Life on the slopes

I’m struggling to cope with the fact that I live within day trip distance of 4 ski resorts.  La vie est dure, n’est-ce pas?  This weekend, I made it to the openings of Crystal Mountain and Mt. Baker.  Until this weekend, there hadn’t been much accumulation, but following a dumping of over 2 feet Friday and Saturday, these two were ready to open.  Sort of.  The powder was fantastic, especially at Baker, but at both places there was the constant surprise of bottoming out on rocks or stumps hidden under the powder.

Both places were phenomenally beautiful.  OK, at Crystal there was visibility of about 20 ft for most of the day, so I don’t actually know for certain that it’s beautiful, but it’s right next to Mt. Rainier so I’m really excited to go back on a clear day.  I also preferred the runs that were open at Crystal and the overall organization – high speed lifts and fewer traverses meant more time skiing.  Also 2 hours less of total driving (Crystal is 2 hours away and Baker is 3) make Crystal a more desirable destination to return to.  The main advantage Baker has is better snow – it’s a lot drier than Crystal which makes the snow lighter and fluffier.

I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble avoiding staying happy through Seattle’s dark and rainy winter.

Victory...for the most part

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After 143 years, a person of color will finally have the privilege of exercising his 14th amendment privilege to hold the highest office in the land. Enough articles have been written by more eloquent journalists than myself about the significance of this election; I think the Onion describes it best in its article, "Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress":

"The election of our first African-American president truly shows how far we've come as a nation," said NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. "Just eight years ago, this moment would have been unthinkable. But finally we, as a country, have joined together, realized we've reached rock bottom, and for the first time voted for a candidate based on his policies rather than the color of his skin."

This is a huge step forward in electoral politics, that people are able to see the promise in a candidate beyond the color of his (or her) skin. It was also really fun celebrating with an estimated 4,000 of my closest friends in the streets of Seattle.

What this election has also made clear is that while a majority of our country is able to see beyond the color of an individual's skin, progress is still needed when it comes to groups of people. On the same day as Obama's election, a number of discriminatory referenda were passed around the country. We've all heard about the varying degrees of anti-gay legislation that passed, but you might not have heard that Floridian's manage to screw up in a big way, as usual. I don't mean to discriminate against Floridians, but it would be really nice if they could make it through a single election cycle without totally screwing up.

The New York Times, at the very bottom of their article on gay marriage, tells us of a fairly disturbing part of the Florida constitution that voters narrowly voted to uphold:

Among the more unusual measures on this year’s ballots was one in Florida that would repeal an old clause in the state constitution that allows legislators to bar Asian immigrants from owning land. The repeal would be symbolic, as equal protection laws would prevent lawmakers from applying the ban. With 78 percent of precincts reporting just before 11 p.m. Tuesday, the vote was close, with 52 percent voting to preserve the clause.

WTF??? 52 percent of Floridians think Asian immigrants shouldn't be allowed to own land? Turns out, on further investigation, Florida was probably just too stupid to understand what this clause meant; because it calls Asian immigrants "aliens ineligible for citizenship," (AP) most voters probably thought they were discriminating against illegal immigrants, who we all love to hate. This comes full circle to my original point in "Who's afraid of direct democracy"; voters are too stupid to make decisions on their own and should let the stupid and corrupt politicians they elected do their jobs. Representative democracy was specifically designed by our founding fathers to prevent an angry, bigoted majority from repressing the rights of minorities.

It's easy to discriminate against a faceless minority. It's harder to discriminate against a man that we've all gotten to know and scrutinize over a long two year campaign. I'm sure if Floridians were asked to vote to ban their Asian American friend specifically from owning land, they'd make the right choice. And if the decision was up to a legislature, which unlike an electorate is accountable to public scrutiny, the ballot measure would have passed unanimously. I'd like to think that no modern politician could survive voting against allowing Asian immigrants to own land.

Fortunately, I live in the most hippy liberal progressive state west of Vermont, so I'm pretty happy with the results of our moronic voter initiative process. Seattle/Washington voters affirmed every last spending initiative except for (thank God) I-985. We voted most overwhelmingly in favor of spending upwards of $5 million a year to increase the number of hours of training required for "the people who wipe old people's butts" (The Stranger). The stupidity of this is offset by the fact that we voted to officially make Seattle a real city some day by building light rail and keeping Pike Place Market from caving in.

In other less political news, it has finally started raining all the time. Not quite as bad as Hanoi though, so I can't complain. Can't wait until ski season...

Who's afraid of direct democracy?

I am.  It might add half an hour to my commute, while simultaneously increasing government spending and pollution.  Washington Initiative 985, the Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative, is so mind-blowingly moronic that even an elected official couldn't have conceived it.

Unlike the Princeton, NJ ballots, which consisted of voting for about 5 elected officials, my congressional district's Voters' Pamphlet, printed by the State of Washington, is not so much a pamphlet as a 135 page book.  Seeing how poorly representative democracy worked out for the rest of the country, Washington has decided to be creative and give the power back to the people.  Any citizen who can get a certain number of signatures can put whatever they want on our state's ballot.  I have no idea how gullible the people of Washington are, but I know if I didn't bother reading through this enormous booklet last night, I might have read the title of the Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative and been fatigued enough from voting for 87 other things that I might have not bothered reading the full text and pulled the wrong lever.

