A rousing climax to Le Tour

(Above) The 2009 Tour de France's top competitors (from left) Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain, Lance Armstrong of the United States and, wearing the leader's yellow jersey, Alberto Contador of Spain.

For the past eight years or so, this time of the year has been my favorite when it comes to spectator sports. For three weeks each July, the top professional cyclists in the world combat the most difficult courses, terrains, mountains and each other in pursuit of the most prestigious honor in the sport -- the championship of the Tour de France.

Tomorrow's penultimate stage of the 2009 Tour promises to be an exciting show, indeed. Oh, the Tour winner -- 2007 champion Alberto Contador of Spain -- has this year's victory pretty much locked up. But there is a tight race for second through sixth positions. Whoever finishes second and third will earn a place with Contador on the winner's podium when the race ends Sunday on the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Le Tour is one of three grand tours (the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana are the others) in pro cycling, and each of those is tantamount to a major tournament in professional golf or tennis. But like the Masters in golf and Wimbledon in tennis, the Tour de France is the most coveted in cycling.

This year's Tour has been particularly exciting with the return of Lance Armstrong, who retired from the sport in 2005 after winning the last of his unprecedented seven consecutive tours. Armstrong (right) has been in fine form this Tour, and going into tomorrow's stage that ends with a formidable climb of the legendary Mont Ventoux, he's in third place -- a little over a minute behind second-place Andy Schleck of Luxembourg and less than a minute ahead of Britain's Bradley Wiggins, Armstrong's teammate Andreas Kloden of Germany and Schleck's older brother Frank.

But Armstrong has been in an awkward situation on his return to the sport: He's riding on a team, Astana, that also features race leader Contador, who now is widely regarded as the best in the sport, and two other onetime prime contenders for a grand tour championship: Kloden and American Levi Leipheimer. Contador already has won the sport's "triple crown" -- each of the three grand tours, an accomplishment so rare in cycling that only four other riders have done it -- Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault and Eddie Merckx. Although Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times, he has never won the Giro or Vuelta.

Mont Ventoux could have been the chief motivation for Armstrong to return to the sport, and specifically, to ride in the Tour again. As he said in an interview on the Versus channel during the broadcast of today's stage, Armstrong has unfinished business on this mountain.

The moonscape-looking Ventoux is regarded as one the most brutal and unforgiving in French races, not only because of its steep climb, but also because the top portion's bare, deforested, unprotected slopes (no trees anywhere in sight) leave riders extremely vulnerable to any of the weather and climate conditions that torment cyclists -- stiff winds; stifling heat; and freezing cold in the high altitudes.

Armstong twice has narrowly missed winning Tour stages on the mount. The most bitter of those came in 2000, when Armstrong and the late Marco Pantani of Italy waged a thrilling battle ascending the hill. Pantani, the 1998 Tour winner whose nickname was "the Pirate," had the lead at first, but Armstrong found a burst in reserve and bolted upward, eventually catching Il Pirata. Several times the two jockeyed to separate from each other, but it appeared Armstrong had the upper hand in snagging the stage victory. Even though the veteran Pantani stayed close, Armstrong seemed to poised to claim victory until, just near the finish line, he inexplicably eased up and Pantani crossed first. It was believed Armstrong yielded purposely in a show of sportsmanship and respect, a gesture he would later regret. Pantani didn't regard the deliberate pullback kindly; the suggestion that Armstrong had to "give" him the win angered Pantani.

In the 2002 Tour, when Ventoux reappeared on the Tour map after only a year's absence, Armstrong allowed Frenchman Richard Virenque a seven-minute lead in the Ventoux stage and could never catch up.

Riders in the Tour don't get many chances to conquer Ventoux; it's been included in a Tour stage only 15 times since 1951. Armstrong also has tried, and failed, to win stages on the mount several times in the annual Dauphine-Libere race, which is held each June and is widely used by cyclists as a tune-up for Le Tour. Unlike the Tour, Dauphine-Libere almost always includes Mont Ventoux in a stage.

All of which is good reason for anyone who enjoys pro cycling and its drama -- and the Tour de France in particular -- to look in on tomorrow's stage. It could be Lance's last change to grab the one unconquered cycling challenge he craves most. I have to believe that tonight his team, with Contador's overall victory comfortably in hand, is trying to devise a strategy that can help deliver that victory for him.

The broadcast of Saturday's stage on Versus begins at 7 a.m. Eastern time.

Which 15 books make your lasting 'impression' list?

I just was "tagged" at my Facebook page by someone polling friends to see which 15 books they would list -- in 15 minutes or less -- among those that made a lasting impression.

