Miami gave me a loving welcome from the moment I got off the redeye from Seattle Tuesday morning. First, my flight took an extra hour, so I was able to sleep a bit longer, plus none of my bags were lost (there was a bent spoke on one of my wheels, but I can credit […]
Author Archives: Ben
Base Performance Water – My Independent Blind Study
Last month Chris Lieto stayed with me while he was visiting Seattle. He just released the first two products from his new company, Base Performance, and after hearing about it I wanted to try it for myself. The benefits of the Base Amino were fairly easy to grasp – by adding amino acids to your […]
Six Weeks!
It has been six whole weeks since I have been out of Western Washington, and I’m getting itchy feet. When I got home from LA in February I was sick of travel and wanted nothing but to be home for a few weeks, where I could get on a regular schedule and enjoy my own […]
How to Fill 24 hours
[I’ve put a lot of thought into how I can appropriately introduce my friend Brandon Basso. There’s the basic “bio data” (a term used by our Indian friends at Columbia. Apparently their parents did not think our bio data was sufficient for their daughters): 5’11” 145 pounds, blond, blue eyes, grew up on Long Island (and can’t wait to move back east)… None of that really describes him. He’s unique, but then I guess you have to be if you graduated in engineering with a minor in English, worked on the Mars Rover, then went back to school for a PhD in Control Theory (translate that as robotics).
47 degrees
Yesterday I took an extended break between my Physics and Verbal sections and threw on my old Ironman Stealth wetsuit (my new helix isn’t here yet and I left my old one in San Francisco), plus my new Blue Seventy skull cap and swim socks, and I headed out for a little Lake Washington open […]
The Sugar Bowl
I’m sitting at home today taking a practice MCAT, which means I have nothing to write about. Instead, I am going to show you a preview of the treat I have in store for tomorrow. My friend Brandon Basso, who is a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Cal, wrote an article about time management. […]
Men’s Swimming NCAA Champs
I’m going back to competitive swimming. Friday and Saturday nights I was able to watch the NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Federal Way. I missed seeing the one event I really cared about seeing, thanks to the dilly dallying of a delinquent friend (it was actually another friend, but since Chris drove I […]
Spring is Finally Here!
Yesterday I headed up to Bellingham, Washington, about 90 minutes north of my home. I was riding up with Chris Tremonte for the North Shore Circuit Race (cycling). We had both decided that the nearly 3000 feet of elevation gain over a 40 mile course would give us a better shot of getting away from […]
Seattle is Frozen
I spoke with half a dozen people in Los Angeles, and a couple people in Honolulu today. In both of those places it’s warm, but in Seattle, we’re experiencing what Brian explained to be, "a low pressure front that stopped, so all the cold air sank." He works in atmospheric science, so that’s his way […]
Bluff
In my last post I said the hills would tumble when I attacked them on Tuesday. It was true, though I think it had more to do with Todd Herriott’s poker faced attacks that left me wobbly for the first part of my cool down run. (He would look like he wasn’t even breathing, then […]