As far as I can tell, the proposition is a backlash to Sound Transit Proposition 1, a regional proposition to build commuter light rail like any sensible city should have.  As an alternative, I-985 offers a patchwork of expensive traffic congestion solutions, which at best would have an almost indistinguishable effect on traffic, but will in many cases worsen congestion and will make mass transit useless during the final hour of morning and evening rush hour, which is precisely when I currently commute by mass transit (an awesome bike shuttle from the west side of the 520 bridge to Microsoft campus).

As a well-educated citizen with enough free time on my hands to read a 135 page Voters' Pamphlet and still feel uninformed enough to make a decision on the vast majority of propositions and amendments, I have confirmed my belief that direct democracy is scary.  I'm perfectly happy to let corrupt politicians who are paid to do this for a living make these decisions for me.  I guess I'm not in Kansas any more.

My favorite quotes on I-985:

• The Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly newspaper, in a long but somewhat amusing endorsement summary for the entire Seattle ballot (worth reading as a supplement to this blog post provided you don't mind profanity): "There really isn't a single good thing you can say about the latest shit sandwich from Tim Eyman."'
• The Seattle Times (more conservative): "Within a few weeks of this measure's effective date, fewer commuters will ride the bus because they lose the time advantage. The result will be more cars on the roads and more congestion by mid-December. Happy Holidays to you."
• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("unabashedly liberal"): "Initiative 985 invites Washingtonians to encourage red-light running, make the streets more dangerous, demolish a good option on the financing of a new Highway 520 bridge and rob the state of the ability to provide for schools and other general fund responsibilities. [...] Voters should decline to join Eyman in blowing this multi-toxin poison dart at themselves."

Fremont Oktoberfest

This weekend was Fremont Oktoberfest, a three-day beer festival two blocks from my apartment.  It's sort of like lawnparties for three days, but with Northwest craft beers instead of Beast and you have to pay for it, and it rains.  And it's not at Princeton.  OK, so it really has nothing in common with lawnparties except that you're drinking beer outside in the middle of the afternoon.  For some reason, about half of the beers were IPAs.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like hops as much as the next guy, but at a certain point enough is enough.  By the end of the weekend, I was desperately searching for the least hoppy beers available.  It is possible to make good beer where the dominant flavor is not hops, and I was able to find plenty.

I got my first taste of the infamous Seattle rainy season.  On Friday, when I biked to work, it was sort of raining - it was overcast, you could sort of make out droplets in the air, and the air felt wet.  I didn't get wet in the time I was out, but the ground seemed to be getting wet, so I think that counts.  Even if that doesn't count, Saturday we got hit with real rain.  Not New York rain; I was outside all day, and although I regretted wearing a light fleece instead of a waterproof jacket, I survived.  Nothing gets called off in Seattle due to rain; Oktoberfest was packed, and the BMX bikers jumping over kegs continued.

Before hitting the beer garden today, I ran my first 5K race in just over 5 years, the Fremont Brew-ha-ha.  Despite only training for two weeks and consuming a copious amount of beer yesterday, I was happy with my performance - I finished in 20:57, beating my unambitious goal of 22 minutes, and finishing 44th out of 815 runners.  Seeing my place shocked me, to say the least - I realized that the competitive pool at a weekend 5K road race is quite different than my high school cross country races.  I definitely miss the camaraderie of having a team to hang out with before and after the race; perhaps I'll have to start my own.

In other news, I got a new Windows Mobile Phone, the Samsung Blackjack II from AT&T.  So far my experience with Windows Mobile has been less than fantastic - it seems almost impossible to upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1, which is apparently much better, although the upgrade wipes out all of your data (it is theoretically possible to back it up and restore it) so I'm trying to do that before I put too much on it.  Unfortunately I don't get a company discount on an iPhone...

Clouds (finally) and Steve Ballmer, superstar

After two weeks in Seattle, the constant misery of 70 and sunny weather has finally given way to an overcast day.  Yes, the cynics have been proven right - it rains ALL THE TIME here and I hate it.  I'll be sure to post ASAP when as I feel the first drop.  In the mean time, my beautiful bike commute will continue.  When the rain does finally hit (my understanding is this will happen some time in November), I hope to continue biking through the light drizzle and skiing on the weekends while those of you in the Northeast and Midwest enjoy your beautiful winters, characterized by 20 degree days with ice, slush and dirty snow.  If you want some good skiing, please come visit me out here, I'll be more than happy to show you around.

I apologize for the bitterness, but along with the Vista and Google questions (see Mojave Experiment), the "did you know it rains a lot there" question has to rank up there with the most common and most irritating questions I have received about my new job/location.  We'll see if I change my mind once it starts raining, but so far I love Seattle and don't anticipate a little drizzle getting in my way.  From what I understand, our drizzle is much less irritating than the driving rain that periodically pelts New York and the Eastern seaboard, dropping more annual precipation than our rainy metropolis.

