Caution to the Wind

McLent

2006-03-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

I originally posted this on my shared weekly essay blog, but I thought it warranted being repeated here.

Well, it’s Wednesday again. This isn’t just any Wednesday though, it’s a special Wednesday. This is the Wednesday when I actually post on essay on time, with good grammar, proper spelling, and maybe even a dash of wit.

Ok, that’s not actually why I meant it’s special. I was referring to the fact that it’s Ash Wednesday. This day marks that special that time of year when good Catholics try to live a purer life closer to god, while remembering the temptation Jesus suffered at the hands of Lucifer while fasting in the desert. Starting today, they’ll give up their vices for forty days; hopefully maintaining this fast through the eve of Easter, after which they can participate in Pagan fertility rituals involving eggs, bunnies, and feasting, and forget about Jesus until Christmas rolls around they get presents.

Despite my jest, I actually always liked lent. Unlike many of the Catholic sacraments which don’t have a lot of practical use, the lentin fast contains a sense of purpose. It reinforces the ideas of self discipline and will power, which make you a better person. I try to practice these on a regular basis and encourage others to do so as well.

Lent also makes sense from a historical standpoint. Back in the glory days of the middle ages when nonsensical concepts like separation of church and state were unheard of, the churches had the mandate and power to forcibly control and mold the populace. Dictating the practice of will power would have been one way to turn parishioners into better citizens. It also fits neatly into their greater plan of imposing guilt and self loathing as a method of creating a perceived need of salvation, which the church was more than happy to supply, well, as long as you paid your dues. Overall, it was a good plan.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, the practice of lent has really lost its meaning. Although people will abstain from certain things for the season, many don’t actually make any sacrifices. They’ll simply trade one vice for another one that is just as easily accessible. They might give up coffee, only to drink more soda instead. Maybe they’ll stop eating chocolate, but then increase their intake of other candy. Granted, I’m not saying that all lentin promises are rubbish; in fact I’ve known many people who really take it serious, and rather impress me. There is one main practice mandated by the catholic church, however, that has always annoyed me, and that’s the meat rule.

For those of you not inculcated with the ways of the meat rule, let me quickly indulge you. The catholic church mandates that good parishioners abstain from eating meat on the first day of lent, Ash Wednesday, and every following Friday until Easter. That’s a total of seven days. (They don't count Sundays towards the forty days, so there's an extra week) One exception, however, is fish, which is not considered a meat for the purpose of the rule, and is thus allowed to be consumed on the forbidden days. I think this has something to do with the fact that people in the biblical era ate fish as a staple, and it follows that eating more fish could potentially allow one to relate more to the people back then. That’s just my theory. It could be that fish was harder to come by years ago or maybe harder to prepare and make taste good, which could at least conceivably make it a sacrifice to eat it. (At least maybe for the person who did the cooking.)

Regardless of the origin of the rule, I don’t think it applies today. You can go into any restaurant or grocery store and find a plethora of sales and specials on seafood during lent. Perch, cod, salmon, chump, shrimp and lobster; it all counts, and most of it tastes quite good. Even McDonalds will offer deals on its fish fillet sandwich over the five weeks. Additionally, you can find many fish fry specials on Friday nights where the entire family can go out and gorge themselves on endless plates of greasy fried perch and french fries. Although these options technically follow the rules, they seam to completely go against the entire point of having the rules in the first place. It’s like the church allowed a giant loophole as to not actually inconvenience its parishioners.

With all this in mind, I’ve decided to participate in the lentin tradition of sacrifice this year even though I have little affiliation with the Catholic church these days, or Christianity in general (Although I do agree with most of the stuff Jesus said; he was on to something). I’m going to give up not eating at McDonalds. Wait, huh? Yeah, NOT eating at McDonalds. Just stay with me a moment; it’ll make sense. Trust me.

I used to eat at McDonalds a lot, especially my first year in grad school when it was the closest and cheapest food available in a timely manner. Eventually though, I started to taste my food and eat healthier in general. It really has little appeal to me now. It depresses me to think what I’m actually putting in my body when I eat there, compared to when I cook for myself, and I not only know, but can pronounce every word of the ingredients. Plus there’s the whole practices of the meat industry, which I won’t bother going into here, but I find rather revolting. These days, I maybe eat at McDonalds once every six months, until today that is.

Hence, to start off lent today, I went to lunch at McDonalds. This is actually a sacrifice for me though. For starters, I wasn’t able to eat the nice healthy lunch of fruit and sandwiches I’ve accustomed too. Second, the closest McDonalds is a mile and a half away. Since I don’t drive my car to work, the only options are either biking or running down the hill and back. Today I chose to run. Although that did allow me to get a short run in, it didn’t allow me nearly as long as I would have liked, which leads to my third point, I don’t have as much time over lunch to exercise. All the sacrifices I make to try to be a good catholic. Plus, do you have any idea how hard it is to run up a mile and half hill with a stomach full of Big Mac and fries? Its six hours later, and my stomach still hurts. (I did consider driving to work, which would also be a sacrifice since I couldn’t get any writing done on the train, it would cost more, and I’d have to sacrifice some ideals, but I just don’t have strong enough faith for that. Baby steps I guess)

The idea for this plan came to me last year when I found myself sitting in airport hungry on the Friday before Easter. The only place without a huge wait for food was McDonalds. As I was eating my greasy burger, it occurred to me that it was lent. I’ll admit that this at first filled with a bit of guilty pleasure, breaking rules that I didn’t agree with. As I thought about it more though, I began to realize how stupid the meat rule really was. I had actually completely forgotten about lent up until that point, and now that I remembered it, I was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t have more Fridays left to eat fast food. I decided that the following year, I would make a point to eat a Big Mac on every Friday of lent. I like the irony, and now, after almost a year of waiting, the time has come. You can call it an exercise in irony if you like, but I just like to refer to it as McLent.

Europe the overview

2006-01-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

Here’s the quick recap.

30 days, 5 countries
Although I originally intended on traveling by myself, by the time I met with my sister and other contacts, I ended up spending little time alone, probably a more fun option.

Germany – Heidleberg: 3 days (visiting Carrola)
Germany – Berlin 3 days
Holland – Amsterdam, surround cities: 3 days (with Sherry)
Belgium - Anterwerp 3 days (with Sherry)
Belgium - Bruge 3 days (with Sherry)
France – Grenoble on to Briancon: 3 Days (visiting Virginie)
France – Paris: 3 days
England – London: 2 Days (2 different days)
Scotland – Edinburgh, Braemar, Kirkcaldy: 3 Days (visiting Mhairi)

General observations:
The most fun I had was visiting friends and really getting a chance to experience the culture. You don’t get that doing the tourist stuff. Go traveling if you can!!!

I had expected the cultures to be slightly different, but mainly the same, and I was surprised. I had been thinking that the core cultural features would be fundamentally the same, but just implemented in different ways, but there were definite differences. It’s hard to explain, you’d have to see for yourself…

I'm back

2006-01-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, I’m back in country. Actually I’ve been back for two weeks, but I’ve been sick for the last three weeks, so I’ve slow to get back on the blogwagon.

Europe was fun, and the posts will be coming shortly. I’ll try to get a couple cities up every couple of days, and then I can get back to current events.

I’ll also have a couple of other bloggy things coming up to take up my time. First, I’m collaborating on a site with a friend from high school with the point being to work on our writing skills by, sharing, and critiquing essays on a regular basis. I’m a little behind already (having posted nothing), but hopefully I’ll get caught up soon.

Wednesday Night Essays

Second, I’m starting a journal of my Primal Quest training. I’ve kept training journals in the past, and it’s a lot of fun, and good motivation. It’s especially neat adding up the mileage at the end of the season. I’m still not sure if the whole Primal Quest thing is going to happen or not. I think if I end up getting my relocation money, I’ll be willing to commit. There’s still question of getting the rest of a team together though. Oh yeah, there’s the whole being cable of completing it thing also. I’m not going to post the link for that until I have something substantial though.

Out and about

2005-12-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

I'm currently out traveling Europe for a month.
(In Germany right now)

I may or may not get a chance to post things as I go.
Expect lot of posts after I get back (Jan 5), including a couple I had in the works before I left.

Biking vs. Driving Pictoral

2005-12-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

In comparison to my post regarding the beauty of the American river bike trail while commuting to work, I’ve put the pictures side by side to what I see when driving. These pics were from was an ok traffic day. Yeah, I should fix the crack in the windshield.

Biking pictures on the left, driving on the right, not so bad so far

On ramp up the levee to get on the trail; On ramp to get on the free way

Along the trail, with the Sac State bridge in the background. On the freeway going under and overpass.

On the trail, on the freeway

On the trail, on the freeway

On the trail, on the freeway

On the trail, on the freeway

On the trail, on the freeway

One more time. I see a trend developing

Keep in mind, I like the physical act of driving; I think its fun. As far as commuting goes though, the cost benefit analysis just doesn't add up. I wonder how much productivity is lost in this country do to commuting????

Burn blowers, not books

2005-12-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

Leaf blowers should be outlawed. Plain and simple. Have a big party in the middle of town, gather up all the leaf blowers, throw them in a pile, and light them up. We could make it a fall celebration.
They’re noisy, pollutive, and quite possibly the most hedonistic device ever conceived of. A person who drives a big SUV can at least use it for the once a year occasion to haul something, a person who uses a gas lawn mower on a 10’ X 10’ patch of grass instead of getting a manual one can avoid getting sweaty in the summer sun. Hell, even everyone in the cafeteria at work who chooses to use disposable utensils and plates even though real ones are right there, can claim that it saves them the time of having to walk all the way over to the tray return instead of just throwing away the disposables. (FYI: These are all very terrible excuses) On a side note, the whole disposable plate things shows that people act more out of habit than making conscious decisions. It’s actually much nicer to use real plates and utensils compared to disposables, but people are so used to using the inferior plastic ones at restaurants (who use disposables due to costs) that they keep doing it even when given the option.

Anyway, back to leaf blowers. I don’t think a leaf blower has any positives. Raking leaves is not that hard!! It’s probably one of the easiest lawn maintenance tasks there is. A blower makes so much noise, much more than a lawnmower, and doesn’t save time. I was watching a guy blow leaves yesterday, just standing there waving it back forth to get everything. I could have raked them in the same amount of time. Plus, fall weather is beautiful, so it’s not like you’re going to sweat your ass off (heaven forbid) by picking up a rake. Plus there the care for the blower, gas, initial cost, and did I mention noise?

This points out one of big catch 22s of living in a free country. People are free to make bad decisions as well as good ones, generally still a good trade off. What do you do when everyone keeps making poor desicions that are hurting everyone including themselves? I meant this post as a joke, but maybe banning leaf blowers is a good idea. Who gets to decide what a "bad decision" is though? Good thing we have an educated, well informed, unbiased, and ethical congress to think these decisions through for us.

Tree climbing dog

2005-12-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

My mother's dog is crazy. About five years ago, there was a racoon in a tree in front of their house. She tried to climb the tree to get it. The racoon was obviously gone the second day, but she kept trying, for weeks, until she finally made it up. For years, she would love climbing up the tree, and my dad had to put a ramp in so she could get down, and put up a board to prevent her from climbing higher. After she got fixed, however, she was to fat to make it up. She still tries though.
In all honesty, this was just an excuse to try out putting video on my blog

Everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?

2005-11-30T12:17:00.000-08:00

I'm jumping on the blogwagon, and putting in my two cents on the two Slate ariticles about biking that are making noise on the blogsphere.

Good bicycling articles point out that cycling, although different from driving a car, is not worse. They mention how changing your schedule or dress can easily integrate cycling into your lifestyle. They comment on how we have a tendancy to take for granted many of our actions and how our habits are reflection of the environment we grew up in. Overall, they focus on changes, not sacrafices, and talk about the benefits.

Neutral articles weigh the costs objectively. They point out how some benefits may not be as viable in your community, and how yes, it may take more work sometimes. They may even admit the commuting may not be best for everyone. Overall, a good article will mention obstacles, but also mention how to overcome them.

A bad article would look at cycling through the eyes of a driver, only seeing how its impossible to maintain habits they think are necessary while riding a bike.

Bicycle Diaries is a bad article. Actually, its worse than a bad article. Not only does he reinforce myths about commuting, but he actually makes up a couple of new ones. Cycling will get you fired? You'll be outcast from society? I'll admit that some people might look at you differently, but that's just because they're not used to seeing cycle commuters. I bet people gave a weird look to the first person to drive down the street on a car also.

Nobody bikes in LA is a good article.

Stupid Things - Primal Quest

2005-11-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

Lots of people think some of the “fun” things I do are actually kind of, well, stupid. (Sorry, the trip postings are slim this fall due to work/school) I just might get a chance to prove them right though.

I received an offer to train with and potentially join an adventure race team for Primal Quest 2006. For those of you not tapped into the adventure race world, PQ is THE expedition race of the world. It’s one of the most extreme, with world wide television coverage, and a $250,000 prize purse attracting the best teams in the world. I thought I would like to do something like this in the future, maybe, if I could ever get a team together. Just getting the option to register for one of the coveted spots require either being on a top qualifying world team, fishing high in the previously years race, or winning one of the lottery spots, some of which are reserved for international teams. Oh yeah, you probably want to make sure you’re in good enough shape to do a 800km race with an estimated finishing time of 5 – 10 days, sleep optional.

Why would I want to do this in 2006?
-The 2006 race is local. (Somewhere across Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and/or Nevada. You don’t find out until later) 2007 will be on a different continent.
-The guy who contacted me already has a slot, he just needs to put a team together.
-800km, 5-10 days

Why not?
-I’d have to start doing some serious training come January.
-$8000 registration fee per team= $2000 per person. (That does include lodging though)
-800km, 5-10 days
-I might not be capable of finishing it if I’m not in top shape.

Moaning Caverns

2005-11-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

Finally got the pictures to make this post.

On the Saturday of Halloween weekend, I went with a couple of friends to take the “Adventure Tour” of Moaning Caverns . This cavern is one of many natural caverns in the northern part of California that are privately owned. The main advantage of private caves is that they are easy to find, and you they provide guides so you can explore with out worry of getting lost. The big disadvantage of course, is the price they charge. Many owners also make the claim that private caves are preserved better than ones on open federal land, a claim that in all honesty might be true. (In general, I find the libertarian idea that privately held land is a more efficient way of environmental protection as complete BS.)

Before going in, and sitting around at the bottom

Moaning Cavern is quite the spectacle. Instead of being a normal limestone cave formed from carbonic acid seeping down a crack in the bedrock and slowly eroding a passageway, this was instead formed by a geyser of water shooting up through the rock. The result is a vertical cave, with an enormous cathedral like chamber with a ceiling towering 150ft above the floor. This allowed just as large rock formations to develop untouched from the ceiling, some of which are the largest in the world. From the base floor, the cave creeps and spirals down into more fun crawl spaces.

Carina, Steve, me

Rock formations and the bottom of the cavern. You can see the old sprial staircase put in place put in place many years ago, and still used for the walking tours

Tour choices consist of :
$15 walk down the 150 spiral staircase, and see the caver, walk back up.
$50 rappel down into the cavern to look at it, walk back up the stairs
$50 walk down the stairs and get a cool spelunking trip into the bellows of the cavern
$100 Adventure Tour, rappel down, take the spelunking tour, and then walk back up.

We took the pricey Adventure tour. They use high friction setups to dumb down the rappel; causing you to spend the entire time tending to the belay and getting stuck in spots. The spelunking tour was really fun, and our guide actually spent a couple extra hours with us, possibly to make up for the two hour delay we had. Overall, I’d recommend it if you’ve never done anything like it before. Its worth doing the walking tour, and if you like spelunking do that also. Only do the rappel if you’ve never done anything like it before.

Dinner at Firewood, a great restaurant in Murphy that our guide recommended. It has authentic Mexican and good American food, all cooked over wood.

Cyclo-Cross

2005-11-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

Saw my first cyclo-cross race this weekend. I had never heard of the sport until this year, but it turns out Sacramento has an active XC community. A couple of guys in the bike club at work had mentioned it, and on Jmac’s recommendation, I headed out to watch the final races of the season on Sunday.

Here’s a brief summary of what I’ve been able to piece together as far as what cyclo-cross is. Back in the day, roadies wanted something to do and to stay in shape for after the regular road bike racing season ended. The fall season would be colder, and rainier, with worse weather overall. The idea came that instead of running from the conditions, embrace them. Since you can’t know what the road conditions are going to be, why go on the road at all? Keep in mind that this was before the legendary Specialized Rock Hopper hit the market spurning the mountain biking craze of today. Instead, you simply took the road tires off your bike, and put on knobby tires slightly wider than road tires. Then take off your front derailleur, and switch out your chainring for a single smaller chainring (something closer to what you’d see on a track or mountain bike). There you have it, a simple cyclcross bike. A modern cross bike will also have a higher bottom bracket, but in these races you see everything form cross bikes, to modified road bikes, to mountain bikes. Disc brakes and forward pointing bar extensions are illegal though.

Now that you have a bike, all you need to do is set up a small circuit court going through parks, and what not. A good track will have sections of mud, dirt, hills, stairs and lots of obstacles. Here’s the thing though. A bike like this still isn’t going to be able handle the abuse that a modern day mountain bike takes, so what do you do to handle obstacles in your way? The forefathers had quite the idea, get off and carry your bike, hence the “cross” nature of the sport originated. This isn’t an optional aspect either. Even if you think you could handle going over a log, the rules require you to port your bike across certain sections. This brings a completely different element to it, requiring different muscles, and different types of breathing to go from sprinting, to taking a hair pin corner in the dirt, to dismounting and sprinting up stairs, to getting back on your bike.
I saw three such scenarios in this weekend’s race. The first involved running up a set of at least twenty stairs, and then later dismounting to jump over an obstacle and push your bike up a single track hill. The last one was to pick your bike to run/jump across a series of logs laid across the path. Super fun stuff.

