A number of Democrats running for president are turning to beer to appeal to voters, hoping to boost their populist credentials and stand out in a large field of more than 20 candidates.
Marvel Studios executive producer Victoria Alonso was so excited about revealing “Phase 4” of the Marvel cinematic universe that she sang rather than share spoilers ahead of the highly-anticipated panel in San Diego Comic Con’s largest forum, Hall H.
San Diego Comic-Con, now in its 50th year, draws an estimated 135,000 fans of comic books, movies, and pop culture. This year, the major studios dropped a slew of highly-anticipated movie trailers (like Top Gun: Maverick), TV productions teased scenes from new shows (like Netflix’s The Witcher), and fans geeked out over behind-the-scenes tidbits about popular and upcoming projects. Yes, there was a lot more happening at this year’s con than just Marvel’s return to Hall H.
Karen Hertz, Betsy Lay, and Tiffany Fixter joined the craft brewing movement in Denver for one reason—to make excellent beer. How they wound up busting into a boys’ club, and defying their critics, in the process…
DENVER – Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday advocated for federal reforms to marijuana, but said he does not advocate for blanket laws to legalize marijuana nationally.
One night last October, a group of Seattle Pacific University students gathered by a lake near Mount Ellinor on the eastern side of Washington’s Olympic National Park and gazed at the stars in silence.
Working remotely sounds so great but also like an indomitable challenge, right?
And yet more and more workers are doing it. A Gallup survey last year found that 43 percent of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely in 2016. Millennials rate flexibility in work location and schedule more highly than any other generation.
Not every job — and not every employee — is going to work remotely. But there are some proven steps you can take in that direction if you want to dip your toe into the #digitalnomad lifestyle.
Win over your boss
Use some of the stats provided above. Explain that this is a job benefit with a great cost/value ratio that hugely benefits you and doesn’t impact your employer’s bottom line.
Try a test run: Start with a few hours or a day a week.
Nail down your home workspace
You can’t prove yourself if you can’t actually work from home, so get a good desk and ergonomic chair. Get a better lamp than you have in your office. Make sure there’s physical separation between your workspace and your homelife in order to avoid distractions – even if that just means you’re facing a wall or put up a screen.
While you’re working from home, assess realistically what helps/hurts you in an office environment. Does having other people around help you think through work challenges? Does having a window nearby keep you centered and focused? Do you benefit from having to get up and go to the watercooler/bathroom/lunch? Are you capable of “staying in the zone” through everyday distractions? How do you address these potential challenges and can you reasonably overcome obstacles to make remote working work for you?
Scope out working spaces
Once you’re serious about this, you will need to find “third place” spaces to work somewhere between your home and office. Working from home can create “cooped up” feelings and a sense of unreality if you never leave.
Needs for a good third place option: Close to home. Good internet. Comfortable chairs. Food/drinks on tap. A sense that it’s safe enough to leave your stuff on the table when you run to the bathroom (yes, this is a real concern in some places – think about it).
Options include cozy coffee shops, some cafes (Panera is actually a popular choice; McDonald’s also typically has WiFi) and co-working spaces like WeWork or CoPass.
Set up boundaries
If you don’t live alone, make sure everyone in your immediate environment is aware you’re working specific hours and just because you’re home doesn’t mean you’re “available.”
Separate your life from your work as much as possible. Use a personal computer for personal things and a work computer for work things. Don’t make your bed your desk. Prep meals before work, just like you would if you were traveling to an office.
If you can, take breaks during work hours. Go out for a walk or lunch. In general: Leave the house sometimes!
Traveling while working
There are a wealth of resources and communities for people who travel while working remotely. Nomad List ranks cities for ease to digital nomads. You can buy a membership to an international co-working space or a flexible co-living/working community like Hacker Paradise. (Note that setting up a work-and-travel lifestyle can also go very wrong – read and learn from my own horror story). Just remember to plan ahead for all the same needs you have working from home: Distraction-free workspace. Internet. And add in time zone issues.
My pro tip: Stay urban not suburban. Working from home in a location where you can’t quickly transport to a third location or interact with other people is going to drive you crazy.
Seventeen years after her star-making turn as Sydney Bristow in Alias, Jennifer Garner is back in action and back in action shape for the new movie Peppermint.
People who show their support for the ACLU on their online dating profile are more likely to get a date than those who don’t, according to online dating company OkCupid.
JERUSALEM — President Trump’s next move in the Middle East is being watched closely in Israel, where the president’s recent policies have reverberated loudly across the region.
AMMAN, Jordan — The Trump administration’s travel ban and cuts to foreign aid are being keenly felt in Jordan by Syrian refugees, many of whom have been in limbo for years as they’ve sought to resettle in the United States.
