Life with Tim

Hi. I am really bad about writing in all my blogs, so I decided to consolidate them. You can find my new blog here:  http://timlevett.github.io/ . Looking forward to seeing you in my new space. UPDATE: This is now false, cheers.

As of 7/23/2015 I got bored this evening and decided to call all the local breweries and ask them the following questions. Do you fill growlers, do you fill other breweries growlers, and how much. Here is a little table for ya: Brewery Do they Fill? Do they fill other breweries Growlers? Cost (low/high) Great Dane Yes Yes 14 One Barrel Yes Yes 12/20 Hop Cat* Yes No 14/18 Al Asylum Yes Yes 12/15 Next Door Yes Yes 13.50/20 Vintage Yes Yes 12/32 House of Brews Yes No (prebottled) 15 (including dep.) Karben4 Yes Yes 10/13 * : not a brewery, i know A big thing with bigger places was that the growler had the surgeon general warning on it, so don't scratch that off. Lastly it has to be sealable. Overall, it was pretty common to fill up a growler, excellent, and even better, you just need one (at most places). So there you have it, cheers. - Tim

My goal for 2014 was to be still . No life altering events. For the most part I succeeded. My other goal for this year was to excel at running and try out a triathlon. Well, injury happened which killed my running this summer. Not before some excellent races though. I did my childhood dream of running the Grand Rapids River Bank Run 25K. Finished in 1:55. The following weekend I ran a back to back race called conquer the capital (10k then 1/2 marathon the next day). That probably wasn't very bright :). During my downtime I did a lot of cross training though and now getting back into running. I only ran for 4 months out of the year but still covered over 390 miles. After injury I was told I could bike as long as it didn't hurt, I covered 989 miles. I know, super nerdy to keep all that data, but hey I like data :). All and all, it was a good year. So what to do for a goal in 2015?  Triathlon sounds nice, lets do one of those. Lets also make it a goal not to do 2 weekend races ...

... is over and here are my thoughts. New Power Units - Amazing. I don't care about how loud it is , the tech in these cars is outstanding. See video here  that explains more. Merc Power - Unstoppable... when it works. Mercedes reliability were not really that bad. They had a couple failures, but who doesn't? These are prototype engines. Bound to have some failures. Just a bummer it had to be on the final race to decide the drivers championship. On the other hand, every engine manufacture had failures this season, Renault were the worst, Ferrari a very close second, and then Merc. It is a new formula after all. ROS vs. HAM - Everyone thought Hamilton (HAM) was going to dominate, so not terribly surprised he won. I had a feeling Rosberg (ROS) would put up a fight. I was right. Curious if it would have ended differently if they would have went head to head (ROS suffered ERS failure 1/2 way through the final race, removing all possibility of winning the championship...

I've never been so excited for winter. You are probably thinking, "what's wrong with you?"  The answer is simple, fat biking.  Its just fun. Granted I haven't tried it in snow , but if its anything like riding in the sand, then I'll be having a great time. I've done about 100 miles of single track trail using the bike and a bit cruising around town. It's a little different than a typical mountain bike. Its comfortable, slow, and can go pretty much anywhere. This is a new outlook on winter for me. Usually I am dread everything winter. Cold, snow, ugh. I hope that this activity changes that outlook, and I go out often. If not I'll follow this up with a craigslist ad selling my fat bike :P SO, when you look out in winter and you see this: I will see this: Happy riding :)

After watching the Friday press conference for F1 I got an idea. We see this all the time, F1 teams failing and new ones coming in. The topic of money cap has came up once again after two back marker teams went belly up. Toto Wolf (Merc boss) speaks that it would be impossible to police the cap. I kind of agree.  Sports car racing has a different solution that I think F1 could try.  They have multiple classes. Prototype one (P1) is the extreme, unlimited budget, etc... then they have P2 which is limited resources, spec engines, etc... This gives a more reasonable approach with new teams. What if F1 adopted that? It would make the back markers matter, which would be nice IMO.  The teams that want to do the money cap could, and the manufactures that want to spend $300 million can.

So I've been using Strava for the past couple months, and its great! Features I love: Automatically linking sections I bike/run with marked sections and show how I did compared to others that have traveled that path. When I run with another person and we are both using Strava it tells you about it. Easy to use interface on my phone and my smart watch (Google Wear device) You tell Strava what shoes you have and it tells you when you have put enough miles on them You setup your bike(s) and it tells you how many miles you are putting on them There newest feature, upcoming events. I love having my goal listed so I know why I'm training. So why write all these features? Well, Endomondo came out with Google Wear support, that is why. The interesting thing, its better than Stravas integration.  Yes they both tell you how long you have been running/biking, how far you have gone, and your pace (average only for Strava).  Endomondo took it to the next level, full customizat...