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Weekend trip: Redmond, WA

Jun 16th, 2010 by

I’ve been really burned out here lately and was in desperate need of changing things up by getting out to visiting the crew in the PNW on Friday. Coincidentally, this was the same weekend that Alex flew to BOS to co-drive with Hilary across country (see: here and here). A smarter person would have put off the trip for a week, but boredom and wanderlust was getting the best of me. So, I only got to hang out for an hour or two with Alex before he left (sorry!).  Afterward, we swung by to visit JP & Gwyn.

On Saturday, Victoria and I kept ourselves occupied by driving down to Paradise.  Of all the dozen or so times I’ve been to SEA, I’ve never been out to Rainier yet.  It was exciting to see how huge everything was there.  Huge mountain, huge trees, huge drop-offs on the side of the road with no guard rail.  There was also still several feet of snow on the ground.  Behind the visitor center was an open snow field which the masses were playing on.  We got the idea to go climb up a ridge to get a better look of the Muir snow field where all real adventures start. My feet were cold from the snow, and due to the clear sunny day I was drenched in sweat from the knee up after the hike.  (Victoria notes this as well in her post on Adventioneering.)  It was a fantastic view, and revived my interest in climbing to the summit.  It’s also worth noting that during this trip I got to experience one of the few Sonic Drive-ins in the SeaTac area and enjoy my 44 oz iced tea.

Sunday we spent running errands, experiencing Trader Joe’s, having posh apartments and condos pointed out to me, feasting on donuts and lounging around the apartment. Later that evening we had awesome thai birthday dinner for JP.

Flying back was practically an adventure on its own. I’ve never taken a red-eye flight, much less on a work day, and wasn’t sure how well it’d work. Victoria dropped me off and I left SEA at 12:30 AM.  Despite a completely full plane, middle seat, with a upset toddler right next to me I managed to sleep in some capacity the whole way to Houston.  However, I didn’t realize my flights overlapped until I landed.  My AUS flight boarded at 7:00 AM, and I got off the SEA flight at 7:20 AM.  I took off on a sprint with my backpack from C terminal to E terminal and was one of the last two people on the plane before it departed.  That’ll wake a person up in the morning!

I survived the last leg and got into Austin at 8:30 AM, then made it into the office at 10:00 AM to start a whole new week.

Photos from the Paradise trip are available on Adventioneering’s flickr feed.

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Coffee & Kerbey Lane diet

Jun 9th, 2010 by

I’ve lost about 10 pounds since October thanks to coffee and Kerbey Lane.  I hopped on the scale last week and weighted in at 165 for the first time since I moved from Tulsa.  Apparently drinking coffee really does decrease appetite.  I’ve been eating at Kerbey Lane very frequently as well, which involves somewhat healthier food and smaller dinner portions.  Regrettably, there’s quite a bit of muscle loss, but that can be regained!  But, I’ve had to cut out the coffee because it’s been making me incredibly jittery and anxious lately.

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Zipping

Jun 6th, 2010 by

Today was a new experience, zipping across a zip line!  I found a place called Cypress Valley just outside of Austin that offered “eco tours” in their cypress trees.  Basically this entailed a group of 6-7 being led down several zip lines while our two guides handled our gear and explained something about what was around us as we went along.  It wasn’t as physically challenging as I thought it might be, nor were the heights a problem.  The lines were 30-40 feet off the ground, and I think there were six different zips and three rope bridges to traverse.  I figured out I had no problems trusting the gear as I was happily leaning off the tree perch supported only by my harness.  They offer a few different challenge courses that I definitely want to go back and try.

I was by myself, so I don’t have many photos to share of this trip. The few I do have are up on the flickrs.

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Roadtrip: Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Jun 1st, 2010 by

I’ve been wanting to wander around Wyoming for a couple of months now and finally decided to go last weekend.  No real planning, the only requirements were to see Jackson Hole and some big mountains. Friday morning I took my truck to the mechanic to have the transmission and differential fluids changed.  I picked it up that afternoon and after work I went home to grab some cold weather gear (highs of 35 F were forecast there), then started driving.  I went up through the panhandle and crashing at the usual I-27 rest stop near Plainview, TX around 1:30 AM.

