{"id":456,"date":"2009-02-17T18:39:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-18T00:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/?p=456"},"modified":"2018-12-14T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T23:03:03","slug":"win-one-lose-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/win-one-lose-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Win One, Lose One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The largest cycling event in America,   the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amgentourofcalifornia.com\/\">2009 Amgen Tour of California<\/a> is a Tour de France-style cycling road race that challenges the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top professional cycling teams to compete along a demanding,  750-mile course from Sacramento to Escondido from February 14-22, 2009.\u00c2&nbsp; This year is special because Lance Armstrong, the famous cyclist is in the competition.<\/p>\n<p>In past years, I have <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/weblog\/weblogjanmar2006.html\">motorcycled out on the California coast to paint<\/a>, and then watch the race go by.\u00c2&nbsp; I would have gone to the coast this year, but we have been battered for days with a long series of rain storms (we need it, but the bikers have been drenched!!), so decided to meet the race close to home in San Jose.<\/p>\n<p>The race actually passed within miles of my home, but I decided to go up a little further into the hills east of Milpitas to catch the race in a more rural spot.\u00c2&nbsp; The forecast was for 90% rain,\u00c2&nbsp; but the skies were clearing, so I took off.\u00c2&nbsp; I took my paints, hoping to paint and watch the race as before.\u00c2&nbsp; As soon as I got to my selected spot, on Calaveras Road just as it climbs over the foothills, it started raining, and continued until I left.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I won one by watching the race, but lost one, as I was pretty drenched, and went home without a painting.\u00c2&nbsp; I may go right back after this storm clears, as I forgot how much that area of the eastern foothills of Silicon Valley is so scenic!<\/p>\n<p>Rather than photos, I thought you might enjoy a short video&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"480\" height=\"295\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/7AGarEvAgns&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The largest cycling event in America, the 2009 Amgen Tour of California is a Tour de France-style cycling road race that challenges the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top professional cycling teams to compete along a demanding, 750-mile course from Sacramento to Escondido from February 14-22, 2009.\u00c2&nbsp; This year is special because Lance Armstrong, the famous cyclist is in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gXkU-7m","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donaldneff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}