I wasn't driving too fast, officer. I was flying too low.

Today was 'Flugtag' on the downtown riverwalk near the convention center. This event is pretty much comprised of several teams making a flying machine which they push off a 30 foot high platform into the water. they are then judges on style, distance, and other criteria for a few prizes, but mainly for entertainment. I loaded up a few kayaks and canoes in the morning to meet some friends so we could paddle down to watch the events. I'm definitely glad we did this since there was little to no way we'd be able to get decent viewing from land or even a boat since it was packed everywhere. Kristen wanted to get a lot of shots for her project, so the kayak really enabled us to get pretty much everywhere we wanted simply by threading between the boats. We took out my tandem kayak so she could deal with shooting while I steered, and it all worked out quite well. We took plenty of drink and food along with copious amounts of sunblock.
Just the getting down the event was a bit rough with a lot of boats coming by since the river is lined with seawalls, so the boat wake energy really has no where to go or be dissipated, but the trip back was even worse as all the boats at the event were attempting to leave at the same time. Several in our group took spills as they really weren't used to the choppy water, but everyone eventually got back, save for maybe a camera, set of sandals, and other flotsam. I was too tired to really hang out for too long, so just invited some friends to the house for a while where we had a big dinner, played a few games, and chatted for a while.

My firstborn is going to be named Google!

Google is just the epitome of coolness and innovation. Hopefully anyone that has used Mapquest switched to Google Maps years ago. Google simply has had a cleaner set up with extreme customization for a while, and now it is even better. Yesterday a new feature was quietly released.

How often have you made a route and realized that you wanted to change the route, such as when you knew it would be better to get off at one point where the route suggested a different point? Maybe you wanted to make a stop someplace in particular along the way and wanted to include that stop.I figured this might just be something that is too difficult to implement, but the Google guys and gals have done it again.

Now once you create a route, you can simply grab the blue line (create route) and the point you want changed and then drag it to another location on the map. The server will quickly recalculate the route. Here is a tutorial: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/directions/index.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-mapshpp-na-us-google&utm_medium=mapshpp

You may now add in additional destinations and change routes as you see fit. This is incredibly cool and extremely useful.