The races went from registration at 8:00 to numerous divisional races spaced roughly 1 hour apart. I had biked the 23 miles out to the course mid Sunday morning, but had only planned on staying for short bit, just to check it out. The course was set up much better for spectating than I had anticipated, though, and after running into some friendly faces, I decided to stick around till the A race, and watch Jmac.

For information, and cool pics, check out : Velocommunity
Not only is this home to Sacramento’s Cyclo –Cross, but it’s also the home of the greater Sacramento cycling commuting. “A blog not just for me, but for everyone,” as the webmaster envisions it. Hopefully that vision will come to be.

WALMART: The High Cost of Low Cost

2005-11-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

This week is(was) the national debut of Walmart: The High Cost of Low Cost. First off, I have to say that this movie was fantastic. Although I’ve been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks, I was still expecting a totally one sided biased story that would discredit itself. (Michael Moore like) I wrong on my assumptions. It was done very well, and a conscience effort was made to extend across political borders. They made it a point to let us know that many of the people interviewed were actually gun toting, truck driving republicans. The highlights were numerous interviews with ex-high level managers from the giant corporation. They were able to spread insight into how many of the problems do in fact come from the top.

They also did a neat way of promoting the movie, essentially letting anyone across the country host their own screening of the movie. All you had to do was purchase a DVD, and invite a bunch of people over. They’d even advertise your screening with them. I chose to see it at the local classic theater, The Crest, where one of the independent free newspapers was sponsoring a showing, along with some good comedy skits before the movie. This is somewhat fitting because A) There is an open air mall located a few blocks away, and the owners wanted to install a Walmart as part of a “downtown revitalization>” I won’t even comment on that one. Luckily the city council decisively said no to that one, insisting they draw smaller shops into the building. B) That same city council, however, was toying with the idea of giving Century theaters a 10 million dollar subsidy to build an arts theater directly across from the Crest, as a way of drawing people to the area. The street is dead, and the only, and I mean only, thing drawing people there are the Crest and Pyramid Brewing, most of the rest of the buildings are empty. Let’s see, there’s brewery, and a theater, there already, hmm, lets add a theater!!! Ok, I’m off subject.

Anyway, see the movie. I’ll save my Walmart rants for later; I have a couple fun Walmart projects lined up for Spring.

Fall Bike Ride

2005-11-17T22:52:00.000-08:00

I took what will probably be my last full bike commute of the year. I wanted to go one more time to check out the leaves, and Veteran’s Day provided the perfect opportunity. I decided to take pictures along the way to show just how nice of a ride it is. Although I took most of the pics while moving, I did stop quite a bit. My legs aren’t in nearly as good as shape as they were earlier in the season either, so I ended up taking over 1:45 minutes for the 25 mile ride. It was a good day.

Keep in mind that this entire trail is going straight through the suburban sprawl that is the greater Sacramento area, yet you see very little signs of it along the trail, and the traffic is even out of earshot most of the way.

Leaving the city. The Sac State Bridge: Some say it was modeled after the Golden Gate. I say, well, its a suspension bridge. It allows students to walk over from the apartment buildings across the river to the school. I do wonder how much pull the land owners on the other side of the river had in the decision to have it built.

Nimbus Dam, Lake Natomas, and back to reality

Highlight of the trip, running into this guy towing his canoe with his bike.

He had a couple of suggestions for me when I mentioned that I'm building a similar setup for my kayak. He really goes all out though, biking upstream with a folding bike, so he can take it on his canoe with him, paddling downstream back to town.

Veteran's Day Train

2005-11-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

Sac Light Rail was very ambiguous about its schedule on Veteran’s Day. Signs posted on the train said the day would be a holiday. The website listed two categories of holidays, major holidays that were holidays, and certain ones that would follow the holiday schedule, which wasn’t posted on the site. The paper schedules didn’t list what days were holidays but did list some routes as having an “H” next to them, which wouldn’t run on holidays. The “H” routes were every other route before 10:00am, which coincidently coincided with every train that actually ran to Folsom, insinuating that it was impossible to get to the city via train on holidays. Retarded. Although I assumed that the schedule was messed up in some way, none of the regular downtown to Intel train ‘n bike commuters were going to risk it. Later that evening rumors circulated of seeing trains labeled “Folsom” running in the morning. Regardless, I took the opportunity to bike to work that morning, the last time for the season. With the time change, it would be possible to start biking to work in the morning, but I’m pressed for time these days, and biking takes at least and extra ½ hour, probably a little more, plus the added packing of clothes, ect. I did want to ride one more time though, and get a chance to see the fall leaves on the trail.

Feeding the Mob

2005-11-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Had an update at work on the new product line I’ll we working on next year. It turns out the only market presently identified for this particular chip is Japanese slot machines (Pachinko machines). Yup, just slot machines, with 450 million dollars of potential market a year for us. They also mentioned that working with this customer is a little different than others; it’s harder to get set specs in the usual timeframe. This didn't suprise many though, since the entire industry is apparently owned and operated by the Japanese mafia.

As long as you’re making a difference in the world; that’s what matters. The current product I'm working on mainly goes into cell phones. I suppose its not much different either way, working on a product that helps people engage in addictive, unnecessary, money gobbling activities that can cause them to ignore the people around them, or helping them gamble.

Dodgeball!!!!!!!!!!

2005-11-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

Even before the movie “Dodgeball” came out, rumors were surfacing about adult dodgeball leagues popping up in scattered places around the country. Dodgeball may sound like a game for kids. It may seem ridiculous. It may not add up to other “real” sports. It may also be incredibly fun!!!!! Needless to say, I wanted to get in on it. I’d tried to find info on it in the past, but usually came up with mixed results. Leagues would be to far away, out of season, or you’d be required to have set teams. One of Equipoise’s posts a while back reminded me to do a search in the Sacramento area. I happened to stumble across a group on MeetUp.com. No leagues, no commitment, just a bunch of people getting together to try to play pickup games once a month. I finally got my first chance to join them on Saturday.

The plan was to meet in Rosemont Community park at 4:00, and play on one of the tennis courts. One of courts apparently never has a net, so it’s a choice selection,; with the addition of two lines of athletic tape, the court is transformed into a dodgeball court. When I arrived, three others were there already; just finishing putting the tape on. As all pickup games go, people tend to trickle in after the meeting time. This allowed us to warm up our throwing arms a bit. It now occurred to me that throwing would actually be a large part of the game. Not good. As some of you may know, the only reason I don’t throw like a complete girl any more is because I had a girlfriend in college who taught me how to throw better.

Eventually, nine of us had gathered, which was deemed enough to start playing. Since these guys had been playing for a couple of months, they had modified the rules slightly to promote better play. Instead of having one center line to divide the court in half, there were two lines, which put a “common” area in between. Either team was allowed in the common area, meaning you really had to watch your sides if you were advancing to your line for a kill. The second rule they added was the one-on-one rule. If there’s only two players left, you can go anywhere on the court. This prevent strung out one-on-one situations; and in fact, made them go fast. Really fast.

I had a super fun time, and I hope to be able to make it next month also. We’re going to try to move it to a more visible location, and maybe attract more people. I highly recommend looking for a Dodgeball club in your area if possible, or check out MeetUp.com to see if there are pick up games happening.

one word sums it up

2005-11-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

fuck

Actually, multiple words could be used to describe it, but it would be hard to properly describe all the necessary yelling and screaming involved.

Messenger Criterium

2005-11-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

I caught wind of a messenger bike race taking place this weekend. Instead of being a tupical messenger alleycat race though, it was in done in criterium format. The idea was that everyone would chip in $5, and the winner would get sponsored by a local bike shop in the Land Park Criterium race next Spring, which takes place in Sacramento. The city has a pretty small messenger group, so they have a very inclusive attitude toward other bikers from the community. I decided just to watch in stead of race, for a couple of reasons. 1) Since light rail opened up, I’ve gotten very little miles in, so I wouldn’t have much kick. 2) I would have been the only one with a geared bike, so I would have had to tape the shifters down to be fair. 3) I didn’t have any need for the prize. I don’t need another jersey, and don’t have time for the personal trainer. Overall, I thought the prize would mean a lot more to one of the messengers, since they make a fraction of the money I do. In the end though, I totally regret not racing it; as did everyone else who decided just to watch.

Racing. A late entry. Lovingly giving support for his wife, the lone female racer.

The original race sight had to be changed because there was an actual sanctioned foot race taking place at the park. Luckily some of my friends got there earlier, and swung by my place on the way to the new location. We ended up going to a place in West Sac that used to be an abandoned golf course, but is now suffering from major housing development. The course was approximately 1 mile back and forth down a four lane road, looping around the medium. This put a hair pin turn on each end; which made it a challenge since everyone was riding fix gears. The mood was really set for the event when someone whipped out a can of spray paint to put down the start/finish line across the road. The race started off with an informal “go” calmly stated by the organizer. I thought that a guy from work was going to win it easily, since he’s a regular cyclo-cross racer. He pulled the first 9 laps, but a couple of messengers had a little more bite than their appearance lead on. Despite there being two body types amongst them; drunk, and slightly overweight, or drunk and super, super, skinny, they pulled it out, with three of them passing in the final stretch. Fun day, unfortunately this probably going to be the last race for the, um , “season.”

After the race, a bunch of us went to someone’s house to grill out. It was quite the mix background of people, ranging form messengers whose main concern is getting enough deliveries in the week to pay for beer, to a married couple with kids, to the young professionals such as myself. Overall, a really nice group. It was more interesting that some of these people were the same ones that totally pissed me off a few months back at a Critical Mass ride. Just goes to show how different situations bring out different sides of people.

Game of "foot-down" and other random fixie trickier taking place in the middle of the street. Everyone made room for cars when ever they came buy, yet you could tell the drivers were unthrilled with all these bikes in the street

Unfortunately, I had to head out early to make it to my Dodgeball game.

Not-So Critical Mass – October 2005 Ride Report

2005-11-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

I hadn’t been able to make last months CM ride, but I had high hopes for this month. Not only was it Halloween, but we put up a bunch of fliers, and tagged a bunch of bikes through out the week. The turn out, however, was disappointing to say the least. Rumor had it that September had had a good number of people, but apparently none of them felt like coming out this time.

Of the handful that showed up, half of them left since they were expecting more of a “critical” mass. This left just four of us. Having only this many riders does have its advantages though.

First, the police didn’t see us as much a problem, and went their merry way, allowing us to go our merry way. (Actually, we are developing a very good relationship with the police) Second, instead of going for a slow ride, we went for a very fast ride, basically becoming one with traffic; weaving in and out of the cars. Wait, we already are traffic. How can we become one with something we are already part of? Anyway. Third, you can take a picture encompassing every cyclist on the ride!! Try doing that in chicago :-P

All of us. Well, if you count the Scotch-lite strap off my messenger bag as being part of me, then there are all of us. I'm actually super impressed that this picture turned out. I didn't really slow down much to take it. Although I did realize that the cars behind us might not appreciate the flash to much!

Fourth, and possibly most important, when four riders show up at an Irish pub, and one of the riders knows the bartender, she’ll have no problem giving everyone free drinks the entire night.

I think we’re still going to continue trying to promote the ride through the winter, but I’m not sure if we’re going to get much more participation. It’s kind of sad how many people stop biking around here when cities like Minneapolis and Chicago can draw hundreds if not thousands of people under much harsher conditions.

At the very least, we’ll probably be doing a ride like this past one even if others don’t show up.

WAIT. WHAT. HUH

2005-11-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

BANG! I WAKE UP. NO ALARM SET. I HADN’T SET IT. THE BANG WAS A DOOR IN THE HALLWAY. THE ROOMMATE MUST BE AWAKE. WHY IS SHE UP THIS EARLY? WHAT TIME IS IT? WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT? SHIT, IT’S 8:30. I SHOULD BE UP ALREADY. I HOPE THAT WAS HER BEDROOM DOOR CLOSING AND NOT THE BATHROOM DOOR. WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT! THE TIME CHANGED, THAT’S RIGHT. THE NEXT TRAIN IS IN 5 MINUTES. CAN’T MAKE IT. NEXT TRAIN WOULD BE IN 35 MINUTES. I’D GET TO WORK TOO LATE. WILL HAVE TO DRIVE TODAY. JUMP OUT OF BED. I’M COVERED IN FAKE BLOOD. YESTERDAY WAS HALLOWEEN. WHAT TIME DID I GO TO SLEEP? DON’T KNOW. IT WAS SOMETIME LATE. I DIDN’T SHOWER WHEN I GOT HOME. FUCK, ITS TUESDAY. FBO MEETING AT 9:00. WITH PERFECT TRAFFIC I CAN STILL MAKE IT. MAYBE. GRAB TOWEL. THROW OPEN BEDROOM DOOR SHIT. BATHROOM DOOR CLOSED. RUNNING WATER. ROOMMATE IS IN SHOWER. GO BACK IN ROOM WHY IS SHE UP? OK, NO SHOWER, JUST GO TO WORK. FUCK, COVERED IN FAKE BLOOD. HAVE TO SHOWER. SHIT FBO AT 9:00. MUST USE TIME EFFICIENTLY. BRUSH TEETH NOW. START BRUSHING TEETH CLOTHES. I CAN ASSEMBLE WHAT I’M GOING TO WEAR. UNDERWEAR. SOCKS. PANTS. SHIRT. PACK UP LAPTOP. FINISH BRUSHING TEETH BATHROOM STILL OCCUPIED. I CAN USE THIS TIME TO SLEEP MORE. LAY BACK DOWN SHIT. I MIGHT BE HUNGOVER THAT’S THE BATHROOM DOOR OPENING. MUST SHOWER. GRAB TOWEL, GO TO BATHROOM WATER IS STILL WARM. GOOD. SHAMPOO. SOAP. RINSE. DONE. GO BACK TO ROOM CLOTHES ARE RIGHT THERE. DRESS. GRAB BAG. LEAVE. AHH. MY JEEP. I LIKE MY JEEP. HAVEN’T DRIVEN IT IN A WEEK. TRAFFIC BETTER NOT SUCK. IT SHOULDN'T. ITS LATE ENOUGH. 8:45. WITH CLEAR TRAFFIC I WILL ONLY BE A COUPLE MINUTES LATE. ON RAMP, ACCELLERATE, UP AROUND CORNER. I LIKE DRIVING, ITS FUN. BREAK LIGHTS AHEAD. STOP. SHIT. TRAFFIC BLOWS. FUCK, I AM DEFINITELY GOING TO BE HUNG OVER. WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING ON THE FREEWAY AT THIS TIME? I'M GOING TO BE REALLY LATE. SHOULDN’T YOU BE AT WORK ALREADY? GET A REAL JOB. YEAH YOU, IN THE TIE, TALKING ON YOUR CELL PHONE. YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL DON’T YOU. TAKE THE TRAIN LIKE A RESPECTABLE CITIZEN. STOP. DRIVE. HMM. THERE ARE STILL REDISH ORANGISH TRACES OF FAKE BLOOD STAINED INTO MY HANDS. STOP. DRIVE. I WISH I WAS ON THE TRAIN. STOP. DRIVE. THEN I COULD BE WRITING ON MY LAPTOP INSTEAD OF JUST SITTING HERE. THIS WOULD MAKE A GOOD BLOG ENTRY. I COULD PUT IT IN ALL CAPS. MAKE IT DISJOINTED SENTANCES PORTRAYING MY INNER DIALOG. YES, I’LL HAVE TO DO THAT.

Bridge Building

2005-11-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago one of the guys in the bike club at work sent out an email asking for volunteers to help build a bridge on a local bike path. I’d already canceled my bouldering plans for the weekend since I needed to stay home and get some work done; however, this was only supposed to take a couple of hours, so I decided to take the train down to Folsom and lend a hand on Saturday morning.

I’d heard of the bridge building program before, but didn’t know anything about it past the point that it existed. Basically, most of the bridges built along the bike paths are built with donated money and volunteer help. The program is run by the Sacramento Area Bicycle Association, and the Folsom Area Bicycle association. For the most part, the paths around Sacramento and on the river bike trail have all the bridges they need. Folsom, where I work, is a different story though. Despite being a huge urban sprawl, there are actually large numbers of people doing a pretty good job of keeping the city bike friendly. They already have about 40+miles of bike paths in the city thus far, and at least that much more in the works.

The plan was to build a bridge between two parallel paths going on opposite sides of a small river. One of the paths ran along side a major street; the other path ran by an apartment enclave. This particular apartment complex was different, though, in that it was assisted living for the elderly. This meant that the bridge would actually serve more use than the local bikers, since the elderly residents are more prone to go for walks. (Unlikely the young and healthy residents of the community) This potential bridge was big news for them, especially for an 98 year old man who currently walked 20 quarter mile laps around his building each day. The newspaper got a hold of the story, and it was made into a big deal, with a ribbon cutting ceremony and all.

A contractor was hired to do the concrete, and drop the trusses into place. All we had to do was put the decking and rails on. Everything was predrilled, so it was basically on big erector set. Lots of fun.

One thing for sure, it was rather surreal watching an ensemble of elderly residents slowly make the inaugural crossing, complete with canes, walkers, and electric carts.