In other news, today was the Microsoft company meeting.  Unlike other companies, which can fit in a large conference hall, our company meeting has to happen at Safeco Field.  Attendance measured 22,500, allowing us to set the world record for most paper airplanes in the air at the same time (true story).  Rainn Wilson of The Office (American version) emceed.  Most of the day was spent watching demos of all of the new Microsoft products scheduled to be released in the next few years as well as some further off projects in development at Microsoft Research.  Very impressive stuff for the most part, although I think I'd be violating my NDA to go into too much detail.  Seeing all of the cool demos reminded me why I'm in software and why I'm working at Microsoft.  And nowhere else in the world does Steve Ballmer's entrance receive a standing ovation fit for a rock star.  Although I have to admit, that man is passionate about what he does and fairly entertaining to boot.

Western road trip facebook album/FolderShare

I've posted the best pictures of our road trip in a facebook album (you don't need to be on facebook to view it from this link). I figured this would reach a wider audience faster - I haven't yet decided whether or not I'm going to duplicate this on the higher quality Picasa. If anyone has thoughts on the pros and cons of various photo sharing methods I'd be curious to hear them. My thought on the subject is that it would be really cool if there was an open API for photo sharing that allowed me to tag and caption all of my photos in iPhoto or Windows Live Photo Gallery and then export it to any number of photo sharing sites. Good luck to whoever tries to implement that...

On a related note, the product I am working on, Windows Live FolderShare, is a great solution for peer-to-peer photo sharing, a problem that has nagged several trips I've been on recently. Until now, I haven't had a good method for quickly pooling the photos of an entire group in full quality. Most online publishing/sharing tools like Picasa and SkyDrive have poor support for Macs and work sketchily at best on PCs for large-scale sharing. FolderShare cuts out the middle man; the Windows Live servers merely coordinate synchronization between multiple computers, while files are transferred using peer-to-peer methods. I can synchronize my pictures between any of my computers, and invite friends to subscribe to my folders. For example, I could just share my Pictures folder with friends and give them read-only access, or I could create a group share folder that we could all edit. There's even a Mac client, so Alex Peters can participate. Synchronization happens instantly as long as both computers are online, and you don't have to worry about timing out the download because it will resume whenever both computers are online again.

Wyoming: National Zoos and Road Construction

Wyoming's two major industries, as far as I can tell, are tourism and road construction. We saw a lot of oil derricks too, but based on the price of oil in Wyoming, I suspect most of this gets consumed getting the construction workers to their jobs. I imagine commutes are generally fairly long, since we drove through the entire state and passed through only two towns whose populations are greater than their elevations.

The terrain of Wyoming is like Colorado in reverse. Colorado has a flat and somewhat barren Eastern section, followed by a whole lot of awesome. Wyoming has a flattish and really barren Eastern section, with a large Northwest corner of really awesome. Eastern Wyoming was a lot of fun to drive through - we managed to stay away from I-90, so we got to drive on some more interesting and deserted roads through the barren wasteland. I actually found this to be a welcome break from South Dakota, with its long flat straightaways filled with heavy truck traffic - despite being barren, the land was characterized by rolling hills, which I enjoy.

We stayed for our first night in Jackson with one of Hal's high school friends. We went to a good microbrewery (Snake River) for dinner and got to see some of Jackson's bars. The next day we embarked on a 4-day backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park, to be described in detail in a future post. We went from there to Yellowstone, a huge park to which we unfairly gave only a day. As a backpacking and mountain enthusiast, I think this was probably the right allocation of time. I'd like to spend more time in Yellowstone some day, but Grand Teton is possibly the coolest place I've ever been.

Both Yellowstone and to a lesser degree Grand Teton are like giant zoos without fences. Our Tetons guidebook told us it is hard to go a day without seeing a moose. We were almost disappointed on day 3, when we saw our first moose. Not only did we see a moose, but it chased us the wrong way down our trail for about a mile or so. We also saw a black bear on day two, across Lake Solitude. Apparently it had gone about 100 feet from us while we were eating our lunch, but decided to wander up the trail without incident. This was reported to us by a couple hiking down from Paintbrush Divide with a view of the whole scene.

The other aspect that these parks are like zoos is in the vernacular sense. When you're within 5 miles of a trailhead, you don't go more than 5 minutes without seeing other hikers. This is why backpacking is nice, because the backcountry is well regulated by the National Park Service to limit overuse. Yellowstone is swarming with people, and parts of it feel like a big tourist trap. On the other hand, you get even more of the benefits of being in a zoo - it's pretty much impossible to avoid really awesome wildlife. There are bison everywhere (really frustrating waiting for them to cross the road) and we saw a grizzly feeding on a bison carcass across the Yellowstone River from us in Hayden Valley. Unfortunately we didn't manage to see any bighorn sheep or wolves; that will have to wait until next trip.

South Dakota: only the strong survive

On the first day of our road trip, Hal and I drove from Chicago to Badlands National Park in South Dakota, taking I-90 all the way. The beginning part of this drive goes through Madison, WI (where we stopped for breakfast) and the scenic rolling hills of Western Wisconsin. Southern Minnesota, east of the Mississippi, flattens out into relatively boring farmland characterized by enormous windmills. The size of these windmills makes me believe in T. Boone Pickens' alternative energy plan. Think big.

