Keith's Expositions

29th Birthday -- Ninja Edition

2008-06-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Gen was so awesome wrapping all the presents that my family sent via amazon. And she got me awesome stuff too. She got me Ninja Gaiden II and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures.

Timing

2008-05-23T19:43:00.001-07:00

Looks like now might be a good time to stock up on supplies to deal with jogger's nipple

GTA + Dexter

2008-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

It's a little odd playing GTA IV while watching the first season of Dexter. And not for the obvious psychopath, serial murder connection. No, I've been thinking about how well Liberty City is a reproduction of New York, and all the Miami exterior shots in Dexter are reminding me how well it was replicated in Vice City.

Progress

2008-05-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

Recovering well. I was able to sleep on my side last night. Lots of GTA IV. Ironman was sweet. Sneezing is still upleasant.

I Work With Awesome People

2008-05-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going in for surgery today. I have gall stones and need to have my weak and evil organ removed. Hopefully it will serve as an example to the liver, so that it will continue to service my alcohol processing needs with no complaint. Anyway, I'm going to be stuck at home recovering for a week and I just got a surprise shipment from Amazon of three seasons of TV shows (all of which I've been dying to see) to help keep me from going stir crazy.

You guys are legend- ... wait for it ... -dary.

The Story

2008-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday at lunch, I asked Gen if we had any plans for dinner. Our schedules where clear, so I asked her if I could set up some surprise dinner plans. And she did get a bit of a surprise.

I took her across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands. There's a series of mostly untouched hills just across the bridge, and that was where our second date took place. I took her to an outcropping in the hills above an ocean side cliff, and set up a picnic. I got out some of her favorite snacky-bits and we ate dinner with the Golden Gate to our left and the sun setting to our right.

After we had finished dinner, with the sun just above the horizon I got the ring out of my jacked pocket, got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. I had barely spoken the words, when she answered "yes".

She Said "Yes"!

2008-04-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

Napa Twittering

2008-04-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Andrew arranged another limo trip to Napa this weekend. They're always a lot of fun, getting to hang out with friends old and new. And, of course, the ability to drink wine without worrying about losing designated driver rock-paper-scissors.

And this time I discovered how useful a twitter feed could be for such an occasion. I had the forethought to twitter the locations I visited, so I can have some record for the next time I head up. I'm glad I'm catching up with them kids these days.

Debugging Plumbing

2008-04-12T07:42:00.001-07:00

A short while ago I found myself with a standard home-owner dilemma. A clogged drain. But not just any drain. This was the kitchen sink drain with the insinkerator in it. As I was getting my blue-collar on (in a linguistic idiom from The Todd) I was struck by how nicely a career in programming had prepared me for this sort of problem.

I was essentially dealing with a bug here. And it started off as wonderfully well specified and specific as most bug reports do. "The sink doesn't work". After some quick digging with the user (i.e. the part of my brain that just wanted to empty the damn sink) I got a slightly better bug report. "The sink is slowly draining and I may have tossed some bad data into the system". So now I could investigate.

I did the binary search on the U-joint and the removable piece connecting the insinkerator to the wall. Both of these turned up clean. And here I lost me cool for a second. I started blaming select and went to a bad (and very damp) place for a while filled with frustration.

I ended up running some draining tests now (well once I cooled off a bit). And left the U Joint off and poured a cup of water down the sink and timed both entry and exit to the system. It took 5 seconds to put the cup of water in the sink, and 6 seconds for it to collect on the other side. AHA!. Apparently there's some friction in the insinkerator and that's causing my slow leak. Well no, but there were another few hours wasted on that theory. Eventually I realize that every time there's a huge blockage it drains pretty damn fast through where the u joint was when I take it out and move along with the next theory.

OK. Well now there's only one place left. And it's frustrating to think about because it's in the wall. And that means calling a plumber. So I do nothing for a few days and don't use the sink. Well the problem is kinda in select now and so may as well wait for the next version of the software to come out. Right?

And then I get a nice email from the HOA. It informs me that several tenants have had
had similar problems and that the plumber isolated it to the walls and that it's now better. Woot! I'm glad I waited for the patch. And the email brings to light

a) I throw too much crap down the sink
and
2) I'm not the only one in the building that does it

Well I leave the problem alone now and wait for the next guy to come along. Though I'm pretty sure future-Keith is going to be pretty mad at me. Ah well. It's not like he can do anything about it.

Look what I found today

2008-04-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

99 Words for Boobs

And up until I posted this it was only about four hops away from ginyu.com once you turn the directedness off in the web graph.

We Work Hard, We Play Hard

2007-12-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Given that I haven't done cardio for quite some time, I found my handiest excuse (that being that having my gym near where I work makes it hard to schedule cardio time) and eliminated it. The only way I had to do that was to join a second gym in the city near where I live.

So after some Yelp time I found out that there are two reasonable options inside of a short (1-mile) walk and I picked the one without the reviews of mildew in the locker room. So I'm now a member of Gold's Gym.

The thing is that this gym is in the heart of SoMa. That's bear country. And there are a lot of bears at the gym. Here are the two things I've learned in my last week

Bears need beauty sleep too

I Will Survive is appropriate work out music

Scotch and Apples

2007-11-17T16:45:00.001-08:00

Haven't updated in a while, but here's what I've been up to.

Immigration May Not Cure American Entitlement

2007-10-01T16:37:00.001-07:00

One of my longstanding hopes for fighting the Super-Size me ego-centric American culture that I see around me (and, to be fair, in me) was through immigration. I'm proud of living in a melting pot, and I've always been impressed at the work ethic of people when they've come to the new world. Whether it's the Irish, Italians or Mexicans, it's always seemed like people coming to this country respected and appreciated a hard days work for a fair days wage.

But it seems that these better-land attitudes are lasting fewer and fewer generations. What got me thinking about this was a conversation I overheard while waiting in the midnight line to purchase Halo 3. A working class Mexican who I could tell truly loved his son and wanted to give him the world, was on line with him to give him the video game he wanted (and actually due to its mature rating couldn't purchase on his own).

The thing was as I listened to this conversation I could tell that the father was worried about how his son was turning out. The kid was having a rough time at school (from lack of effort it seemed) and his father was trying to speak to him about the honest-days-work philosophy. Get your life in order first. Then play games when you can afford it. Of course this was totally going over the kid's head as they were speaking across a generational chasm.

I just hope he can make a good burrito for me in 5 years or so. I need the calories for those all night gaming sessions.

Keep Them On Leash

2007-09-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today we have a guest blog post. These are the words of my sister Jaime, though I agree with most of the opinions.

Last night, for the first time in her 1 and 1/2 years of life, I wasn't able to stop Scarlett from getting hurt. She's fine though. But, as I lovingly call her Scar or Scar-Face, she now has the beginnings of her first scars.

As we walked past the park we have gone to everyday of her life since we've been together, she began to sniff the fence. There was a dog on the other side. As we approached the dog started to bark and it's owner informed me "she's not friendly with other dogs." I decided we wouldn't go into the park then; rather we'd stay outside along the fence and walk to a different park. Here's the part where we realize the true stupidity of man-kind.

To this owner, "not friendly with other dogs" meant it was ok to have his dog off-leash in an UN-enclosed park. I'm not kidding folks. He actually had his dog off-leash in an open park.

Scarlett was on-leash when the other dog sprinted out of the park towards us. I tried to block Scarlett from the other dog, but it just threw me out of the way and latched onto Scarlett.

