The Mind of TCHO

Our first intern and favorite Millennial (even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate the association) Michael Korczowski calls our attention to this bit of Millennial collaboration:

More about this video here.

Start healing.

Couple months back, my lovely wife took me skydiving for my birthday. Best part was, there was no jumping, falling, or fear of the parachute not opening. It was all indoors…in a vertical wind tunnel.  So cool.

Maybe next birthday, the real thing?!

Here I am, pre-flight, with friend and fellow flier, Bryan

a little footage too…

Mark and I moved to Petaluma.  Easier said then done.  Mark continues to push his some 150 tons of metal north up the 101 - and he is almost almost done.

Here is a shot at the new front door of SRL

The fabulous Scott Beale has always taken the best picts - here is his latest Laughing Squid post including SRL - that is chock full of images from SRL recent days gone by.

Boom.

Through an arrangement with the Port of San Francisco, when the Navy comes to town, they tie up at Pier 17, TCHO’s very own home port, so to speak. This year, we knew they were coming when they started putting up crash barriers and guard stations at the end of the parking lot. We just didn’t know what ship was coming.

In keeping with the food theme of our pier, the Pinckney was named after Cook First Class William Pinckney, who courageously rescued fellow sailors during an attack on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise during the Battle of Santa Cruz during WWII.

The Pinckney is part of a carrier battle group stationed in San Diego. It’s four years old, and has never been to the Gulf, although lots of sailors have Global War on Terrorism combat ribbons. Its mission is anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, and anti-surface warfare. When I explained to my son that we wouldn’t be visiting a a Star Destroyer but a real destroyer, he was still excited and brought along his friend Daniel. That’s Orson below in the “Go Fire” teeshirt (after his soccer club Mersey Fire).

Amazing the access you have on the ship. Those square hatch covers are the rear missile array—as in cruise missiles, 64 of them.

Great views from the ship too. Past the aft copter pad is the Bay Bridge.

Hippies aren’t the only ones wearing tie-dye in SF, as this Ohio veteran can attest to. That’s a chain gun he’s looking at—spews lots of bullets, presumably at the kind of surface attack that caught the Cole off guard in Yemen.

And speaking of guns, Orson got to blast away at the Transamerica Pyramid (at least in his imagination).

While Orson was slaughtering San Francisco, Daniel was calmly running the ship from the XO (second in command) chair on the bridge.

Meanwhile, never let it be said that the USS Navy doesn’t live up to at least some aspects of San Francisco’s levels of political correctness.

Whew, it was a long time in development, but TCHO Web 1.0 is finally live and kickin! 

This was a gargantuan effort that spanned many talents and many hands.  First selecting a state-of-the-art e-Commerce platform that would be completely open-source and meet our growing needs, then on to the designers to create the look and feel that reflects who we are.

Then, who to build it?  Who better than the team that produced Magento in the first place, Varien?  We worked with Varien over the course of several weeks to get the design built and the back-end all put together. 

Of course, they were tapped mainly to get the store and the overall site framework built.  The rest of the content, including our killer homepage carousel, and moving the existing content from our TCHO Beta site, fell upon the inimitable Ari Salomon, several of our illustrious interns, and myself.  I would say the bulk of the heavy lifting has gone to Ari, and I can’t stress how great he is as a creative thinker, designer, and in overall website production.  Please let us know what you think!

There is something I should be doing this weekend – racing with my rowing crew in the Head of the Charles Regatta. The HOCR, as it is familiarly called, is the most prestigious rowing regatta in the U.S hosting over 7500 athletes from around the world to compete in 55 different events. The three-mile course on Boston’s Charles River is lined with 300,000 spectators for the two-day regatta.

For most rowers, qualifying to race at HOCR is a lifetime’s achievement. To win at the HOCR becomes an obsession. I have been fortunate to race there six times, coming close to winning last year when we finished 2nd.

This year, my crew is Marin Rowing Association’s Grand Masters Women’s 8. The rule is average age of the eight rowers must be 60+. Our crew this year is better, faster and stronger than last year thanks to the miracle of aging up. Younger, stronger and more skilled rowers bring their talent and muscles with them as they age-qualify for older boats. We all felt that we had enough additional speed to avenge our 2007 loss and our chances for that elusive gold medal seemed within the realm of possibility.

When, with 8 weeks of training left, I injured my shoulder badly enough that it required surgery to repair, I became obsessed with how to help power this crew to victory. Still getting up at 4:15am to go to practice, I sat on the launch and watched these women do drills, do simulated race pieces against much younger crews, get down on themselves, work things out and eventually become a unit. In my own way, I willed them to do great things, much like a bowler wills his ball into the pocket with contorted body language.

To grasp some idea of the motion and effort of a rowing stroke, think about it this way: every rowing stroke is a full-on leg press. Coaches often talk about driving with your legs hard enough to make it feel like a 400-pound leg press. Knowing that it would take my crew about 18 minutes to complete the 3-mile course and that they would be racing at 30 strokes per minute, I calculated that they would be doing the equivalent of 540 leg presses. I promised them that during their race, I would be at the gym, visualizing the course and giving them all the psychological power I could by doing those 540 leg presses with them. When they got to that pain place, that place where you have nothing left, they could rely on my leg power to get them beyond it. I would be the 9th rower on that 8-woman crew.

I am obsessed with winning that race. My crew did win – they will come home with HOCR gold medals wrapped around their necks for the first time. I feel a part of it, especially today, the day after. My sore legs and hangover remind me of yesterday’s effort and last night’s bi-coastal celebration. It was and is a thrill and, I hope to have another shot at that elusive gold medal next year. Calvin Klein may think Obsession makes men smell nice. My obsession makes me smell like sweat.

So, on my way back from New York I stopped to visit my dad in Ann Arbor. When I’m in Ann Arbor the first thing I do is head to Zingerman’s



to stock up on some of the best cheeses



this planet has to offer and some of their delicious bread.



A little later on, like maybe the next day, I head back to Zingerman’s for the thing that put them on the culinary map: their sandwiches. My favorite happens to be the #1 Who’s Greenberg Anyway?  A corned beef and chopped liver fantasy.



People waiting in line for their sandwiches or maybe smoked white fish.



Surveying the world of olive oils with an ever helpful Zingerman’s staff member.



Zingerman’s even introduced Ann Arbor to Rhode Island’s state drink: coffee milk! They make it themselves rather than using the bottled stuff. Fantastic!