For tomorrow’s inauguration (have you heard about it?) it appears that rapper Yo Yo Ma will be playing a carbon fiber cello, as his made-in-1733 Monagnana might not like the 10º outside temperatures.

The $1700 Carbon cellos are made by Luis and Clark in Massachusetts.

In fact yesterday (according to an article in today’s New York Times), the oddly named “Joint Service Orchestra” had all 44 members of their string section playing carbon fiber instruments in the 14º temps.

Since what remains of the again reunited Grateful Dead is also playing the inauguration, I was thinking that the Joint Service Orchestra was some kind of tribute orchestra (like a tribute band) to the first president to admit that’s he’s actually inhaled a joint. I think Obama’s candid words when asked if he’d smoked pot and actually inhaled (unlike Bill Clinton) were something like “Look, when I was a kid, I inhaled frequently, that was the point”. In fact that’s the quote on my most prized possession, my Sock Guy Hope socks, shown here.

Sorry about the picture quality, I was too lazy to get a real camera and had to use the worst camera in the world, found on every iPhone in the world…
But I digress.
We were talking about carbon fiber, not hemp fiber.

That’s all really. More carbon fiber making into the nation and international news. Now if we can just get the President Elect off of that aluminum Trek he’s been riding, and onto something made out of carbon. We need term limits on Presidential two wheelers, this makes a “three-peat” for Trek. It should be unconstitutional.

Oh, and I know Yo Yo Ma is not a rapper, but he should be.

4:20 PM (or close enough to call it 4:20).
Deepest darkest depths of winter. Jan 12, 2009

Yes, that’s a carbon fiber townie. And a BSNYC shirt. What can I say, I’m lucky.

This morning I was thinking about the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, “has the whole f*&^ing world gone crazy?”

You see have a routine here at home, summer, winter, doesn’t matter. I get up, wipe the granola from my eyelids, check the temp on the thermometer, head outside, walk to the top of the driveway with the dude (16lb Tabby who doesn’t get fed unless he joins my routine) and grab the NY Times and the local Santa Rosa firestarter.
All that was the same this morning, but there was something very different.

I live reasonably close to the freezing waters of the Northern California version of the Pacific Ocean. This is the one without Palm trees, the one that requires a wetsuit 365 days a year if you want to venture anywhere close, and also the one that means it never snows here. In other words, it never really gets too hot or too cold. That’s one of the reasons why people were paying 3/4 of a million dollars for crappy homes on cul de sacs here not too long ago.

This morning, January 12, winter, dead of winter even, I’m ready for the normal 32-36º that we have here on any January morning. The house is about 68º in the morning so you really feel the temperature change when you walk outside. But this morning, I walked out and it was WARMER outside than in. This pretty much never happens, summer or winter. That moderating effect on the weather even in summer keeps the nighttime temperatures in the low 50’s, even in the hottest months.

Yep, it was 70º outside at 7am this morning. I can’t ever remember that happening before.

We knew the weather was a little weird, last night were having cocktails outside, but we actually needed a long sleeve t-shirt if we were going to stay out for more than a single glass of rosé. Here’s evidence, taken with what is still the world’s worst camera: the one that comes on the iPhone.

Hunkered down now with the black energy drink and the NY Times, I think Walter was right, the whole world has gone crazy, particularly the weather.

Yep, the Lopes Links are back in the store.
Happy New Year.

Here are the direct links to the links

Lopes Link (nickel chrome)

Lopes Link (red)

Lopes Link (blue)