After leaving Minnesota for South Dakota, the terrain itself doesn't actually change. It's still totally flat farmland, but the giant windmills are replaced by giant billboards every 50 feet or so. Most of the billboards are advertisements for either the Corn Palace of Mitchell, SD or Wall Drug of Wall, SD, since there isn't a whole lot else to advertise in SD. Many of these signs highlight a curious cultural feature of SD: the proliferation of scare quotes. South Dakotans like to put everything in quotes - my favorite example was a Corn Palace billboard advertising "'Tourist Information.'" Using non-South Dakotan English, there's no logical explanation for these quotes. Are they quoting some famous person who said "tourist information" once? "In the words of the great Thomas Jefferson, stop at the Corn Palace for 'tourist information!'" I don't think that's it. Maybe they are using quotes because they don't actually mean tourist information - maybe it's like "tourist information" - get it? Like, we're selling "tourist information" that you can "smoke." No, that doesn't sound right either - I don't think the Corn Palace was a cover for a marijuana business.

In any case, we survived the Corn Palace - it's very close to I-90 if you follow Google Maps directions, so it's not too much of an inconvenience and it is somewhat interesting (as interesting as a building covered in corn can be). Only bother taking the time if you really need a break, and whatever you do don't follow the signs because they take you on a roundabout tour of the whole town (trust me, there's nothing else worth seeing in Mitchell, SD). After the corn palace, our next stop was the Badlands. Definitely the highlight of South Dakota - you turn a corner in this wide open cornfield land and suddenly you are beset by the barren landscape of the Badlands (pictures to be posted soon). It didn't hurt that we arrived right before sunset.

The next day we woke up for sunrise in the Badlands (about as cool as sunset) and headed toward Mt. Rushmore, stopping along the way at Wall Drug. After seeing hundreds of miles of hype, I actually wasn't dissapointed. The store is endless, and everything that was advertised was there - 5 cent coffee, free ice water, cowboy clothes, and a giant animatronic T-Rex that roars every 10 minutes. I'm into that kind of gimmicky stuff, so if you are too it's definitely a must stop, and it's even closer to I-90 than the Corn Palace.

Mt. Rushmore was less exciting for me. It looks exactly like it does in the pictures (big surprise) and it's about an hour round trip out of the way. Worth doing once if you're into big touristy monuments. We then went on to hike Crow Peak, a 7 mile round trip hike up a 1500' Black Hills peak with a great view of the Devil's Tower and 3 states from the top. This was a nice warmup for the trip, but if I were to redo the trip I would cut Rushmore and Crow Peak and just experience the Black Hills driving through scenic byway 14A, high-tailing it to the more exciting Wyoming.

Right before arriving at our campsite in the Black Hills, we encountered a herd of wild cattle in the middle of the road. I suppose they weren't wild so much as escaped, but it was still very amusing. They didn't seem too fazed by us, and we weren't really sure what to do - I really didn't want to risk pissing off the cows and having them destroy our car, leaving us stranded in South Dakota. Interestingly enough, after a minute of contemplation, they began observing OA road crossing protocol, crossing one by one. However, two stubborn cows stood in the middle of the road, staring at us disinterestedly. Finally, another car came in the other direction, and the two remaining cows exited the road peacefully. The campsite was very nice and worth the wait - for the rest of the night, there would be an occasional "moo" from down the road, and it never failed to get a laugh out of me.

Seattle

Hal and I arrived in Seattle on Tuesday after 2576 miles of driving.  Since then we have been involved in a whirlwind of shopping and trying to safely navigate the bizarre maze that is Seattle streets.  So far our apartment consists primarily of boxes and sleeping bags.  I'm on my way to the airport soon to pick up Colosimo - we're going to see DMB at the Gorge Ampitheatre (2.5 hours east of Seattle in the middle of nowhere, on the Columbia River Gorge) this weekend.  Once I get my life together, I'll post more details and pictures of our westward voyage and call Sharon (hi Sharon!).

Update from the road...

I'm in a coffee shop in Bozeman, MT right now, recovering from a 4-day backpacking trip in the Tetons and a day in Yellowstone. I'll be posting more details when I get to Seattle. Highlights include being chased by a moose in the Tetons, seeing a grizzly feeding on a bison in Yellowstone, and barely surviving South Dakota (an animatronic T-rex in Wall, SD was probably the most exciting thing we saw there). We're headed to Missoula tonight, and on to Seattle tomorrow!

Into the West

Hal and I are heading into the West tomorrow morning! Here's our semi approximate itinerary of where we envision ourselves for the next week:

8/17: Drive to Badlands, stopping at Corn Palace, Mitchell SD
8/18: Mt. Rushmore, hike Black Hills
8/19: Drive to Jackson, WY
8/20-8/24: Tetons, Yellowstone
8/25: Drive to Bozeman, MT
8/26: Drive to Seattle. Celebrate Hal's birthday.

New Apartment

Last week Hal and I went apartment shopping in Seattle and signed a lease on a 2br/2ba unit at Epi Apartments. The building is about 5 years old and includes a rooftop deck. It is located in the center of Fremont, aka the People's Republic of Fremont, aka the Center of the Universe, a neighborhood famous for its under-bridge troll, Lenin statue, and nude cyclists parade. While the neighborhood is often described as hippyish, don't think dirty hippies so much as hippies that work at companies like Adobe, Google, and Microsoft and like to eat organic food and talk about sustainability (our organic grocery store is conveniently next door to our building). Buses for downtown and the Microsoft Connector Shuttle pick up right outside, and we are about a block away from the Burke-Gilman bike trail, which I'll hopefully use to commute to work most days. My favorite venue of the neighborhood is Brouwer's, a pub featuring a large variety of imported Belgian beers and American craft beers on tap.