Saturday, May 29: For whatever reason it was a fitful night of sleep and I finally gave up trying to sleep at sunrise at 7.  Ultimately before arriving in Denver I’d have to stop at two rest stops to take naps because I was so tired.  At some point I actually debated calling off Wyoming and go back to do silly things with my friends in Denver instead.  I decided I was “so close” and kept on going.  When I hit the Wyoming border, my motivation and excitement level jumped.  I hopped out of the truck to take a photo at the border sign and realized it was super windy and cold due to a storm front rolling in. It was quite a contrast to the smug and hot weather I just left!

The drive across Wyoming on I-80 was pretty uneventful.  The whole area is this flat rolling grassland which sort of reminds me of a decent high school softball field — not particularly magnificent, but not covered in weeds, rocks and bare spots. As a coworker summed it up, it’s just a notch above the scenery in West Texas on I-10.

Once at Rock Springs, the approach to Jackson is exactly like that of Burning Man, “turn north on I-80 and drive through nothing for 100+ miles”.  By now it was after 11 PM and very dark.  The road got windier as I went, having to concentrate that I didn’t drop off into the black darkness below.  Around 1 as I was about to enter the forest, highway 191’s pavement completely ended, turning into a rough one-lane gravel road. This was the Road of Bones (Jungo Road) happening to me all over again!  Fortunately there were less death defying experiences this time and it was over in a few miles.

Sunday, May 30: Sometime after 2 AM I rolled into Jackson after 18 hours of driving from the Texas panhandle. A quick cruise through town and seeing all the rustic wood facade buildings made it apparently this was clearly a fancy resort town. I crashed in a Motel 6, hoping to get a decent night’s rest.  My plan was foiled by the rowdy kids next door who were desperately banging on the door+windows to get the attention of “Cynthia, you bitch!” most of the night.

Sunday morning I got my first look of the town in the daylight.  The very first car I saw on the road was a Maserati Coupe. Then I found out there was a Four Seasons ski lodge there.  This, on top of what I saw last night, was all starting to make sense now. Clearly there was a lot of yuppie ski dollars flowing into this place! I also realized why it’s called Jackson Hole: the entire town of Jackson is in a valley rimmed by mountains.

I had breakfast and wandered around the town square for a couple of hours. The “town square” area was really nice, almost out of a movie set. Being surrounded by mountains definitely helps!  I saw that there were quite a few higher end shops there, art galleries, jewelry stores, and restaurants.

There’s a certain stereotype of Wyoming people I established long ago, that of black felt hats and long duster coats.  Turns out that stereotype was pretty true, I saw lots of people walking around Jackson in black hats and long coats. I guess they’re pretty effective at staving off the chilly air while being fashionable in a west sort of way.  Once thing I noticed about WY, the “bucking horse and rider” icon was on practically every sign.  Texas has our Lone Star, they have their horse.

I calculated I needed to leave by 2 PM in order to reach Denver by 10, so I headed outside of town to see the Tetons.  I immediately saw the National Elk Refuge and was taken in by the scenery.  A couple miles down the road was an even bigger surprise, which was full on white capped mountains.  Magnificent.  This made the whole drive worthwhile.

The further I went, the more I liked what I saw.  It was chilly which added to the allure somehow.  There was always something new to take pictures of.  When I got to Moran Junction I entered the actual Grand Tetons National Park area.  This took me even closer to the mountains and right into the thick of the forest.  People were fly fishing in the water below the Jackson Dam, others were having lunch on the shore.  I saw several people out on bicycles and a few more on horseback.

I was in awe at how pretty all the scenery was.  I’m already plotting how I can go back for a week. I would love to go hike up a mountain or go horseback riding all afternoon. One thing I didn’t realize was that the major ski area is just over the pass in Teton Village. This will give me more to look at the next time I’m there.