In the news: (I made the Sac Bee twice in as many weeks!)
Sac Bee

Light Rail

2005-10-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sacramento light rail finally opened its newest route which now extends all the way to downtown Folsom. I’d previously been taking the train to work from time to time, getting off at what was then the last stop, and biking the final 8 miles to work. (Bikes are allowed on the train for no additional charge, if there’s room) This was okay, but seriously wasn’t that much faster than biking the entire 25 miles.

The new track would take me within 1 ½ miles from work. The bus system going from the light rail stations to the rest of the city, however, have much to be desired, despite supposedly being completely redesigned to work with the trains. Due to the large number of people (7000) working at my employer though, the transit company has implemented two shuttle in the morning, and two shuttles in the afternoon to go directly between the train stop and our campus. These are free, however, only one of them actually lines up with the train schedule in anyway whatsoever though (WTF?). Plus, I would be required to set an actual schedule in order to use the shuttles, which defeats the purpose of working for a high end tech company that allows me to come and leave as I please. This means I often still take my bike in order to make my own schedule (in half hour increments).

Here are the results:

Driving to work:
25 – 50 minutes each way, depending on traffic
Total commute time in a day: 50 – 100 minutes
Total time wasted in a day (time spent unproductively) 50 – 100 minutes

Biking to work:
5 – 10 minutes spent packing cloths ect.
65 minutes each way
Total time spent to commute in a day: 150 minutes
Total time wasted in a day: ?? Variable. I wouldn’t need to spend 2 ½ hours biking every day when I do have better things to do.

Light Rail/ with shuttle:
Walk to train station: <5 minutes
Train ride: 40 minutes
Shuttle: 5 minutes
Shuttle after work: 5 minutes
Wait for train: 20 minutes
Train ride: 40 minutes
walk back home: 5 minutes
Total commute time: 120 minutes
Total wasted time: 10-15 minutes (I use the time on the train/bus to write emails/blogs or read)

Light rail with bike:
House to train station: <1 minute
Train ride: 40 minutes
bike to work: 5 minutes
total commute time: 90 minutes
Wasted time: 10 minutes (I don’t consider any of the bike time wasted, but I won’t get a chance to park my bike on the train for the first 10 minutes of the morning ride due to crowding, so that time is wasted.)

Cost: $1.75*twice a day * 20 days a month - $30 subsidy from work = $35 dollars a month
Comparable gas spent in driving: 25 miles * twice a day*20 days*$3 per gallon/18mpg = $167 a month

Over all working well. Another down point, however, is that the city of Folsom doesn’t want the train to run past 7:00pm. They don’t want “drunkards” riding into their city. This inhibits working late, but also means that there will still be many, many drunk drivers going from downtown to Folsom every night. All of the young Folsomites I’ve talked to expressed interest in taking the train to go out in Sacramento, that still isn’t an option though.

I was even quoted in the Sac Bee.
Sac Bee

Burrito Bandwidth

2005-10-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

I’m a big fan of Chipolte burritos. There’s a Chipoltes a couple blocks from my house, so I go there numerous times a month. Recently, I’ve discovered that the new salad option they have offers a huge advantage – more food. The salad basically contains at least all the ingredients of a burrito, plus a mound of romaine lettuce. Since it’s served in a bowl instead of a tortilla shell, there are no capacity constraints or diminished “burrito bandwidth” as I like to call it, due to the size of the tortilla shell. This means that you are likely to receive even more burrito ingredients along with the lettuce. The obvious disadvantage, however, is no tortilla shell, which provides necessary carbohydrates, and yumminess.

On Tuesday evening I’m standing in line at Chipoltes, and watching my salad being made. As I stared at the heaps of ingredients being piled in my bowl, and lamenting over the tortilla I sacrificed in the name of quantity, I had an epiphany. The bowl contained a lot of ingredients, more than would fit in one burrito. In fact, there was almost enough to fill two burritos. Two is more than one. One is less than two. Chipoltes isn’t the only place that sells tortillas. The wheels were in full spin, and soon my bicycle wheels were spinning my way into Safeway, which is actually on the way home. I made a lone purchase of one 8 pack of burrito size tortilla shells, and once back in my own kitchen, I transformed my chicken burrito salad into two burritos. The burrito bandwidth was hence increased, and a new level of cheapness was obtained.

Drive in Couches

2005-10-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening finally allowed a chance to revive a tradition I had a part in starting back in Arizona; going to the drive-in theatre – with a sofa sleeper.

I think the original idea was Rob’s, most likely since he’s the one who owned the couch. He conveniently kept it in his drive way, which made it easy to pull up in Ian’s truck, throw it in, and head on our way. It became a regular Wednesday evening event.

Since moving to Sacramento, and seeing a drive-in in the vicinity, I’ve wanted to introduce the event to others. Javier actually organized it on Saturday, which worked great, since he has a truck. Believe it or not, you can actually fit a queen size sofa sleeper and a large love seat in the back of a Ford Ranger, especially if you stack them “69” style, as Hav referred to it as. Getting the sofa sleeper out of my living room was a little harder than expected, but overall worth the effort.

There were probably 10 of us or so; I’m not sure exactly since some were hiding out in the cars. Next time, I’d recommend maybe going in the actual summer; despite this being California, it was a little chilly. Some of the guys had the foresight to order pizza to be picked up on the way, which went quiet nicely with the cooler of beer. The movie we saw was “Serenity”; a Sci Fi flicked based on the show Firefly. Overall it was a decent movie, with character depth slightly above what most movies portray. It fit drive-in requirements quite nicely; with a simple plot that you won’t miss out on much if you’re talking, a little bit of action to keep it exciting, yet good enough that you don’t feel like you’re wasting your money. Fun times were had, definitely to be repeated, although I’m not sure if that will happen until next summer.

Faith in mankind????

2005-10-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Interesting thing happened to me Sunday afternoon.

There I was, standing in the check out lane at Safeway, silently staring at my would be purchases of a 6 pack of Kaiser Rolls, and a 32oz block of swiss cheese. I had been waiting for about five minutes, when I thought to check and make sure I had my wallet. During any other day of the week, I wouldn’t feel the need to check this. I know that after waking up, I would have immediately grabbed my wallet and keys after putting pants on. Today was Sunday though, which means I woke up, put on comfy pants, and skipped the wallet and keys, them not being immediately necessary. When I needed to go the grocery store, I had just grabbed my bag, pulled Le Puge off the Multi-Bike Compression Super Rack, and headed three blocks down the street to Safe Way. (I needed my keys to lock the door, so that wasn’t an issue)

So, I’m standing there, giving myself a full pat down worthy of a federal aviation security agent, hoping to feel the recognizable lump of a wallet. That’s when it happened. The gentlemen behind me, a totally normal looking, middle aged man, asked me if I wanted help. No, not with patting me down silly, but with paying for my groceries! The person in front of me was still paying, so it’s not even like I was in the awkward position having bagged groceries and a bill sitting in front of me. I told him it was no worry; I only lived a couple blocks away, and stepped out of line, throwing my items on a nearby shelf. As I was unlocking my bike and adjusting my messenger bag, he walked past, (he must also live close by, since the bike racks are at the far end of the parking lot), and smiled saying it happens to him all the time. I politely thanked him again, telling him how nice it was, and carried on my way.

Sometimes people are just so surprising!

Multi-Bike Compression Super Rack

2005-10-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

The living room of my house has been in rather sad shape since we moved into the place in June. Although the space worked great for stashing bikes, it wasn’t providing much in the way of other usefullness. For the first three months, we had all the furniture and decorations from our landlord, which were, to say the least, of “interesting” taste. After she moved her stuff out, we went from having a room filled with junk, to bare room with nothing but a couch. Then my roommate bought a TV, which he set up on top of the cardboard box it came in. Then he bought a computer, which he set up on top of the cardboard box it came in. The room was starting to show promise, improving from its former status of “crack house living room minus the needles and pipes,” and was well on its way to reaching the status of college house. (baby steps)

The "Pink Pig", our land lord's most prized possession. This was actually the one thing I liked, if that says anything about the rest of her tastes.

Things really started to pick up pace recently though. The TV was relocated to the floor, and the computer box was replaced with an actual table. Yes, a real table; four legs, made of wood, standard IKEA issue. Hence, the bar was raised, the gauntlets were off, and I stepped up to do my part; it was time to build a bike rack.

Bikes scattered in the room

The requirements for the rack were high, needing to hold a minimum of 6 bikes, plus room for expansion if necessary. The bikes would have to held vertical, to take up the minimum amount of space. The entire setup would need to be aesthetically pleasing, and most importantly, it would be spuedo-free standing, requiring no bolts, or drilling, and not to cause any scratching or damage what-so-ever to the floor, walls, or ceiling.

Enter the Multi-Bike Compression Super Rack.

Borrowing an idea used for years by UW-Madison students to loft their beds in the dorms, I constructed the super rack to utilize two expandable posts, which would be held in place by being compressed between the ceiling and the floor. A 2X4 stretching across the two support posts provided ample space to hang the bikes from.

Supplies:
Two 8 foot 4X4 posts: $16
One 8 ft 2X4 :$4
Two 1 foot, ½ inch threaded rods: $5
Six heavy duty rubber screw hooks: $10
Eight ½ inch nuts and washers: $2
Four squares of carpet: Free (Actually, the label said they're supposed be returned to the store in 24hrs. Oops.)
One quart of paint : $10 (optional, I might leave it natural, aka, be too lazy to take it down, outside and paint it.)

Overall, very pleased with the end results.

Vindication, well, not really, but a least a good bargain.

2005-10-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Went to court today to battle the $361 bicycle citation I received last month. I came prepared to explain the safety issues endured by bicyclists on a daily basis, to speak out against ill formed, biased laws, and to stand up against evil, so that one day good can hopefully prevail, and the eternal sun may shine down on glimmering cranks everywhere.
Hell, I even bought a belt.

Of course, as anyone who’s ever dealt with the legal system knows, these things make little difference. The system at this level is designed to process as many (and there are a lot), of citations as possible. During the initial hearing, the judge is just there to hear you plea guilty or not guilty, after which the guilty plea-ers go through the door on the left, and the “not guilty” plea-ers stand off to the right, ready to face off with the army of county attorneys waiting to process as many defendants as possible, in as timely a manner as possible that still yields profits to the city. Many un-informed, nervous, people try to talk (lie) their way out at the plea point, with out even realizing that the judge only wants to hear “guilty” or “not guilty”. It’s kind of sad that there really isn’t a proper resource to explain to everyone, in an understandable way, how the system works. The judge we had this morning was at least pretty fun though, and joked around with the people.

I stepped forward when my name was called, pled not guilty, and took a step to the right. A few moments later, one of the attorneys who had been going in and out with people all day, came out and called my name. She was pretty young, super nice, and even kind of cute; to bad she’s a lawyer. This is a stark contrast to the only other county attorney I’ve dealt with, Charles C Adams, the attorney for Sheboygan. He’s a total dick, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I followed the young attorney through the door to the left, where we briefly discussed the case in the hallway, not even taking time to go to one of the conference rooms. She completely agreed with me that the bicycle/car laws were messed up, but stated that she’s not a legislator, so she can’t really do anything about it. She then grabbed a binder, and started paging through it, saying she’d look for something she could give me that wouldn’t affect my clean driving record. (Yeah, this ticket, as it stood, would have given me a point on my driver’s license. In CA, you get your license revoked after 4 points in a year. This would have sucked for insurance.)

“How about a pedestrian traffic signal violation?” she asked, pointing her finger to one of the hundreds of violations listed in the binder. “$100, and it has no effect on your driving record”

I was sold, and agreed. Granted, I think I would have had a good chance to fight it all the way, especially since I doubt the officer would have showed up for court. Returning for another court date though, would have involved taking another morning off of work, and risking fucking up my insurance.

I walked back into the courtroom, accepted the new charge, and paid the clerk before leaving the building.

Alumni Band, Madison, friends, family, and beer

2005-10-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Tis the season for the annual University of Wisconsin Alumni Band reunion. This year it was held the first week of October during the Wisconsin/Indiana game. Generally I wouldn’t want to make a weekend trip across the country just for a football game, but I make an exception for alumni band. Equipoise and I have reputations to maintain, and fear that not returning for alumni band one year could sacrifice our front and center spots in the pregame show. Who knows what carnage could precipitate with out us, and who would show the young ones how to do it right? Additionally, JoJo was going to be coming to town, and it’s a rare , not to be missed occasion when all three siblings are in the same zip code.

Why is Wisconsin so cool? Because we got time machines, baby!

The weekend started with getting up at 4:30 am (after going to bed at 2:30am), in order to catch my 6:05am flight out of Sacramento, to catch a connection in Phoenix, to land in Milwaukee. I took a bus out of the airport, but due to poorly marked street signs, I got off to early – five miles to early, and had nice walk through the interesting areas of Milwaukee on my way to the Third Ward District. Eventually, I met up Sean and Mary, and we headed on our way to Madison, picking up Sner on the way.

Arriving in Madison, Mary dropped us off so the “boys could play,” while she went to hook up with a friend, and return later as designated driver. The bad news: Oakcrest Tavern is no longer Oakcrest Tavern, it changed owners, taking with it its scrumptious bar menu, and cute waitresses. The good news: Lucky’s tavern, (the bar formerly known as the Oakcrest), serves beer in the large, glass, sit on table, gravity taps. Good times followed. Jainie and Matt gave a surprise visit, along with Jill, and her new boy. We spent some time hanging at the Stadium Bar, which was later followed by each of us getting a mason jar of nostalgia, in the form of the Red Sheds always strong “Real Deal.” (That’s a Long island ice tea served in a mason jar.) We closed the night out by eating Ian’s Pizza, completely drunk, while sitting on the wall outside of Witte Hall.

Mary woke us up at 7:15am. I’ll take a gander that we were probably still drunk at this point. Regardless, we headed to the stadium for our early morning practice. The alumni band isn’t known for much beyond fat and lazy people trying to get back a piece of their youth, however, nothing better sums of this year’s practice than the phrase clusterfuck. Seriously, we reached a new low, that isn’t likely to be surpassed anytime soon.

We got a traditional pregame breakfast at Mickey’s Dairy Bar, and headed to the game. Overall the game was a fun time. Pregame and halftime was typical, the Badgers won in a one sided game, and fifth quarter was surprisingly short.

Equipoise originally made the trumpet sign back in his days in band. After spending time in his basement, it later adorned the outside of my house, which became known as the trumpet house. I still know some of the people living there, although the sign is definitely worse for wear after a couple of years

After the game, we headed back to the hotel room, and met up with JoJo and her boyfriend Paul. The room had eight pillows, and there were three siblings. Not a good combination if you don’t expect carnage to break out. Later, we walked across the street to have dinner with some of Equipoise’s band friends and Jill. The food at Piasson’s was mediocre as usual. I don’t understand why everyone always raved about their food. I don’t consider myself a great cook, but I do better Italian than they do.

Since JoJo and Paul had never seen Madison, we took a stroll down State Street in search of beer. I know, hard to find on State Street, especially on a game weekend. We got distracted, however, when an impromptu game of Lava Rock Rock Revolution broke out by capitol square. Good times. We ended the evening drinking sampler platters at the Great Dane Brewery, which I hadn’t even known had a back patio.

The next morning, we took a nice bike ride through, around, and out of town. Equipoise was gracious enough to bring along an extra bike, despite it being a pain to fit it in his little Civic Del Sol. We went through the Memorial Union Terrace, and planned on going to Picnic Point, but instead ended up at the airport. You would have sworn JoJo was leading the way, not Equipoise. We did find a really nice breakfast place out on Willy Street though. Although I had always heard good things about the Willy Street area, I had never actually been there while living in the city for 6 years. Neat place.
With that, it was time for us to head off, so I could catch my flight back to Sacramento.

Me, JoJo, and Paul in front of the statue on Bascom Hill. The old campus joke is that everyone should walk in front of Abe before graduation. If you're still a virgin, he'll stand up.

The Infamous UW Madison Memorial Union

2005-10-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

I usually beam whenever somebody asks me what Madison, WI is like. Although I haven't necessarily seen a large number of universities, I consider Madison one of the best campuses in the country. Even Arizona State, known as one of the most beautiful campuses with gorgeous winter weather, doesn't totally add up.

The most memorable feature of Madison, is of course the student Memorial Union. Built in the early 1900's on what turned out to probably be the best piece of real estate in the city, the union features an interior resembling a german tavern and an outside overlooking Lake Mendota. During warm summer nights live music plays on a small stage, and seating quickly fills up. Don't expect to find a seat on the weekend unless you get there early, preferable directly after class. During the peak season, it can even be hard to find a spot to sit on the stairs, piers, or shore. If you have access to a boat, you can dock of shore and listen to the music from there. Any verbal description doesn't quite portray the aura felt while sitting out on the terrace and enjoying a beer, so I made sure to snap a couple of pictures when I was back early this month.

Unlike many Universities where the trend is going towards having dry campuses, UW Madison actually serves beer at the student union. Being public property, anyone of any age can just walk onto the terrace with no carding. (Both union membership and and ID are necessary to purchase alcohol) During my last year there, the current chancelor, set on a mission to kill the school party atmosphere, put an end to the 48oz cups which were the premier option to get beer in. (14oz and 24oz are also options, but they weren't as economical) The large cups, which were known to get soggy anyway, were replaced with plastic pichers, which quickly fit in as sturdier cups, with handles, and a nice spout. Nice try.