I'm not proud of what I did. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't get the dog off. The other owner wasn't paying attention. I wasn't going to let Scarlett get hurt. I kicked the other dog. Repeatedly. It wouldn't let go of Scarlett.

Finally, the dogs owner realized what was going on (it's a bit late buddy!) and ran over and got his dog off Scarlett. I have never before heard the noises I heard come from Scarlett, and if I ever hear them again it will be too soon. The owner and other dog took off before I could even get their names.

Scarlett turned to run home and I followed, leash in hand during this whole ordeal. Eventually I got her to stop and that's when I saw the blood start to pool through her fur.

Off to the vet we went. She has three pretty large puncture wounds in a line across her shoulders. She's on pain medication and an anti-biotic. Here's a shout-out to Animal Kind Vet Hospital for being there, being open and yelling with me about the audacity of this owner.

She's home now. And I'm at work. I think we both lost at least a year off of our lives last night. At least Scarlett got a shot of some good pain medication!

What the hell people? Off-leash and unfriendly? I've broken many an off-leash rule myself. But that's because I know my dog is friendly. If you're dog isn't friendly, don't let them off leash in an un-enclosed park. Seriously.

And if I ever see this guy again....

Also, on a happier note, click here ( Changing the Political Landscape in the South by Adding Women to the Pipeline ) to see the recent article I wrote in the Atlanta Daybook.

Conversation With Gen

2007-09-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Keith (from loft mezzanine): Hey Babe, I want some credit for how good I just was.
Gen: What did you do?
Keith: I just took a dookie in the shape of a G cleft and didn't make you come look at it.
Gen: ... Damn I kinda wish I saw that ...

Mount Olympus of Pork

2007-08-19T08:21:00.001-07:00

Foodies To Go Into Hock For Costly Spanish Ham

You had me at "Pork"

A Crash of ThunderBolt

2007-08-17T15:29:00.001-07:00

It's not a question of if you go down. It's a question of when.

I've heard that for a while now, and known it on some intellectual level. Now I more fully understand the meaning behind the phrase. Now that my body has spun at 75 mph on the 101.

It began simply enough. I was on my morning commute to work and I noticed a Prius wandering through traffic. Wandering here isn't quite the right word, because the word I want needs a slight connotation of hunting with a hint of pre-shadowing. The words I've got is that the driver was behaving enough like an asshole to trigger my spider sense.

But he wanders his way through traffic and pulls into the lane next to mine (mine being the far left). He then proceeds to wander into my lane. I've seen people like this before. "He probably doesn't see me," I think and start to blare my horn. And I continue to hold it down. And continue some more. After a solid 3 to 5 seconds of him merging at me and me holding the horn down, I realize that perhaps he isn't going to stop before he hits me. This is the point where I veer slightly to the left, and apply the breaks.

This is also the place where my bikes stops being vertical

ThunderBolt goes down on it's left side and slides a while down the freeway. This much I piece together a minute or so later because what I'm doing is way more interesting. I'm spinning along the freeway. My body is perpendicular to the direction of traffic, but spinning in the direction momentum dictates it must continue.

I spin for 50 feet and like 5 rotations before my head bounces off the divider in the middle of the freeway and I do another 5 rotations for another 50 feet. Thankfully this all occurs in the lane I started in.

So I'm lying in the freeway now thinking two things. 1) I just fell off my bike and have a lot of adrenaline running through my system. I might have broken something and not know it yet. And 2) there are cars still working on getting to work themselves. So I try to put a little weight on my legs. They hold. A little more. Still holding. A little more and that's all of my weight. OK. Now let's get to my bike.

As I limb along the divider several drivers ask to make sure I'm alright. I reply that I am (as far as I know) and get up to my bike where a good Samaritan has parked his car just in front of my bike, is lighting a flare, and is on the phone with CHP. This guy is awesome, and tells the police all about the Prius when they arrive.

The CHP officer shows up a minute later and asks if I'm OK and if I can move the bike that's currently in the left lane. When I reply in the positive, he walks out into the traffic, points at cars and goes "You, stop. You, stop ... " and we get off the road.

On the side of the road I get a chance to check myself out. I've got a little road rash on my lefs (I'm so getting the protective pants that go with my jacket now), but no other signs of trauma. Paramedics show up, and help me confirm my initial assessment of my physique, and I let them go on their merry way so I don't have to spend the day in the hospital getting useless tests done.

A tow later, and Mike Markson picks me up and we get to work and go for margaritas for lunch. I've been recovering the last few days (mostly muscle soreness and regrowing skin on my knees) and dealing with shit to get my bike fixed.

Gen's been a real trooper through this. She's even helped me clean the asphalt out of my legs. And of course she reminded me that if I ever let anything happen to myself, she'll kill me.

And I owe Stephen a huge thanks on this one. He helped push me to get the protective jacket, and he kept telling me I should already have the matching pants. Well I'll be getting those when I get my new helmet.

Dijking

2007-08-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

Dijking (sounds like biking but with a 'd') is a game I made up in honor of Dijkstra's shortest distance algorithm. The goal is to use the new-fangled drag-and-drop feature on google maps and try to beat the algorithm in some metric.

Here's my first pass (this is the route from Rich's house to mine).

Google's algo: 25.3 mi – about 36 mins

My Mods: 24.8 mi – about 36 mins

Not a whole lot better, but the "local shortcuts" do seem to be able to beat the default. I also just like saying dijking.

Weird Emails

2007-08-07T21:11:00.001-07:00

I got two odd emails in the last month. The first was from someone who wanted to comment on my picture of the Cherry Darling impersonator telling me that my guess as to the casting call was fairly accurate (and had some appropriate credentials to make be believe his story).

And the other was from the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (the licensed brothel from the HBO America Undercover series) confirming my reservation. As I made no such reservation I investigated and found that it was sent to an email address other than my standard one. Actually, the
address it was sent to was one I didn't even realize delivered to me. So now I have actually sent an email to a prostitute. Though I did it because manners demanded that I inform them of the error.

Wii Enabled

2007-08-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got myself a Wii this weekend. Fry's actually ran out of Zelda: Twilight Princess before Wiis and so their bundle deal was a little weirded out and I got two random games. Gen and I made little Miis on Saturday and played some Wii sports. She totally kicked my ass at bowling.

Now I"m working my way through Resident Evil, and I'm glad I'm unemployed. Gen has a strict no-zombies-while-she's-home rule that was enacted after some problems sleeping while I played Dead Rising. Well at least it's been overcast in San Francisco to help the mood out even if I can't play at night.

Oh and Monkey Ball both kicks ass and totally sucks with the Wii interface. My wrist is totally sore after a long session of playing labyrinth with the wiimote.

The People's Mario

2007-06-30T21:33:00.003-07:00

This is awesome, if a little bloody.

You should marry that woman.

2007-06-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

That's what Rich said when I told him what Gen did for me for my birthday.

She made me a meat cake. By this I mean that she cooked two meatloaves in cake pan shapes. Layered them together with a ketchup/worcestershire sauce. And topped it all with a mashed potato icing. Then on the icing she added a colored icing "Happy Birthday Keith", and put bacon sprinkles around the whole thing.

I am the luckiest guy ever. Thanks Babe. I love you.

Keep those kids out of the tunnels, Frosh!

2007-06-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

4-Year-Old Boy Rescued From Tunnel On Caltech Campus

In-n-outrage

2007-06-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

I was told on Wednesday that I could not get a 5x5. My initial reaction was to tell the register-monkey how to enter it in (it's complicated and I've had to edumacate people in the past). Apparently I made enough of a stink that a manager was sent over. She informed me that they no longer server anything larger than a 4x4 and claimed that it was new corporate police (well 6 months old). I hadn't been to in-n-out in a while and I wanted to indulge in a little gluttony. I was prepared for the treadmill time that it would cost me. But nope. They wouldn't sell me one.