After claiming victory in our apartment search, I traveled to Vancouver via Greyhound bus to hang out with Heather and Stu. I don't recommend traveling to Canada via bus if you can avoid it (on the way back, we waited an hour and a half at customs; a 3 hour drive by car took about 6 hours by bus). I didn't feel too sorry for myself, though, since the girl I was sitting next to on the trip to Vancouver had just biked from Vancouver to Tijuana and was at the end of a 40-something hour bus trip back. On the way back, I was entertained/intimidated by the bus driver, played by Samuel L. Jackson. His name tag said something different, but I'm pretty sure it was SLJ in disguise and there were probably hidden cameras somewhere. I was waiting for him to say "I want these motherfucking cell phones off this motherfucking bus!" since he routinely threatened to kick people off the bus for talking too loudly on cell phones.

Bottom line: our new apartment and neighborhood both rock. Fun catching up with friends in both Seattle and Vancouver. [Picasa]

The Mojave experiment

This ZDNet article discusses the negative coverage in the blogosphere surrounding part of Microsoft's new Vista marketing campaign called the Mojave Experiment. As a future Microsoft employee, I have to admit that I'm getting tired of one of the most common reactions people have when I tell them I'm going to work for Microsoft: "can you fix Vista?" I usually answer "no, actually, I'm working on Windows Live, which has little to do with Windows, despite the poor branding." Then, depending on my mood, I might follow up by asking if said Vista-hater has ever in fact used Vista (usually not). Most people who have used Vista a few times instantly see why it's so terrible - the user interface is DIFFERENT than XP! They don't know how to use it! The reviewers must be equally puzzled by the horrible new interface.

I won't go into an in depth analysis of why Vista's interface is superior to XP and even in some ways (certainly not all) to Leopard. The point is, as the Mojave Experiment points out, that the interface is NOT the issue. Generally, the (valid) complaints about Vista are related to hardware compatibility. When Vista came out, drivers were not ready for a lot of older hardware, which caused nightmares for people trying to upgrade. Apple conveniently doesn't have to worry about this since they have a very limited set of hardware. In addition to hardware compatibility issues (mostly solved at this point), Vista requires a lot of system resources, so I wouldn't recommend trying to upgrade the XP computer you bought 5 years ago.

Overall, I'm not sure whether the "Can you fix Vista?" question is more common or more irritating than "You're working for Microsoft? Why not Google? I LOVE Google! AND they have free food!" Don't forget the ball pit and massages - two very important perks that I'm missing out on by working for Microsoft.

Bottom line: just because I'm going to work at Microsoft doesn't mean I can fix your least favorite Microsoft product or your computer. If you don't believe me that I have neither the training nor the desire to fix your computer, please read Avi Flamholz's informative article, I'm a computer scientist, not your technical support.

Am I a Cubs fan?

To those of you who have noticed my sudden influx of "shared items", including several Cubs related articles: no, the sky isn't falling, I'm still a Sox fan. I'm sharing newsworthy articles with Ted (of Ted's Thai Life) to help him keep up with American news from Thailand in an efficient, low-bandwidth manner. So if anyone else finds themselves in a similar international low-bandwidth situation, check out the full Google Reader feed of my shared items.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on my new apartment in Seattle, as soon as we get approved and our lease is finalized!

Amber waves of grain

Last week, Hal and I drove to Kansas City, MO to watch the first place Sox (the Sox with Alexei Ramirez, not Manny Ramirez, for you confused East Coasters) pummel the last place Royals. Well, it wasn't exactly the pummeling we hoped for, but the games were exciting in any case. We saw games 2 and 3, after the Sox won game 1 in 13 innings. Despite a pitiful performance by Sox starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, the Sox came back to win 7-6, powered by two (2) Carlos Quentin home runs and a balk. Yes, the game was won on a balk.

Game 3 was less satisfying for a Sox fan. After 7 quick innings of classic Mark Buehrle (Sox ace) vs. KC ace Zack Greinke, the Sox held a narrow 1-0 lead from a Jermaine Dye solo homer. The Sox imploded in the 8th inning, missing a key double play by throwing the ball into the dugout (for some reason no error was recorded here, so Buehrle is credited with earned runs) and giving up (drumroll) an inside-the-park home run. I've never seen one of those before, live or on TV, but it's not a good feeling when the other team pulls it off. Sox lose 4-1.

Along with getting to watch some good baseball, we had an opportunity to explore the vast heartland of America. After driving through the flat cornfields of Illinois for three hours and crossing the Mississippi, we got to spend most of the drive through the slightly-less-flat cornfields of Iowa. Unlike Illinois, you can't see for many miles in every direction thanks to some gently rolling hills. For some evolutionary reason, I'm pretty sure humans have adapted to feel more comfortable in the hills. There's something vaguely depressing about seeing non-stop corn for 20 miles in every direction. The highlight of our trip was stopping at the world's largest truckstop. There were a lot of trucks there.