Lava Rock Rock Revolution

2005-10-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Although America is full of diversity, with people originating from different backgrounds, and being raised in various environments, many of us still share some common bonds. Apple pie, baseball (for better or worse), and of course, the lava game. Admit it. You all played the lava game when you were a kid; trying to jump from furniture to furniture in the living room with out touching the floor, pretending the carpet was actually lava that would incinerate your feet if touched, or consume your entire body if you were unfortunate enough to fall completely to the floor. In the really difficult spots, you might even throw a couch cushion onto the floor to act as a stepping stone. (Deep down, we knew this was cheating though. Even as a 4 yr old, we comprehended that a couch cushion obviously burns in lava, and the surface tension of the molten rock would not support our weight for very long.)

Why do I bring this up you ask? Well, while taking a stroll down State Street mall in Madison, WI this past weekend, my siblings ( JoJo and Equipoise) and I discovered that what first appeared to be a modern art/stone/seating arrangement, was actually a full sized outdoor lava game. Or, as I dubbed it, Lava Rock Rock Revolution. (A name derived from the popular arcade game, Dance Dance Revolution II)

Hold onto your hats, the lava game isn’t just for kids anymore. Much more difficult than the kid’s version, and much more dangerous, Lava Rock Rock Revolution provides hours of enjoyment for the entire family. Many of the moves require careful analysis, and can only be completed with exact placement of the hands and feet both before and after jumping. Part of the fun involves figuring out the best pedestals to start and finish on, since it is easy to find yourself stranded, and needing to back track.

The back course

We started on the back course, which is in my opinion, slightly easier, but more technical, and more fun. After clearing that, we attempted a couple of alternate routes involving trees, and lampposts; they didn’t really improve on time, but did mix it up a little more. From there, we moved onto the front course, which is harder, with some tougher moves, but shorter. There was one move in particular, that took me forever to get. At one point we were even experimenting with a rock to tree to metal newspaper box to rock sequence, before we finally figured out the proper move, which was quite difficult. After clearing this board, we then worked on clearing it backwards, which provided completely new challenges.

On the front course

All in all, this was a great time; we probably spent a good 1 ½ hours playing around, and that was on the way TO the bar. Who knows what kind of fun could be experienced on the way BACK from the bars.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who happens to find themselves in Madison. The two boards are located at the intersections of Carroll, Mifflin, State streets; right by capital square. If any police try to prevent you from jumping on the “art,” ignore them, they obviously don’t know the true splendor of Lava Rock Rock Revolution. I won't post any of the solutions, but trust me, both courses can be solved.

bunny hop

2005-10-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing happened Monday while biking home from dropping the rent off. I suddenly came across a deep pothole traveling at hi speeds. (I was going at high speed, not the pothole.) I must not have been paying attention, because usually I would see these things in advance, and swerve out of the way. Not having time to take evasive action, I popped the front tire up, to minimize the jolting and potential damage. That’s when the strange thing happened. Instead of just my front tire coming up, my rear wheel also followed, allowing me to clear the menacing hole with my back tire just barely glancing off the opposite edge. I had just inadvertently done my first bunny hop.

Despite having some mountain biking experience, this was always one thing I could never get the hang of, despite practicing. Granted, I think the road bike makes it a little easier, being lighter and having drop bars whose shape provide significantly more torque to lift the rear. Regardless, I was very excited and starting practicing, realizing that I could easily jump the rear wheel at will. I now see how the fix speed riders are able to do those skid stops. Neither of my tires touched a manhole on the rest of the way home, until I suddenly got a rear wheel flat. Looked like a pinch, two large pin holes a ½ cm apart, no sharp objects in the tire, most likely caused by jumping with an improperly inflated tube. The next day though, coming back from work, I flawlessly jumped over a bunch of garbage in the bike lane without even thinking about it, and that was with a laptop and panniers weighing down the back.

As visions of parallel curb hops, and skid stops dance through my head………

Yosemite - Half Dome

2005-10-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Summit Elevation: 8800'
Trail distance: ~17+ round trip (varies by where you park, shuttle bus ect.)
elevation gain: 4800'

I took my first trip to Yosemite two weekends ago to hike the legendary Half Dome summit trail. I’ve heard this referred to as one of the best day hikes in the country. I don’t think I’d go as far as calling it that, but it does contain two features that like to see in a great hard hike; height and distance. Being at least 8 miles each way, with a total elevation gain of 4800’, the trail was somewhat of a challenge and a lot of fun. The feature that makes this trek most noteworthy; however; is the very last section of the trail that involves using ¾ in steel cables to haul yourself up a 49 degree incline.

Classic view of Half Dome where you can see the 4000ft cliff face formed when half of the mountain fell off thousands of years ago. This sight can only be seen by climbing up a a trail on the opposite side of valley from where we were, so I had to steal this pic from another website: http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/NorthAmerica/USA/California/YosemiteHalfDome.html

We left Friday evening so we could get on the trail earlier in the morning, and also to cut down on Saturday drive time, since it’s a 3+ hour drive each way. This also meant that we arrived late enough that the park gates were left unattended, saving us the $20 entrance fee. As expected, the camp sites were full, so we grabbed our gear and hiked down a trail, that according to my map, went passed park boundaries and back into the National Forest. (This is important because you can generally camp anywhere you want in a National Forest , but rangers frown up, to say the least, people disperse camping inside the National Parks.)

(1)Camp in the forest (2)Javier walking down the road to the trailhead (3)Stream (duh)

We got on the Half Dome trail later than I had hoped the next morning, hitting the trail head some time after 9:00. This meant was that we’d have to deal with a lot more people. Hundreds and hundreds of people hike the trail on a daily basis.

The hike started with a very gradual incline, shortly leading us to a bridge with a nice picture opportunity.

(1) Javier on the bridge - Yes, there were three of us on the trip, two were named javier. (2) Rocks in the water (3) Javier and I on the rocks. Ok, I guess these pictures don't need much description

From there, the trail started the moderate switchbacks leading up the valley. A few miles later we hit a fork in the trail, where you have the option of either heading down to go past Nevada falls (which would then entail needing to climb up again), or to continue up, and cross over the source of the falls. We chose the recommended route that continued up. This part of the trail is known as “Mist Trail”, because the cliff above you is part of the watershed area that creates the falls. We were there during the dry part of the season though, so despite there being some dripping water, the trail was relatively dry compared to what it can be.

Nevada Falls and the Mist Trail

Shortly afterwards we came to the bridge that crossed over the stream pouring over the mountain to form Nevada Falls. I was rather impressed with the overall setup. You could tell that the entire area was maintained rather regularly, and designed to accommodate a large number of people, of which there were a lot of hanging about. Despite this, though, the park had managed keep the area looking very natural, and any improvements made by them were very unobtrusive to the surroundings.

Top of Nevada Falls

After leaving the crossing, the switchbacks picked up a little more pitch, which lead to requests from the others to take breaks. Apparently some people like to breaks while hiking; who would have guessed. This eventually led to us taking a lunch break, which was understandable since it was already well past noon. The extra calories from lunch gave me a big sugar push, and I ran the final mile or so up the regular part of the trail, leaving the valley, and hitting the actual dome of the mountain. This gave a good twenty minutes or so to wait up for the others. While I was waiting, I saw two teenage girls come down the mountain from the dome. As they started down the trail, one of them actually whipped out an old style compact, and started reapplying base to her face. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the camera out in time.

Approaching the dome, and starting up it

The first part of the last part of the trail consists of very steep switch backs which could best be described as stairs carved, jack hammered, and built into the mountain side. At some points, you are actually just walking up a rather smooth slope of granite. I was rather impressed by older people who were tackling this task. Then, we came to the infamous cables.

The upper dome, and the infamous cables

The cables were much steeper than I expected. I’m used to popular trails like this being built to accommodate the lowest common denominator. I figured there’d be all sorts of warnings, but when I’d get there, the slope would be shallow enough to walk up if you were competent, and that the cables would be there just for assistance. Uh uh. There were two cables, set up about 3 feet apart, held up by poles drilled into the rock. This formed a channel to walk up, with a hand on each cable. Every ten feet or so, a wooden two by for was fixed to the ground, to allow something firm to place your feet on. The problem, though, is that there are people trying to go down, and up at the same time, which drastically slows down the climbing process. As a result, the line was moving pretty slow. (Yeah, there’s a line) We followed the handful of people who were going up the outside of the cables ladder, instead of the inside. This allowed us to pass everyone stuck in the line. This was a lot more dangerous, though. If you’d slip, and loose your grip on the cable, you’d most like tumble down the dome, and off the side, which would be 4000’ drop.

"The diving board" as it is called, protrudes over the edge. There were so many people, you had to stand in line to get your picture on it

On the summit

After hanging out on top for a while, we took some pictures, and headed down, just making it before dark. We stopped in “””” for really good pizza on the way back, and made it back to Sacramento around midnight.

Views of Yosemite Valley from the summit of Half Dome

Quote of the trip:
(And this was said in all honesty during a conversation.)

Javier Pasillas: “What’s that called, those things that people have?
Derek: “Ethics?”
Javier: “Yeah, that’s it. Ethics.”

MEDITATE

2005-09-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

Take the word meditate.
MEDITATE
Now, replace the MED with a NECESS
NECESSITATE
Remove the ECESSIT
NATE
I don't know anyone named Nate. Lets replace the TE with a P
NAP
There you go. Much better.
Ahh, I like yoga, especially after spin class.

Humbling Mini-Triathlon Results

2005-09-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

I have the official results and times from the triathlon I did through work a couple weeks back.

RESULTS

(I can't figure out how to get rid of this large space in the page!!!!)

Swim	7:57	11^th
T1	1:54	-
Bike	44:40 (20.1mph)	5^th
T2	0:25	-
Run	21:18(6:52 mpm)	4^th
Total	1:16:14	4^th

(There were two relay teams ahead of me, so that = 2nd place for individuals)

(1)Before start. Hmmm, so we're supposed swim all the way out there?? Splendid. The overall winner is the guy in the red, white, and blue shorts. Maybe I could have gone 11 minutes faster if I had legs that long too. Ok, maybe not. (2) Same scene. The chic I'm talking to won the womens, andI barely beat her. Ok, I admit, I just put in this picture because it makes my back muscles stick out.

The winner of the race, who it turns out is actually a world ranked du-athlete, not tri-athlete as I originally thought, finished over 11 minutes ahead of me. Rather humbling. Also, the winner of the women’s race only finished 15 seconds behind me, but more importantly, she had a faster swim, T1, and bike than me! The swim was assumed, but I was surprised by the bike, although I probably could have squeezed a couple more average mph out on that section. When we were running hills a couple of weeks later, she tried to ease my bruised ego by mentioning that she rides a top end racing bike, while I was riding “that” (As she motioned to the Puge). She immediately followed up though, with pointing out that amount of time I beat her by was actually less than amount of time I gained by running in my bike shoes. (I could then counter, by saying that I maybe lost some running speed my not using running shoes, but I digress)

(1)Get me out of the water, seriously, its best for everyone. (2) Sprinting to fin....Wait, is that something shiny on the side of the road???

I really can’t complain about any of the times, although I should be able to do a sub 20:00 5k, even with out being in real running shape. A year and a half ago I averaged only slightly slower running a half marathon, which is in my mind, a much harder race than a little triathlon like this. Oh well.

This picture makes me laugh. One could easily mistake me for someone who knows what they are doing. Yes, those are bike shoes. I was hoping to get a picture of me running with my bike shoes and swim cap.

I'm wearing a shoe string for a belt

2005-09-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Yup. No belt, just a shoe string. Its grey, and held in place with a bow knot, the same way a shoestring should be tied, except of course that it's around my waist instead of on my shoe. In all honesty, this isn't actually all that uncommon for me; it used to happen a lot when I biked to work on a regular basis. I'd be bound to forget a belt occasionaly, and make do by pulling a shoe lace out of my running shoes. I never tuck my shirt in at work, so no one is the wiser.

It's become a regular thing though; today, yesterday, and all of last week. Ok, actually its been everyday...for the last three months. This, like many things these days, goes back to having my house burglarized earlier in the summer. Included in the strange list of things stolen was my old pair of ratty cut off khakis, of which my belt had been currently attached.

Some of you may be aware of the sophisticated belt matching system I use to make sure that I am on top of all the latest fashion trends. The matrix below can explain the intricisities of it.

Shirt      Pants      Shoes        Belt
White      Black      Black  =>   Black
White      Brown      Brown  =>   Black
White      Brown      Black  =>   Black
White      Black      Brown   =>   Black
Dark       Black      Brown  =>   Black
Dark       Black      Black  =>   Black
Dark       Brown      Black  =>   Black
Dark       Brown      Black  =>   Black
Pink       Yellow    Red    =>   Black

As a result of this system, I only own one belt. It's black. Eventually, after a couple of years, the polish will start to come off, and brown spots will start to show. I'll ignore the spots for a while, but at some point I'll put the belt on with my suit and realize, that even by my standards, the belt has reached the end of its life span. When that happens, I'll go a discount store, TJ Max or Ross, or something along those lines, and buy a new belt. It will also be black. The cycle continues, and all is balanced in the universe.

At first, after my sudden beltlessness, I didn't buy a new one simply due to convenience. Usually I would have had time to prepare, and work my way up to the idea of going belt shopping. This time, though, I was caught completely off guard, and didn't even realize I was without one unitl I was getting ready to go to work. I also had many other more important concerns to take care of at the time, like getting new climbing gear. Later, it was more of a matter of spite, which then turned to stubborness. You can take my belt, but you can never take my freedom. What makes it worse, is that my belt had been on the verge of retirement, and I probably would have already gotten a new one by this time, even if it hadn't stolen.

Anway, here I am, three months later, still wearing a shoestring. I'll admit, its not quite as useful as a real belt, but it gets the job done. I am worried though, that I'll find myself needing to dress up, and not have a belt on hand. Oh well, if that happens, I can always grab a BLACK shoelass off my cleats.

White Water Rafting

2005-09-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've gotten the opprotunity to spend a lot of weekend time white water rafting this year. One of the guys from work has got his class III guide training cert this spring, and invited me out a bunch of times. His guide mentor later invited me on other trips with them. So far I've done the South Fork of the American river 4 times, the Merced(classIV) once, and one three day trip down the Tuolumne river(Class V). I could break it down trip by trip, but in all honesty, a lot of them would sound the same. "Go to the river, put in, raft, take out." It's one of those things that you really have to be there. Unfortunately, its also not one of those "camera friendly" activities, so I don't have any pictures except for one that Theron bought from the proffessional camera takers that stake themselves out on the rocks by the rapids. This particular one is Trouble Maker rapids.

The plus side is that this costs me next to nothing to do. Some of the trips have been "Friends of the River" nonprofit trips, which only cost about $20-$30 a person. Other trips have been private with people who own their own boats, so I get to go at cost. (Food,gas, parking ect) For example, the Tuolumne trip only cost me $75 for food, permits, parking, tow, ect. That would have been $400 trip with a proffisional company.

BUSTED!

2005-09-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

I was on the way to climbing gym tonight, riding the road bike as usual; quickly getting to the other end of town. As I was riding down the right lane of a three lane one way, I hit a red light. I needed to make a left turn ahead, so I took the advantage to make a quick double lane change with the only cars being a block or so behind me. The cross street was completely clear, so after doing a quick psuedo track stand, and checking the road, I took off through the light to get a jump on the cars approaching from the rear.

I was immediately greeted by the wonderful sound of sirens. Apparently there had been a police car, literally directly behind. The cop was actually really cool, and sounded apologetic for pulling me over, stating that he really had to because of the blantent disregard of the law on my part, and the fact the there were a lot of people there watching me, and watching him watching me. He wasn't apologetic enough to not issue me a citation though. I won't find out how much it is until I get it in the mail, but he said that the rule is that bicylist running stop lights are ticked for running stop signs, which is significantly less than the red light violation of $320.

I'm not sure if there is any reason to fight it or not. I really don't have much of a defense since it was a extremely blatent. What's funny though, is that the officer seemed more surprised that I stopped in the first place. If I hadn't, the police car would have been farther behind me, and probably wouldn't have ticked me since it wouldn't have looked as bad. What do you think JoJo, is the "I really don't like that law" a good defense.

In all honesty, I think its better to look at it as a "fee" instead of a "fine." Kind of a "privlege to run lights" fee. And as we all know, the best way to save money is to buy in bulk, so that's what I'll have to start doing.

Horsetail Falls

2005-09-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Took a day trip to see Horsetails Falls this past weekend. I had heard good things about it, and kept seeing it on a map, so I thought it would make a good day trip. It's still probably a 1 1/2 hour drive or so from Sacramento, but it still isn't as far as going all the way to Tahoe, and you get to miss out on the crowded driving section close to South Tahoe City. The hike was only a couple of miles up, but it was fun, with plenty of rocks to play on. The falls themselves were possibly one of the prettiest water falls I've seen, and this one picture really doesn't do it justice. Unfortunately, I hadn't charged my camera up after labor day weekend, so after taking one picture, the camera shut down. Oh well. I'll be going back again to hike all the way up, and see how far I can follow the river.

Since the trip wasn't that long, we took some time to hit up some of the forest roads in the National Forest along the way. This can be a lot of fun in a jeep. Along the way we discovered some good places to go camping potentially, although I'm not sure about all of the fire regulations in the area. I know the closer you get to more heavily used areas, the more restrictive they are with fire usage, and dispersed camping in general.

Backpacking Desolation Wilderness

2005-09-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

I took advantage of the long labor day weekend to go on a three day backpacking trip in the Desolation Wilderness, which is just west of Lake Tahoe. A friend from the climbing gym had gotten permits a while back, and planned the trip. It was a fun time, although the nights got a little colder than I expected; ~freezing.

