Cyclists from all over will be convening on the Cow Palace in San Francisco for the start of AIDS/Lifecycle 7. This ride will take cyclists 545-miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 7 days to raise money benefiting the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Center in Los Angeles.

The first leg of the ride will take cyclists to Santa Cruz, then to King City, Paso Robles, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Ventura and then Los Angeles for the closing ceremony.

Wondering why this is in San Jose Metblogs? It’s simple! I’m one of the 2500 cyclists who have raised a minimum of $2500 to raise over $11 million dollars for such an incredible cause.

Thanks to all who have contributed and supported me on this incredible journey. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I have not been on a plane since the late 60s and therefore not known as an airport connoisseur, but I do believe that arriving travelers will find the design of our new Terminal B pleasing. In San Jose, this translates to: I hope no one ridicules it.

After all, there are enough chuckles over the two extraordinarily large, steep, and ugly staircases recently added to each end of Terminal A. The stairs are emergency exits. Imagine the announcement: Please proceed to the nearest stairway - while taking care not to break your neck on your descent.

Some good news for SJC business travelers: Free Wi-Fi is now available (excluding Terminal A baggage area) in both Terminals. The bad news is that the Wi-Fi is not assessable in all areas. An airport official informed me that the off site ‘cell phone waiting area’ located on Airport Boulevard east of 87 would not be included.

So I rushed onto the last car of the San Francisco BART train this morning and noticed some changes in the seat arrangements. Then, be still my beating heart, I saw a bright blue image of a bike on the wall usually reserved for wheelchairs. Then, I looked above this blue bike and saw these words: “Bicycle Priority. Strollers and Luggage OK if Bicycle not Present.” Take that! All you pedestrians who give me the stink eye during my commute. Take that! All those times I wasn’t allowed on the train because it was too crowded. That’s right. I. AM. A. PRIORITY.

Anybody else make it out to Fanime 2008 at the San Jose Convention Center? If you drove through downtown San Jose last weekend, you might have noticed something a little different. Cosplayers and Anime fans swarmed the convention center and rocked throughout the entire weekend.

Several highlights this weekend:

1) A small incident involving several Christians who decided to picket the convention much to the attendees’ amusement.
2) Jesus, himself, made an appearance at the midnight showing of hentai holding a sign asking for “confessions”
3) Several fangirls couldn’t get enough of AnCafe (the music fest feature performance on Sunday night), and ended up stalking them back to their hotel room.
4) $30 for a Bowser plushie
5) Spending $100 in the Artist Alley before even walking into the Dealer’s Room.
6) Peter Griffin Vs. Chicken
7) Random choreographed dancing

Did I forget anything?

This Thursday Foothill College presents Julia Flynn Siler the author of The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty as part of its Authors Series of guest readings and book signings by best-selling authors.

The House of Mondavi spans four generations from when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corp.’s 21st-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune.

Julia Flynn Siler was a correspondent for BusinessWeek and now The Wall Street Journal. One of her WSJ stories was about the turmoil within the Mondavi familys wine empire, which ran as a front-page story in June, 2004. The story led to her book The House of Mondavi, which involved more than 500 hours of interviews and examination of tens of thousands of pages of documents.

Unfortunately, Robert Mondavi died May 16, 2008.

Campus Center Student Lounge, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Thursday, May 29
3:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

As the Santa Cruz fire rages on, animal services wants to remind everyone who needs to evacuate to bring along their animals. Anyone who needs help with evacuating their pets or needs a place to keep their animals can call 831-454-7303. Animal shelters are also stepping up and accepting any small animal (cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, etc.) that needs a temporary home.

Donations, supplies, volunteers, and fosters are greatly appreciated at this time.

Find more information here.

Several weeks ago, there was an electrical fire somewhere close to the Hayward BART station so for the next month and a half, commuters will need to be more flexible with their schedules.

Here’s a few tips on how to survive BART for the next month and a half:

1. Catch an earlier train (and plan to arrive at your destination later)
2. For you Fremont/Richmond line folks, get use to the BayFair station.
3. Don’t take BART when it’s a Spare-the-Air day AND a Bike-to-Work day AND when they need to do repairs.
4. When it’s crowded on the station, the next train (and the next, and the next one after that) will not be the one you need.
5. When you do finally see the train you need (after three trains have went by), it’ll be a 6 car train.
6. And No. You can’t squeeze 15 cars worth of people into a 6 car train so please stop trying.

The American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women and The Best Places group did a study to find the most heart friendly cities for women. The Bay Area came in third in the study with Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area first and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC area second.

The study used the 200 most populous metropolitan areas. Some of the selection factors in the study included: cardiac mortality rates; physician diagnoses of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol; smoking cigarettes; alcohol use; healthy eating; exercise; among other factors.

Go Red For Women conducted this study to help women better understand how personal health and environmental risk factors influence heart disease.

The Go Red For Women site points out these heart health statistics:

• One in three adult women has one or more forms of cardiovascular disease.
• Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 460,000 women per year, approximately one woman per minute.
• More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including cancer.

For more information about Go Red For Women, the study, metro area rankings, heart healthy tips, and more check here.

MetroFi, which provides free and low-cost wireless Internet access in the South Bay has told the nine cities it operates in that it will discontinue service in 30 to 60 days. MetroFi has offered to sell the services in each city to that city or any third party. MetroFi founder, Chuck Haas, says he is also exploring the sale of MetroFi itself to a third party.

MetroFi, like Earthlink, struggled to operate its networks, underestimating costs and overestimating revenue.

Milpitas will be taking over Earthlink’s Wi-Fi network there and cutting back on service. It will be interesting to see what transpires in Milpitas.

Concord, Cupertino, Foster City, San Jose, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale are the MetroFi cities affected in the Bay Area. If those cities or a third party does not buy the network then it will be shut down in those locations.

San Jose’s network was only located downtown. There is larger coverage area in the other Bay Area cities.

I have tried the free service on a number of occasions and found it to be sporadic. There were times I was under an access point, had trouble connecting, and when connected there were times when it crawled. I could not image paying a monthly fee just to remove the advertising banner.

With free Wi-Fi now available in many coffee shops, cafes, and libraries along with mobile broadband (not free) there are options.

It optimistically will be cooler this weekend. If it still isn’t cool enough then head on over to Santa Cruz, where it will be a bit cooler than here. The weather forecasters have San Jose in the upper 80’s and Santa Cruz in the low 80’s this weekend.

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk will be having its 101st Season Kick Off this weekend. Saturday and Sunday from noon there will be champion high divers descending from an 80-foot tower and performances by the Amazing Chinese Acrobats, shows alternate every hour.

In addition, this weekend is the River Arts Festival presented by the Santa Cruz Education Foundation. The River Arts Festival is a fundraiser to celebrate and support art in the area’s local public schools. Schools and environmental groups are represented at information booths.

Artists will give insight into various artistic processes including Glass Blowing, Metal Working, Painting, Ceramics and more.

The Festival will feature Sand Painting, Sun Prints, and more for children and adults, lead by professional artists; musical performances; strolling troubadours; food court.

On Sunday 11:00 am the Festival will include the first Santa Cruz Kinetic Sculpture Race. Artists build sculptures on wheels to be raced that are pushed, pulled or pedaled by the artist.

River Arts Festival
San Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz

Saturday and Sunday, May 17 - 18
11:00 am - 5:00 pm