TUNESday: Julian Carr

Julian Carr has a serious hucking habit. He's known for blasting off big cliffs and going inverted off many of them. He also started a headwear company called Discrete, and loves writing. He's one of skiing's rennisance men. We caught up with him for this week's TUNESday to ask a few questions and find out what kind of music inspires someone who inspires others. Skiing: What kind of music do you normally listen to while skiing?Julian Carr: I love jazzy hip-hop instrumentals the most.  Flowing but energetic. SK: Hands down favorite place to ski? Because? JC: Utah.  Best snow in the world.  AK, Andes, Alps and BC are a close 2nd...SK: Would you rather spend a day skiing ice with your friends, or shredding pow by yourself? Why? JC: POW.  It's an experience you couldn't possibly even comprehend if it didn't exist.  Ice on the other hand, you can comprehend - no fun.  You can always have fun with your friends wherever you are.SK: Who would win in a fight, Davy Crockett or Captain Jack Sparrow? Why? JC: Crockett.  No question.  Dude fought bears.  Jack Sparrow had to hang out on a pirate boat with 100 other dudes all the time, no thanks.SK: You never get to go inverted again. Do you: 1.Up your daffy game? 2.Attempt to beat Jon Olson in ski racing? 3.Find out if inverts in video games still count? JC: Daffy twister spread all day long...Shredding the Face Off the Mountain Mix: Julian Carr's Shredding the face off of the mountain, mix:So Bad It's the Shit Mix: Jullian Carr's So Bad It's the Shit, mix: on GroovesharkBustin' Out Emails On Five Cups of Coffee Mix: Julian Carr's Bustin Out Emails on 5 cups of coffee, mix: on GroovesharkFor REAL Top Five Mix: Julian Carr's For Real Top 5, mix: by joshua rashkin on GroovesharkThe Julian Carr Super Player: Pop-Out Player

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Ventotene, Italy: Eating Here

The winds were favorable today, and we sailed all the way to Ventotene, an outlying island to the northeast of Procida that is actually in the Pontine Archipelago, not the Phlegrian. With gusts snapping in the sails, we made the 26-nautical-mile trip in a cracking three and a half hours. And we were famished from the journey.
Enter Benito Malingiere, the 84-year-old owner and chef of Ristorante Bar ?da Benito? where we sated our appetite. Cradled in a small bay that overlooks Roman ruins, the eatery has for 42 years been serving Pontinese staples such as garlicky lentil soup (cultivated on the island for centuries) and tooth fish grilled in the restaurant?s open-air kitchen. Benito, a bushy-haired, sweet-talking charmer, still mans the grill with a switch of rosemary that he uses to baste the meat in extra virgin, oregano, and mint. After every bit of fish had been picked from the bones and there were more dead soldiers on the table than full ones, the chef, who wears a Sterling anchor on a chain around his neck and was drinking white from a carafe by this point, serenaded us with Neapolitan love songs. The four svelte 20-something Roman girls at the table next to ours swooned and crooned the choruses along with him. Eating here, I?m finding, is as much about spending time and community as it is about simple nourishment.
The winds were favorable today, and we sailed all the way to Ventotene, an outlying island to the northeast of Procida that is actually in the Pontine Archipelago, not the Phlegrian. With gusts snapping in the sails, we made the 26-nautical-mile trip in a cracking three and a half hours. And we were famished from the journey. Enter Benito Malingiere, the 84-year-old owner and chef of Ristorante Bar ?da Benito? where we sated our appetite...
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The amazing weather man of the Lake District