After a full morning of sight seeing I left Jackson.  This also gave me the opportunity to see the pass in the daylight, what tried to kill me the morning before.  That night I stopped through Denver and had a cup of coffee with Steve to catch up.  I kept on going and spent the night at a rest stop near Pueblo.

Monday, May 31: At daylight I was up on the road again, making it to Austin at 10:30 PM. Denver to Austin in one day is quite a haul and this two hour head start from Pueblo didn’t make that much difference.  While I was thrilled to have seen so much beauty in Wyoming, I was equally glad that I was finished driving.  I wanted to kneel down and kiss the floor in my apartment!

The complete set of pictures are available on the Flickrs.

The numbers

Overall, it was 3,027 miles and 43 hours, 14 minutes of driving. This was by far my most ambitious weekend road trip ever and I don’t think I want to repeat it anytime soon. I’m definitely flying into JAC next time!

Waypoint Time Odometer Fuel
Post, TX 5/29 12:30 AM 184,424 21.6
Raton, NM 5/29 12:11 PM 184,807 22.8
Layfette, CO 5/29 5:10 PM
Laramie, WY 5/29 7:34 PM 185,196 22.5
Rock Springs, WY 5/29 11:00 PM 185,410 13.2
Jackson, WY 5/30 1:45 AM 185,590
Jackson, WY 5/30 2:15 PM 185,667 13.3
Laramie, WY 5/30 8:13 PM 186,060 20.4
Pueblo, CO 5/31 12:48 AM 186,306
Raton, NM 5/31 11:19 AM 186,430 20.4
Slaton, TX 5/31 5:05 PM 186,776 20.7
Austin, TX 5/31 10:30 PM

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Weekend roadtrip: West Texas

May 9th, 2010 by

There was a set of road trips this weekend.  Friday night after a post-work nap, I drove downtown and wound up in San Antonio.  I pondered long and hard about getting on I-10 and driving east or west. I think it would be kinda be neat to go over to Louisiana to see the environment being destroyed by the oil slick. Instead, I came back home since I had no clothes nor computing device.

Saturday, May 8: I set off for Alpine, Texas. I quickly remembered how mind numbingly boring I-10 is, and how I should petition to get the speed limit raised to 100 or just go get my pilot license so I can fly there. I arrived around 7, so there was still plenty of sunlight left.  I had dinner at La Trattoria, this little artsy Italian cafe on the north end of town.  I don’t recommend the Margherita pizza, the flimsy thin crust couldn’t handle the huge chunks of tomato they piled on.

One of the unofficial purposes of the trip was to go over to a star party at the McDonald Observatory.  A cold front had rolled in Friday night, bringing with it low hanging clouds.  It was beginning to clear off at Alpine as it was getting dark, so I hoped it would keep clearing.  I  drove over to Fort Davis via Marfa.  By the time I got to the Observatory it was good and dark, but unfortunately not clear.  I hung around and got about 15 minutes of fair viewing here and there. On one telescope I saw Mizar and Saturn on another.  The first time I ever saw Saturn on a telescope a few years ago, I could very faintly make out the outline of the planet and rings, and was very impressed.  This time, on the big telescopes it was very clear and lots of detail. Somebody pointed out two moons next to it, very cool.  Unfortunately after that, the clouds set in for good and everyone started leaving.

I went back to Alpine, and per tradition, checked in at the budget Motel Bien Venido. This room wasn’t as sketchy as the room from last time; the chairs actually matched and there were no nails+duct tape holding the neighboring door shut. There was however an unexplained wet spot in the carpet in front of the bathroom. Oh, and the three times the train came through town between 1 – 3 AM, horn blaring the whole way just a block over.

Sunday, May 9: Breakfast time lead me to the Bread & Breakfast Bakery.  The ambiance reminded me of Corner Cafe in Westport, Kansas City, and the college crowd reminded me of Kerbey Lane. Quite a wait on my pancakes (also reminding me of Kerbey), but they made it right by giving me a refund. Otherwise, good food, I’d recommend it to others!

