50 States in 2 Weeks - A Man and his Torpedo

I met Hunter Weeks in a strange way. I was living in Fairfield, Idaho - a town of about 500 full time residents. Not much happens there out of the ordinary. I peered out of my window and noticed that a small crew of people were camping in the park across the street from my house. On the side of their single trailer, there was a sign and logo reading "www.10mph.com". Normally in a small town you just walk across the street and start up a conversation. I was about to do that but instead decided to check out the webpage to see what they were all about.

It turns out that Hunter and his good friend Josh Caldwell were on an adventure to ride a Segway from Seattle, WA all the way to Boston, MA. How cool! I had to go out and talk to them.

Long story short, they ended up haging out for most of the day using my wireless internet connection and even interviewing myself and my business partner, Heath. We never made it in the finished documentary, but our names were in the credits.

Hunter has since go on to complete the 10mph movie and also created another documentary called 10 Yards which is all about Fantasy Football.

He just started another project working with Quiznos (I figure even creative types need to pay the bills eh?) where he traveled to all 50 states in 2 weeks. The video above is the first in a series of videos he says will be coming out.

I'm not endorsing Quiznos here (although I do eat there quite often), but I think it is cool what Hunter is doing so I had to share.

Sad News & New Beginnings

Today I read some very sad news. Michelle Kauffman told the world on her blog yesterday that her (extremely unique) Green Architecture and home building company will no longer be able to keep their doors open. If any of you have followed Michelle Kauffman’s work, you know that she is a visionary and leader in the green, healthy and energy efficient home design and building. Instead of just designing green homes, her firm also built the homes in special factories before shipping them to a home owners site to be assembled. The process of building the homes in a factory helped to reduce building waste and ensure the highest quality homes. Unfortunately because of the current economic climate, the financing market for home buyers and key partners going out of business, they simply weren’t able to hold on any longer.

Of course the death of one thing nourishes the life of something new. True to form, Michelle remains upbeat and optimistic about the future of green design and building. Keep an eye on her blog if this subject interests you. I have a feeling we will be hearing some great news in the months to come.

And Michelle…. Keep on doing what you do. You are an inspiration to me and countless others throughout the world!

The Future of Travel = No Travel at all

Wow. All I can say is wow. Ray Kurtzweil is a crazy guy, but probably a genius as well. Many people probably either don't agree with his ideas or are just too darn scared of them to admit it. I've read a lot about his ideas, and just came across this interesting article that touches on the future of travel and conferencing. While videoconferencing and telepresence is a cool thing right now, advances in technology are going to exponentially change the way in which we communicate. Take this article with Mr. Kurtzweil for example. Here he talks about how advances in nanobots and 3D technology will actually create virtual reality enviornments that seem completely real to us. I like the idea of "traveling" in 3D to a remote location where my image is projected just like I'm really there. I'm not so sure about nanobots taking over my body to induce a VR environment!

What do you think about Ray's ideas? Is he crazy or does he really have some good points? If the world really came to this, how do you see yourself reacting? After all, 2030 really isn't that far away!