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]