While in Alpine I was listening to the local radio station and realized how awful country music is, at least the newer stuff.  Old stuff is awesome: Marty Robbins always sung about gunfights and clearing leather on outlaws. Hank Williams Sr. sung about honky tonks and riding freight trains out of town.  Johnny Cash sung about prison, knife fights, guns, and sticking it to the man.  New stuff (artist names escape me, but does it really matter): losing a grandpa, passing on knowledge to a son, losing a wife to cancer. What the fuck, that’s some depressing shit.  I had to go back to my “hustlin” playlist to hear DMX and Dre tell me about benjamins and livin’ large instead.

This morning after breakfast I saw a sign that said “Big Bend Park Headquarters 108 miles” and decided that was a pretty awesome idea. There are so many people that live in the middle of nowhere between Alpine and Study Butte.  That whole area looks exactly like Nevada. In fact, the scene in Terminator 2 where Conner is getting weapons from her friend’s underground bunker, yeah I think that was in Study Butte.

At some point there was a slight turn in the road, a giant dip, and bam, you’re in the Chisos Mountains Basin. Big Bend turned out to be very awesome; like Death Valley, but bigger and closer! I spotted this thing labeled “Santa Elena Canyon Overlook” on the map right on the Texas/Mexico border, and headed to it. BB is surprisingly green, I don’t know if it’s always like this or just because it’s spring.  There were all sorts of public access roads and trails throughout the park.  I totally want to go back and spend a week there exploring.

Thirty miles further south, I was finally at the canyon. There’s the Rio Grande, and then on the Mexico side of the river is this very impressive sheer cliff face that’s hundreds of feet tall and stretches on for miles.  Somehow part of the river etched a gash straight through this wall.  I have to wonder if this whole rock/river thing is like the Niagra Falls, where Canada gets the falls, we get the view; here Mexico gets the rock, we get the view and river.  On the other hand, I bet there’s a nice view of Texas from top of Mexico’s mesa.

After this, it was around 2 PM and time to head home. I stopped by the visitor center at Panther Junction and headed up to Marathon.  From there, on up to Fort Stockton, I-10 and back to Austin.  Done with another 1,280 mile weekend road trip!

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woo iPad

May 2nd, 2010 by

I do a lot of reading on my iPhone. Beyond e-mail, news and Twitter, wherever I light I spent more time reading lengthy whitepapers, vendor documentation, and the occasional blog post. Scrolling around and pinching on a little screen to see details of illustrations or the next column gets old after a while. So, I thought I’d give the iPad a try. More specifically, the iPad 3G.  Most of the places I frequent don’t have reliable wi-fi, which puts a damper on casual document browsing.

Friday after work I went over to the Apple store to actually play with one in person before putting in my order. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the 3G models happened to go on retail sale that day.  Five minutes later I walked out with one.

So far I’ve pleased with it. The thing is wicked fast compared to an iPhone.  Normally it takes a few minutes to sync up my Exchange folders on my iPhone, even over wi-fi. I always attributed this to the sheer bulk+number of messages and a pokey Exchange service.  Not so on the iPad. It sucked it them all down in a few seconds.  Document reading is great, I can load up the Amazon Dynamo whitepaper and have it readable without scrolling. Amusingly, between the Mac, iPhone and iPad, I have three things that make noise when I get email now.

I highly suggest everyone go out and buy one to boost my portfolio value.

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East

Apr 26th, 2010 by

Now that I’ve sort of solved north for the time being, I need a new destination. I’m told I absolutely must go catch a shuttle launch before the fleet is retired later this year. This may or may not be possible with a standard road trip. The remaining launch dates are on Thursdays and Fridays, requiring at least a Wednesday departure, and who knows what the schedule may slip to.

According to NASA:

  • STS-132 (Atlantis) May 14+
  • STS-133 (Discovery) Sept 16+
  • STS-134 (Endeavour) November

Beyond this, it’s all unmanned rocket flights to launch various probes and satellites. I’ve been in a space mood lately, so it’d be good to go visit the Cape again.  I swear I wish I was alive in the 60s to work on the Gemini and Apollo programs. I’d love to go to Houston to have a beer with Gene Kranz at learn how things were done.

