In the past month, three people independently recommended that I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Two bought me the book. The other said, "this book will make you want to tear off all your clothes and go running into the wilderness."

I just finished the book, and I can only nod in agreement. And I bet it has an even more profound effect on non-runners.

We've been back in the U.S. for a week now and are halfway through our Tour de California. Some things we've noticed:

• air conditioning
  
• weird small green money
  
• fat people
  
• sandwiches with more stuff than bread
  
• toilets with lots of water
  
• diversity
  
• SO MUCH DRIVING!!!
  

What kind of important issues will Justice Sotomayor be handling in her first term on the Supreme Court? How about crush fetishes? In United States v. Stevens, the justices will be considering the constitutionality of a statute banning the depiction of animal cruelty, which was apparently intended to crack down on crush fetish porn but whose language is sufficiently broad to prohibit depictions of all kinds of animal cruelty, whether or not high heels are involved. Here's an interesting (if slightly technical) preview.

It's already been a year since this post about Norman Schwarzkopf's "Be Bear Aware" campaign. I'm planning on going back into the mountains, and for the first time I'm going to be camping in grizzly country - the Wind River Range.

Following General Schwarzkopf's advice, I'm trying to be Bear Aware, and for the first time I've bought bear spray. Annoying thing about the bear spray: it has an expiration date of June 2010. That means even if I don't use it I have to buy some more next summer. I was hoping I could keep this canister forever, kind of like a fire extinguisher. What? Those have expiration dates too? Oh man.

Wailin was interviewed about social media on last night's episode of Chicago Tonight, the local news program on Chicago's PBS station. I thought she did a nice job!