They offered to sell me 2 separate burgers that I could assemble myself, but that's not the same, now is it? Guess I'm done with in-n-out entirely now.

Bacon of the Month

2007-05-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

My friends Rob and Margret are an interesting pair. Both very smart which always makes them fun to hang out with. But she's a vegetarian. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just means that Rob, who does appreciate good animal flesh, doesn't get to eat it as often as he might like. This is why he told me about the Bacon of the Month club. And gently encouraged my joining.

It's pretty much exactly what you would expect. Every month they send out a new and different type of bacon to a bunch of aficionados for their bacon pleasure. And now I am one of those bacon snobs. But the welcome package just arrived and I had to share the goodies that lay within. Especially the little pig snout that Gen saw and quickly needed to try on. (I'm still happy she didn't try to get it on Ishy).

Of course all of life is about balance. And in order to maintain this balance, I've signed up for the Gorilla Run. This has two balancing actions. First off I feel like I'm trading pigs for gorillas (seems like a good trade in my book). While I'm contributing to pig death, I'm also contributing to gorilla life. Second, while I'm going to be taking Rob away from Margret for some Boys&Bacon™ nights, I'll be helping out Margret with her gorilla run.

Now I don't usually do the whole donation thing, but I'm going to make a plea here. Mostly because gorillas are freakin' awesome. We should make sure that these creatures (that had some awesome bigfoot-esque legends about them in the colonial days) are still around. I'm not prideful here. Any donation will do. So please help donate so I'm not left just a fool running in a monkey suit.

Here's my donation link once more

Fucking Cagers

2007-05-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

cager

a popular word among motorcyclists and bicyclists for four wheeled motor vehicle drivers. The term is often used in a derogative sense, because the car body effectively forms a cage, isolating the said driver from having to interact with other road users.

The term was coined by motorcyclists.

Some ignorant cager nearly hit me while I was biking. Idiot obviously wants a U-lock to the face.

It's amazing how learning a new word can change how you view the world. I suppose that shouldn't be surprising given my recent tendencies to view consciousness as nothing more than a language processing program sitting on top of a billion year old OS.

Still some times it surprises me. Just by adding the term "cager" to my working vocabulary (and it wasn't even until today that I finally said it aloud) I've undergone a fairly serious review of my attitude towards the car/bicycle/motorcycle interactions I engage in.

Get your Halo on!

2007-05-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

Helo 3 public beta opened today. There were a few small glitches with the Crackdown beta (I didn't try to do the rule-of-three thing) but I got a game in tonight (came in second while half the time trying to figure out the button remapping and shield stuff).

I'm gonna leave it at one game tonight. Gen's having some Halo flashbacks to a friend's ex, so I need to make sure to show that it won't be a problem for me to put the controller down.

But, once she goes to work tomorrow, Game on!

On Flowers

2007-05-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

Alternatively: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Internet

So there has been a long hiatus on my blogging. There are a variety of reasons on it, but there was one incident that caused about 60% of the lack of blogging, so I'm going to blame everything on that and move forward.

1-800-flowers fucked me on Valentines day and forgot to bring the lube.

I went through a lot of prep to make sure Gen would get some nice flowers delivered to her office on Valentine's Day. I talked with her boss to make sure there wouldn't be any problems (I had fears that flowers in a Doctor's office could be a problem with allergies or such), and I paid extra to ensure Valentine's Delivery. I've studied enough basic supply/demand economics to understand that and not get to irate over it.

But here's the rub. They never showed up. And neither Gen nor I received any notification of any sort that this was going to/was/or had happend AT ANY TIME. Instead Gen's boss kept asking if a package had arrived (it was supposed to be a surprise), and ended up telling Gen about it when she had to go home and all parties where disappointed. And meanwhile I had been calling their support number to no avail to find out WTF was going on.

Gen and I went to a very nice Mexican restaurant called Maya (which I had selected because of her Guatemalan heritage. Speaking of which we should totally go back) And we had a very romantic evening, and things went well. It was two days before I found out what happened to the flowers.

As it turns out a snow storm in New England was "to blame". Somehow their capacity to deliver flowers is so fragile that they some sort of chain-reaction occurred obliterating all of their capabilities. Including phone support. So they were unable to even let anyone know what was going on.

I got all my money back and got the OK to convert it into a present for Gen, so it wasn't a huge loss. And I'm back to blogging now because I've successfully had FTD and Telegraph Flowers (link love for both of you guys) deliver flowers to my mom at home (Mother's Day) and Gen at work (her birthday) .

Didju try reboo?

2007-05-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

I just got this email:

Zack:
I am currently in china now until mid june.
I tried signing on to the timesheet web site thru sera but have no luck clocking in. Is there anyway for keith allas or you to put in the times for me?

Thx

Juman

Apparently all Keith's look alike to asians. And it made me realize two things.

AOL and Juman are still together after all these years. Whoa!

I miss them winamp folk

More on my absence from the blogosphere later. Or not. Who knows?

Ecuador: Over and Out

2007-02-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

And this is the last post for the first summer vacation I've had since I was about 15.

Silly Shots

Nalgas

Ecuador: The Rain Forest

2007-02-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

Given that we found ourselves near the Amazon, Mike and I figured we should visit the rain forest. And, what the hell, we'ld go as cargo. Well this was mostly a bad idea as neither of us are too good with being told what to do by people less educated, and only slightly more knowledgeable in the area. Oh, yeah. There were the other dumbass toursits too.

That's not to say we had a bad time. We saw all manner of bugs, hacked vines, swung Tarzan style, fished for piranas. But that's the rain forest equivalent of Disney land. Next time we go on our own trip and see if we can see some real wild life.

Ecuador: Bullfight

2007-02-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

Mike has been telling me for a while about the glories of the bullfight he saw in Mexico. It was a great battle between worthy adversaries. So when we saw that there was an opportunity to go visit one while in Ecuador we jumped at the opportunity.

The thing is ... well ... the Ecuadorian matadors were pussies. They never gave the bull a chance and the death blow was only after the animal was fully incapacitated. But we got a lot of good pictures, and saw two of the matadors helpers get gored, so it wasn't all bad.

Oh, and we learned that the VIP seats in Ecuador aren't so much about seeing better, as being seen better. I think we were surrounded entirely by Columbian drug lords.

Ecuador: Rafting with Gui

2007-02-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well, looking for things to do around Ecuador we discovered day rafting trips. With Mike and my recent adventures in California and Idaho, we decided that we enjoyed rafting enough to go for a day trip. Of course a day trip means leaving hella early, and so we needed to find coffee at 6 a.m. This is where our troubles started, and where our friendship with the raft guide began.

Given that we where on a schedule and in a hurry, we went to the 24 hour coffee shop to grab some breakfast and caffeine. We impressed upon the staff our need to hurry, and made our order being assured that it would take only a minute or two to complete. This is where manana time screwed us over. 15 minutes later, and they where still trying to figure out how best to boil the water for the tea (don't even get me started on why the coffee house was out of coffee).

So quite agitated, Mike and I start trying to get the bill and to pay for our order in spite of it not having been completed. They apparently where unfamiliar with this concept, and accommodated begrudgingly but tempers had began to rise. And as we where arguing, our guide showed up looking for us and started to aid us in our dispute. He actually argued so strongly that the manager at the coffee house screamed pendajo after him as security wakled us all out.