Crag Lake

I needed to get a new backpack since my good one had been stolen in the burglary, but instead of replacing my full size pack, I got an ultralight technical day pack, which I also needed. My camel back doesn't quite cut it as a day pack. I'll still need to get a full size pack eventually, but for now, this was an opprotunity to practice my lightweight backpacking skills, and test my experience in packing. I settled on the Gregory Adven Pro backpack, which will also work for a great 24hr adventure race pack once I work my way up to it. This pack weighs in around 2.5 pounds, and is made with the new silcon impregnated balastic nylon, which esentially feels like tissue paper to the touch, but is plenty strong Size wise, its only a 2400 cubic inch pack, which is about half the size of what most people would have for a 3 day trip. I assumed California's mild climate would allow me to make up for the difference.

When I was backpacking in AZ, I had to carry all my water, and have enough cloths for a cold desert night. In New Zealand, I didn't have to carry water, but needed large amounts of rain gear, and dry clothing. In California, you know its not going to rain, and the nights should be warmer. I figured I could make up the extra space by taking only the cloths I knew I would wear, and the food I knew I would eat. I also only took a 55+ sleeping bag, instead of my heavier one. I did take a tent, but didn't intend on using it. I kind of thought it would be cheating if I just made for the space by not taking a tent.

Day 1
We got a later start than expected, but still hit the trail in time to make camp by dark. The trail followed along a creek, which drained from a series of lakes, each successively higher in elevation. Our camp would be at Stony Ridge Lake, the second last of the series.

(1)Starting the hike; (2)Me donning my spork(Thanks Ian) and smiling as usual(Don't waste your breath M, the smile just ain't going to happen); (3)The group

I'm not sure where the colored bandanas came in. All I know was that it started with Javier demonstrating the proper "Gay" way of wearing them, and it ended up with all of us donning them. I need to get the group picture from Tiff's camera.
Despite the fire prohibition for the wilderness, a very small fire was produced, which was apparently common practice in the area judjing by all the fire pits hidden under rocks. In general, I don't condone this practice, but the added warmth was appreciated. I suppose the law serves its purpose since the rule keeps people to having small fires only in rocky areas.

(1)You wear it likth thith!; (2)Night fire

That night a huge wind storm picked up, blowing in some colder weather, and leaving the entire next day filled with a brisk wind. I was really lucky I had the tent. I probably would have froze with out it. I ended up wearing most of my cloths inside my sleeping bag.

Day 2
Day 2 started very casually. We slept in, had breakfast, sat around, and Javier and I played around on the slack line which I had brought along. The elders of the group, Keith and Tiffany, determined that 32 yrs is way to old for this stuff, decided to spend the rest of the day sleeping in their tent while we went off day hiking and exploring.

(1)Peaceful camp; (2)Camp with people; (3) Javier on slack line

(1)Steve on a rock; (2)Scenic Lake; (3) Tiffany's ideal vacation

Me on slack line

We started by continuing up the trail to the final lake in the series, Rubicon Lake. We stopped to do a little in prompt to bouldering along the way.

(1)Hiking; (2)Bouldering; (3) Bouldering some more

Along the way, we came across one tiny little water fall, which despite being small, for some reason lead to many pictures being taken. There was a sweet flake that I tried to climb up along the waterfall, but it was impossible with out climbing shoes. Even with shoes it probably would have been a challenge, since my crack climbing is pretty nonexistent these days.

(1)Waterfall; (2)Dr. Strangelove; (3) Waterfall again

(1)Trying the flake; (2) Javier; (3) Steve and I with the lake we camped on in background

(1)Stony Ridge Lake; (2)In a hole; (3)Rubicon Lake

After hanging out at Rubicon Lake for a while, we took the trail back partially, and then went off trail, to bush bash all the way around the large lake that were camped on. This turned out to be a lot of fun, and involved a large amount of boulder scrambling. Getting back, most of us went for dip in the very cold lake. Brr. Strangely, I had problems getting my temperature back up after swimming. That caused to layer on all my camp and hiking cloths. I still woke up frozen in the morning. Very uncool.

(1)Looking at camp from across the lake; (2)man-boobs; (3)Yet another cool still shot by me

(1) Art, (2)Booster rockets

Day 3
The third day consisted of us waking up, having a casual breakfast of snacks by the lake, and packing up to hike out.

Lake Tahoe in the distance; (2) Javier proud of himself for having broke the law; (3) Javier jerking off in the parking lot

Meatballs, oh why do you taunt me???

2005-09-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

The cafeteria at work has a small "serve yourself" pasta bar every Wednesday. It pretty much consists of one type of pasta, marinara sauce, alfredo sauce, and meatballs. It also comes with a complimentary bread stick. Without the meatballs, it only costs $2.99, with them, its $3.99. Three dollars is a fantastic deal as far as I’m concerned, especially since you get to load your plate yourself. Although they do display a plate showing what they think of as a “plate” of pasta, I personally see any type of serve yourself situation as personal challenge to see what you can all stack on one plate.

The problem comes in with the meatballs. Four dollars for a plate including the delicious little balls of fat also seems like a good deal, yet three dollars seems like so much more of a deal. You might be able to get a fast food meal for four dollars these days, but three, that’s not going to happen. Still, every time I load my plate with an unnecessarily high stack of pasta, and top if off with marinara sauce, the pan of meatballs are right there, taunting me, daring me to grab just one($.35), or two ($.70), or go for the discount and get all three. I try to tell myself that the cows that produced these savory delicacies lived long and happy lives, growing up under the warm California sun, and frolicking through the pastures, yet I know this isn’t true. I’ve seen California factory farms. The best thing that probably ever happened to these cows was to have a stainless steel rod shot into their head with a compressed air gun. Buying into their tempting little ploy would only encourage such practices which I abhor. Still, I think I sometimes hear them whispering for me to eat them. Not this time! Today I resist their urgings, and leave with a plate of meatless pasta. The battle is won, but the war is sure to continue another week.

REI, we need to talk

2005-08-31T00:58:00.000-07:00

When we first met, things were fantastic. My day would be brightened just by being around you, and I could spend hours silently admiring you. You’d let me come over when ever I wanted, but you never pressured me to do anything I wasn’t ready for. You never mentioned my inexperience, or showed any indication that it bothered you; in fact you seemed to enjoy teaching me the worldly things I needed to know.

As our relationship developed into something much more, you were always there for me, and always keeping an eye out for ways to add a little more excitement to our lives. When ever I’d come over, you’d have some new toy that you would be dieing for us to try out. You never gave no as an answer, and at the end of the year, you even showed me how much you loved me. Overall, life was good.

As we grew together and matured, our relationship changed and matured also, but the excitement never seemed to die. We were the same, yet different. We had grown more independent of each other, yet at the same time, grown closet together. Although I didn’t show up at your doorstep as often I used to, I felt there was no love lost between us when I did.

Despite all these great things, and really, I can’t stress how great it’s been with you; I need to talk to you about something. The problem is this; you’re taking too much of my money. It was cute at first, I understand all relationships need a little bit of investment to get them off the ground, but this is getting a little ridiculous. Seriously, STOP TAKING MY MONEY. Not only does this make me feel degraded and used, but our relationship is destined to fail if you keep it up. It’s like I can’t even be with you for more than five minutes with out you’re pilfering through my pockets like a crack whore looking for loose change to score her next hit. Even your yearly token of love and appreciation fails to compensate. I feel as if I’m still giving just as much, if not more, as I was in the past, but not receiving it in return.

In addition, I’m starting to feel like you don’t even care about me, and it’s just about the money. I’ve always noticed the other guys hanging around and had my suspicions, but I chose to ignore it. I thought what we had was special. Lately, I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t make any difference to you who it is rummaging around under your shirts, as long as they have the cash.

.. …Wait, where are you going?
No, don’t go.
I..I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it. I can change. Really, I can.
Please don’t go, I need you, I love you…….

Triathon: Something went majorly wrong.

2005-08-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Did the Triathlon at Folsom Site Games (Event put on at work for all the employees) this weekend. I signed up for the competative division even though they said you should have already done at least one tri in the past. this was my first, but I thought I'd fit in with the competative division better.

The Swim
Water temp was great, even at 7:30 in the morning. The water was even clear, with out all the boats around stirring things up. It turned out that the length of the beach's bouyed off swim area was much longer than I expected, so the 500m consisted of only going partway across and back. My plan was to go slow and steady, hopefully free style the entire way, and see how it goes. The course consisted of following the bouys across a curve, though, so I kept drifing off. I decided to start throwing in some breast stroke just get a chance to look around and get my bearings. This is when things started to go wrong. As my head was bobing up and down, I noticed that there were many other heads bobbing up and down. I started to do more breast stroke to observe this phenomenon. I started to notice that not only were others doing breat stroke, but we were keeping pace with a lot of front crawlers. I decided, what the heck, and started to do front crawl, to actually start passing people. Equipoise and JoJo should realize that this isn't right. This is very wrong. No one in our family should be passing anyone when the word "swim" is involved. Regardless, I continued on, got to the bouy and turned around, alternating between breast stroke and front crawl. I passed one more guy, and passed at least one more running up the beach. I quickly threw on my jersey, put my shoes on, grabbed my helmet, and I was off. After the race, I found out that I hit the bike after 8 1/2 minutes, including my transition time. I was actually expecting worse. Later when I checked times, I saw that I was still in the lower half on the swim, but still, I had no right to be beating anyone out of the water. Also, I've found that spandex swim caps work great. I just threw my helmet on over it, essentially using it as a bandanna. I didn't take it off until 3/4 of the way through the run, when I needed to dissipate more heat to do my kick.

The Bike
The bike started out well. One strange thing that happened right away, was that I felt a strong poking in my stomach under my jersey. For the first 1/4 mile, I was riding down the hill with only one hand on the bars, as I was trying to find what I thought was a loose safety pin on my number. Eventually the poking feeling went away and I continued on. (After the race, I saw that I had two large red bumps under wear my number was pinned on, although all the safety pins were attached. The bumps hurt a bit also. It wasn't later that night that figured out that some sort of bug had apparently flown into my jersey when it was layed out on my bike, and stung me when I started riding. They don't look as bad as yellow jacket stings, but it was deffinitely something) I had switched the campus pedals on the Puge for the regular SPD pedals off Identity Crisis, so I felt much more confident taking the sharp corners at speed. (I had also lent Identity Crisis to a guy doing the "For fun" triathlon which was along the same course, but starting ten minutes after us. I'm sure he appreciated the campus pedals also, since he wasn't wearing bike shoes.)

I ended up biking the first half of the bike more or less with two other guys, one on a Trek and one on a Cervelo. The guy on the Cervelo was all decked out, the cloths the gear, the whole shebang. He passed me right away on the downhill, and I expected him to dissapear, but then as soon as we hit the first slight, small, uphill, he was already up in his saddle. This lead me to think that he probably wasn't that solid of a biker. Since the race consisted of going six miles down hill, and then returning 6 miles uphill, my plan was to go strong and steady out, and then hard back. I switched back and forth with the Trek and Cervelo, which was good, because I would have missed the turn around had they not been in front of me. After the turn around, there was about a half mile or so of completely flat biking before starting the accent. The other two guys were actually pulling away from me here; I didn't want to burn out to much. Then we hit the hill. I don't consider myself to be a great peddler, having just recently buying into high cadence biking, but I do know that my old running legs and my biking legs are pretty good at climbing. Still, it was kind of ridiculous. I took off and left the Trek and Cervelo out of sight behind me. I came across more competitors, and just kept passing them until I eventually ran out of people to pass, or so it seemed. I credit this to both the spin classes and commuting to work. I saw a bunch of the people in both the competitive and fun race coming down the hill. I waved tothe guy riding my mountain bike w/slicks, although he didn't look like he was enjoying himself much, and didn't see me. I'll proudly point out that I was the only one doing the competative race with a steel bike. There were couple of carbon fibers, and everything else was aluminum. Only a handful of the aluminum ones weren't riding with triathon drop profile bars either. I finished hard, and made a quick transition to the run. This transition consisted of running over to my tree while taking my helmet off, throwing my bike and helmet down, and starting the run, still just wearing my bike shoes with no socks.

The run
The run went was pretty non-eventful. It consisted going 1.5 miles out, turning around, and then coming back. A little less than a mile into it, I passed another runner coming back. This was actually good. I was getting worried that I might be in the lead. Then I passed two more, who were both doing relay teams. Finally, shortly before the turn around, I came across Elizabeth, the defending female champion from the year before. She organizes weekly hill running, and this is her second season doing serious triathlon training. I had actually thought I had passed her early in the bike, but that apparently not. She yelled a little bit of incouragement to me, saying that I should be beating her. After turning around, I was just able to see her ahead of me, which gave me a great target to shoot for. I probably didn't actualy get to her until there was about a 1/2 mile left. She was really booking it. Right about when I passed Liz, was the time that I needed to start my pre-kick. Generally my kick has three stages, pre-kick, kick, and sprint. I found I had a lot of energy left. I saw one of the the relay runners ahead of me, but I couldn't get to her in time, but still ended up having an awsesome finish. I felt great.

Conclusion
I finished second for individuals, and fourth over all, counting the the two relay teams that finished ahead of me. This is really cool, but I admit that I had expected it to be more competative. Plus, with so few people competing, second doesn't mean much. I'm guessing that there was probably somewhere around 8-10 minutes between me and the winner. In a real race there would be a lot of finishers in that time span. I found out that the first guy that I came across on the fun, who won overall, was Lee, who I've ran hills with a couple of times. He's simply phenonomal. Generally when I run hills, there only a couple of guys who can beat me on a regular basis, but with those guys I know that if I started training more regularly, I'll have no problem taking them. Lee, on the other hand is a different subject. He has competed in iron mans on numerous occasions. I don't mean participated in iron mans, I mean he competes. He totally blows me away on hills. If I was back in decent shape, I might be able to try to run with him, but not actually beat him.

I think there were numerous places where I could have shaved time off. I could have gone out harder on the swim, and swam more front crawl. Hell, I could have even practiced swimming maybe. I was way to conservative on the bike also. I easily could have shaved minutes off that time. Who knows what I could do with a race bike!! The run I could have done faster. I think the key to that is to do more brick running. I felt a little tight after the bike and I think my body missinterpretted it as being tired, and kept a slower pace. I have to practice running through that feeling and getting used to it. Overall, I think I might have to try a little bit more of this triathlon thing. Definitely considering Wildflower next spring. I'm hoping they'll send out pics from the race, but I'll have to see.

August Critical mass: Hijacked and cluster-fucked

2005-08-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

There were a couple of issues with CM this month again, but I think it might turn out for the best.

I got back from work a little later than expected, and when I got to the park, no one was there. I checked out another park, only to find bike cops. (They get stationed at all parks, just in case we switch the meeting place) I decided to just ride around town and see if I run into them. After about 15 minutes, I finally came across them, bikes on the side walk, police everywhere. Apparently they only made it a couple of blocks before an incident occured. Only seven people had showed for the ride, and the guys that had started organizing it, who try to maintain a sane atmosphere weren't there. There were, however, a couple of the "militants" as I will refer to them from now on, who I hadn't seen before. I did know one of them as a messenger that hangs out with my neighbors. When I say "militants", we all know the ones that I'm referring to. They hate the police, and try to antagonize them. They see supporting bicyle rights as supporting their belief that they should be able to do anything they want. It has nothing to do with equal rights, it has to do with selfish rights. I tried to get the story from them as to what happened, but of course all they say, and continued yelling to any spectating pedestrians, is how they were just trying to bike around, the police are arresting ticketing them for just riding. The couple of responsible "good" riders didn't see what happended. I finally got the story from the Lieutenant who is trying to generate good relations, and is in charge of staffing the officers from the ride. I'm much more prone to beleive her story than the militants.

pics: Citations being issues; From a distance; Puge (my road bike) with the cops cars in the back blocking traffic, always funny.

From what I able to gather, this is what happened. Unlike prior months, the police did not get a chance to talk to the riders before taking off. They usually try to explain what they are and are not going to allow. The mass was taking up one lane on a one way street, which the police "allow". At a stop light, it became obvious that the lane ahead was going to be blocked, so people started switching over to the next lane. Some used hand signals, and some didn't. The lack of hand signals caused the police to ask everyone to pull over, so they could explain the rules of the road. The militants in the middle lane, obviously did not like being told anything by the police and refused to move. At this point, I'm not sure as to when they were asked to stop blocking traffic. According to the police, the light turned green, and the bikers stayed standing where they were. I don't really have any reason to not beleive that that is what happened. This resulted in the police forcing them out of the road, literally having having to have two officers drag one girl off by force. They were all issued citations, during which time the officers noticed a strong smell of alcohol on one of them. The lead to a full field sobriety test, which lead to a breathalizer tester, which lead to the guy being lead away in hand cuffs and charged with a DUI. At this point, "green shirt girl," one of the militants, started yelling to the assembelled people. "Look at this. He was just trying to go for ride, and now he's getting arrested even though he passed the breathalizer test." The lieutenant informed green shirt that the guy had actually failed the test. Green shirt then went into a hissifit about being told dissinformation, and how the other cop had told her he passed the test, blah, blah. She went over and talked to the arresting officer, returning in 30 seconds to say, "I'm sorry, it was my friend who told me he passed, not the officer." Then after a short pause, and she went off again yelling, "How can he do that,just stand there while my friend tells me the wrong information with out correcting him? He should have made sure I got my facts straight. It's your job to make sure I don't spread dissinformation!" She was really yelling at this point. The good news is that shes moving out of town next week, so we probably have to worry about her again.