I haven't had inclination to read much in recent years, what with my job requiring me to stare into a computer 10 hours a day, four days a week, rendering my eyes to half-mast by the time I drag myself home each day. But ... I decided to try take up the challenge and see if I could come up with a list in the required 15 minutes or less.

At first, I came up with multiple titles of fiction works by the same authors, simply because I enjoy their body of work -- W.P. Kinsella (left), Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwell, Clive Cussler, John Grisham and Lawrence Sanders, to name a few.

But then, after only a few minutes of reassessing that overload, other titles started popping to mind, so ... I weeded out the multiples and came up with a more rounded representation of books I've read that, I think, made some kind of impression on me over the years.

Here's the list, in no particular order:

1. Shoeless Joe / W.P. Kinsella
2. Tuesdays With Morrie / Mitch Albom
3. In Cold Blood / Truman Capote
4. Sirens of Titan / Kurt Vonnegut
5. Woodstock: The Oral History
6. Catcher in the Rye / J.D. Salinger
7. The Firm / John Grisham
8. The Making of a President 1960 / Theodore White
8. The Harrad Experiment / Robert Rimmer
9. Robert Kennedy and His Times / Arthur Schlesinger
10. The DaVinci Code / Dan Brown
11. Tales of an American Hobo / "Reefer" Charlie Fox
12. Postmortem / Patricia Cornwell
13. A River Runs Through It / Norman Maclean
14. This Wheel's on Fire: The Story of the Band / Levon Helm
15. Deep Six / Clive Cussler

The book by Capote (right), in particular, made a deep impression as I was reading it. Such riveting writing, and a vicious homicide to work with. I made seeing the Capote film, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a "must" when it came out four years ago. And would it seem odd if said I can remember vividly that throughout the whole time I was reading the very lengthy Schlesinger bio on RFK, I listed to Supertramp's Breakfast in America vinyl album on my record player, over and over and over?

The Kinsella story, upon which the motion picture Field of Dreams was based, captured my imagination -- and floated me back to childhood baseball fantasies -- like no other tome before it or since. The film, starring Kevin Costner, Ray Liota, Burt Lancaster and James Earl Jones, was one of the few films I really, absolutely had to see when I first heard it was coming out. I saw it, in fact, with my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, one afternoon after her morning kindergarten class let out for the day. Field of Dreams also was the first VCR movie I ever bought.

Even as I type this, another title came to mind that I would have liked to have included: The Executioner's Song: The Gary Gilmore Story by Norman Mailer, the story of the convicted murderer who was the first person executed after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions on capital punishment in 1976.

If you aren't a "friend" at my Facebook page, what 15 titles would you put on a list that you had to compile in 15 minutes?

1st Indy shooter is featured at Photo Potpourri blog

Another short blurb to note that the July version of "Photographer in the Spotlight," my monthly Q&A feature at Photo Potpourri, was posted last weekend.

I make special mention here because the photographer profiled in this month's spotlight, Phil Jern, also is the first Indianapolis photographer to make the spotlight feature.

I met Phil through CaptureIndy, an ongoing project, driven by The Indianapolis Star, to collect photographs from people in the community for use in a book profiling the Greater Indianapolis area in pictures.

I've submitted quite a few images to be considered for the project, which is scheduled to end sometime next month. The Star is trying to create interest (and, no doubt, potential sales) in the book by encouraging anyone -- anywhere -- to create a simple profile at CaptureIndy and then vote for images they feel belong in such a book. To just vote, you don't have to be a photographer and you don't have to live in Indianapolis or Indiana, or to buy the book!).

There is still time to vote for images at CaptureIndy. You can vote for as many pictures as you'd like, but only once each. Not sure exactly when the book will be published.

Meanwhile ... back to the point of this post ... do check out Phil Jern's Q&A feature. As I do with all my Q&A posts, there are quite a few images of the profiled photographer included with the text of the interview. I've included a link to his personal Web site with this post; just click on the link wherever you see Phil's name. Phil also has a ton of other pictures available at a separate online site, Flickr. Click on the Flickr word to go view that. Finally, you can check out Phil's CaptureIndy page, too, on the link included with this sentence.

Bidding farewell to another British wave musician

Speaking of music ... here's a short blurb to mark the passing of Gordon Waller, one-half of the 1960s British wave pop duo Peter and Gordon.

Waller (on the right, with Peter Asher in the photo above) went into cardiac arrest on the evening of July 16, and died, at the age of 64, early the following morning at a hospital near his home in Ledyard, Conn.