After that we had bonded quite well with the guide, and Mike and I being the most experienced paddlers in our group grabbed a boat with the trip leader and proceeded to have a helluva good day. Rafting is really sweet when you don't have to do any of the prep work for the meals, and you get a couple of beers at the end.

Mike Buys a Pig

2007-02-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

Now after our first trip to Sasquailli, we had debated on whether or not Mike's spanish was up to the task of getting in on the animal negotiations. This naturally lead us to debating his ability to purchase a pig, and then re-sell it without losing half of his investment. Always up for a challenge Mike went to work the next time we where at the animal marked.

And once he had purchase a cute little pig (for $8) the little bastard would not shut up. But we wandered our way through the market to head off to the guinea pig section. Mike's strategy was to barter the pig through cuy (cuy:guinea pig;beef:cow) becuase he had a repore with the ladies over there and thought that might get him a better deal.

All through the marked, everyone wanted to meet gringo's pig. And of course they wanted to know what he paid for it. Though no one in the vegetable market seemed to know all that well whether we got a good price or not. All of them agreed with Mike that we got ripped off, but no one had the right spirit in their laughter at it.

Anyway, once at the cuy baskets, Mike starts his charming thing, when out of no where a crowd develops, and an old indigenous woman grabs little piggy's balls and decides he's going to be a good breeder. At this point all hell breaks loose as the little old native is trying to wrest the leash from Mike's hand while offering some money. One of the cuy girls starts counter bidding. At the high point, he's offered 5 cuy (and since they cost $2 each that would be a profit), but settles on the cash from the indigenous woman for $8, coming out exactly even on the whole exchange.

Ecuador: Imbabura

2007-02-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Imbabura is near the town of Cotocachi. This is a town renown for its leather-works. And you can get leather jackets etc. very cheap (like $75 for a very nice jacket). You can also get them to custom make anything you want for cost + $10 labor if you have the time.

The mountain itself involve a mile of vertical traversal. While there's nothing technical (it's just a hike), that's a lot of ground to cover, and next time we'll use this as a good warm up. But this one was fun and summited, so I was happy we went.

Ecuador: Otavalo

2007-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

This one was the gringo market. Well, not the one where you buy gringos. I haven't found that one yet, but rather the one where all the gringos go to 'experience a native market'. I actually heard a middle-class texas woman go 'do you fellas have any banana crisps. Y'know like these dried banana things'. And of course she said it in the middle of some of the most amazing fresh fruit I've ever seen.

Thanks 'Fred'

2007-02-07T16:11:00.000-08:00

With the death of my 360, and it's subsequent resurrection in a new body, I've had some issues with re-enabling Jayne's pac-man addiction. Since I technically have new console, and since the games are DRM'ed she's no longer able to play them.

Now in all fairness to 'Fred', he was very helpful getting this issue resolved (or at least moved up the chain), but I couldn't understand his explanation of why I wasn't losing any rights when I overwrite the games on my system with a fresh download on a new account. And I asked for his name, so that I could call back later when I could verify my rights had been lost (John, his supervisor nicely explained how I wasn't losing any rights in a way that I at least bought). When he told me his name was 'Fred' I laughed and told him that if he didn't want to tell me his real name than I couldn't do much about it.

He took me calling him a liar better that I would expect someone honest to take it.

Ecuador: Sasquilli

2007-02-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

Ah, Sasquilli. My first third world animal market. And the birthplace of an interesting bet. Oh, and the 'tortiallas' (basically cornmeal with onion fried in lard) are awesome. You just can't stop at one.

Ecuador: Ambato

2007-02-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

After Cotopaxi, we had to redirect our efforts, as I wasn't going to be going up Chimborazo (the highest point in the world measure in distance from the center of the earth). So we heard about Tunguraua erupting and decided to try to go see it. We got as far as the town of Ambato before we were told we shouldn't go any furhter.

Ambato

We Interrupt our Regularly Scheduled Programming

2007-02-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Maybe Ecuador later today. For now, well I got my xbox back and I played online Halo for the first time yesterday in quite a while and...

I just won my first online ranked match Woot!

Ecuador: Cotopaxi

2007-02-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

And now for Cotopaxi. It's the second highest peak in Ecuador, and by far the prettiest. Summiting means starting on the ice at midnight and reaching the top before sunrise. There are some beautiful sights to see when you're looking at the night sky from above the clouds. I've never seen anything like it. And sunrise up at that height is amazing as well. Unfortunately my training wasn't as hard as I needed to make it, so I petered out before summiting. Well it'll drive me harder for next time.

First up: The Illinizas

2007-01-31T15:02:00.000-08:00

In addition to having the hike up to the hut be one of the hardest days of my life (we took a detour and ended up short-cutting straight up some hillside). I was then bored and sick for a few days at altitude waiting for an appropriate weather window. After 3 days, of crappy weather we said 'Fuck it' and went in light fog. But we summited and had a good time doing so.

Sacraficio del Pina

2007-01-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

As for any good journey, you must make a sacrafice to the gods to ensure health and well-being. We chose a native to help us on our way.

The Time Has Come

2007-01-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

So begins my posting of the Ecuador photos. This set is from Quito, Ecuador's capital. This was the home base from which our adventures sprang. I'll see if I can't start posting more photos as the week progresses.

Ecuador: Quito

A Good Day

2007-01-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday was the Caltech Career Fair. And being as we always need more qualified engineers, I was sent down to go see if I could round up some recruits. The competition was monstrously fierce for the handful of CS grads, though I have a few resume's and some mental scars for the effort.

On the other hand, I also got to hang out with some Ricketts alums I haven't seen in a while. Disco made a cameo, and Shay, Sekanina and I went to go get some drinks at Lucky Baldwins. It reminded me that it's been a long time since I've done anything crazy. At least in a Mech. E. sort of way. Maybe I need to find some scaffolding...

It's not you, Condo. It's me.

2007-01-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

Breaking up is hard to do. But sometimes it's gotta be done and it's for the best. Whether it's because of fundamental differences of opinion or a lawsuit, sometimes you just gotta push the eject button.

So after talking with a Real Estate lawyer I rescinded my offer for the condo in the outer mission, and while I'm not exactly back to square one (I learned a lot in this process), I do start having to hit the real estate bars again (by which I of course mean open houses) and try to jump back on the horse.

What's the Real-Estate equivalent of a one-night stand? Do I need a rebound flip here?

Why is there a pillow in my underwear?

2007-01-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

Jayne is a violent sleeper. I'm not waking up with bruises or anything (I trust in my physical fortitude for protection here), but once unconscious she's merciless about bed space and cover allotments. Even so I was surprised Saturday night when, in a haze of semi-consciousness, I had her small black pillow slammed into my face. And actually after that it was set up as a barrier that I had no intention of crossing. A shiner from a pillow just doesn't scream 'manly'.

And when I brought this up with her last night (after she apologized for her unconscious unintentional acts), she proceeded to stuff the pillow in my underwear. Well that pillow's lost bed privileges for a while (by which I mean I jettisoned it from our upper level loft. It made a very satisfying foop)

My Rock

2007-01-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me I've been pretty down on this blog of late. While it's pretty much because the last week was a special case of craptacularity, I did want to make one thing clear.

Life didn't suck.

As a matter of fact, each and every day last week I had a smile on my face as I drove home, because I was going to see Jayne again. She is such a wonderful force to have in my life, and I'm so glad that she's here. I love that no matter how messed up my day went, when I come home I can't help but smile. She makes me happy just to be near her.