The lieutenant asked if any of us would mind talking her about the situations, and how to improve relations. Four of us hung around to talk. The remaining militants, Jill (The messenger that hangs around with my neighbors), and green shirt, were very hostile towards the lieutenatns request, and noticable perturbed at us for taking her up on the offer. They rode off in a hissy fit. One of the officers joking said "Now don't ride on the sidewalk, or else we might have to ticket you," as they started off. I agree that this wasn't a classy comment, and very unnecessary under the circumstances, but I don't think it warranted Jill to completely fly off the handle again, which of course she did. Then the two girls left.

The three riders and I talked to the lieutenant for about a half hour. She actually admitted that the reason the the police didn't get to do their speal before the ride, was because she had gone to grab a donut, and riders took advantage of her absense to quick leave. Super funny. After finishing up talking with the police, the four of us went to grab some food and drinks, and discuss what we were going to do.

This was the good result of the ride- better organization. Essentially, we're going to try to take a proactive stance in straightening the mass out. We're going to make sure flyers are put out again, hopefully get it listed in the News and Review again (this time listing the proper park), and try to get the main critical-mass.org website to cut the links to old web Sacramento pages which have a super poor attitude and the wrong information. More importantly, there's enough of us that we should be able to try to stear the attitude in the correct direction.

Triathlon training - How to train for a triathlon in 7 days

2005-08-28T00:47:00.000-07:00

I started tri training the week before the race.

Day One, multi sport training and transitions
The first thing I felt I had to do, was get in some lake swimming, having never really done an actual distance swim in a lake before. Also, I thought I'd practice the transistions, and see what the different parts of the course feels like.

The lake swim went much better than I expected. The race was being held in Folsom Lake, which like just about all lakes in this area, are actually reservoirs. This means the water is nice and warm. Perfect for swimming in. In all honesty, I liked open water swimming better; if feels more relaxed, which I think is a mental thing. I paced out the distance of the buoyed off area, and thought that is maybe, at most 200 yards. I swam back and forth a few times, felt to see what it would feel like to sprint up the beach, and then did a little biking.

The important thing I learned from this was that I somehow dehydrate a lot on the swim. Usually I wouldn't need any water for a 12 mile bike, but as soon as I started pedalling coming out of the water, I felt parched. The was very usefull knowledge, since I hadn't originally planned on having a hydration plan for the race at all. The bike course was set to be on a narrow bike trail, heading down river from the reservoir. This means that the first three miles are a very quick and curvey drop, then three miles of mainly flat trail with some hills, and then you turn around and go back. This also means that the last three miles consist of a steep climb. The climb didn't worry me, the downhill is what I was concerned about. I was worried that with the long cranks on my bike, and the campus pedals, I might touch down, which could be very dangerous on a busy narrow path. For the day of training, I just went down the hill and back up, to see what sprinting up the hill would feel like. The sprint nature of the race is what really concerned me, not having done a race of anykind this short in many years. The shortest thing I've done in the last two years was a 1/2 marathon in Janurary 2004. The sprint up the hill felt tiring, but I thought I wouldn't be in to rough of shape.

Next I did a quick transition to the run, to see what it would feel like. This is point where I thought I'll have a slight ace in the whole against others. Anyone racing in the competative division, I assume will be wearing bike shoes. Most road bikers are going to have road bike shoes, which will require wasting time to switch to running shoes. Since I run SPD across both my bikes to keep it simple, I figure I could just run the race in my bike shoes. Ehh, its only 3 miles, that's nothing! So, I practiced to see what it would feel like going from the bike sprint up the hill, to the run wearing bike shoes and no socks. The conclusion: Lots of sand. I'll have to make sure to wipe my feet off good before putting the shoes on. Plus, I only made it about 1/2 a mile before my shins started hurting. I figured this would be something I could easily race through, but since I had the frisbee tournament later that evening, I decided just to walk back. I think the stiff shins were caused from the swim, anyway, and not from the shoes.

Day 2, Sunday
Sleep. I hadn't gone to bed unti 4am because the coffe from the frisbee tournament kept me up. Super sore from frisbee.

Day 3, Monday
Go to spin class.
Ok, that didn't happen because I got back from work to late. Instead I went for a hard, 5 mile run. My legs were still super sore. I spent time stretching before and after, which really helped.

Day 4, Tuesday
Bike to work and back. Still somewhat sore. Took it slow. Lots of spandex passing me on the way home. Nice ride though.

Day 5, Pool swim
Yeah, about that swimming thing.
I went to the pool this night. First time swimming in a pool in about
1 1/2 years. The life guard actually came over to see if I was alright. No,
serioiusly, he did, I'll get to that later.

I wanted to take a swim at the pool so I could actually know how far I swam, and get one more swim in before the race. I also wanted to try out my newfound idea of calm relaxed swimming. My goal, swim five hundread yards with out stopping. This is something I haven't done since high school, and even then, I did it very, very few times.

I didn't give in and do any open turns, surpisingly nailing every flip turn. (By "nailing," I mean I flipped, pointed a different direction, and some part of my feet, whether it be solid, or just a toenail, touched the wall before continuing on." I felt surpisingly ok aftwards; my relaxed swimming worked. When I finally pulled myself out of the pool, though, I had a huge headrush. Head rush doesn't really describe it. My brain hurt. Alot. That's the best description. Intense brain pain. I sat there for a while holding my head, trying to figure what was going on, which lead the life guard to come over and question my well being. Eventually I just jumped back in, did a short cool down, some breast stroke sprint, and headed home. Oh, well, if that happens in the race, I'll be to busy concentrating on biking to worry about little things like supplying oxygen to the brain.

Day 6
Yoga, to stretch out descently, and a little bouldering at the gym. Ok that's not really training, although the yoga definitely helped.

Day 7
Critical mass, drinking afterwards. Its best to get you body used to the dehydrated feeling at least 24hrs in advanced, that way, there's no shock to the system.

Day 8
Race, post coming shortly.

Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tournament

2005-08-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

Did the Sacramento Ultimate Frisbee Full Moon Hat Tournament last weekend.
Super fun. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures. I was hoping someone from the tournament would send a link to pics, but that didn't happen.

How the hat tournament works is this:
Anyone interested in playing signs up.
Instead of signing up for a team, you fill out a questionaire that describes how you play. Questions are along the lines of: have you ever played before, what kind throws can you do (backhand, forehand, hammer), how often do you use what throws, how often do you complete throws, (% wise), how good of shape are you in, how likely are you to lay out for a catch, ect.

Based on your answers, every player is categorized to an ability level. On the morning of the tournament, team captains randomly pick names from the different "hats" to create supposedly even teams. The idea works out rather well, because then anyone can join, you get to meet new people, and since all the teams are nonpracticed, there's a much more relaxed attitude thoughout the games. To make it more fun, the tournament was held at night, under the full moon.

It only cost $20, which was well worth it. That paid for the cost of having the park lit, and many "moon shaped" snacks. These snacks consisted of lots and lots of mellons, (various varieties, extremely good, all from a local organic farm), bagels, and pancakes. Yeah, they had a camp grill, with someone frying up flapjacks all night long. Also included was all the coffee you could drink, in various different flavors.

I haven't really played much frisbee in two years, with the exception of playing pick-up games a little in the last couple of months. I used to play pick-up back in Madison a couple times a week during the summer. Our style was much different from league players though. We'd play hard, run hard, catch hard, and throw crappy. (Actually, I developed a mediocre arm by the end, and some guys were pretty good) We would never bother with any sort of defensive strategy for blocking home or away, would only play zone for kicks, and considered an offensive stack as a waste of time that took away the fun. Still, when ever our pick-up team would scrimage league teams, we could usually beat with our off the wall antics, leaving them confused.

This kind of play doesn't mesh well with the guys I play with now. I begruddingly started learning proper team methods while playing pickup, because everyone kind of expects it. Most people except a throw to be on the mark, and go to them, instead of just a general area. This means I have to aim more, which means I have to learn to throw a tight pass through a defender, instead of just lobbing crap up behind my back.

As a result, I didn't get nearly as much disk time as I would have liked, but that's ok, I really didn't deserve it either. My throwing is really down from what it used to be. I ended up mainly shining on defense, although I did get a couple of good catches in. Generally, who ever I guarded didn't get the disk, so my team didn't mind me. Actually, my team was really cool. I think we had the most laid back attitude, got along great, and had much more spirit than the others. We won our first two games, and lost our second and third games to really good teams, both games were by one or two points (out of 13). We lost our last game also, but we weren't really trying at that point. We had a lot of speed on our team, but that meant that by the last game, we were spent. Our receivers and hard defenders were spent.

If you did the math, that means we played 5 games, all in one night. Started at about 6:45pm, finshed our last game a little after 1:30am. At first I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to play frisbee all night. In general, I'm always disspointed when the sun goes down, and we have to stop playing pickup. What I didn't consider though, is that 5 games is alot of games. That's probably close to 5 hours of play, on the field half of the time, sprinting when ever on the field. It turned out to really be an endurance event. By the end of the night, by legs felt like had been doing some sort of an endruance race. To top it off I had a collision part way into the second game, which left me with a very strange quad injury. The muscle on the inside of my right leg just above my knee was hit, and swelled up significantly. Not the knee, just the muscle it self. I had never had an injury like that before. To really top it off, I had done triathlon training earlier that afternoon, so that really didn't help the tired feeling in the legs.

Anyway, it was a really fun event, and I met a bunch of fun people.

spin class (A little late in posting)

2005-08-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

I went to my first spin class three weeks ago.
Holy crap.
Wait, that doesn't quite emphasize it properly.
HOLY CRAP.
Much better.

The longest I've ever biked continuously, is probably somewhere around 50+ miles. What I never really thought of though, is that I'm not actually pedaling the entire time. There's a definite measurable amount of time that is spent costing.
Enter spin class. One hour. Pedaling the entire time. Basically, its the equivalent of going up an hour long hill.

I got to the class a couple minutes late, so I just kind of jumped on one of the bikes, and started pedaling along. (Half of the machines even SPD pedals on them!) The entire idea of spinning is very simple, and I never thought I'd see the point of needing an instructor, since you could do the same by yourself. The instructors are really motivational though, and when class is going on, they have control over the music in the gym. They each have a CD mix with different beat techno songs that are coordinated with their work outs. They tell you when to pick up the gear, and when to stand up. They really get you going. One of the neat things about it, is that no one gets left behind. (Obviously, since you're not going anywhere!) This allows all skill levels to join in. She'll tell you when what level of resistance you should be pedaling with, on a scale of 1 to 10, but that's relative for each person. There aren't actually numbers on the tensioner of the machine, though, so its up to you to decide how hard you want to go. Since you can't possibly know what other people are set at, there's no way of judging yourself against others, so no one has to be left with feeling inferior.

By the time I was done with the first class, I had a puddle, and I mean a puddle, under my bike. I was dripping about a drop ever second for the last half of the class. Petty nasty, but pretty sweet at the same time.

Best of all, unlimited spin and and yoga is included with my climbing membership at the gym Pipeworks Climbing gym

I've gone a couple of times since then and plan on doing it once a week. I had to skip it this week; I ended up working late the day I planned on going. The rest of week it didn't mesh well with my triathlon taper. (Actually, I guess "taper" isn't proper word since it insinuates some sort of training before hand. "Learning how to swim", is probably a more appropiate word.

Triathlon in the works

2005-08-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I kind of signed up to do a triathlon next week.

The campus of the Company in Folsom that I work for has enough people that they hold site games every fall, accurately labeled the "Folsom Games." They have tournaments that last the entire 6 weeks in multiple team events; softball, pool, pingpong, soccer, vollerball..ect. They also have individual events, like a 10k run and a sprint triathlon. While I was debating on whether I wanted to do the 10k, or the tri, I forgot to sign up for either, and missed the deadline, which was a few weeks back. I wasn't to heartbroken about missing it though, because I was considering going to San Fransisco that weekend to do San Fransisco critical mass.

Then, last Wednesday, the we had an RCG (Recent College Graduate) board meeting after lunch to discuss some events we were planning. We decided to hold a large picnic the afternoon of the 27th. Since I hadn't actually made concrete plans for the weekend, I decided to stay in town, and do the picnic. Then I figured, if I'm in town, I might as well see if I can still do the triathlon. So after emailing the coordinator, I was signed up, and now have one week to prepare. Fun times.

Oh yeah, its only 500m, 12 miles, and 5k. Nothing I shouldn't be able handle, accept fot the minor "not being able to really swim" thing.

Sexuality, rollerblading, and Ven Diagrams

2005-08-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

One of my female friends made the comment that rollerblading is a very "gay" activity. By "gay activity," she didn't mean stupid, she meant "an activity usually associated with homosexual men." I told her that I like rollerblading, although I haven't really done it all in the last three years. I would if I had more time. To demonstrate to her why labeling activities is wrong, I later drew her a ven diagram and emailed it to her. (Click on the picture to zoom and read it completely)

On the larger subject, this has to do with the fact the California girls have extremely mal-tuned gaydar. They drastically increase their type II errors to an extremely high level. Although this does significantly decrease their chance of letting a positive result go unnoticed, it drastically increases the chance of making a false positive. I can understand to some degree, if they've gotten their hearts broken by confused guys, but still take chance! This makes them miss out on all the cool guys.

Urban Iditarod

2005-08-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

I just came across this website, finding a link to it from the Bay to Breakers Salmon Runners page.

Urban Iditarod Race

This could quite possibly be the coolest race ever held.
Its too late for this years event, but next year is a definite must.

Picture this:
Many people dressed up as dogs.
Said people dressed up as dogs harnessed together and attached to a shopping cart.
Shopping cart is filled with beverages of choice.
A "musher" is standing behind shopping cart.
Entire ensemble races other teams through the traffic of San Fransisco.
Teams required to make numerous "rest stops" through out race, to guarantee that dogs are well watered.

I can't imagine it getting much better than that.

Homestead

2005-08-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Finally posting pics from my trip back home to visit family and friends. The sis and I had fun taking pictures out on the gandparents farm. My grandparents were dairy farmers, and although retired for all practical purposes, they still have a couple of steers in the old pasture.

JoJo got into it a little more than I did. How ironic that I happen to be wearing my WWGBD t-shirt. Aren't we cute!!

Lady like as always. In case you're wondering, the lawn globe that looks like bowling ball, is actually a bowling ball.

The parents pets. I won't go into this. Words would fail to describe it. At last count, I believe my mother has five cats in the house along with the dog, but its hard to tell, since you don't actually see some of the cats. They just lurk around for food when you aren't looking. Its much like feeding ferrel cats in the alley way behind your apartment, except in this case the ferrel cats reside inside your house. Actually, in this case, most of the alley way resides in your house, including the smell. This can actually work out kind of handily, because neither you nor the cats have to walk as far. Kudos to JoJo on that last picture of Badger. (He's the black and white cat wearing the sock) That's a really good pic.

These are the other pics I found on the camera after giving it to sis for the morning. Apparently she was drawn in by the garage, and its lack of organization. And of course the large concrete deer, its kind of a staple.

Blog spam, WTF?

2005-08-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

I just got blog spammed! Essentially some !@#$ posted a generic comment with a link to an advertisement page. WTF? Is this common. I guess that's why you have the option to only allow registered users to post.

Update: I just saw another friends blog with a spam post, this one even more obnoxious, and from a registered user. (Most likely a bot registration, the blog was empty) This could suddenly become a problem, but hopefully the guys at google are smart enough to figure it out shortly.

July Critical Mass

2005-08-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

I did Critical Mass Sacramento for the second month in a row, and this time things went much better, and it was a really enjoyable ride, in contrast to last month , when there were some issues.

This month, the police came with a much better attitude. It probably helped that the next level of command in the police force showed up to observe. The same shift supervisor was there, except this time, he was really polite, and didn't talk down to us at all; a total 180 from last month when he had with a complete hard ass attitutde. To further improve matters, the riders had a better attitude. We talked about what we wanted to do, and decided to stay on the large one way streets, where the police said they wouldn't have any issues with us taking up an entire lane and going as slow as we wanted.

Some the retro, hippie, "The world is against me, and although I claim to want to make a change, in actuality, I gain self worth from simply causing protest for any cause, regardless of the reality, and purposely refuse to practice self hygiene because it further reinforces my outcastness from society, and gives me reason to think people hate me" people were there, but after the mass decided to NOT push the police, they left. Way to support the cause doorknobs. We ended up having about 15 riders do the ride.

So, the ride started, and it was really fun and relaxed. The police again gave a motorcade escort, but with not as many motor cycles or squad cars. "Beer in the Park", oh sorry, I mean "Concert in the Park," was taking place, and we decided to circle around it to have people see us. Concert in the park in Sacramento, takes place in downtown, where they fence off a park, put in a beer stand, and have play, from what I've heard, are decent local bands. It's supposed to be fun time. Parking is defintely an issue though. As we circled the park, we came to a spot where a large white SUV had simply double parked next to the park, and put it's hazards on. The irony was not lost on anyone. Here we were, supporting responsible use of the roads, yet, being under constant police watch, yet here someone with an uneccessarily large SUV was, totally blantantly, and illegaly blocking traffic, which caused the mass to have to move over to a second lane to pass, now leaving only one lane for traffic. The head motorcycle cop stopped his bike, put on his bubbles, and picked up his PA to address the park. "The white Expedition needs to move right now!" A short pause. "You're blocking the bicyclists." This brought cheering from the mass.