On a fun end note, the last time I was at Cocoa Beach as a kid I sunburned my back so bad I blistered. I was whimpering so much in pain I got kicked out of the motel and had to sleep in the van. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson for this time.

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Austin-Minnesota-Austin in one weekend

Apr 19th, 2010 by

Friday I decided to go on a roadtrip after work.  I basically wanted to see how far north I could make it in a weekend. The dream for a while has been to make it to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, which is due north of me. After doing some map work, the mileage says this is just too far without a co-driver to drive through the night.  South Dakota or Minneapolis was the next feasible destinations. I also discovered my StreetPilot that died on the way to Burning Man was playing opossum, it fired right up when I tried to upgrade software on it.

7:00 PM Friday – Leave Austin.  Drive up I-35 to Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, arrived at a rest stop south of Wichita, KS at 3:00 AM.

Saturday morning at the rest stop there was a group of three blue Corvettes with receiver-mounted C.B. antennas, something you don’t see every day. I met up with them later on the way to Kansas City. Never did get to see who was driving.

It wasn’t until Kansas City that I finally decided where I wanted to go.  The Garmin calculated arrival times in Minneapolis at 5:45, Sioux Falls around 4:00. I’ll probably never have a reason to go to South Dakota, but I’ll likely fly to MPLS to visit my peeps there, so that was that. Up I-29 I went.

I was accumulating Gowalla stamps, so it was natural to swing over to Omaha to get one for Nebraska. Omaha also has Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway, which is headquartered in Kiewit Plaza.  It’s located in west downtown, which seems rather, well, old.  Not much going on here.

From here it was a quick jaunt up to Iowa, arriving at the border around 1 PM.  The nice old lady at the Iowa visitor center was a fountain of knowledge, dropping morsels of information at every sentence, and urged me to come back and spend more time in her wonderful state. Admittedly Veisha was happening right now and Steve was visiting in Ames too, but I was set on my goal to go further north.

3:50 PM, it was weird rolling into South Dakota. I finally realized how far away from home I was. IA and SD along I-29 remind me a lot of the Texas panhandle.  It’s flat, very lush and green, and tons of agribusiness is clearly happening.  This time of year, the farmers were doing controlled range burns to get rid of last year’s crop cruft.

Nearly two hours later I finally arrived in Sioux Falls, SD. I never ventured into the city proper, but followed I-229 up around to I-29. From there it was about 10 miles over to the Minnesota state line.  According to GPS, the visitors center wasn’t actually in MN, but the next exit to turn back west would put me on MN soil. The weather felt weird, there was a slight cool breeze yet very warm and sultry. I took a couple of quick snaps at the Minnesota sign and turned around to head back to Austin. In retrospect I had time to linger around longer and/or at least find a cheeseburger there.

On the way back, I was lured to the lights of downtown Omaha, so I stopped back in there again.  The “new” part of downtown was pretty, and they had a sweet pedestrian bridge over the river.  Apparently the prom was happening, as there were many fine ladies in fine formal wear loitering around the Qwest Center. There were lots of college kids wandering up and down the riverfront. I think I’d like to visit this city again to wander around myself.

I arrived in Kansas City at 2 AM. Having been on the road constantly for 16 hours and 700 miles it was time to crash in Lenexa, KS. The next morning it was time to make the final stretch back to Austin.  The rest of the trip was uneventful.  I got back home at 10 PM.

Total mileage for the trip was 2,272 miles with an actual driving time of 31 hours, 33 minutes.  I’m now confident Minneapolis is possible in a weekend, but there would be no time to do anything there. This trip already had a frenzied pace; there was no lingering over a cup of coffee at breakfast (or even breakfast for that matter), few photo ops, no twelve hours of sleeping in at motels, no setting the cruise at 70 MPH. Just sheer out and back driving with lots of loud music. I had a blast and would totally do another trip like it!

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More scene and scenery

Mar 24th, 2010 by

At a last minute urging I went to the Austin “get-Google-to-lay-FTTH” Big Gig party last night. I got to catch up with some of my colleagues from my last job, and met several new people, including (surprisingly) a group of attractive, chatty young ladies who were there as part of the co-“tweetup”. A good time was had, clearly I need to go seek out more of these twitter events!