Peter and Gordon got their start courtesy of Paul McCartney, who gave them a song, "World Without Love," that McCartney had penned -- but the Beatles hadn't used. "World Without Love" became a hit in 1964, and the duo thereafter strung together several more hits -- "Nobody I Know," "Go to Pieces," "True Love Ways," "Knight in Rusty Armour," "Lady Godiva" and, my personal favorite, "Woman."

"Woman" begins with a remarkable four-note string staccato punch and opening lyric -- Woman, do you love me? Woman, if you need me then believe me I need you, to be my woman -- that always grabbed my attention. The song's climax finds a full orchestra hitting a crescendo right as Waller polishes off and holds the last syllable of "woman" in the final lyric, Woman, don't forsake me. Woman if you take me then believe me I take you ... to be my woman. To me, it's a powerful love song.

I also take the time to add this post to my blog because Waller and I shared the same birthday; he was mentioned in the list of celebs with whom I shared a birthday in my first post to this blog last month -- on my birthday.

Music's been on my mind ...

Music has been a big "go to" for me lately. I've been listening a lot to a series of mostly New Age compositions I amassed in the 1990s and early this decade, tunes that over the years I've turned to for comfort, or simply when I've needed or wanted to relax. For years, on weekend nights as I lay down to sleep, I would play these on one of my computer media players.

Rarely did I need to do that when I drove, however; when I drive, I usually look for a CD that will help pump the blood and get my groove going. But in this "funk" (as I call it) of mine that I'm in, I've also been listening to my New Age mix whenever I drive. And I'm liking it.

Eight years back, I went into what probably was my longest such music "funk." I went looking for, exploring, listening to and appreciating everything I could get my hands on that was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I did that for nine months -- listened to nothing but Mozart. And I mean nothing else. And I liked it.

I still like my Mozart fix from time to time. His piano concertos are my favorite and almost always remind me of my childhood days of taking piano lessons. They can affect me in very powerful ways, too. Take Piano Concerto No. 5 in D Major, for example. At the 3-minute, 20-second point of the andante un poco adagio movement (second) as performed by Derek Han and the Philharmonia Orchestra, my eyes well up, or at the very least, I swallow hard, but I always close my eyes because I know what's coming. I'm sure the orchestral build-up has a lot to do with it, a series of Han frolics and trills, and some fortissimo string segments that climax for a nano-second pause at 3:20. That's when soft, dramatic strings and Han's delicate, tuneful and plaintive notes take over for the next few bars. I feel something so overwhelming. I can't tell you what exactly it is; just that I do. I'm feeling it right now as I try to put it into words here. And I'm liking it.

A little more than a week ago, all of us at work went through an excruciatingly painful day watching 17 of our colleagues being shown the door. This was the fourth layoff our company has implemented in less than a year, and the second in which a large number of colleagues were let go. Early last December, we said goodbye to 20 staffers, four of whom worked directly for me. That one hurt a lot. And even though my staff escaped unscathed in the latest round of layoffs -- the one last week -- this one hurt even more, I think.

One of the departing staffers, John Hawn, started at The Star at about the same time as me. He is a very fine man and a very good editor. Until the layoffs, he and I supervised separate copy desks. He got the ax; I didn't. And then afterward, I learned that The Star planned to merge our two copy desks and put me in charge of it. I couldn't help but feel immediate survivor guilt. And that's when I turned to my New Age friends.

If you troll the Internet searching for JL Kato, John's literary pseudonym, you'll learn a bit more about him. Or click on the link in the previous sentence. He is a poet and poetry enthusiast. I didn't really learn about the extent of his interest in poetry until after he was laid off and he dropped me an email letting me know he'd come across my photo blog because it was mentioned at a third-party blog.

If you're at all curious about what's on my New Age listening list, here a running start:

