Like Cobblestones?

This Sunday, April 13th marks the 106th running of one of cycling’s most famed one-day classics: the Paris-Roubaix. Covering 260km (that’s 161.5 miles) of pavement, country roads, and mud (usually), Paris-Roubaix is perhaps best known for winding over more than 50k of wheel-grabbing, historic cobblestones. And while it’s always a fun race to watch, this year we’re particularly excited to follow the riders of the emerging American team, Slipstream/Chipotle.

Directed by former US Postal Serive (among other teams) rider and US Time-Trial Champion Jonathan Vaughters, and boasting A-list cyclists like David Zabriskie, David Millar, Tyler Farrar and Christian Vande Velde, Slipstream/Chipotle is more than just a stacked team, however. With doping scandals grabbing headlines and threatening the future of pro cycling everywhere, they’ve gone to the pavement to design a team that will bring clean sport back to the peleton.

Given their commitment to making change, we’re proud that they’ve chosen Nau as the team’s off-bike clothing provider. So while you won’t see a Nau spandex TT suit anytime soon, you will catch the riders and the support staff sporting the gear. And with the announcement last week that the team has received a bid to the Tour de France, we’re looking forward to seeing it in Paris as well!

You can read more about the team’s commitment to untainted sports performance, and follow their progress over the cobbles to Roubaix, at www.slipstreamsports.com.

Nothing to See Here

826CHI dwells behind the Boring Store, a store advertising approximately nothing, boasting a complete lack of customers, and stating that it might carry apertures, openings, perforations, pits, cavities and punctures, holes and hollows. Within, one can find (if one looks hard), all the supplies a secret agent could possibly need in the big city: underwater voice amplifiers, glasses with cameras installed, and of course, the signature 826CHI mustache on a stick, an essential insta-disguise for anyone hoping to remain undetected. The Boring Store and its important merchandise provide much-needed funds for a non-profit offering free services to any school aged children in Chicago, but the real magic happens in the back room.

On this particular Thursday I watch a hoard of fidgety 4th graders peering through the window that divides the Boring Store from the “publishing house.” Straight ahead they glimpse a closet, chained shut and plastered with signs proclaiming “KEEP OUT By Order Of ADMIRAL MOODY.” “NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED!” “PELIGRO! NO TRASPASAR!” The students look nervous.

The other volunteers and I look nervous too. We explain to the students coming in the door that we work for a publishing house with the meanest boss alive. This could be our last day; we may, in fact, be fired if things don’t work out. Admiral Moody insists that we publish at least one good story a day, and refuses to accept anything with violence or unhappy endings. We desperately need the help of a 4th grade class to achieve this goal, and so we quickly herd them in front of the photographer (who snaps their “author photo”, complete with the requisite serious face and serious looking mustache on a stick that all authors of course wear) and then seat them on a rug to await orders. Read on »

Recommended Reading

As The Thought Kitchen nears its one-year anniversary (8/24, for those of you interested), we’re pretty thrilled about the ideas, discoveries, people and topics that have found their way into our company. We’ve grown in our awareness of the blog world, and awareness of us has grown as well. To that end, we wanted to acknowledge that we’ve updated our list of Like Minds links (at left) with a bunch more interesting, compelling and often inspiring sites. Check ‘em out. They’re where we go for insight, info and laughs. You should too. Thanks for reading, and keep the comments coming!

D.I.Y. Foreign Aid

It is fitting that Nicholas Kristof, probably one of the most influential and spot-on on-line journalists working today, would stumble across our Partner for Change, Kiva.org.

His March 27 column and video recounts a visit he made recently with two entrepreneurs in Afghanistan—a baker and a t.v. repairman—that he loaned money to using his laptop and Kiva.org, a Web site that provides information in MySpace-like profiles about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them for as little as $25. When loans are repaid, the lender can keep her original investment or relend it to others.

As we researched and got to know Kiva last fall, we began to see many parallels with Nau. It was founded a little more than two years ago by entrepreneurs seeking social change and wanting to do business in a different way. Matt and Jessica Flannery came away from time in Africa seeing that even small amounts of working capital could transform lives. Their challenge: how to make that opportunity available and easy for people seeking to make a difference? Working with a keen group of colleagues recruited from Silicon Valley successes PayPal and TiVo, Kiva.org was born. Today anyone with an internet connection and credit card or PayPal account can lend money to those with no or little access to credit, allowing the lender to start or grow an existing business.

Kristof, who also credits another Partner for Change, Mercy Corps, which itself is also a major player in the microfinance world, reminds us that microfinance is an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh. Read on »

Photo of the Year 2006 Winner

A few months ago, we announced our sponsorship of the Photo of the Year Contest and now we have a winner! Congratulations are in order for Kristen Muskat, whose dramatic image of a Zanzibar mangrove tree received the most votes from both judges and attendees of the award ceremony. The gala event generated $13000 for the MESD Outdoor School.

To further support The Outdoor School, purchase a POTY calendar from Ink Promotions: 503-715-3404.

Photo of the Year 2006 Contest

Hey shutterbugs, we’re sponsoring the Photo of the Year 2006 amateur photo contest to benefit the MESD Outdoor School here in Portland. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2006. Enter your photographs in the following categories: Scenery, Adrenaline, Faces and Youth. After entries are narrowed down to the top 150 (by a panel of judges organized by Uncage the Soul Productions), finalists will be posted online to be voted on by the public. The winner will receive a $500 cash prize, and second and third place will each get $100. A gala event to announce the winners will be held January 28, 2007 with proceeds from ticket sales going to a great cause: MESD Outdoor School.

The photo on the left, by Scott Wood, was a finalist in the 2003 Photo of the Year contest.