Digging around and asking around, I found a few interesting tech social events in Austin. The first thing I found was the Door64.com website. In just a couple of days, this thing has kept my Twitter feed full of meet-ups and job openings.  The timing of this week’s meet-up is odd, 10-11 AM, which is precisely when I start work.

One meet-up it lead me to is the Austin Tech Happy Hour which happens downtown at Molotov.  I’ve never been to Molotov, and I was highly amused reading the Yelp comments that describe the place as overpriced and overrun by yuppie douchebags. Presumably those were written by hipster douchebags.  I’m probably a yuppie douchebag myself these days (I do like Brooks Brothers and Spanish footwear), so I’ll fit right in.

AustinStartup and Tech Ranch were two start-up centric groups I encountered. While I’m not in start-up mode, they had some nice articles to read and worth to know they exist. Capital Factory’s Startup Speed Dating is certainly an interesting twist on the speed dating game, an approach I’ve never seen. The goal is to match up business entrepreneurs with tech people in order to help build a solid founding team.

…

In other nerd news, I finally got IPv6 connectivity to my cloud VM in Singapore.  I was warned that there wasn’t a lot of local/regional connectivity, which is exactly what I wanted to see.  Between Singapore and my London VPS, my packets really do go around the world.  Outbound looks like Singapore->SJC->ORD->NYC->LON. Return traffic completes the circumnavigation by going via LON->Singapore.

…

Spring is finally here, March is almost already gone.  When I leave in the morning, it’s nice to see the red buds blooming, wildflowers popping up and the SUN!  It always puts me in a good mood and makes me thankful to live in Texas for a short while before I have to go tackle the mountain of tickets and barrage of phone calls at work.

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Clouds and scene

Mar 18th, 2010 by

Since we’re being dragged kicking and screaming into the great scam that is “cloud computing”, I decided to go try it out sight unseen. I’ve wanted a VPS in Singapore with IPv6 for a while, and somebody pointed out that Voxel has a dual-stack cloud offering in Singapore.  I punched in my info, hit order, and my new VM was up in a few minutes, and the billing clock started running.

After this, it became a learning experience.  What I wasn’t expecting is that I’d still be billed for CPU usage even if my VM was off. (If I had read the FAQ I would’ve known.) I guess there’s two ways to look at “on-demand” computing, one being that you can provision/destroy a VM on demand, or you can use it whenever you want and put it on the shelf. I’m told that Voxel is going to offer a hibernate option soon, which will ease my concern. Even though it’s not a great deal of money, it’s still a new experience (and slightly disconcerting) to look at the service page and see the bill increasing every time. I can’t irc from my VM, which makes me sad that I can’t pop up and say “oh hai from Singapore”.

Also, completely not familiar with service APIs. I wanted to cancel an unused VM, they were all “oh well why don’t you use our desktop app or API?”  How uncivilized of me to involve humans! This further lead me to discover Adobe AIR, which is apparently the new Java Flash. Because Flash is so awesome, let’s make standalone desktop applications made of Flash+HTML+Ajax!

…

I’m looking for the tech social scene in Austin.  Surely we have one.  The SF kids have their tech parties and token coffee shops where people sit around inventing protocols (see: pseudowire).  We’ve enough California people here that they had to imported it.  I’m aware of Dorkbot and the occasional BarCamp. I’ve certainly heard lots of people talking about silicon, memory management and VMware while sitting at Kerbey Lane and Spiderhouse.

Somewhat related, I finally joined Gowalla.  Eric has been bugging me about it for a while, because it was made by a group of Ruby kids in Austin.  For the longest time I didn’t know exactly what it did, I gave up trying to figure it out from the website after 10 seconds.  After joining it and using it a couple of times, I finally realized what it is: virtual geocaching using a smart phone. Go to places with your phone, “check in” and occasionally there’s things to take or leave behind.  Or, there’s tours, to drag you out to a series of interesting places around town.

It’s midnight, I’m 31.

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