So yeah, a whole bunch of shit sucked last week. Sucked donkey dong as a matter of fact. All-in-all though I'm doing pretty well. And the reason that I blogged the way I did was ... well ... I only really blog when I'm home alone. So it was the lull times when she wasn't around to keep me sane.

On an unrelated note, I did end up giving her whatever bug was keeping my unwell last week. (I know, it really is a crappy way to thank her). Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure she's warm and test my theory that no cold can stand up to large enough quantities of chicken soup.

A Bad Day

2007-01-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday sucked.

I was still sick from this weekend

I was in the middle of doing penence for dental laziness

My Xbox 360 bricked (red ring of death)

I found out that the people with whom I an in escrow over a condo just go served litigation

And just as Jayne got home and things started to get better, I got a call from my boss that the site wasn't updating

I really hope I handled the interview I did yesterday afternoon professionally.

This may have to be one of the hottest things I've seen in a long time...

2007-01-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Found on Babes with Books

I've been tagged

2006-12-30T22:57:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, someone actually reads my blog. I'm not a big fan of blog-tag memes. They strike me as the Web 2.0 version of chain letter emails. I suppose I understand their existence. What with the biggest gripe bloggers have seems to be that they just run out of stuff to write about.

That being said, I'm touched to be tagged (and if only I could construct the pun that's dying to be made in there), so I'll try to give you 5 things that no one knows about me. Oh, and they're gonna get dark since I have a tendency to share the happy stuff, so stop reading before you learn more than you want to.

It was I who stepped in the tar
When I was about 12, grandma Peters had some work done on the door to enter her house which resulted in tar (I think it was a highly viscous black substance) being placed at the base. We were warned not to step in it. I did it anyway, and had a good laugh with my aunt (who had a similar emotional maturity) looking at my foot covered in black gook and yelling back to my grandmother that I didn't know whose footprint it was.

I play up my OCD
While I do have a light case of OCD (just enough to make me prefer symmetry a little too much), I have a tendency to play up its effects. I haven't yet sorted out why I do it, but I think that it comes from people getting a kick out of it, and sharing that they feel the same way about the stacks of weights at the gym.

I prefer 2-3 close friends to a dozen good ones
I've always been the person to prefer having a few close friends with whom I share everything and can go to about/for anything than a larger set of people with whom I'm friendly and can count on, but not feel comfortable doing so. I actually use the set of close friends more than anything else in defining eras of my life (even more than job/school delineations)

I don't like hanging out with Andrews SF Friends
I don't know if it's the social introductions are odd when I go to hang out with people that Andrew knows really well and I know practically no one. Or if it's that I just don't like meeting people. Or if it's just that I've been spoiled by geeks and scientists for so long. Though I also think that a part of it is that I'll never be that typical 20-something.

I'm afraid of the other Keith
About half the time when I look in the mirror I see the other Keith looking out. This other Keith is the person that I thought I left behind in 2003 when the current one escaped. He had only brief purviews before then (like in Baja in 2002), but I feel like he's being forced back in again already. I find myself playing video games and watching TV at the expense of outdoors/gym/cycling/climbing time.
And the goatee doesn't help. It's loss was a symbol of the transition, in addition to being a reminder of an unfortunate evening which taught me (if nothing else) to grow a pair of balls.

If you're still with me, well shame on you for being so nosy. I'm supposed to hand this off to some people to write they're own versions, but I refuse to forward chain letters. That, and this catharsis is the wrong way to pass the torch, so I'm just gonna terminate this branch here.

That's Brisk Baby

2006-12-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I've gotten my bike tuned up now, and today was the first sunny day in like a week, so I figured it was time to take Thunderbolt out for a ride to work today. Unfortunately it's like 50 degrees out.

Though since Jayne's out of town until late tomorrow, perhaps the cold air to the crotch is a good thing.

Golden Gate Cycles

2006-12-12T19:04:00.000-08:00

I want to give a shout out to the nice folks at the Golden Gate Cycles service department. They were so much easier to deal with than the folks ad Redwood City Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki (or whatever). And it's not exactly the service department. I have no problem with either (though the GGC staff was very friendly, and helpful; fully helping me out) But the big thing that blew me away was the proptness of service. I had been putting off getting my bike (a ZR-7S) serviced (it justed needed some routine 6k miles work) because of the hassle I had where I had to set up an appointment 2 weeks in advance. I can't make plans 8 hours in advance, how was I supposed to remember after a fortnight to take my bike in. This time, I fully took advantage of the "In by 10 out by 6 policy". Thanks guys.

Topix has Balls

2006-12-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

Seasons Greetings from California

Well it's Christmas time at Topix again, and we've been a little saner around the office this year. We've gotten ahold of several christmas balls to hang on the tree (and some bottle opener schwag to help fill in the gaps). And since discovering that the University of Tennessee Volunteers colors are the same as ours, we've been thinking about ways to acquire what looks a lot like special made items for topix.net.

And while Bryn was in Tennessee recently he saw some fancy-schmancy chirstmas balls for our tree. So now we have a very professional looking tree.

This is probably much better than when I crawled up on some tabes to put the snow globe up into the sunlight. I wasn't really risking a workman's comp problem there. And in all fairness I like the tree better this way.

A Tribute to a Hero

2006-12-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

James Kim -- family man, gadget fan

Ordinarily I make it a point to not click on anything that looks like an ad, and I don't like watching videos on news sites (for some reason YouTube on blogs are OK, though) but Newsasaurus wrote a whole segment on it. It is a touching tribute and Im glad I watched it.

Breeding Permits

2006-11-28T15:30:00.000-08:00

OK, that's it. Breeding is no longer a right, it's a privilege. We need breeding permits and forced sterilizations.
Mother Charged, Could Have Put Baby in Microwave

Bad Flickr User. No Cookie For You

2006-11-22T19:16:00.000-08:00

I've been bad about uploading photos to flickr. I've been taking them, I just haven't been uploading. So here are some sets of things that happened in the last few months.

No, I haven't gotten to the Ecuador pictures yet. I'm going to need to be waiting for Jayne to come home for longer than 3 hours to get to those.

Apple Picking	Ishy's 3rd Birthday
Scotchtoberfest '06

Unusual Gaming Techniques

2006-11-22T17:20:00.000-08:00

I got an Xbox live vision camera when they came out. It was like $40 and I could get it with a year of Xbox live and rationalize as a combined purchase two things I had been on the fence about individually. Plus I figured it would come with eye-toy style games.

Well I didn't know about any, so other than being able to personalize my gamer picture (which only friends can see, and since I don't know anybody's live handle thats moot) and being able to see a wavy picture of myself on the desktop, the only thing I've gotten from it is a Hal-9000-esque green glowy light on the top of my TV.

Then I discovered TotemBall in some topix research (at least that's what I'm calling the time I spent reading xbox blogs at work, and adding one or two to the crawl) which is a free Xbox live download that is supposed to be all eye-toy style. And I suppose it kinda is, though my arms never needed a break when I played a Sony game.

And after 10 or 15 minutes of shoulder frustration (mostly reminding me I really need to get my ass back to the gym) I gave up and let Jayne play. And she wandered into Pinball mode and got very frustrated. So I wanted to cheer her up a little, so proceeded to play the game by shaking my ass back and forth.

Yes. I shook my booty for gaming.

Anyway I got a chuckle, cheered her up a little, and as it turns out I play better that way too.

Are Bloggers Cat People or Dog People?

2006-10-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Y'know, my first thought here was that they would be cat people. I tend to read a lot about random lonely people blogging with their cats on their keyboard. But like a good little scientist I did some reasearch.