As the line between politics and entertainment becomes increasingly blurred, this Sunday’s Academy Awards will showcase issues like income inequality and sexual harassment alongside the biggest performers and movies of the year.
Can a rabbi, a priest, and a TV writer known for edgy comedies like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia make a network sitcom about the Bible that everyone will want to watch?
Star Chris Hemsworth got some guidance from the man he portrays in the movie 12 Strong (released Jan. 19). Hemsworth plays Capt. Mitch Nelson in the film about a team of Green Berets on a strategic mission in Afghanistan in the days immediately following 9/11. The real-life Special Forces officer he represents is Mark Nutsch, who asked that his name be fictionalized in the movie.
Federal work isn’t always glamorous, but last summer, Department of Justice attorney Joshua Van Eaton was regularly mobbed by photographers exiting hearings in San Francisco.
So you’re thinking about signing up for your first half marathon. You’ve probably Googled it and found the same article I did: The one that tells you “if you can run 3 miles you can run 13.1.” I tried it and it’s true.
I just ran my first half marathon. By the standards of most of the advice I’ve read, it was a disaster.
And I highly recommend that if you’re a runner considering it: go for it.
You will learn a ton. You will challenge yourself. You will make mistakes. You will finish.
I loved having a running goal to work toward for a few months ahead of the event. I had some knee trouble and ended up having to walk about a mile of the race, but I’m counting it as a win both because I worked for it and because I finished — and I got a cool medal to prove it.
That said, if I do it again there are a few things I would do differently.
Here’s what I didn’t do right:
Didn’t eat in the week leading up to the race. According to Runner’s World, I should have put on a little weight before a race of this length and eaten mostly lean protein. I ate cheese and crackers and little else (break-up food).
Didn’t get a good night’s sleep the night before. (I was staying in a hostel — more on that later.)
Didn’t have something warm to wear after the race. Although I was in Florida, my race was on a cold day and I ended up stuck at the finish line wearing my sweaty clothes and shivering. I wasn’t able to enjoy the party because I was so miserable.
Didn’t give myself enough time at the start. I ate eggs egg before the race — not my own, but I got lucky and didn’t have any digestion issues — and walked from my hostel to the starting line (about a mile). But I didn’t leave myself enough time for both gear check and a bathroom break, much less to stretch or mentally prepare. I was still yanking extra clothes out of my bag (did I mention it was cold?) and pinning my number to my shirt with less than 5 minutes to go.
Tried to build my endurance too fast. I only did this once, jumping from 7.5 to 10 miles in a week, but my body’s response set back my training a couple weeks.
Here’s what I did right:
Didn’t worry about speed and paced myself early on in the race. (I was really slow, finishing at 2:36, but that gives me a lot of room for improvement next time!)
Increased my yoga practice along with my running during training (mainly focusing on yin, or fascia-focused stretching).
Started training several months before the race (the recommendation is 14 weeks; I had 12).
Increased my mileage gradually (by 1.5 miles per week) — for most of my training.
Reduced my running speed/mileage for 2 weeks before the race.
Planned ahead for things to listen to. I listened to podcasts the first half of the race (I had saved up several of my favorites) and fast music the second half.
Invested in good shoes. This might go without saying but it’s worth it to get custom-fitted shoes at some point once you start running seriously — in my case stability shoes (specifically Brooks Ravenna 8).
Signed up for a destination race. Your mileage may vary on this (ha) because it’s definitely easier to control related factors for a race on home turf, but it can be motivating to run somewhere new — and running in Key West in January is a lot more fun than running in Washington, D.C., where I live.
The conclusion is: All you need to run a half marathon is a) the ability to run a 5k and b) willpower.
No race — or training process — will be perfect. The whole point is the effort you put in.
Also, I recommend watching Run, Fatboy, Run for inspiration on breaking through “the wall” — and because nobody could approach a race as badly as this guy:
If you live in Virginia and you mention that you like hiking, someone will suggest climbing Old Rag.
It’s about the best hike Virginia has to offer, and I will give it this: The climb took some effort and at times left me breathless.
“Some say it’s even the best hike in the mid-Atlantic region,” reads this blog. (In fairness, hiking with kids must require a lot of caveats – although I was less reluctant to bow down to the many mighty parents hauling both kids and dogs up 14ers in Colorado.)
I climbed this badly-named “mountain” one October day while I was in the middle of a nasty fight with the guy I was dating. He was ignoring my phone calls; I was angry; my stomach was in knots. In other words, I was motivated to climb away from my problems.
I drove 2 and a half hours from Washington, D.C., to get there so the stakes were pretty high — I was dedicating the day to the activity.
