Due to the tremendous response we've gotten, we've decided to give The Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network site room to grow by moving it to a new, improved location:

http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com

Please re-set your bookmarks as all new posts will occur on the new site.

As part of the move we are also transitioning to a Moveable Type content management system, which will allow us to add more editors while providing better search and categorization capabilities.

Thank you your continued support. Growth is good.

-Tim
1:41:54 PM    comment []  

Union Street Festival -- June 7 & 8

Union Street Festival

The 27th Annual Union Street Festival is one of San Francisco's largest free art festivals. More than 100,000 attendees come from all over the Bay Area to enjoy the event. The festival features 200 artists, 20 gourmet food booths, live entertainment on two stages, bistro style cafes, spacious wine & beer gardens and a large family adventure area with children's activities and hands-on art projects.

Union Street -- Gough to Steiner -- 10am to 6pm
9:10:12 PM    comment []  

Funny Cide in 'Awesome' Warm-up

BBC SPORT:

Funny Cide sparkled in his final tune-up ahead of his bid to win the US Triple Crown.

The three-year-old will attempt on Saturday to claim the Belmont Stakes and become the first horse to win the treble for 25 years and the first ever gelding to achieve the feat.

8:53:54 PM    comment []  

Unfogging the Future: What to Look for in the Next Harry Potter

Book Magazine:

After three knuckle-biting years of waiting for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we finally have a date. On June 21, J.K. Rowling's latest dose of Harry, Hogwarts, Hermione and Hedwig will be delivered to millions of grateful readers. To help fill the gap between then and now, Book went to work, gathering every hint that's been dropped -- including surprising revelations by Rowling herself -- about what to expect in Book Five. Here's what we've divined.

5:56:26 PM    comment []  

New York Times by Jason Epstein:

My apologies to readers who may have been seduced by my euphoric example when I announced my conversion to Atkinsism in these pages nearly a year ago. The diet worked. My conversion failed. In half the time it took to lose 20 pounds, I gained 12 back, not because my will is weak but because my temptations are strong, especially for my daughter-in-law Susie Norris's homemade chocolates, hamburgers at the Corner Bistro, Maida Heatter's ginger biscotti and long, slow dinners accompanied by Leslie Rudd's smoothly complex cabernet/merlot blend.

I've always thought that the Atkins diet was too strict in restricting carbohydrates. I prefer the Zone diet, which is more moderate in terms of carbohydrates.

10:43:07 AM    comment []  

Edinburgh Evening News (Scotland):

An East Lothian schoolgirl has become the youngest ever person in Scotland to win her private pilot licence.

The fifth-year-pupil became Scotland’s joint-youngest person in the country to fly solo last year.

Now the teenager has won her full licence just days before she turns 17 - although she won’t be able to use it until her birthday.

12:21:34 AM    comment []  

Technology Review:

Cheap computer power and high-tech observation systems mean precise forecasts, offering consumers personalized reports and saving weather-sensitive businesses millions

Quite an advance from the days when 24-hour weather forecast models took more than 24 hours to run on the supercomputers of that time!

-Tim
3:34:20 PM    comment []  

Mercury News:

Scientists have succeeded in cloning a baby mule, a gangly-legged creature named Idaho Gem -- brother of the world's second-fastest racing mule and the first successful clone of any member of the horse family.

Idaho Gem's creation, a collaboration between scientists at the University of Idaho and Utah State University, raises the possibility that valuable competition horses or endangered equine species could pass on their genes even if they are sterile or dead.

Makes me wonder if Secretariat's DNA is floating around somewhere...

-Tim
1:38:02 PM    comment []  

The New York Times:

MADELINE NELSON of Steubenville, Ohio, has been in the third grade since last fall but has met her teacher only a few times. She has plenty of schoolwork to do, including book reports and her favorite, art projects.

She gets her assignments online through the Ohio Virtual Academy, which she attends along with her sister Therese, 7, and brother Gabriel, 5, from the dining room table at home.

If Madeline, 9, were a traditional home-schooled student, her mother, Gretchen, would be instructing her (her father, Mark, works full time outside the home). But even though Mrs. Nelson believes home schooling is best for her children, she does not feel capable of teaching them.

For those friends who have chosen to homeschool their children, I hope you find this article inspiring.

-Jen

Keywords: Computers and the Internet, Teachers and School Employees, Children and Youth, Equal Educational Opportunities
11:26:36 AM    comment []  

New York Times:

Apple Computer seems to have the future of online music in its hands for the moment. Its new service, iTunes Music Store, has been the first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet. In just its first month of operation the service, by the company's estimate, has sold three million songs online, at 99 cents each. This is an impressive figure considering the limited access that music fans now have to the service.

7:43:55 PM    comment []  

When Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa set out this past spring to set an Everest speed ascent record, little did anyone know he would not only break the late Babu Chirri Sherpa's Everest speed ascent record of 16 hrs 56, but shatter it altogether with a time of 10 hrs 56 min and 46 sec -- 6 hours faster than Babu's seemingly unbeatable record.

4:47:10 PM    comment []  

BBC NEWS:

The cost of downloading songs from the internet has been cut in the first round of a price war. Listen.com, which provides internet radio broadcasts for $9.95 a month, is slashing the price for burning music onto CDs from 99 cents to 79 cents. This comes just a month after Apple Computers launched its online iTunes music store, which allowing Mac users to download songs for 99 cents with no monthly subscription fee. The Apple service has been far more popular than expected, with two million songs downloaded in its first 16 days.

This is obviously good for all of us who are consumers.

-Tim
3:58:18 PM    comment []