Like last week, we ended by going over the west bridge, hence entering West Sacramento, out of the police's district. They apparently got permission to follow us this time, and two of the motor cycle cops came along. At the end of the bridge, we took a break, got water, and chatted with the officers for a while. They were having a great time. It was nice weather, and they were getting paid just to ride around. We then continued down the park trail to jump on the I street bridge, to take us back across the river. Most of the mass peeled off to enjoy the rest of "Beer in the Park," while I headed home, to make it to the rock gym for Friday climbing.

Bay to Breakers picture

2005-08-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

I finally checked out the Bay to Breakers website to see if I had any pictures from the race in May. The Bay to Breakers race takes place each year in San Fransisco, and is supposedly the longest running race in the country. (Longest running, as in it's been taking place for the most consecutive years than any other race) Its roots lay in a foot race held to raise moral at the turn of the last century after the great San Fransisco earth quake. In true San Fran style, though, its not your normal race.

Although there are world reknown athletes that run the race, and compete for large purses, there are also lots of people dressed up and many drunk people meandering across the city. Imagine Halloween with 50,000 people. Now imagine them all running 7 miles across the city.

I dressed up in a "Freudian Slip" costume. Surpisingly, the slip was incrediably comfortable, although I woulnd't recommend a polyester one. It doesn't breath very well. The run went better than expect, especially considering what I had done the day before. The race was on a Sunday, and on Satruday, I had done a pretty intense 11 mile trail run, followed by a mt bike around same loop. This lead to huge cramping issues in the calves during the bike, and I was pretty sore aftwards. Following that, It drove to San Fran in the evening to register for the race, and then slept in my car to wake up early the next day for the run. When the race began, I started slowly, intending on going easy, enjoying the atmosphere, just loosening up from the day before. By the time I reached the steep hill in the city, however, I had loosened up a lot, and going up the hill gave me energy to actually start going at a good pace, which I kept up the rest of the race.

Me smiling for the camera while crossing the finish line!

As I mentioned before, many of the people in the back pack are drinking during the race. Shopping carts with kegs are a common sight, although that is really just for the amatures. The real dedicated partiers have carts the size of parade floats, complete with a full bar, roofs over it, ect. These roaming parties have 15-30 people in their group, with it taking 5-6 to be pushing at any given time. This is an all day event for them.

Other attractions inclucde the salmon runners, who dress up in huge foam fish costumes, and run the course "upstream", starting at the finish and going towards the start, squirming and jumping their way through the crowd in a line.

Of course you can't leave out the Bare to Breakers either; those dedicated to doing the entire race donning nothing but running shoes and a number.

One of the more interesting features was the tortilla throwing. The race start was filled curb to curb with people, for many blocks, as one would expect for a race like this. Many people had large bags of tortillas and were wildly throwing totillas like frisbees into the air to land down on the crowd. At one any one point there were dozens of flying flour discs going in random directions. Then I turned the corner. Dozens of tortillas in the air at any given moment? Scratch that. Make it hundreds. As you got closer to the start line, you were walking over one big floury mess covering the pavement. No one I talked knew where the tradition had started, just that it was a tradition.

At the end of the race, there was the typical after race events, with a playing field in a park taken over by vendors. This is usually ok, except in this case, the race planners had not actually provided any food themselves. They were completely relying on the vendors "free samples" as post race snack. Needless to say, this didn't involve fruit or juice. Instead, it was chocolat milk, candy, paper products, and dental floss. This is extremely irresponsible on their part. When I pay $50 bucks for race, part of that money, in my mind, goes to having fruit and bagels at the end of the race. Plain and simple. That's point of organizing a race. Instead, you'd have to stand in a half hour line, to get what ever crap was given away for free.

One of the event stands was from Southwest Airlines, who was hosting a costume contest. They were only keeping the stage open till a certain time, however, which meant that the only people who were eligable, were people who actually "ran" the race. This drastically cut down on the entrants, and I decided to enter. After that, though, I got pretty bored, especially with the lack of food, and decided to head home. Three days later, I got a phone call saying that I had won one of the prizes, an all expence paid trip to Phoenix, AZ. I'm not sure what the appeal is to go to Phoenix, when you all ready live in CA, but it works good for me, since I have freinds there. Unfortunately, I never received the prize, which was supposed to be FedExed to me shortly afterwards. I sent them a letter a few weeks back, and am still waiting for the reply.

shot down

2005-08-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

I tried to bike to work today for the first time in a while.
It was an uphill battle, and all was against me.

The main problem, begins with the fact that I know bring my work laptop home with me on a regular basis. This then requires me to have to bring it back to work also. Although I've biked with both a backpack of clothes and a laptop satchel previously, I have no intentions of doing so on a 25 mile ride, uphill, when I'm aiming to shave any amount of time off the commute I can. This lead me to finally upgrade to getting a pannier setup for my bike. I had been shopping around for a while trying to get the right system. I wanted to get a free hanging rear bike rack with a quick release. That way I'll only need one, and will be able to switch quickly between my road bike, and my fixie once I build it. This will also allow me to take it off when I'm going for a training ride. I also needed panneirs that were big enough to hold my laptop, while inside of its laptop bag. I didn't want to have to bother unloading accessories in and out of my bag every day. I already knew from talking to jojo that the quick release racks don't work as well as you'd like for panniers. They're to high for the panniers to clip to the rear wheel mount, if you're panneirs have a hook even. Regardless, I got the quick release carrier, and panniers. I made them fit by using one of gods great tools, zip ties, to extend the reach of the the hooks. I was fairly sure the ties would hold, and testing them on the way to gym the previous day.

So, I woke up early. I packed my bags, eat a cliff bar as breakfast, got dressed and headed on my way. I got a mile or so away from home when I realized that I had forgotten my badge, and had to turn around. Halfway back, however, there was a clink , bang thunk, and bike wobbled drastically. I looked back to see all my stuff yard saled across the street. Bags, and bike gear laying aorund. Apparently both zip ties had simultanious cataostropic failure.

I picked up my bags, biked home, went to sleep for another hour, and then drove to work. The pannier system needs some adjusting, but it will prevail!!

Its about time I show off my road bike!

2005-08-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

So I had finally bought a road bike in the middle of June. I had biked to work once on my mountain bike, and decided that even with the slicks, that's not going to cut it. It worked fine for the 9.5 mile commute from my old place, but the 27 mile each way from my new place is little far. (From now on, I will refer to my mt. bike by it's christened name, "Identity Crisis." It doesn't know what kind of bike it is.)This lead me to search out a place where I could find a used bike. Eventually I found Bike Builders, which was a pretty ghetto place, doing more business in fucktarded pocket motor bikes than bicycles. They did have an ample supply of old bikes though.

I ended up getting a 1989 Peugeot Triathlon for $220. The frame is in good shape, no rust, although the rims had plenty of rust to go around. The handle bars were also a little bent up, but that was easily fixable. The components, Shimano 105's across the board, were in mint condition, except for the pedals which had both toe clips broken off. This was fine since I was going to put spd on anyway. The 105 series is known for being cheap, simple, and reliable. It also has horizontal drop outs, so I can turn it into a fixie once I buy a decent road bike. I was going to do that in spring, but I'm not sure if I can wait that long. (Wait that long to have a fixie for my in town bike, that is.)

I've only ridden it to work once so far though, and that was the first week after I got it. A couple of miles from getting home that night, I hit bump which caused a lout crashing noise. I looked down at the tires as coasted, and they looked fine. Later in the evening, however, when I headed to the Rock Gym, I noticed that I had a front flat. I'm pretty sure I had actually ridden the last 3 miles home on the flat, I just didn visually recognize it, not being used to how thin road tires look. When I took the wheel apart, I discovered what looked to be the original tires, tubes, and rim strips. The plastic rim strips were completely shot, so it's no surpise that I blew a tire. What was a surprise, however, was that I had also completely jacked up the rear rim. A rusted nippke had actually through the rim!!

Jacked up rear tire. Never saw damage like that before.

Because the axle length was an unusual size, I chose to rebuild the wheel with a new rim rather than buy a new one and force it in. That project turned out pretty well. I followed directions online from Sheldon Brown's Webpage. (Sheldon Brown has the most extensive web page I've seen dedicated to everything bicycle.) Instead of using a truing stand, I took a tip from from a guy at the bike shop I frequent, and just used zip ties attached to the frame of my bike. I was to lazy to test vertical trueness, and didn't even have a dish tester, so I just checked out the horizontal. This actually lead to a very nice wheel with no visible wobble.

Pacific Crest Trail

2005-08-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

I hiked a quick little section of the Pacific Crest trail this weekend. Originally I had planned on going from Donners Pass south to Squaw Valley and back, which would have been about 30 miles round trip. After looking at the total amount of uphill hiking involved, though, (around 3000ft), I thought I might not be ready for that much. Additionaly, I also realized that the trail head is at 7000+ft, so altitude might also make difference. In lue of those things, I cut it down to 20 miles.

These first couple of pictures are from an overlook by the road, a little ways away from the trail head. This area is a real popular place for people to go road biking. Check out the hill going towards the lake. Yeah, people bike that. The funny part is that for some reason someone had thrown and old exercise bike out on a secluded section of the veiwpoint. It had obviously been there a while, and did provide a nice veiw from the saddle. Unfortunately, it was in dissrepair, and the the belt turned loosely around the fan, not really providing much friction, or smooth movement. Oh well.

I had to scramble up a ways to get to the highest point, but it was well worth it for the views, which were not visible from the trail itself. There were some nicely done cairns up on top. Much more artistic than the typical pile of rocks. If you look closely in the last pic, you can see Lake Tahoe sprawling out in front the of the farthest mountain range.

On the blog again

2005-08-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, as promised, I'm going to start keeping my blog updated. Originally, My plan had been to finish updating the previous posts (mainly narrating my New Zealand pictures), before continuing with new posts. I had most of the narration finished stored on my computer, waiting to upload it, when it was stolen, so now I'll have to start over. That will be a long process, so I'll get to that when I get to it. In the mean time, I'm going to start posting on a regular basis. Plus, I'm going to be backposting fun things that I should have posted originally!!

Solar Pot Roast

2005-07-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

So, last night a couple of other guys from work hosted a pot luck dinner for the recent college graduates. I wanted to bring barbecue pot roast. There was one little problem though. The party was close to work, and I don't live close to work. I also didn't want to go home in between work and the party. This begged the question , where could I put the crock pot to roast all day, and develop into the savory deliciousness that it deserved? Although I could have plugged it at work, I would consider that somewhat rude, since I know the mouth watering aromas produced.

Here’s my solution:

I took a cardboard box. Painted the inside of it black. I then packed that box into a slightly larger box, stuffing the space around it with more cardboard for insulation. Then I glued aluminum foil onto more cardboard to make reflectors. On Monday morning, I put the box in the back of the jeep. Put the crock of prepared barbecue inside the box. Covered it with a piece of plexiglass, and put up the reflectors. The air temperature peaked at 104. I didn’t have the angle quite right, and when I looked at it over lunch, I noticed that the position wouldn’t allow it to get nearly as much sun as I had hoped. Regardless, fast forward to the evening, and when I got back to my car that night, I could see some melted fat floating on top of the barbecue sauce, indicating that it had gotten hot enough. This was quite a relief, since I didn’t really want to serve people raw pork. The meat was perfectly tender and it tasted great.

So, now you’re asking, why are you telling us this.? We know you’re fucking hippie, get over it.

Well here’s way. Imagine a situation where you go out to a hot climate, and leave your car parked in the sun all day; and you go and do something like go climbing. I know, this is a really far fetched scenario, and very unlikely to happen. Now imagine that when you climb out of the craig, instead of looking forward to a dinner of canned beans lipton noodles, you instead have an already cooked, and warm platter of simmering roast, stew, lasagna, or what ever you choose, waiting for you.

Anyway, I was excited. I’m going to have to try this again under more ideal circumstances.

Frazier Falls

2005-07-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic from a solo trip I took over 4th of July weekend.
Intel gives us an extra day off for that holiday compared to most employers, so I decided to take a trip up into mountains. The day ended up basically consisting of driving. I kind of winged it on picking a destination, and apparently the really curvy lines on the map take much longer to get across, and are longer distances that the big fat lines on the map. It was a great day to drive though, with the top and doors off the jeep. The mountain air was perfect. Not quite sure if it was worth driving 300 miles round trip to just do one hike, especially since that one hike consisted of walking 1 mile down a paved path to look at a waterfall.

It was a neat waterfall.
I kind of sucked to get home though, and find out that my house had been ransacked and everything of value I owned stolen. :(

My first Critical Mass ride in Sacramento

2005-06-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

CM had been defunct in the city, and it just started again two months ago.
The first ride apparently went well, but during the second ride police showed,
responding to a call of "people throwing bikes at cars." Two people were
arrested and charged only with resisting arrest, and some citations were
issued.

So enter month 3, my first ride. About 25 riders showed up. As we were gathering, the
police were also gathering on the outskirts of the park. One of the riders
also mentioned that they had just been at starbucks, and overheard a couple of
officers talking about enforcing critical mass. After a enough people had
gathered, an officer came over to us and asked if he could talk to anyone in
charge, and what the planned route was. He was actually very polite, however,
there wasn't anyone in charge, and no planned route, and they saw this as a
sign that we were being uncooporative, and quickly changed their moode. A few
minutes later the shift seargent came over, and in a very hard ass manner,
informed us what he was going to "allow." This included us being allowed to
take over an entire lane on one way streets, and ride two a breast in the bike
lane, as long as we didn't cross into the street. This didn't bother me much,
since I don't think 25 people is enough people to legitimitely take over an
entire one way street, and that using the bike lanes promotes car/bike
freindliness. Any deviation from his allowed instructions would result in
what enforcement means was necessary. While he was giving the speech, there
were people from the mass video taping him, and officers video taping, and
then people videtaping the officer vide taping, because it was just funny.

Then we were off, with the police surrounding us the entire way.

6 squad cars = 9 officers
6 motorcycle cops = 6 officers
6 bike cops = 6 officers
Grand total = 21 police officers for 25 riders.

They had the motor cycle cops spread out ahead of every possible corner, so if
we were to take a turn, they would be there. This lead to lots of parking
lots and turn around. All around fun.

The shift seargent was on a motorcycle, and stayed behind us the entire way,
talking over his bullhorn, demanding that people stay in the lanes, and
letting anyone know if they were out of line. Rather humorous.

Then we turned onto an empty street with one lane going in each direction.
Here is where things got interesting. The seargent starting yelling over his
bullhorn demanding that we ride single file, and hug the parked cars, leaving
a clear lane for the cars that weren't driving on the street. That pissed us
off, and we quickly turned off to a different street, which happened to have a
bike lane. Here, one of the girls made a silly decision to do some civil
disobedience, rode out into the street. The seargent pulled up behind her,
gave multiple warnings, counted to 10, and then pulled her over to cite her
for "blocking traffic." I think it was a silly move, because I'm not sure how
a judge will see it when there was a bike lane provided. (Although one of the
other girls did mention that you're allowed to use the traffic lane when the
bike lane is blocked, which it was, by bicyclists) So, the paddy wagon
pulled, up and her bike was confiscated. This was a really funny situation.
25 people, bikes and people officers standing on a corner for a half hour.
Traffic in most directions is blocked by the squad cars, and all sorts of
people coming over and asking what is going on. Plus, after we take off
again, we now also have a paddy wagon following us.

No more incidents for the rest of ride, which included more police evasion,
and taking a break in a park where cars couldn't drive in, until we finally
crossed a bridge into another county, and the police didn't follow.

FYI, for anyone interested, we meet between 5:00 and 5:30 in the park on the corner of 16th and P street. Last Friday of every month.

Sorry, no pictures:( I'll try to remember to bring my camera in August.

my two cents

2005-03-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

Everyone seems to be making comments on the schiavo case. Its impossible not to hear something about it unless you choose to not pay any attention to the news what so ever, which maybe isn't that bad of an idea. I somewhat feel that making any more comments on the issue only furthers the problem since the media is also to blame for starting this going in the first place. Then again, no one forced anyone to make completely ignorant, irrational, and unimformed decisions on the matter once they heard it on the news. They chose to do that themselves. Anyway, this case is such a bog of utter political swill, reaching a new low for the two faced hypocritical self serving "christian" conservatives, that all I'm going to say is this. Every member of congress that voted in favor of the emergency bill this past weekend, republican and democrat, house and senate(all 3 of them), should be impeached on grounds of proffessional negligence. Then, they should have to walk back to their home states naked, with a rock of shame shackled to their ankle. I don't care if professional negligence is even a real offense. If nothing else, maybe we can get 3 members of each congressional wing together to take a vote and make it an impeachable offense.

Also, I like Oil is for Sissies comment regarding a good compromise.