On Thursday, our day between games, we got to explore Kansas City and the surrounding area. Kansas City was surprisingly nice - it seemed like a mini-Chicago, clean and well maintained with a very modern feeling. Perhaps it was because we were there at 10:30 in the morning when everyone was inside working, but it was a bit eerie how few people we saw.

After briefly exploring KC, we crossed the Missouri River into Kansas proper and explored Kansas "Scenic Byway" 7, which follows the Missouri north. The road was surprisingly scenic, and the rolling hills deserve the title of "hills" more than those of Iowa. Eventually we came across a sign for "4-state lookout" and decided to follow it up a small hill to a nice high point overlooking Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri (above). At this point we were only 4 miles from Nebraska, so of course we followed the road north so I could pick up my 41st state.

We returned to KC in time for some world-famous BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's, the premier BBQ-in-a-gas-station joint in the world. Delicious. We stayed the last night at the Drury Inn, which was very proud of their prestigious ranking by J.D. Power as the "highest customer satisfaction among mid-scale hotel chains with limited service." Apparently nobody had the courage to stand up to Mr. Drury and tell him that his name sounds like a word with negative connotations and might not be the best name for a hotel chain.

Bottom line: Sox win some, lose some. Amber waves of grain not quite as exciting as purple mountains' majesty of Colorado, but beautiful in their own way.

My New Blog...

I've joined the blogosphere in a nerdy, self-indulgent attempt at staying connected with friends as I get settled in the "real world." Posts will include trip reports, random thoughts, rants, and none of the above. For those of you with short attention spans, I will try to include a 1-2 sentence summary at the bottom of each post labeled "bottom line" and a link to an associated Picasa album if applicable. For those of you who like pretty pictures, there will be plenty of embedded pictures and links to pictures on Picasa. The first few posts (backdated like Apple stock options) describe my trip to the Collegiate Peaks of Colorado with Katy L. and Alex P. These will probably make the most sense read bottom up. The title background of the blog is one of the spectacular views from the summit of Mt. Princeton.

I decided to stick with my old AIM screen name for the title of my blog. I would like to note that this SN was created before the latest penguin craze, initiated by March of the Penguins. The exact origin of the name is unknown even to me, but it came into existence circa 7th grade. I think Billy Madison and its penguin scene may have been fresh in my mind. In any case, I was looking for something easy to remember with no numbers (remember your 7th grade SN, which was probably something like "cooldude78140543"?). My passion for penguins has lived on in the form of the penguin dance (ask an OA leader). So I've decided this would be a good title for my blog. Please enjoy, and feel free to litter my blog with irrelevant and irreverent comments.

Mt. Harvard

On our last (but certainly not least) day of hiking, we hit the trail around 8:15am and climbed out of the valley to a ridge of Mt. Harvard (13,000'). Our guidebook suggested that if you wanted to turn a relatively easy day into a tough day, you could drop your packs and scramble a mile and two-thirds along the ridge to the summit of Mt. Harvard (14,420' - the fourth tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states). Since we reached the ridge early enough (10am), we decided to set out for the summit. Scramble was a good description of this hike - the rocks were much bigger in general than Mt. Princeton, and we often found ourselves using our hands to climb over large boulders.

Around 12:10pm, Alex topped out on a peak that we thought was the summit. Upon reaching this peak, Alex just shouted down "nope." Visible from this false summit was a group of people partying on the real summit, about a half mile away and maybe 50-100 feet above us. Since it was getting late and we had a lot of hiking left before getting to the Jeep, we decided to turn back, satisfied with the view from our false summit (below).

Of course, we had spent enough time at 14,000' to develop some mild AMS. By the time we returned to our packs, I had a bad headache, nausea, and no appetite. The rest of the afternoon was spent on a treeless, semi-barren slope. The first part of the trail was marked by a series of cairns (small piles of rocks). Hunting for the cairns felt like a cross between a juvenile scavenger hunt and a bad Indiana Jones movie. Eventually we lost (or were liberated from) the cairns and found our own way to Frenchman Creek.

As we approached Frenchman Creek, we finally began to see trees, which were a welcome sight. The water at the stream crossing (below) was low enough that our gaiters would be useful, although apparently it's important to tighten the buckle on the bottom of the gaiters - my socks ended up getting soaked anyway. We kept our gaiters on afterward, because the rest of the South Pine Creek Trail overlapped a series of snow drifts up to about 2 feet deep. The thick conifer forest was a pretty drastic change from the previous two days of hiking, and there was something very idyllic about the occasional snow drift.

I've never been more grateful to reach the end of a hike. I think if we had to hike the last two miles down the Jeep road I would have collapsed. When we got back to the great civilized city that is Buena Vista (population 2,155), we felt compelled to stop at K's Old Fashioned Hamburgers for milk shakes and fries. This hamburger stand, situated on the main road through Buena Vista, was always surrounded by a throng of customers regardless of the time of day, so we figured it must be pretty good. We devoured the fries in about 5 seconds, and our milk shakes kept us satisfied until we reached Katy's grandparents in Denver, so it lived up to its hype (at least for 3 exhausted backpackers).

