story — I remember when Trek started, and how all the bike geeks drooled. And now, they’re one of the big manufacturers, and still making a hell of a set of bikes. My bike, which is a few years old, cost me a really moderate amount of money (I wouldn’t even call it a prosumer bike), yet it goes way beyond what we dreamed of 30 years ago as even being possible. And the T1220 is an aluminum frame, almost obsolete and decrepit compared to what you can do today with carbon fiber….

man.. thanks, Guy, for the memories…