My first brick

2005-03-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

Equipoise's postings on "bricks" inspired me, so I did my first brick this morning. This was actually inevitable. I'm in the process of getting back into running shape, and at the same time biking to work on a semi-regular basis. Currently, I see the 10mile bike as part of working out, especially while trying to maintain a decent pace. The goal is to get in good enought biking shape that it doesn't phase me, and I stop thinking of it as a workout. Then, I'll be able to run on a regular basis, regardless of when I bike to work. Hence, despite sleeping in this morning, I jumped on the treadmill for a little bit after arriving at the work fitness center to shower. Today it wasn't really a brick, it was much smaller, possibly some other, more elegant clay object, like a vase, or a sunflower coaster. I only went for 1.75 miles, but I still followed my rule, that regardless of how far I had already ran or biked, the last mile on the treadmill gets done with the speed maxed out. On that note, I found that at least the newer treadmills in the fitnes center go up to level 10, not just 9.9 which I think is the limit on the older ones. Overall, slightly sore, but I think that might be just as much from the climbing last night, than the running this morning.

elephant seals

2005-03-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures from the elephant seal breading grounds on the Pacific coast south of San Fransisco. To some it up, elephant seals were once very, very endangered, and on the verge of extinction. A few years back, however, a couple of them suddenly started using a nature preserve on the California coast to breed, and have been doing very well there. In order to walk along the beach during the 6 month plus breeding season, you need to get tickets for a ranger guided tour. One of the guys at work had gotten tickets 4 months ago, and had extras, so he took me along with him. It was pretty interesting. I'll write more about this some other time hopefully.

hats off

2005-03-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

I would just like to congratulate the guy that was talking on his cell phone while going through the salad bar today at lunch. Seriously, anyone can talk on the phone while driving or doing transactions at the bank and still somewhat convince themselves that they're not being a nuisance, or at the very least, not being really FLIPPING RUDE! But to be able to do it while going through the salad bar, with the line stacking up behind you, and to be that close to the people you're increasingly inconveniencing, and still feign indifference, well that takes true talent.

1:50

2005-03-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

I paid attention to the clock today when I biked into work. It took 1 hour and 50 minutes from the time I woke up to the time I arrived at my cube. This is the maximum time, though, having done many things inbetween. This includes: getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, getting dressed, eating breakfast, emptying the dishwasher, making my lunch, brushing my teeth, flossing, packing my work cloths, getting my bike from the garage, biking to work, showering, shaving, getting dressed, walking from across the parking lot, entering the building and going to my cube.

I'll have to check to see what the time is to do everything if I drive. Theres also lots of things that don't have to get done, at least not always: Shaving, dishwasher. I could make my lunch and pack the night before. I'm trying to always have a bag of bagels handy at work anyway, so I could skip breakfast. Showering? I realized today that I really wasn't that diry, minus the sweat from the previous day. It going to start getting hot soon, though, which means I'll probably be swetting a lot during the night. Hmm.

Bike lanes and stupid "smart" lights.

2005-02-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

After finally getting badge access to the gym at work, I was able to bike today for the first time. I hadn't scoped out the route previously, as I had planned, but as it turns out, I have a great route. I was able to exit surbia via a bike path which the developers put in place to allow bikers and pedestrians to go through the dead end cul-de-sacs, and have a straight exit. After that I, had less than a mile on a busy street, but the right lane had plenty of room to bike without being disturbed, or disturbing the vehicle traffic. That lead to Folsom Blvd, which runs parallel to the freeway all the way to Folsom, where Intel is. Since it's next to the freeway, there's no traffic, because everyone is on the freeway. Plus, with the exception of a stretch of a couple of hundred meters, theres a nice think bike lane the entire 8 mile section I take. This took me under the freeway, past the off ramp (where everyone was exiting) and into the town. I didn't know what to expect here, especially with the heavy traffic. As it turned out Folsom Blvd. continued with a girthy bike lane, and took me right the road I needed, which was newly paved with a nice 5ft wide bike lane. Overall, of the 10 miles, at least nine had bike lanes without much traffic.

The one annoying part was when I was exiting my neighbor hood and had to go through the busy section. (Gas stations, fast food, you know, those areas) The stop lights here are "smart" lights which sense where cars are waiting, and change lights accordingly. Unfortuneatley, these lights don't sense bikes, which requires a biker coming from a side street onto the main street to go up onto the sidewalk and hit the pedestrian crossing signal in order to get a pause in traffic. Not very smart.

Weekend of natural deselection

2005-02-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was full of what most other people might consider repeated attempts at getting ourselves killed. It started with drive over to the Queen Creek area for a day of climbing. (Although it was delayed a bit after a broken deadbold lock caused me to be locked in a friends apartment, but that's a different story. Overall, my climbing has gone to pot. I did a couple of 5.9s and 5.10s, leading a couple of the nines, but I was dead after that, with both arms completely pumped out. Drake then decided he wanted to put up a zipline, using his 300ft static line which he owns for that exact purpose. This was my first zipline experience,and it was all that's cracked up to be. Fun times were had.

     Luke leading a wicked                       Zipline on Saturday
                  route

Sunday morning then, we all got in my jeep, and headed to McDowel mountains. We found a spot hidden in some trees where we took off the top and doors of the jeep and had a couple of hours of fun checking out the area. I wore my seat belt, as I should since I'm driving, while the others preffered to ride on the outside, holding on to the roll cage. Eventually we got to a spot where Mark and Luke wanted to do some trad climbing, so Drake and I continued on our way after dropping them off. Now and expert at zipline, I endeavored to help Drake put up the biggest line yet.

This time, the route we chose was to long to simply span with our 300ft, so we had to link it 196ft dynamic climbing rope. The entire process of stringing the rope and getting it as tight as possible took a couple of hours, and many trips running up to the top of the mountain. The dynamic rope caused a lot of sagging in the line, which would sometimed require you to use the bouncyness of the line to jump of trees as you zipped by. We had quite the number of spectators by the time we had the line up. My main lesson of the day was that I still suck "throwing myself off a cliff," as Drakes stated it, when I have to clip in to rope at your feet going over high edge. The picture speaks for itself.

                                                      Zipline on Sunday                                            Drake zipping down

                Awkwardly throwing                     Me zipping down the line
             myself off a mountain

Cathedral Cove, and Hot water Beach: Hahei, New Zealand

2005-01-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

Beach by parking lot

Eating Lunch

Beach again

Up the coast

Starting up the trail

Cliffs

Mhairi

Cathedral Cove

Coast

Rocks

me

Mhairi

Protected from the sun, which she apparently doesn't see much.....

.....just look at that stomach! Cute, but white, very white.

Out to sea

Trying to climb a crack in the arch

That's as far as I got though

Cathedral cove

Mhairi climbing

me climbing

Again

Mhairi climbing

Back on the trail

Nice view

Flowers, and they're even blue

pretty

Hot water beach

Everyone digging

I dug a whole out...

And then someone immediatly grabbed the G'nT and jumped in

Drove to Aukland, saw Cirque du Soleil

2005-01-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

The Square Kauri viewpoint

Trees

Looking up

Square Kauri

Lookout View Panoramic

The story of The Square Kauri

Cirque du Soleil tent

Caving in Waitoma, New Zealand

2005-01-15T19:48:00.000-08:00

The caving tour group

Mhairi getting all dolled up

Stud

Starting the repel

....

Model canoe in Waitoma village

Rotura, New Zealand

2005-01-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how to get a Zorb back to the top of the hill? A Zorb conveyor of course!

I think that's me

At the bottom

Zorb conquest!

Kiwi sign at the kiwi hatchery, the only place I saw a live kiwi

Tehokowhitu -A-Tu native village built on a thermal area

Kids playing

More of the kids

.....

Old house

Hot gyser

More thermal vents

Gyser

Thermal stuff

Hot pool

Christian influence

Close up

Meeting house

Thermal vents

Thermal mud pools

More thermal mud pools, in front of a mural

large thermal area

Geyser

Us in front of the geyser

Thermal lakes

Blue Lake

Mhairi

Start of the traditional dinner and dance

Cooking the food outside

Traditional performance

.....

...

....

Audience participation. They picked Mhairi as one of the girls to go up on stage with them

...

...

Then they picked me as one of the guys

...

Tongario Northern Circuit: Tongario National Park, New Zealand

2005-01-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Cows being herded up the road

They think they own the place

Moo

Inside Look

Cow

In the road

Car and cows

Whakapappa Village

Improvised steering wheel lock after the lock on the club broke

Starting the hike

Mt Ngauruhoe at the start. (We climb that eventually)

Mt Ruapehu

On the trail

Us with Ruapehu

Ruapehu (Thats where all the Mount Doom scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed)

More of Ngauruhoe

On the trail, Mt Ngauruhoe

Mhairi at the start, Mt Ngauruhoe

Mhairi hiking

Sunset at the campsite

More sunset

Sunset with a tent

Mt Taranake with sunset

Mangatepopo Hut

Ngauruhoe Sunset

Campsite sunset

Mangatepop Valley

Soda Springs

waterfall somewhere

Soda Springs

Soda Springs, another candid shot ruined

Mangatepop climb

Mangatepopo Valley

rocks

Ngaurahoe Climb

From the top

Red Rim

View from Ngaurahoe

Blue Lake

Me on Ngauruhoe

Mhairi on Crater

Mt Ruapehu from Mt Ngauruhoe

Crater View

Red Rim crater

Ice in crater

Me on crater

Ngauruhoe crater

inside crater

More of crater

More of crater

In crater

In crater

Mhairi on Crater rim

Lakes from crater

Steam coming from inside volcanoe

Ngauruhoe and us

Blue lake

View from summit

Crater Panoramic

Crater Panoramic with Mhairi

random flowers

Mt Ngauruhoe from Mt Tongariro

Panoramic

From Tongariro again

From Mt Tonariro one more time

Emerald Lakes

Mhairi over Emerald Lakes

The trail down

Down to Emerald Lakes

Lunch at Emerald Lake

Lunch spot

Emerald Lake

Oturere Hut

Oturere Valley falls

Walking towards Ruapehu

another random flower

Waihohonu

Waihohonu Valley

Waihohonu lunch spot

Mhhhh, bulk cereal.

Mhairi hiking

falls

Mhairi at the stream

Mhairi and the stream

Old Waihohonu Hut

Inside historic hut

Old fireplace

Mhairi at historic Waihohonu hut

Lower Tama Lake

Lower Tama Lake

Taranaki Falls

Behind the falls

Behind falls again

from Taranaki Falls

Mhairi at Taranaki

Driving later?? I really don't remember

Levin Adventure Park: Levin New Zealand

2005-01-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

Came across this place. A private play ground open to the public, sponsered by the local grocery store. Any attorney would salivate at the liablitly issues something like this would have in the US.

Zipline

wee

Hanging

Slide

Trampoline

Elevation...

Firemen's pole

balancing

Big zipline

weee!

She's having fun

having fun

Way to much fun in the hampster wheel

.....

Mhairi in a wheel

.....

......

la, la, la, la

It was much harder not using your feet, but I got it!

Just look at this place!

Climbing wall, lots and lots of climbing

climbing, climbing, climbing..

Keep your climb on climbing...

climbing, climbing, climbing...

climb on!

m climbing

climbing

in all honesty, the wall isn't that big

Fun stuff

Wellington, New Zealand

2005-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ferry from South to North Island

View from ferry

Ferry

Ferry crossing

Marlborough Sound

Ferry

The Sounds

Wooden church

WWll Flags

Inside Church

Mt. Victoria

Wellington View

Rata

Wellington

Mhairi on Mt. Victoria

Bridge by wharf

Maori marae

scary Mhairi

Me at marae

Cow made only of tin cans

Mhairi and Katherine

Kirkcaldy

Nelson Lake, New Zealand

2005-01-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

Wasp Tree

Foggy

Skipping again

Lake Rotoiti

Bridge at Rotoiti

German hangover

Jana

View

View from Nelson

Center of New Zealand

Center of New Zealand

Center of New Zealand

Statue

Blue Flowers

In the hostel

Swimming

swimming

Swimming

Swimming up stream

West Coast: South Island, New Zealand

2005-01-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

River Rapids

La, la, la, la, la

rapids

Jana

Mhairi

slanted

Balancing

Someone sure was hogging the camera lens

more rapids

again

la, la, la,
Fallsla, la

Fantail Falls

Fantail Falls. Interesting climb in sandals.

I'm cool

again

more

waterfall

Jacobs bay

Jacobs Bay

drift wood

Mhairi and I

Jana

More driftwood

Neat wood

More

blue pools

Blue Pools walk

Blue Pools bridge

shoulder carry

Jana skimming rocks

Mhairi skipping rocks

woah

rock skimming

skimming

Blue Pools

Mountain view

view from car

View

Glacier view

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier

WARNING, IF ICE FALLS, JUMP INTO RIVER AND TRY TO SWIM AWAY!

Ice River

Ice Cave

Protecting the down jackets

In the rain

Glacier

Glacier

Glacier Cave

Buller Swing Bridge

Pancake Rocks

Pancake inlet

Pancakes!

Pancakes

Pancake Rocks

Pancake rocks

More from Pancake Rock

how cute

Nice legs. Serious, between the two of us we got four nice calves. Fancy a ......? :)

Punakaiki

Pancake Rocks

Peguin Crossing

view somewhere

Sunset

Mhairi cooking

Me helping

Crown Range lookout and Wanaka: New Zealand

2005-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

Crown range lookout

Maybe it'll be easier to read the map upside down?

Me and my ladies

tree picture

Diamond Lake

Euro car. The only time I saw these, they were used for advertising.

Diamond lake

Stone from millenium walk. I wonder who took this one?

Queenstown, New Zealand

2005-01-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

Lake Wakatipu

More of the lake

Approaching Queenstown

again

....

Piggy Back

What's wrong with this tourist ship? Hint: I'm fairl certain it doesn't run off of steam or sail power.

Through the trees down to Queenstown

Jana silhouette

Porter and fan supplier

Mhairi and Jana

Picture of everyone taking pictures

Me on the viewpoint

Jana with a safety helmet

Jana with a safety helmet

flowers

white flowers

Me taking pics

Tourist

lunch spot

By the lake

Really good candid shot Mhairi!

Queenstown views

Queenstown

Luge ride!

Queenstown Panoramic

Stewart Island, New Zealand: New Years Hike. 48km, 3 Days. Mud, Mud, and Mud

2004-12-31T12:59:00.000-08:00

In the bush

Bluff terminal

ferry terminal

Casper on boat

Stewart Island Experience

approaching

about to start

about to start

Bungaree Bay

Bungaree Hut

Mhairi at terminal

Halfmoon Bay

Halfmoon

Beach

Happy to be wet. (Kudos to Andrea for the alpaca gloves from Peru. They work great in the rain!)

approaching Lee Bay

Start of Rakirua Track

Lee Bay

River

Beach

...

From above

Lunch spot

lunch with people looking at camera

footbridge

bridge

first catch!

dinner

Whale skull washed up on beach

Standing around the whale skull

Mhairi and Jana on muddy track

muddy

river crossing

Claudia climbing

view at Bungaree Bay

Mhairi on last Day

again

New Year celebration

Julian, Jana

Jonno and Claudia

Happy New Year!

North Arm Hut

North Arm Hut

New Year on the beach, in the rain

cards

Jonno, Claudia, me

Auld Lang Syne

Drunker Claudia

Bungaree

Bungaree Hut

Me and Jana

Julian, Mhairi, Casper

smelly socks

Accepted the $100 bet to do the second day in bare feet

bare feet

Jana falling

muddy track (Three days of this)

Trees, water, and sun!

Opening

Me in the fern forest

Neaaaar.......Faaaaaar.

Picnic table

End of track

Me on track

cleaning shoes

Invercargill motel

picking rosemary

North Arm morning view

North Arm Bay

North Arm Bay

Mhairi in a tree

Bay

inlet

Mud Warning

end of Track

Department of Conservation office

Halmoon bay in sunshine

Halfmoon bay city

Stewart Island

ferry departure

ferry ride back to the mainland

The Road to Milford Sound, New Zealand

2004-12-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Mitre Peak

again

waterfall

cruise boats

life preserver

waterfall

bottom of waterfall

waterfall

again

Sound

another one

Ice cave before the tunnel

Me on ice

Kea!

same kea

dancing Kea

Hollyford Valley

Hollyford Valley Overlook

Kea Perching

Waterfall

Three Sisters waterfalls

Milford views

Waterfall

Seals

Stirling falls

Milford Sound

Cliff Edge

Underwater observatory

Underwater Life

plants underwater

observatory

Road to Milford

Me, the tourist

Chasm

Chasm

Chasm Gorge

Chasm River

Stuck Trees

gorge

Chasm waters

The Chasm

by Homer Tunnel

waterfall

Cruise boats

Bowen Falls

Sound

Mitre Peak

The Sound

Waterfall

Sounds

Waterfall

falls

stream at chasm

Different camera setting

water

water with different camera setting

Outside of Tunnel

more...

.....

Homer Tunnel View

Valley

Kea in tree

Panoramic

Chasm Panoramic

Kepler Track; Te Anua, New Zealand: 67km, 1200m elev change, 2 days

2004-12-28T16:33:00.000-08:00

Grr.

Nice picture, and my finger

boat

Boat in Black and White

Helipad

Mountain

Me

Strawberry Gin and Tonic

lake

sailboat

helipad 2

lake before trek

Panoramic

starting Kepler Track

water and stuff

more of it

beach

me on beach

wash into lake

river in forest

clear stream

snack break

beach

Mhairi in tree

supposed to be a nice classic B/W shot, but then she stood up

and then the next one was blurry

view of the city

uprooted tree

limestone wall

me again

mountains

Mt Luxmore, possibly

Luxmore cave

View of something

Luxmore hut

mhairi in hut

Ridge Trail

Ridge trail

There is a really cool view behind the fog

You can almost see the mountains

snow

again

Stuck Zipper. Very Annoying

clouds

again..

clearing somewhat

Emergency Shelter

Kea

Kea again.

more mountainy stuff

neat silhouette

la, la, la, la

back in the rain forest

another stream

waterfall

making camp in the rain

cooking

Me doing all the work again

water

more water

Happy wet Mhairi

Me and waterfall

Another waterfall

tree stuck on rock

another waterfall

increased water from the storm

still wet

ferns, upon ferns, upon ferns!

more ferns

hut

beach

hut: At a distance

retreating clouds

Mhairi on the beach

boat

over looking inlet

M over looking inlet

almost done

Trying to dry our stuff out