The records of John Fletcher Miller reach the limelight at last. And, lo!, they are even more interesting than that seminal Whitehaven work, Lamposts I have knownWhitehaven's record office contains many wonderful documents in the miles of shelving in its vaults. Vaults that once housed prisoners when they were used as the cells of Whitehaven police station. Lamp posts I have known by Peter Richardson is one of my favourite books in the archives, with a detailed and valuable historical account of almost every lamp post in the town. There's also the single sheet headed, List of Deaths taken from the Parish of Lamplugh from Janry ye 1, 1658 to Janye ye 1, 1663. It includes:* Took cold sleeping at church: 11* Frighted to death by Fairies: 4* Died of a fright in a Exercise of ye traind bands: 1* Mrs Lamplugh's cordial water: 2* Bewitched: 7and so forth.But in July the remarkable work of John Fletcher Miller (1816 - 1856) receives some long overdue publicity. At the age of 15, John Miller realised his ill health would not allow him to pursue a medical career and chose instead to keep a daily detailed log of the weather in the Lake District. This he continued until his death at the age of 40.It's not just the day-by-day measurement of rainfall, cloud cover, rainbows and storms that are worthy of mention. It's also the beautiful calligraphy with which he wrote up his logs. There is page after page of italic script describing in wonderful language the "mizzling rain", "gleamings" of sunshine and "prismatic solar halos". For example:July 13th 1852 - Very vivid and almost incessant sheet lightning (horizontal) from sunset till after daylight, the heavens being in a perfect blaze.He was also something of a 'Fortean'. You will recall Charles Fort was the 19th century collector of 'the damned' - those falls of frogs, fishes spontaneous fire, levitation and other unexplained data which he felt science chose to ignore. Years before Fort started his mountain of newspaper cuttings, Miller was collecting at first-hand accounts of meteors, strange aerial phenomena, particularly destructive lightning strikes, the first appearance of butterflies in the spring and - something for which Guardian readers will be particularly appreciative - the first cuckoos. They seemingly always put in a first appearance around April 21st. Miller was living not far from Borrowdale where legend has it that the locals tried in the past to build a wall across the valley to prevent the cuckoo flying away and thereby ensure an 'eternal spring'. When the cuckoo flew over the wall, the Borrowdale wall-builder cursed that he had not built it a couple of feet higher!But I digress. Here's a description by Miller of a particularly violent lightning strike in May 1850:At Westfield House, near Bowness, Carlisle, Mrs Harrison and the servant-man were milking the cows during the storm, when the electric fluid struck the man dead on the spot, killing four cows at the same time. The stool upon which Mrs H was sitting was literally, split in two and she was thrown to a considerable distance by the violence of the shock. Strange to say, not the slightest mark was found to be on the man or the cattle. The storm was not felt at Whitehaven. which is peculiarly exempted from thunder-storms.He built his own observatory in Whitehaven and seemed to spend as many nights as he did days recording events in the sky. His description of a meteor on 27 April 1851 even included a drawing (though its fair to say his talent lay in the writing rather than drawing):-About 10hr 5min being in the observatory my attention was attracted by a sudden blaze of light illuminating the sky and on reaching the open air, I perceived a very large comet-shaped meteor proceeding from the head of Draco through Cassiopea, but I did not see it more than a couple of seconds. The meteor greatly resembled a rocket. Its body might be one and half degrees in length and it was followed by a long and brilliant train of bluish-coloured sparks. Its light exceed that of a the full moon and I feel assured moderate sized print might have easily been read by it. It was seen at 10pm in the neighbourhood of Manchester, Rochdale and other places. It was followed by repeated flashes of lightning.We think that we are experiencing extreme weather these days, with barely a month going by that some fall of rain or heatwave is not the best or worst "since records began". But a quick look at Mr Miller's records suggests that 19th century weather was just as varied and extreme as today. In January 1850 for instance he reports:Sharp frost set in on the 6th and continued till the 22d, during which period there was fine skating on Bassenthwaite Lake. A stag was roasted on its margin and a tea party assembled on the ice.It would be wrong to dismiss Miller as an eccentric. He had five papers on Rain Fall in the Lake District published by the Royal Society and he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was a founder of the British (now Royal) Meteorological Society.The original volumes of Mr Miller's data will be on display at Whitehaven Archive and Local Studies Centre in Scotch Street, Whitehaven, during the first week of July. Admission is free. The offices are just round the corner from Miller's former High Street home - a blue plaque marking the building. And even if you don't share an interest in annual rainfall figures or first cuckoos the beautiful script contained within the hand-bound books held tight with gold clasps will at least remind you of that stress-free age before typewriters, laptops and ebooks.Alan Cleaver is a freelance journalist and author living in Whitehaven.You can watch a slideshow about another amazing Lake District weatherman here.WeatherMuseumsMuseumsLibrariesLake DistrictWhitehavenRoyal SocietyAstronomyguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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WILD Fall Preview

