A Fish Rides a Bike from the Mountains to Shakespeare

Physics Professor Emeritus and one of the world's foremost population experts Al Bartlett has agreed to my podcast interview, as has NCAR's Bob Henson, who wrote "The Rough Guide to Climate Change" and who has as complete an overview of the totality of climate change as anyone this side of Al Gore, who's become so big he's developed a small glacier on his north side.

In each case we have so much to talk about that we might be doing two half-hour podcasts with each of them. We'll let you know where and when those will appear when we get those set up.

It also appears that I might be giving my talk, visiting friends and potential sponsors (actually my friends use the word "potential" to describe our friendship) in Portland (for sure), Seattle (probably), Bend (possibly), San Francisco (perhaps) and L.A. (prematurely perhaps possibly probably).

In addition to looking forward to seeing my angels (My mom, sister Carol and brother-in-law Frank), I've got a ton of friends in Portland, though only about a dozen of them put together make up a ton. I won't mention any names. Actually now that I mention it they're all quite fit.

Jeff Anderson was my best friend in the first grade and we've stayed friends ever since.

My best friends from Grade and Grad school are both in Bend, John Breeden and Cam Davis.

My best friends from Junior High and High School are in Portland and I see Matt Brewster, Clay Davidson, his wife Liz Case-Davidson, Tom Sims, Rich Wilhelmi and Jeff Lavey every time I go home.

Maybe my most consistent friend from the 1st through the 12th grades was Peter Neupert, who's been a senior vice president since 1987 at a small start-up computer company called Microsoft. His stock options might've done better than my Atari and 8-Track stocks. Our lives have been remarkably similar in that he's been a huge success and I haven't.

My best friend from film school is also in Seattle, Jeff Thomas, as is climbing and backcountry skiing buddy Pat Lathrop.

My best backpacking, climbing (easy stuff because of me, not him), backcountry skiing and overall buddy Jed Morrow is in the Bay Area, as are fine artists Brooks Anderson and Chris Evans, who was the head matte artist for George Lucas for many years. Chris painted the five bathrooms on walls in Lucas' home, and George ran into the wall every time he tried to go to the bathroom.

The only funnier building practical joke was when my architect friend Steve Dodd had a dump of a house because he knew he was going to scrape it and build his showcase dream home and he spent about five years planning it and over a year having it built. Then when Steve and his family went on vacation I tore down his dream home and rebuilt the old dump. The look on his face when they came back home was worth more than the home. The old dump of a home, anyway.

(You can tell when I'm telling the truth and joking, right? Al Gore's glacier and Lucas running into walls are jokes. You get that, right? Rebuilding Steve's old house is real.)

In L.A. I want to see another best friend, screenwriter Frank Deese (The Principal, Josh and Sam, many others) and screenwriter friends Marian Treger, Ron Birnbach, David Titcher (Around the World in 80 Days), Neal Jimenez (River's Edge) and Director Duane Clark (Dick Clark's son).

Today, as promised, I swam in Boulder Creek on a 90-something degree day to cool off before biking up 1200 vertical feet (one-tenth of the way from Everest base camp to the summit, only more secluded) to Brian Ridley's house.

I wore a light grey cotton t-shirt taking a dip (And bystanders said, "Look at that Dip!") in Boulder Creek and it kept me drenched, dripping and cool all the way up there (I resoaked it halfway up in a smaller creek). I'd bike past people and say, "I'm really sweating," and they feared for my safety because I looked like Albert Brooks when he got his epic case of flop sweat as he got his one shot at weekend anchor in "Broadcast News," only moreso.

Cotton can kill you if you wear it on extended adventures in mountains like the Cascades that get lots of rain and snow, but today it kept me cool because it dries so much more slowly than the synthetic materials I usually wear. The fact that it was tight-fitting and long sleeve meant that it kept moisture against my body and in key areas like the wrists, where the blood vessels are closer to the surface.

I also soaked a special Performance baseball cap that kept water next to my temples, the key place to keep cool on the entire body.

I'm speaking to potential sponsors who are developing such products like cooling vests and headbands to keep the temples cool, and I honestly believe that when energy prices get to where they're going, and when we come to our senses and continually reduce the burning of coal if we want a recognizable planet, that such cooling will be infinitely more efficient than air conditioning an entire large home or building.

We're approaching sponsors about having the "Ultimate System" for my 10,000 miles of biking on my year-long "End of the World Tour"and for other outdoor sports. Also, we'd like to launch a line called "Captain Safety" because everything I wear when I bike is that flourescent lime green that is my favorite color. Even my dental fillings are that color.

I often ride the 1200 vertical feet back down from Brian's at night on steep dirt roads without mountain bike tires or suspension and I have so many bright and flashing lights (two white lights in the front, three in the rear, flashing vest on me, etc, etc) that I look like a fully lit Christmas tree riding another fully lit Christmas tree.

So tonight I met Patti and almost a dozen other friends at the CU Shakespeare Festival and we saw an amazingly funny production of Bill's "Midsummer Night's Dream."

Only in Boulder. . .

. . .would somebody ramble on for so long about so little.