Topix Blog Search for "my cat": 1,700

Topix Blog Search for "my dog": 2,700

Google Blog Search for "my cat": 390,254

Google Blog Search for "my dog": 580,946

Looks like theres about twiuce as much literature out there on people's dogs as there is on people's cats.

A Little Short on Wisdom

2006-10-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Teeth, I mean. I had all four of my "third molars" removed yesterday and it was an interresting experience. I haven't been on general anesthesia in quite a while, and never while I had my teeth worked on. It was certainly amusing to be conscious while they hooked up the EEG and started the nitrous. Then as I started to fall under its affects, I kept asking science, technology, technique questions to relax myself (I think that might have been a little odd).

All in all though it was a pretty easy procedure, and Andrew came and picked me up hopped up on laughing gas and whatever else they gave me, and I'm certainly glad I didn't try to walk home myself as I was quite "out of it", but not in any way I had previously experience. Though I think I may understand the dentist from Little Shop of Horrors a little better now.

But Jayne came home and help me through the evening, and even though she's going through some rough stuff at work now was very helpful and caring. I don't know what I would do without her.

And to top it all off the oral surgeon himself called me at 10:30 in the evening to check up on me and make sure everything was going well. He seems to have done a good job, and even kicked my ass a little because I was trying to go light on the vicoden I'm really a big fan of the dentist and oral surgeon I've got now in San Francisco, so I think it's probably a good thing I needed that emergency care last week.

Wisest thing I've heard in a while

2006-10-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well maybe not wisest, but definetely the statement which has most fundamentally challenged my assumptions in a while.

"Oh, you're from the east coast. No wonder you have guilt"

Debuging Democracy

2006-10-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is a little geeky (OK very), but the C code is exactly what the problem with our current policy on terrorists.

27B Stroke 6

I'm Sick and Tired of these M'F'kin' snakes in this M'F'kin' house

2006-09-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Idaho couple's home infested with snakes

Big Balls

2006-09-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well Jayne and I visited the vet this morning. Mostly because when Jayne got home last night she looked at Ishy's balls and they were huge and bloated. I was tempted to take a picture and post it to share the horror (and male discomfort), but my better half has earned that handle today.

Turns out it's a side effect of his getting snipped as an older dog. He's got lots of energy (which I take as a good sign), and the vet thinks that might have effected it, so he's got a Rx for bed rest (and I do mean an Rx. Pills and everything).

So Jayne and my weekend plans to go around San Francisco are shot now. It's not fair to leave him alone like this when work doesn't require it, and any walking to the Love Parade, or the Fulsome Street Fair would just make the swelling worse.

And I must admit, I'm a little afraid to bring a dog with swollen balls to the Folsom Street fair.

Soy un Pendajo

2006-09-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

So I went rafting last weekend, and I did something stupid. Well at least one thing, though it looks more like two.

There was a place along the river known as jumping rock. It's a great place for the squinks because they get to jump into a large pool on the river from 20 feet up in pretty safe conditions. But for most of them, jumping 20 feet into water is something they have never even thought about. It's fun to see them work through their feers.

Anyway, there's a little bit of a climbing hop up and someone needs to spot the kids as they go. The guide who was set up for it in the first place was pretty young and wanted to make multiple jumps himself, so I offered to spot the kids so he could jump. This meant I jumped second to last (because P-Wood was spotting from above, and I from below).

So in order to make sure we went out with a bang P-Wood and I set up a fun little thing to do where I pretend to slip, yell "Oh shit", and he jumps in after me. OK, maybe P-Wood and I shouldn't collaborate on stuff as we're both kinda lacking in reasons and good sense. Anyway, the good news is he landed a full 8 inches away from me in the water. The bad news is I landed upside-down.

When I got out of the water (after receiving some glares from the guides for being a bad example) my eye felt like it was starting to swell, and I prepared myself for an upcoming black eye. So I wasn't too surprised when it started to swell Wednesday night.

Though it swelled oddly and looked kinda infected. I held fast to my black-eye theory until I got a look at my leg in the shower last night. I don't think it's a black eye. I think I somehow managed to get poison oak on my lower eye lid.

Told you I was a dumbass.

Keith Roundup

2006-09-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Some quickies...

I got Ishy checked out today, at the vet's and set up an appointment for his neutering. Without thinking I set it for next Wednesday. As I think about it that's 9/20 or his birthday. Happy Birthday Ishy :).

Matt's in S.F. for a few days doing MIT recruiting stuff. We went out and got a beer and caught up. He's engaged. Congratulations.

I've been taking Thunderbolt into work regularly. I'm getting really good at getting it into and out of the edge of my parking space with cars on either side. It's all about the near horizontal lean turn. Certainly a good exercise for my recently under utilized pull muscles.

Oh, and a brain teaser. Does anyone know what part of speach the word 'what' is in it's usage in the following sentence: I wonder what George's life would be like if he had gone to college.

Ishy was fired

2006-08-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

I try to wear my heart on my sleeve here, and since this is a highly emotional day, it wouldn't be fair not to talk about it.

Ishy has an aggression problem. He will snap and bark at people and dogs for no good reason. It may be getting worse, I'm not sure. And it's entirely my fault has his caretaker. I think I may have indulged it a little too much since he would bark at the really scary people that live on the streets near my home, and would protect Jayne.

Unfortunately, he did this for a second time at work yesterday (and at a high powered recruiter no less). So he was fired.

Now I have to figure out what to do. While I do get a whole helluva lot more work done from home, and haven't really been loving the 40 minutes of driving each way (sans traffic), there's a lot that I get from spending the day with them peninsula folks. I almost went crazy that week I worked from home (and I would have if not for Jayne. I'm so glad she's there to comfort me and make me sane).

So now I need to figure out what the fuck comes next.

Xbox live works

2006-08-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

With Jayne sewing away for burning man I found myself with many free hours this weekend. So to pass the time I picked up a 360. 3 days later and many hairs fewer I've beaten my firewall into submission enough to let me play on xbox live.

Here's my gamer tag.

frameBorder="0" height="140" width="204">monkeynova

Thank you Lexi

2006-08-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

There's a blessing and a curse in being best friends with a googler. Especially one that works on blogger. Sometimes your blog gets used for internal debugging purposes. Apparently when she was asked for a regularly updated blog that doesn't do picture uploading or use a bunch of the other blog features she thought of me. And then they broke my login for a few weeks.

Ah well. It's fixed now, and I can start the Ecuador tales.

Thank you Lexi.

I'm outta here

2006-07-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

Fast posting, but I'm excited. I'm leaving for a month in South America in a little over 12 hours from now. Whee.

Lombard Street smells of burning tires...

2006-07-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

Jayne's mom was visiting SF and I finally did a bunch of touristy stuff I'ld been meaning to. Ride a trolley. Visit lombard street. (I still have to go to Alcatraz, but there's lots more relatives).

Anyway there are pictures on Flickr

Today in the blogosphere

2006-06-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

Whilst debugging search terms like 'cat', Bryn and I came upon this:

Hitler Cats

My little sister got married

2006-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Pictures

Official (1)

Cherie ( Flickr)

Alissa (Shutterfly)

Maybe my little crack corner isn't so bad...

2006-06-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, it's a Law & Order episode.

Dismembered Body Found In Trash Bags In Brooklyn

I don't feel quite as bad about where I live any more.

