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The Port of Long Beach is hosting its annual "Green Port Festival" on Oct. 13 with an offer of freebies galore - including free boat tours, free train rides and, yes, free food.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the public gets a first-hand taste of how the massive seaport complex operates through a series of exhibits and hands-on experiences.

Boat tours of the harbor will be offered hourly, and attendees will also be offered a train ride aboard a cargo rail carrier.

Tours are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The port will also have cranes, trucks, containers, tractors and other heavy-duty equipment at dozens of interactive displays.

Ugh. I’m almost done with school! Don’t get me wrong, I really do dig school. It’s just that I’ve been at Texas for so long, and I’m ready for my next big adventure. I just started a couple weeks back – let the countdown begin! I know, however, that I will miss learning and will try to find other avenues to continue learning.

I’ve got 13 units to knock out before I can get a move on, and I even had a bit of a scare when I found out my last class was canceled! All the sudden I found myself looking for any class to make up that last hour, even piano and music classes. Luckily, one of my profs is letting me work as his assistant, so I should be all set to graduate after this semester.

Hey racers, I hope your summers have been as memorable and crazy as mine. I know I told you a little bit about the Paris swim meet I competed in, and I told you a bit about Costa Rica (more on that later), but I did a lot of other traveling this summer, too.

I was fortunate enough to head back to my native California and spend some days there. I haven’t been home for about a year, so it was great seeing my family and a bunch of my friends who I haven’t seen if forever. I also took in some waves at a few of my favorite local beaches.

Also, I flew out to Tennessee for a couple days and chilled at a buddy’s house in the Nashville area. I’d never been to the Volunteer State before, and I must say I wasn’t expecting the landscape to be so beautiful. What a pleasant surprise! The house was right on this glassy lake, barely any other boats. I enjoyed spending some time with the guys.

Buenos dias muchachos y muchachas! I’m back from gorgeous Costa Rica, where I was relaxing for eight whole days. Yeah, I love Costa Rica so much that my dad and I are having a house built there. With any luck, it’ll be finished by the first of next year, so I’m stoked about that.

I rode across the longest zip line in the country. And they had some great surf while I was down there, too, some of it head high or bigger and water temps around 80 degrees. I never claimed to be any surfing pro or anything (I’m not well versed in aerials and the like) I just ride the faces and throw in the occasional cut back every now and then.

So I mentioned how my dad and I are having this house built in Costa Rica. Until it’s finished, though, anytime I come out here I have to stay in hotels. The hotel we’re staying in this trip is only a hundred yards or so from the beach and the best part: The Harmony Hotel is green!

Pretty cool, right? It’s not so tough to be green (don’t let that frog fool you). The hotel takes simple measures to ensure their environmental impact is as minimal as possible. They allot how much hot water each room receives each day, they have recycle bins right in the rooms and are very big into conserving water and towels and all that.

Hey everyone, just checking in for a minute ... I'm taking it easy for a while in Costa Rica. I love it over here - surfing and simply chillen.

I've become one with the ocean lately and it's got me thinking a lot of about this Race for the Oceans project I'm working on. This race is important for everyone's best interest, whether they've ever even seen the ocean or not.

The ocean is a huge chunk of this planet - a source of food, recreation, money. A vibrant ecosystem thrives beneath the waves. We owe it to not only ourselves but our posterity as well to preserve this precious resource. ...

The official position out of Colorado Springs is that the Chinese will knock Uncle Sam's top hat over their Great Wall at next summer's Olympics. "It's no secret that we're more than underdogs," US Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr says. "They're blowing us out of the water in the gold-medal race."

Yet while it's clear China has displaced Russia as the top United States challenger, the numbers say the Americans still will top the table in Beijing, just as they have at the last three Games.

Maybe they won't hit the same jackpot they did in Athens, when the Yanks won 102 medals, 36 of them gold. But the US has a massive edge where it counts, in track and field and swimming, where it could win more than 60 medals and nearly 40 golds. "Doing well in those two sports lays a great foundation for you," says Steve Roush, the USOC's sports performance chief.

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has unveiled an advertising campaign for the 2008 Summer Olympics just 24 hours after General Motors announced it is to quit its USOC sponsorship after the Beijing Games.

The campaign is called ‘Amazing Awaits’ and will include TV spots, print advertising in publications such as USA Today, Sports Illustrated, SportsBusinessJournal and Brandweek, and a website, www.amazingawaits.org.

Quoted in Brandweek, USOC CEO Jim Scherr said the campaign will "help communicate the unique values of the Olympic brand ahead of the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games."

What's up, swim fans? I've been a little MIA the past few weeks. Maybe you heard I was competing at the Paris Open. ...

Paris is a beautiful city, and I was stoked to have a little time to soak up some of the atmosphere. I felt pretty good about my swimming, too, but I have a lot of training to do in preparation for Beijing.

I'm still feeling pretty jet-lagged, though, so I'm gonna chill out for a few and enjoy some much needed R 'n' R.

By the way, have you added me as your Myspace friend yet??

AP

Faster than Melbourne 2007, 0.12sec shy of Michael Phelps over in Indy and not quite fast enough to snatch back the 200m backstroke crown from fellow America Ryan Lochte, Aaron Peirsol provided the highlight of the second day at the Paris Open with a stormy 1:54.77 victory ahead of the only man on the same chart, Austrian Markus Rogan, on 1:55.74.

The second session of finals also saw Sweden's Stefan Nystrand dive deeper into the sub 22sec club, with a 21.93sec win over 50m freestyle, 0.04sec inside the Swedish record he established at the world championships, and a 53.80sec victory for German Britta Steffen over 100m freestyle, 0.5sec shy of her world record.