Because I was alone, I took the Berry Hollow trailhead, which avoids some of the bouldering of the traditional route. When I got to the trailhead, it was completely deserted. (This never happens in Colorado. I don’t care what day of the week it is, there is always someone hiking. The trailheads are so busy some trails now offer shuttles.)
The trail signs were a little confusing and seemed to contradict the map. (I recommend following the posted map.)
It was a hot day and the climb didn’t get any cooler, because this is Virginia and you’re starting below sea level.
Here are my recommendations for making hiking bearable in Virginia:
Insect-proof everything. (This is something I didn’t know about until I left Colorado.) I have Permethrin in a spray bottle that I used on my hiking pants and Camelbak pack, plus insect-treated socks and a buff for my head.
Pants and long-sleeved shirt made of breathable fabric.
Bring a lot of water to replace the sweat.
For this hike, I also recommend real hiking boots. For most hikes in Virginia, you can get away with any form of athletic shoe.
This hike was strenuous enough to get my mind off my problems and my hand off my phone, so points for that. My boyfriend and I worked things out later that evening, but I spent most of the day thinking about breaking up with him.
There was a false summit with a pretty decent view.
False summit
I was pretty tired — and a little embarrassed to be tired, to be honest — by the point I got to the false summit, and at that point a pair of older hikers warned me to watch out for the swarm of bugs higher up. But I kept going, of course, because I have never climbed a mountain and not made the summit (what would be the point?).
This is the first time the strategy has not paid off.
Old Rag’s summit is 3,284 feet and there is no view.
The summit
Unimpressed.
I came, I saw, I turned around and climbed back down again. I ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich down at the false summit instead and tried to ignore the sweat and the bugs and the fact I’d spent an entire day on this.
The climb down was not as fast as I would have liked because of the stretch of loose rocks (this hike is 5.4 miles and took me about 2 hours to go up). My car was still the only one in the parking lot and the drive home felt very long.
There’s a small town near Old Rag but it didn’t have any obvious places to stop for food or any type of liquid reward after the hike.
I might be comparing Old Rag to my ideal version of hiking, but it’s a version that exists. In Colorado, here’s what our summits look like:
Long answer: I would like to make the case that there is no hiking in Virginia.
I know you AT thru-hikers will protest, but there is a difference between walking outdoors and hiking.
If you think you are “hiking” in Virginia, you have never hiked in Colorado (or pretty much any state in the west) or somewhere the rewards are great than just being outside and moving your feet.
So maybe that makes my position entitled — I lived somewhere great hiking is taken for granted — but east coasters have their own entitlement issues (that’s the only reason anybody lives here?) so I think it’s fair to counter-argue that living here sucks if you’re an outdoorsy person.
If you live in Washington, D.C., and want to find a hike with a view (that isn’t urban) you have to be willing to travel — and I have. I have also done several of the hikes that come up when you search “day hikes near D.C.”
Have I done Old Rag? Did it. Have I been to Shenandoah? Of course. Have I seen Great Falls and Sky Meadows?
Did those. The ratio of effort to payoff was a disappointment for all of them.
Hiked Sugarloaf “mountain” and in Harper’s Ferry and Purcellville, too — more on those later.
While I don’t discourage my fellow outdoorsy transplants from attempting the same quest to find the kind of soul-nourishing hiking I was used to here (if you find success, let me know!) — I would encourage you to lower your expectations.
First and the reason I finally tipped over the edge and decided to write this blog: Scott’s Run Nature Preserve. This comes up on a list of rewarding “hikes” near D.C. compiled by the state of Virginia. I drove to it — about half an hour from me away — without much hope for Virginia hiking but with a desperate need to get out into nature. I passed a lot of enormous houses with Christmas trees waiting to be taken away on their curbs. If this was Colorado, high property values would be promising for hiking prospects. In Virginia, it just means people have an off-street option to walk from their mansion to the highway.
Do not, I beg you, drive to this trail (and not just because Google will mislead you). You can find a closer local trail to walk your dog on — and that’s the only thing this is good for. Admittedly, there is supposed to be a “waterfall” on this trail that I did not see. If you’ve seen one “waterfall” on the Potomac, you’ve seen them all and you might as well just see Great Falls.
I’m not saying there are no paths like this in Colorado. We just don’t call them “hiking trails.” We call them “that dirt path behind your house.”
Writer/director Dan Gilroy “can’t conceive of directing a movie I didn’t write.” Although Gilroy has written a number of scripts for other directors — from 2012’s The Bourne Legacy to 2017’s Kong: Skull Island — he says that the ones he chooses to direct himself tend to be more personal.
To churchgoers, Denzel Washington comes across as the ideal movie star. An Oscar winner accepted among the mainstream elite, he is also open, even evangelical, about his Christian beliefs.