Now that's a 1:1000000 shot

2006-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Lightning Strike Kills Colo. Motorcyclist

No wait. THIS is the geekiest thing I've seen in a while

2006-06-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Prime Shooter

Charmed is a little girly

2006-06-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what clued me in...perhaps it was the 3 girls talking non-stop about guys, maybe it was the male stripper. It probably wasn't the best of ideas to watch a season while on the exercise bike in the gym. Hmmm.

There's this Taco Truck

2006-06-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

I went to it while I was working for Nullsoft, and I have a romanticized view of their Al Pastor burritos. Actually that taco truck is what inspired me to use Al Pastor burritos as an ad-hoc metric for taquerias. (Which I stil stand by. Good Al Pastore <=> Good Taqueria). But this truck inspired the metric because they pegged the needle.

Now I must admit, it's been a few years, and those burritos where early in my mexican food adventures, so my memory might not be what it aught to be here. And I've been to some taco trucks since and none of them have held a candle to the one near Nullsoft's corporate headquarters, so I began to doubt.

But I've been working from home this week to get some massive coding done sans distraction, and I thought I would go for a long walk in the great weather we've been having, and see whether or not my little taco truck still had what I remembered.

Oh, boy, howdy it does.

I just wish other places where close to that good. Oh, and the one I'm talking about is the truck at Harrison and about 20th (it's pretty much across the street from Mission Cliffs) if you want to try some for yourself.

Damn You Past Keith!

2006-05-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

And damn you Fry's too. They put Civilization IV on sale this weekend, and so I had no choice but to pick it up And I've been playing way too much. I had completely forgotten how addicting the game is.

And Past Keith had an idea about how to save his relationship from Civ's impending forces. He installed the game on the computer upstairs which forces Present Keith to stand up to play. As it turns out, standing erect for hours on end, barefoot, and on hardwood floors, starts to hurt. My poor heels.

On the other hand I've taken care of Julias Ceasar, and have almost erradicated Catherine the Great.

Trivia Night at The Chieftan

2006-05-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Chieftan is a great neighborhood pub a block from my house, and they have trivia nights on Tuesdays. Jayne and I have been meaning to go for a while to have some fun a kick some ass, so we invited the Basteels along to help us out. It's been a while since I've participated in anything that really resembles a competition, and it was good to stretch the ego and fear a bit.

That being said, with Jayne's entertainment and sports knowledge to fill in the CIT gaps, we kicked a little ass and beat the architects.

Bribing the judge with cheesecake probably helped too.

The 280 Really Moves

2006-05-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Jayne was nice enough to care for Ishy today, so I got to take Thunderbolt in to work. And since it's such a lovely day, I thought I'ld take 280 down to Palo Alto (Man is it great to live in California). Whoa boy though. I was doing 90, and passed a cop at a speed trap who didn't pull me over because I was barely keeping up with traffic. That was fun.

Captchas

2006-05-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've been uploading my existing blog here (all backdated nicely), put blogger keeps wanting me to solve a captcha. Can't I convinvce someone I'll be good as soon as I'm up to date?

New blog...

2006-05-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

We'll see how it works.

That is the geekiest damn thing I've seen in a long time...

2006-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

T Shirt

Wow, they really were gun shots last night...

2006-04-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

S.F. police find man shot to death inside SUV

I walked across 1% of the continental U.S. yesterday

2006-04-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

This week, Mike and I were discussing weekend plans, and we hit upon the idea of trying to complete the Slyline to the Sea trail. Given that when I took his joke seriously, he couldn't back out without seeming the puss, we decided to go for the hike.

This involved starting on Skyline Boulevard, just south of Palo Alto, and wandering through the redwood forests through Big Basin and on to Waddel beach near Santa Cruz. We hauled some monstrous ass, and made it through the 30 mile hike (1% of the U.S. cross coast distance) in under 10 hours (including an hour for lunch).

It was a good time, and a lot of fun, and did it's job well for taking me up to the next level of preparations for the strenuous activities awaiting me in Ecuador this summer.

I just wrote the two largest checks I've ever written

2006-04-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Damn you IRS! Actually I find myself strangely attracted to George W. Bush right now. Damn you tax breaks for making me see a silver lining in this hopeless cause of a president.

But as my dad always says, "they wouldn't make you pay it, if you couldn't afford it." A little optimistic, but it makes me happier.

I am All Growed Up

2006-03-31T12:32:00.000-08:00

I went to Banana Republic today and bought myself a suit for Tolles' wedding tommorow, and learned a couple of things (or at least re-inforced a couple of old lessons)

It's good to have a female eye to help with clothes shopping
Suits can be quite expensive
Suits make you look good

I'll try to have pictures from the wedding. If I can remember to charge my camera.

I'm So Honored

2006-03-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

I got a random call from a private number this morning while walking Ishy. This is usually a bad sign (I think I've unfortunately started to develop the opinion that if you're hiding something it's for a reason). But it didn't matter because the call came while I happened to be searching desperately for somewhere to place my morning coffee so I could get a baggie out, and was in no condition to answer the phone. They left voice mail (which is also usually a bad sign), and I forgot about it for an hour or so.

When I got around to checking it, I was stunned. Apparently my dog walker had used me as a referrence and someone was calling to check up on her. As I thought about it, it made a great deal of sense (I'm actually willing to do some interresting scheduling to get Ishy to Redwood City, now that I'm in San Francisco) and I felt very honored.

On the other hand, I was going to call her about watching Ishy this weekend, and it looks like she might be booked now. This will probably complicate matters significantly.

That worked better than the Sudafed

2006-03-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

I finally got a chance to take Jayne to Blowfish for sushi last night. And when I say got a chance, I mean Jayne dragged me out saying she wanted sushi, we took a wrong turn and ended up driving in front of the big sign with an animated blowfish. I also, of course, mean that I had wanted to take her to Blowfish since moving up to the city but have been too lazy to do so. I love that she makes me get off my ass and live a little. I don't know what I'ld do without here.

She seemed to enjoy the experience, and the ambiance. I don't think hentai was what she meant (or was expecting) when she suggested sushi, but she had a good time. And there was one bite I took from a Magiro Nigiri that had a little extra wasabi. That cleared my sinuses a hell of a lot better than the Sudafed I had taken earlier in the day. Pfffew.

And dinner tomorrow is steak at Morten's. It's good to live in the city.

Birdies

2006-02-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

Mike is teaching an electronics arts class this semester, and is about to start teaching the squinks how to solder. So he figured maybe he should learn himself, before he provides instruction. He picked up some of the basics, and wanted to know if I wanted to solder a phone together with him for practice. Of course I said yes, 'cause everyone knows how much fun soldering is.

This gave me a chance to bring Ishy down to Foster City and let him play in the pond at Mikes house. And oh boy did Ishy have a good time. He got to chase ducks and go swimming. I could see the innate Springer breeding in him that loved the experience.

Actually I just let him to his own devices while Mike and I soldered. At one point I realized it had been over 20 minutes since I had seen him, and I started to get worried. I whistled for him, and started calling. He didn't show up. Mike started calling him. He still didn't show. We looked around the banks and there was no sign of him.

Well this was bad. I really didn't want to have to go pick him up from doggie jail and get reprimanded because he didn't have a collar on at the time. But since it's a pond, he probably was staying close to the shore and not getting into too much trouble. We decided to put in some kayaks and go paddling for him.

So we dropped the kayaks in the water and found paddles and got ready to go after him. This was a good 5 to 10 minute process. Ishy waited until I had started walking out into the water and getting ready to enter the boat before he showed back up.

Silly puppy.

Pink

2006-02-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of girls wearing pink in downtown San Francisco this morning while I took Ishy for a walk. Is there something special about February 14th that I'm forgetting?

