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This little town was featured on the front page of the NYTimes website today. It’s a heartwarming story. (Link is here.) Essentially this little town is an absolute football powerhouse, having not lost a game in several seasons, now.

But as I was reading it, I had a blinding flashback… I’ve BEEN to Smith Center, Kansas!!

Back in my Solar Car days, I stayed with people in the town during Sunrayce 97, which went right through town. From what I remember, they were very supportive of the whole event, and the whole town opened their doors to let us stay in their homes. (There certainly weren’t enough hotels for hundreds of college kids to stay in!)

Now I do sometimes get a little confused between Smith Center, Kansas and St. Francis, Kansas, which was another little town we stayed in on the race. (If memory serves, we stayed at the county sheriff’s home in St. Francis, but it’s been a decade so I may have forgotten a few details.)

Anyway, it’s a funny little thing to see a town like that featured in a national paper, and realise that I’ve actually been there. Strange…

A while ago I read about this absolutely INCREDIBLE new bookstore in the Netherlands. (H/T to John at Brand Autopsy.) An old (essentially unused) church in the heart of this city was turned into the most incredible bookstore you’ll likely ever see.

The building hadn’t been used as a church for years. In more recent times it had been used for bicycle storage, of all things, which seems like an inappropriately poor use for a building of that significance.

Well, a bookstore has now moved in and really done a good job of melding a bookstore into the space and beauty of a good-sized cathedral.

These photos are fantastic.

[UPDATE]- More photos on the BLDG BLOG here.

I couldn’t pass up quoting this:

A stunned schoolboy was given a birthday to remember when a stripper performed a no-holds-barred routine for him — while he was still in class.

The youngster’s mother asked an agency to send a man dressed in a gorilla suit to mark his 16th birthday. But the booking got mixed up and a ‘sexy policewoman’ turned up at the un-named lad’s drama class.

His fellow students could only look as she stripped off and invited him to rub cream on her bottom.

Now education officials have launched an investigation into the incident at Arnold Hill School in Nottingham. A witness said: ‘We were in shock.’

Gorilla… policewoman… I can see where the confusion might lie.

UPDATE:

New quote from the afternoon edition:

‘The teacher was stunned but when the cream came out, she told her “that’s it, that’s enough”’

-Classmate of the lad in question

I’m a firm believer in that cream always puts a situation over the top…

One of the most foundational and transformational experiences in my life was working on the University of Michigan Solar Car Team. I had the opportunity to work on and race the 1997 car Wolverine, and to serve as Project Manager for the 1999 car, MaizeBlaze. Wolverine raced across the US in Sunrayce 97, and MaizeBlaze raced across both the States in Sunrayce 99 and the Australian Outback in the World Solar Challenge 99.

As I write this, teams racing the Panasonic World Solar Challenge 2007 competition are making final preparations before the race start tomorrow morning in Darwin, Australia. The University of Michigan is again very well represented with their car, Continuum. It has been 20 years since the first solar car race across Australia, won by the GM vehicle “Sunraycer.” Since then, the technology has increased dramatically. The last race in 2005 was so quick that rules were changed to make an even more challenging competition. (Teams were traveling the speed limit over the entire 1,800 mile course.) Cars in the top class must have much more upright seating positions, with steering wheels and a smaller solar array. These rules seek to increase the power required, and lessen the power available to teams in this category.

Continuum responded to the rule changes with a risky but very innovative design innovation. In this category, teams have 9 m^2 of surface area from which they could collect sun, but only had 6 m^2 of solar cells they could use. Michigan, at a very great risk, spent a tremendous amount of time, effort and expense to develop a system of concentrators. The back of the car has a broad area of parabolic mirrors that concentrate the solar energy onto very small (and specially designed) solar cells that are optimised for high-sun conditions. All of this is packaged under a clear material that conforms to the very aerodynamic body shell. Furqan Nazeeri, the 1993 team manager wrote about just how much risk they took on in a post here.

I wish them the best of luck in the competition. The University of Michigan Solar Car Team is the winningest student team ever, both in the United States and in the World Solar Challenge across Australia. However, because of teams such as Honda and other well-funded corporate competitors, the team has never quite managed to win the Australian race. This race may change that streak, and it is quite possibly the most advanced vehicle designed and constructed. Please visit the team’s blog here to follow coverage from their race.

Finally, it’s a bit of a coincidence that the race starts this weekend, the final weekend of the Formula 1 racing season. I’ve gotten into Formula 1 a bit living here in Europe, and it’s known as the most technologically advanced motor sport. That said, I recently saw some photos of the Formula 1 team garage on a blog post here. Compare and contrast those to photos in the Michigan team’s blog.

After seeing both, there’s not an amazing amount of difference between the two. One has millions in funding, and the other is a group of students, but the results are amazing.

Best of luck to Continuum and the Michigan team. They have supporters literally across the globe. GO BLUE!