My Mother's Voice / Triona di Dhomhnaill
Thumbellina / Mark Isham
Einini / William Coulter
Carolan's Ramble to Cashel / Northern Lights
The Swans at Coole / Maire Breatnach
Amy's Song / Peggy Stein
Children's Song / Oystein Sevag
In Moonlight Blue / Eric Tingstad
Night in That Land / Nightnose
Along the Salmon / Bob Leon
Pittsburgh 1901: Theme from "Mrs. Soffel" / Mark Isham
Satie -- Gymnopedie #3 / Branford Marsalis
Cast Your Fate to the Wind / George Winston
The Sad Balconies of Heaven / Mark Darnell
Sentimental Walk / Philip Aaberg
Wind and Willow / Wayne Gratz
Sunday Morning Coffee / Chip Davis
On the Night Ride / Chris Botti
Chopin's Prelude No. 15 in D flat (Raindrop)
Through the Wind / Danny Wright
For the Asking / John R. Burr
October - Stars / George Winston
A Sense of Place / Eric Tingstad
The Man From Caesaria / Friedemann
Shadow Dancer / Spencer Brewer, Nancy Rumbel, Eric Tingstad
A Different Shore / Nightnoise
Night, Part III - Minstrels / George Winston
Cast Your Fate to the Wind / Vince Guaraldi Trio
Rio Amazons / Oystein Sevag and Lakki Patey
Sun, Moon & Stars / Jim Brickman
Montana Half Life / Philip Aaberg
Meadows / Wayne Gratz
As For Us / Fernando Oretga
Evening / Michael Jones
The 19-A / Nightnoise
Magnolia / Eric Tingstad
Endings / Michael Jones
Pas de Deux / Scott Cossu
The Calling / Stein & Walder
Of the Father's Love Begotten / Tim Story
Close Cover / Wim Mertens
A Friend's Farewell / Wind Machine
Lullaby / Dave Brubeck
Woman at the Well / Tim Story

A top 12 list of indicators that the economy is bad

The Top 12 indicators that the economy is bad (thanks to Ronnie for these!):

12. CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

11. I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

10. I went to buy a toaster oven, and they gave me a bank.

9. Hotwheels and Matchbox car companies are now trading higher than GM in the stock market.

8. Obama met with small businesses -- GE, Pfizer, Chrysler, Citigroup and GM, to discuss the federal stimulus package.

7. McDonald's is selling the quarter-ouncer.

6. People in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and are now learning their children's names.

5. One of the most highly-paid jobs now is jury duty.

4. People in Africa are donating money to Americans. Mothers in Ethiopia are telling their kids, "Finish your plate; do you know how many kids are starving in America ?"

3. Motel 6 won't leave the lights on for you

2. The Mafia is laying off judges.

And the most telltale indicator of them all:

1. If the bank returns your check marked as "insufficient funds," you have to call them and ask if they meant you or them.

About online communities

Recently, I've been in touch with some local amateur photographers whose work I discovered through the ongoing "Capture Indy" project, a photo collection campaign that The Indianapolis Star is driving to publish a book conveying not only what Indianapolis looks like, but also some of the best work of local photographers.

I initiated the contact with these photographers because I'm interested in making make them subject/profiles of my monthly "Photographer in the Spotlight" feature at my other blog, "Photo Potpourri." Since Photo Potpourri launched in December, all of my spotlight subjects have been from out of my home state of Indiana. There was one from the Bahamas (Trish van den Berg), one from Canada (Tony Hadley), one from Minnesota (Ron Germundson) and two from California (Joo-chiang "JC" Lee and the most recent, Chris Harris). All of these except JC I met through Photo.net, where I maintain one of two public online photo galleries of my own. JC is a "connection" I made through the online business networking site "Linked-In," where I've made many other photographer acquaintances. I can't say that all of these people are close "friends," but I mention it here to say that each has played some role -- large or small -- into advancing my knowledge or understanding of photography, which is why I devote the time I do to develop these spotlight features. Each of these photographers' interviews has been informative to me, and my hope is has been for others who've read them. Plus, each has invcluded some wonderful photographer from these craftsmen and women.

I joined Linked-In initially thinking it would help connect me to more people in the area of my livelihood -- journalism. But even though the largest portion of my Linked-In connections are writers or editors, Linked-In's primary benefit to me so far -- and by far -- has been the group of photographers I've come to "meet" (cyberspacially), and their discussions and comments I monitor closely in Linked-In group discussions. I've joined more than a half-dozen photograph-related groups alone at Linked-In, and three or four of them have discussion threads that are updated daily. Photo.net also has a bounty of informative articles and discussion topics and threads. I simply don't have the time to monitor all of them. But because it is a global community (as is Linked-In), Photo.net is a valuable resource, its articles (especially on equipment) and discussion threads are publically accessible even to non-members. If you're a photographer and haven't yet discovered Photo.net, you owe it to yourself to check it out -- not as a prospective member, but just to take advantage of the wealth of resources there.

The whole point of this post is to underscore the point of online networking sites. My success and satisfaction with Linked-In and Photo.net (the latter isn't so much a networking site as it is a global community) softened my resistance to create a personal account at Facebook, which several friends had prodded me to do in the past couple years. But I'm now a Facebooker, too, although ... I'm still so new at it that I'm not at the point where I can absolutely positively declare satisfaction with it to the degree I can with Linked-In and Photo.net.