Bottom line: ~7,000' of total elevation change (up and down) maxing out around 14,400' and ~9 miles of hiking. Probably the most physically exhausting day of my life. [Picasa]

Pine Creek

We woke up to blue skies, with the morning sunlight shining on Waverly Mountain. The first two miles of our hike were along Pine Creek Trail, a well-maintained, flat trail beside Pine Creek that crossed in and out of meadows and forest. This might have been the most beautiful and relaxing two miles of hiking of my life. Along the way, we passed our second all female high school-aged group (with the exception of two male leaders), this one on horseback. We suspect they may have been deaf-mutes - they were friendly enough, but seemed not to notice when we asked questions like "what group are you with?"

Our loop continued on South Pine Creek Trail. Shortly after turning onto South Pine Creek Trail, we crossed knee-deep Pine Creek. The current was going pretty strong and the water was freezing cold, so we decided to set up a line across the river to transport our packs. This was probably completely unnecessary, but sort of fun.

After crossing Pine Creek (10,700'), the trail continued up to a ridge of Mt. Harvard (12,000') over 1 mile. This was probably the steepest climb I've ever done, although we took it pretty slowly so it wasn't that bad. Once we crossed over the ridge line, the trail forked in two directions, both of which quickly disappeared. The next few miles of the mostly non-existent South Pine Creek Trail passed through a secluded valley of Mt. Harvard. From here until the crossing the next ridge the following day, we saw no people, no trail, and a lot of non-human poop. This was my first experience with serious off-trail navigation - the idea was pretty scary at first, but the valley was sparsely wooded, so orienteering was easy given the constant visibility of recognizable creeks, peaks, and lakes.

Bottom line: Pine Creek Trail is likely the most scenic trail I have ever hiked on. Don't hike South Pine Creek Trail without a good Trails Illustrated map and a little bit of orienteering knowledge. [Picasa]

Frenchman Creek/Colorado Trail

After climbing Mt. Princeton, we backpacked for 3 days around Mt. Harvard. The drive to the trailhead quickly turned from a paved road to an "improved road," which, by Colorado standards, means a dirt road with a low enough grade that it's not hardcore enough to be considered a 4WD road. Improved has nothing to do with the pothole situation or other qualities that us Easterners would consider important in a road. Eventually, the improved road forked onto a legit 4WD road, which our guide book accurately described as "steep and narrow." Katy's grandfather's Jeep was once again clutch, saving us a good 2,000'/2 miles. We managed to avoid destroying the car, which was a nice bonus, although there were a few close calls when we bottomed out on large rocks. Fortunately, Jeeps are designed to love that kind of thing.

The hike in along Frenchman Creek Trail was relatively unexciting. We managed to miss the junction with the Colorado Trail (CT) and went about 15 minutes past it before running into a young couple from Colorado Springs coming down from Mt. Columbia (at 10:30am... talk about an early start to the day). They told us we had passed the trail junction, and we hiked with them back to the CT. The CT had a fallen tree on the trail about 10 feet past the junction, diminishing our embarrassment about missing the junction.

The CT was well maintained, although it was littered with an absurd amount of horse manure since horsepacking the CT is apparently pretty popular. The hike was mostly through a densely wooded coniferous forest and culminated with a 2,000' descent to Pine Creek, where we camped for the night, at the most beautiful campsite in the world (right), an alpine meadow overlooking snow-capped Mt. Oxford (14,153') and Waverly Mountain (13,268').

Bottom line: Uneventful day of hiking. Most beautiful campsite in the world (although I haven't been to the Maroon Bells yet, so I can't compare). [Picasa]

Mt. Princeton

After rafting, we drove Katy's grandfather's Jeep up a sketchy 4WD road from the base of Mt. Princeton Rd. near Buena Vista (8,000'), past a radio tower at 10,800' and camped for the night at 11,000'. We woke up at 5:15am the next morning and hit the trail at 6:35am. We're not exactly morning people - this was our shortest time from wake up to trail for the trip. While hiking above the tree line in Colorado, it's a good idea to give yourself enough time to get below the tree line by 3pm or so to avoid afternoon storms. We followed Mt. Princeton Road up past several switchbacks and snowbanks, and hiked through our first snow of the trip at the intersection of Mt. Princeton Rd. and Mt. Princeton trail (around 12,000').

The Mt. Princeton Trail is pretty much at the tree line, and the brush line is not too much higher, around 12,200'. From there, the last 2,000' are a scramble through a talus field to the summit at 14,167' (1 foot taller than Mt. Yale). Fog obscured our view at the beginning of the climb, and the sun only teased us occassionally during the first half of the climb. Fortunately, things began to clear up as we hit the final ridgeline (13,000') with an awesome view westward to Mt. Antero (above). The last 500 feet or so (elevation-wise) to the summit were brutally strenuous - steeply sloped, and not a whole lot of oxygen to help you out. We summited at 10:25 am. The view from the top was breathtaking (literally - more on that in a bit) - we could see about halfway across Colorado in all directions. 10:30-11 is peak summiting time, so we shared the summit with about 10 other people and a few dogs. We hung out at the summit until 11:15, eating lunch and taking photos with Alex's Princeton 2008 banner.