Can't wait till fall? Neither can we! Check out what's coming soon to the WILD lineup: Meet the freshest faces of Nat Geo WILD. Three rugged, adventure-seeking experts answering the ?call of the wild.? And one veteran who will give them all a run for their money. Also coming up: Animals Say the Wildest Things: Coming this August-September, Wednesdays at 10 & 10:30 p.m. A chimpanzee therapy session, a polar bear that lost her cell phone, a choir of singing sharks and a bird tribute to the ?king of Pop,? Michael Jackson. That?s just a bit of what comes out of the mouths of comedians voicing over natural history footage?with their own humorous interpretation of what the animals are thinking and doing in the new series Animals Say the Wildest Things. We?ll also meet the ?Prince of Barkness? when special guests Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne give their own interpretation for a scene. Nature?s Miracle Babies: Premieres Tuesday, September 13 8-11 p.m. & Wednesday September 14 8-10 p.m. These are special babies ? more than just adorable, they are critically important to the survival of their species. Nat Geo WILD takes viewers around the world to follow dedicated people working to save them. Each animal they raise to adulthood is a step away from extinction, with the ultimate challenge to return them to the wild. We?ll see ambitious programs to save diverse species from the outback of Australia, the savannahs of East Africa, the Brazilian Amazon and some of the most successful zoo breeding programs in the world.

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#FriFotos: Soumaya and the Sky

This week's #FriFotos theme is MUSEUMS, so we decided to feature this unbelievable shot that Abelardo de la Torre submitted to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. Sixteen thousand aluminum tiles coat the exterior of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City.

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Where To Eat Exotic Meats In Denver, Colorado

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Food and Drink, North America, United States, Budget TravelLocated at 2148 Larimer Street, Biker Jim's is an unassuming hot dog restaurant serving up a very unique menu. While the crowds of families, couples and groups of friends may look like they're eating your average beef hot dog, they're more likely eating elk, duck, pheasant, buffalo, rattlesnake, wild boar or possibly reindeer. They also have a bat burger topped with bacon, avocado and tomato cream cheese.

Hot dogs are $6, with additional costs for toppings. And, we're not talking just ketchup. Cream cheese with caramelized onions, Malaysian jam and wasabi aioli with caramelized apple are just some of the unique choices you can top your dog with. My companion and I ordered the Alaskan reindeer and bat dog. While the reindeer was extremely plump and juicy with a very spicy flavor, the bat dog was a lot sweeter with a smoky essence.

If you're in the mood to eat outside, Biker Jim's also has an outdoor food cart. It's located across from the clock tower on the 16th Street Mall. You can head over around 10:30 a.m. to get your fix, and they stay until around 3 or 4 p.m.

Best of all, they're open until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, so you'll be able to satiate your drunk munchies with some buffalo wrapped in bacon, or a combo dog of rattlesnake and pheasant.Where To Eat Exotic Meats In Denver, Colorado originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Court Ruling Gives Europeans Right To Sick Days While On Vacation

It's bad enough that Europeans get about twice as much vacation, on average, as we do in North America and now they can take sick days while on vacation too? The European Union Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, ruled last week that workers who get sick while on vacation should be able to classify those days as sick leave.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for vacation time, the more the better, but this ruling is hard for an American to understand. If you came back from a vacation and your boss asked, "How was your trip?" and you responded, "It was OK, but I caught a cold," do you think he'd offer you a do over? I doubt it.

American conservatives, who tend to distrust all things European, point to rulings like this one as proof of why most European economies are a mess. But the truth is that the European countries that take the most time off - Germany, The Netherlands and Norway are in relatively good shape, while Greeks, who have the sickest economy in Europe, work the most hours on the continent. Maybe the Europeans are on to something and we should start taking sick days while on vacation too.

[Image via cdedbdme on Flickr]

View PollCourt Ruling Gives Europeans Right To Sick Days While On Vacation originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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