City Living

2006-02-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

This was going to be a real post, but my blogging software doesn't let me reorder posts so I'm just gonna say life is good living in a concrete jungle.

Asshole and cellphones

2006-02-11T17:56:00.000-08:00

On the way back from a bike ride in Palo Alto today (and a requisite, too-expensive, Fry's trip) I was on the phone with my parents. Now, a lot is said about drivers on cell phones. Enough that some states have actually outlawed the practives. So you'ld figure if I had a bit of a freeway altercation, I should be the one to blame. That's not the case however. It was the guy with both eyes and ears on the road that tried to drive me off. Go figure.

Happiness is like peeing your pants...

2006-02-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth. -Jaime

Well I haven't posted much recently. I've been pretty busy. But I find myself with some time alone this evening and thought I might finaly get around to writing this post.

Blogosphere meet Jayne. Jayne meet the blogosphere. (Oh wait, you've met already). Jayne isn't her real name, but since it irks Andrew in just the right way, that's the way in which she will be referrenced here. Jayne and I had been just friends for a while. At schotchtoberfest, that got kicked up a notch.

And the last few months have been amazing. She's someone I can't get enough of, regardless of how much time we spend together. There have been few people in my life that fall into that camp. She's beautiful. And funny. And smart. And a joy to be around. And someone around whom I am comfortable being myself. And someone who makes me want to better myself, and who helps fill in the places where I'm not so good.

I can't get into all of the fun things we've done over the last few months (I didn't have time to write about it then, I'm not going to find it now), but let me tell you about one time that was particularly special. New Years Eve.

I hadn't really made any plans, and it was a few days before the New Year. Well we knew we were going to Andrew and Lexi's "prime your liver" party, but I really had no idea what to do for midnight. Jayne helped out by getting 10:30 reservations to the Acme Chophouse. This is a steakhouse at Pac Bell park. So we had a very late (and drunk) dinner of slabs of meat, and afterwards walked across the little offset of the bay that kayakers use to snag Barry Bonds' homers to a little park with a view of the Bay Bridge. There we waited patiently for midnight, and as soon as the fireworks started over the bridge, kissed pationately to start the New Year right.

Bending the On Leash Rules

2006-01-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

O.K. I haven't posted in a while, and I have a backlog of happy stuff to write about, but I need some venting now.

I took Ishy out for a walk this morning and headed off to a new park for him to check out. It appears to be a common dog hang out and looks like that it will occasionally stock doggie clean up bags, so I may try to go back. Providing this mornings experience burns off.

Now, I'm a fan of bending the on-leash rules every once in a while. It's good to let your dog wander off a bit, and it's not always easy to get to somewhere where he can roam freely and legally off leash. That being said, like any law, when you break it you damn well better accept the consequences, and try to make sure that the silly things that cause the law to be in place don't happen, or the man might just take away your on-leash privileges too.

Ishy can be a bit playful and friendly. So I tend not to take him off leash too often and I'm always close at hand. And I violate my own rule that the dog damn well better be under strict voice control if he's off leash. However this morning at the park, two large (90 lb.) dogs paired up and ran at him growling, barking, and biting.

I was very proud of Ishy here. He didn't shy away, but he didn't go overly vicious. He did enough to keep himself self while I tried to keep myself between the dogs and him.

Now here's the part that pisses me off. The dogs' owners were jogging at a comfortable trot while this was happening. Excuse me. This isn't time for a fucking stroll. Your out of control, illegally off-leash dogs are attacking mine, and the only reason I wasn't personally kicking their asses was I might want to come back to this park. You get your ass in gear and sprint to take care of this.

And when they finally do get close enough to start to muzzle their dogs, I hear nary an apology.

Maybe I don't need to go back to that park if there's such assholes there.

Keith Doll

2006-01-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

Home

2005-12-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

I got back to New York yesterday to spend Christmas with the family. It's so good to see loved ones again, especially those I haven't seen for a while. (Though it's definetly good to see Cherie too, and I got to spend time with her only a month ago). But this is my first time coming back to New York since my parents moved out of Hampton Bays, and that means that while I'm as home as I will forever will be with my family around me, Home proper can no longer be in New York.

There's definetly been a lot of slippage of that term even from the very beginning of college. My parents had moved across town about a week before I started at Caltech, so that house was always a little foreign. And shortly after I graduated, they moved across town again. But the thing was, that I could always take my jet lagged ass out for a walk at 2a.m. and wax nostalgic for my high school days. (It's amazing how you can romanticise anything with enough time between when it happened and when you remember it).

Now I'm in a weird town. I vauguely know where I am on The Island, but to be honest, all I really know about Shirley is that their mathletes team sucked 10 years ago, and that there's a Dunken Donuts right off the freeway interchange (Sorry highway. I'm in New York) that was on one possible route to Brookhaven National Lab.

So I'm in a house with my parents furniture and stylings. It will always have a place in my heart that is connected to my childhood. But it's an oasis of love in a desert of suburbia I don't really care about any more.

And what really brings this to mind, and makes me ponder these thoughts, is that my little place in San Carlos has felt more like home through this past December than ever before. I'll get into it in another post (I think I hear Santa knocking on the chimney now, so I'll need to feign some sleep soon), but the short version is, I'm happy.

Making Chirstmas. Making Christmas. Fah-la-laaaa...

2005-12-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

Last week was a blur at work, We're doing a big push to get some changes out (hopefully) next week. Last week was put all the code into place, and this week is bugfixes and sitting back and going "Hmmmn. Is that right/best?" So we've got a little stored up energy and some time to do something with it.

What this means is that crazy ideas get floated around. We have a 4 foot inflatable snow globe that Tom brought in to spread Christmas cheer. As it turns out, it has some attachments at the top to make it suspendable. So Joy and Sawka asked me if I thought I could raise it up into the roof alcove over the newly aquired tree. And this is where you learn the lesson: "Never challenge a Techer to do something you don't want to see done."

After quickly running through a number of bad ideas (one involved re-tarring the roof), I decided on a not-entirely-bad idea of lasso-ing the fire sprinkler pipe that was up there. This did have the failure case of a very soggy Christmas tree (and hero for our story), but the pipe looked strong, the snow globe is pretty light, and I didn't expect to be able to lasso it anyway.

Well after standing on a table on a table, I was actually able to toss a phone cable over the pipe and hook it into place. We attached the glob and raised it up (with Christmas lights attached). It only took about a half hour from challenge to completion, and then we decorated the tree while we were at it.

Farewell Fair Cat

2005-12-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

C.M. hasn't really been happy around Ishy. He never got the courage up to swipe Ishy across the nose with his claws, and so Ishy never learned that C.M. wasn't a plaything to be chase around. This meant that C.M. spent a lot of time outdoors after Ishy arrived.

While Lexi and Andrew lived upstairs, this worked out well for him. He would wander into their apartment and be loved in peace. They actually started to develop a large attachment to each other to the point where C.M. might have some keystrokes in the google code base, freakazoid style.

But the Basteels wandered north to San Francisco a month ago, and so C.M. had relegated himself to the laundry room in the back. He was getting by, and while I tried to make sure to give him some love every time I refilled his bowl, he wasn't getting the attention he deserved. And as it turns out, Lexi and Andrew missed him terribly as well.

So, yesterday when Andrew stopped off to pick up the junk mail that had been accumulating for them, he snagged C.M. as well. I know this is for the best and I know that all parties involved will be happier for this, but I'm going to miss him. He was my first pet and he has the same birthday I do. Godspeed, and enjoy the big city C.M.