The descent was much more challenging than the ascent because all three of us were affected to one degree or another by mild acute mountain sickness (AMS). It turns out that hanging out for an hour above 14,000' does not so great things for bodies acclimatized to sea level. According to the OA Guide to High Altitude (and personal experience), symptoms of mild AMS include "headache, dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, nausea, [...] and a general feeling of malaise." We also experienced some mental status changes (i.e. becoming disoriented and/or irritable). I'm not exactly sure what went through my head at the time, but I decided I was getting down the mountain as fast as I could, without paying much regard to where nebulously defined trail was. It turns out that following the nebulously defined trail would have been significantly easier than cutting my own shortcut through loose rocks, but that thought didn't cross my mind in my altered state, and Katy and Alex, in their altered states, didn't think to stop me before it was too late.

Around 13,500', I was the first in the group to begin experimenting with ibuprofen, which quickly became our group's crack. In any case, headaches and morale quickly improved as we went below 13,000'. The rest of the descent was uneventful, but chilling at a coffee shop at 8,000' has never felt so good. To read more on AMS, check out the by Rick Curtis.

Bottom line: climbing 14ers is tough but worth it for the views. Mild AMS is a bitch - ask your doctor about Diamox. [Picasa]

Arkansas River Rafting

Our original planned trip included a four-day backpacking loop in the Maroon Bells/Snowmass Wilderness, described by expert Coloradoan Denali B. as "the most phenomenal 4 day backpacking trip in the United States of America." However, when Katy called the local rangers, they informed us that the trail was covered in 6 ft of snow and we should bring our backcountry skiing gear. Which, of course, is non-existent, not to mention our lack of skills. Due to record snowfall last winter, most of Colorado is still covered in significant snow. Most of this snow is melting fast, which makes whitewater rafting really spectacular.

We signed up for a full day of rafting the Numbers, with Four Corners Rafting, a company run by Katy and my WFR instructor, Darren Stokes. The Numbers is a series of class IV-V rapids labeled 1 through 7. Unfortunately, Numbers 1 through 6 were closed to commercial rafting due to the high water level - the river was flowing around 3400 cubic feet per second (CFS), and the Numbers close around 2400 CFS. In the words of our river guide Jesse, "The Numbers is class VI right now." His description of class VI whitewater: "If you raft it and survive, it becomes a class V." Instead of the Numbers, we rafted a series of rapids up to class IV, starting with Number 7 and winding 24 miles through Wildhorse Canyon, Buena Vista Falls (an 18-foot drop) and Browns Canyon.

Four Corners had only one boat on this trip, and the other four people in our boat signed up for a half day only, so lunch and afternoon boating was a private trip with the three of us and Jesse. This was much more relaxed and fun than my last whitewater rafting trip on the Riviere Rouge in Quebec, where we were part of a fleet of 20-something boats.

Bottom line: rafting the Arkansas at high water level is awesome. A good way to acclimatize a little before ascending 14ers. [Picasa]

Royal Gorge

Alex and I arrived at Denver International Airport around 10am, where Katy was waiting for us with her grandfather's Jeep. We had no specific plans for the rest of the day besides getting settled at a commercial, drive-in campsite somewhere around Buena Vista and eating food. So, I suggested we take a sightseeing detour on our way from Denver to Buena Vista and visit Royal Gorge bridge, the world's highest suspension bridge. This sounded like a cool enough idea, but I hadn't fully researched this tourist destination to find out whether or not it was worthwhile.

As we approached the turnoff for Royal Gorge, we began to see a series of giant billboards, advertising "Royal Gorge: turn left in x miles." The last billboard, advertising a left turn in 1 mile, was followed immediately by an ordinary road sign saying "Royal Gorge, 1/2 mile." This was the shortest half mile in the world, followed by the longest half mile along the Derek Zoolander highway, which seemed to have no left turns. Finally, after going along the Zoolander highway for about 10 miles, we found somewhere to turn around and eventually found our turnoff, which was not a big road with a giant billboard as we had expected, but more of a driveway with a small faded sign. It turned out this was not even the main road in but the back road, because the Royal Gorge Bridge is the archetypal "bridge to nowhere" - the road is a small, barren loop diverging from the highway in the middle of nowhere. Construction began a month before the stock market crash in 1929. Go figure.

As we drove down this back road, the road narrowed and became poorly maintained while we slowly disappeared into the Colorado desert. I was convinced that we were about to come across a group of pickup trucks containing some dead Mexicans, drugs, and 2 million dollars (see: No Country for Old Men). Eventually we saw a dilapidated sign foreshadowing the appearance of an "admission plaza," which, after driving deeper into the desert, we concluded might be the rusty gate we passed through. Lo and behold, out of nowhere, pops up a Disney World style admissions plaza, asking for $23/adult! Apparently, it would cost us $69 to cross from nowhere to nowhere! Having come this far, we weren't easily deterred, and tried to negotiate with the ranger, who let us know about a $7/person rebate if you spend less than an hour in the park. For $16, we got an hour of glorious suspension bridge crossing, carousel-riding, and all of the amenities of Disney World meets the Colorado Desert.

Bottom line: Royal Gorge is pretty, but not worth $16/person. Good way to see more of Colorado, though. [Picasa]