Shed Your Head

so lame..

2006-09-19T21:45:00-07:00

(18:40:33) Mo1123: so lame.. your last blog entry was way back in july
(18:40:33) scottsabron <AUTO-REPLY> : no activity for a while… i must be doing something else.
(18:40:34) Mo1123: boo!!

It’s true. Dave also commented on my delinquency in his typically eloquent way (it’s somewhere on this blog…)

I’ll be back soon, I promise.

And by soon I mean before, say, Thanksgiving.

Whitney Runup

2006-07-22T12:38:00-07:00

The afternoon before a Whitney day hike is a little surreal. You’re tired, you try to nap, but your head is buzzing and the eyes don’t close very well. Your backpack has been ready for hours and yet you’re still thinking if there’s something you’re forgetting. More food? How’s the first-aid kit? Will it snow?

Ross killing time.
Tim & Marnie, afternoon nap.
(From a 2003 Whitney trip)

You’re surrounded by good friends except there’s not much to talk about. There’s equipment, and the hike, but those topics were exhausted hours ago. There’s a Star Trek rerun on but the TV just seems irrelevant. Time barely moves.

Even the last meal is alien. We headed to Angel’s at 8, just before they closed. You should select bland food so it won’t weigh you down or cause trouble. Food poisoning is bad enough at sea level; imagine a cramp attack in the bitter pre-dawn cold at 12,000 feet. Table discussion was weak, mostly idle chitchat or morbid humor.

Finally, at 10:30 PM, we piled into the car and started the drive to Whitney Portal. Suddenly we were in high spirits, talking and joking again. We won’t see the trailhead until midnight and the sun won’t appear for another 8 hours but finally the trip has started.

Whitney Warmup

2006-07-22T12:35:20-07:00

July 13th, Thursday afternoon

A little Whitney shakedown hike. Gotta find the hotspots in the boots to know where to put preemptive moleskin tomorrow night.

Lee Vining Canyon by Moonlight

2006-07-22T11:18:00-07:00

July 13th, early morning:

On the way to Mark’s place, the full moon over Lee Vining Canyon just blew me away. I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. That’s as good a time as any to learn how to take long-exposure pictures so I tried to balance the camera on Bessie and figure it out. Turns out you really really need a tripod.

Tim & Marnie

2006-07-22T10:49:00-07:00

Time flies.


Tim & Marnie 2003	Tim & Marnie 2006

With few exceptions, the weddings I’ve seen are frantic beehives right up until the moment guests start sitting. The immediate families are all sweaty as they sit down, frantically looking around the room to see if they forgot something. It’s one aspect of weddings that completely turns me off. (notable exceptions: Pat&Carita, my dad&Jan, and now Tim&Marnie).

Mark in front of his hotel room.

On this wedding day, July 2nd, we strolled down for an opulent Ahwahnee brunch with the groom (why is it that “groom” and “doom” rhyme? They must share the same root word). Then I joined Tim and some best men on a quick hike partway up Upper Yosemite Falls. We kicked about, chatted… There was no hint whatsoever of the big event that was only a few hours away. As the time approached, everybody rolled their eyes and relucantly went to put on formal wear. The ceremony was hot and quick, then we spent all evening eating and drinking and carousing. It was brilliant, a completely suitable wedding for Tim & Marnie. Pity the Ahwahnee.

Except for the shots here, I didn’t take any pictures. It’s a shame because everything was stunningly beautiful. I’d apologize but, what the heck, people were paid to do that. I had other responsibilities.

Ghetto Road Trip

2006-07-17T01:33:00-07:00

I rejoiced when I heard that, thanks to government inaction, Cassie would be able to join the cross-country trip.

Update: Cassie wrote her version of the story here.

The need: get our junk back to California
The car: Spike, a 1990 Range Rover
The date: Monday, 19 June 2006
The deadline: Colby and Sizhen’s wedding, 11 AM Saturday

This car is beat. It’s got 360,000 miles on the clock, the A/C doesn’t work, the radio was destroyed by the blown heater core, and it has a chronic rod knock that, like high blood pressure, might cause instant death tomorrow or might last another 10 years. It’s rough but it runs.

I originally wanted to leave at noon but packing took tons of time and setting up a car computer for in-flight entertainment sure didn’t help. We left at 5pm on Monday, just in time for rush hour traffic. Oops.

We kept the motor humming and made good time for the entire first day. At 3:30 PM on Tuesday, however, as we climbed toward Omaha, the engine started overheating. I tried the usual tricks (check coolant level & pressure, look for water in the oil, etc) but didn’t find anything. Then it started backfiring. I didn’t have the tools to diagnose further so we limped back to the last town we passed through, Stuart, Iowa, and found a garage. By then it was 6 PM so we were done for the night.

At 6 AM on Wednesday morning I limped to the garage with a car that could just barely muster enough power to cross the highway overpass. The mechanic immediately discovered that the timing was over 9° retarded and figured that the timing chain had jumped a tooth He twisted the distribuor, re-timed, and the Rover was back to its normal underpowered self. If it can go 2000 miles without jumping another tooth, we can still make it. If it jumps again, we’re stuck because the distributor was twisted to its limit. That’s a chance I’m willing to take.

I triumphantly drove back to the motel, collected Cassie and our gear, and by 8 AM we were heading West at again. About 30 miles later it felt like we were low on power. We turned around and, sure enough, the car started overheating and backfiring again. Doing 20 MPH along the shoulder, we got back to the garage at 10:30 AM.

We spent all morning calling around looking for a 1990 Range Rover timing chain. If we found one in the area, we could have the garage install it that afternoon and be back on the road that evening. Find an obsolete British part in the middle of the heartland? Bollocks. At best I could mail order one overnight it to Stuart, have in installed on Thursday, and be back on the road some time Thursday afternoon or evening. In theory. That would leave 36 hours to cover 1800 miles, totally possible but leaving no margin for error. What if something else went wrong? What if it isn’t actually the timing chain? The chance of successful repair was starting to look dim…

Across the street a used car dealership had no pickup trucks for less than $5000 but they did have a rusty, lifted 1993 Bronco. Cassie and I had a fine lunch at the Lincoln Lounge while we tried to figure out what to do. U-Haul would cost $1800 for the truck and $300 for the transporter. A rental truck would be $2400 plus dolly. Flying back and sending the Rover by auto transport would be $1400 plus air fare. Suddenly the sun disappeared and a freak thunderstorm smashed Stuart with torrential hail for 20 minutes. We decided to buy the Bronco, tow the Rover, and then sell the Bronco in CA. The sun came out, I talked the guy down to $2800, put the Bronco on the red-hot Visa card, and by 8 PM this freight train was rolling again.

A 1993 Bronco towing a 1990 Range Rover on a car dolly. Could this trip get any more ghetto?

The rest of the trip slid by in style. She’s big, she’s bad, so Cassie christened her Bessie. Bessie has one of the best A/C systems I have ever seen. Even in the middle of the Utah desert she has the ability to make the cabin uncomfortably cold in minutes. It’s true, when you first turn on the fan trail dust blows out the vents but you get used to it. Just pretend like you’re offroading in the mountains.

We kept the wheels rolling non-stop except for for gas breaks and a little volleyball peppering. The sun rose while we were still in Nebraska, set as we entered Nevada, then rose again right as we reached my brother’s place in Davis. It was 6 AM Friday morning. The trip was over and, despite the problems, Sizhen’s wedding was still 30 hours away. Mission accomplished.

I replaced the Rover’s timing chain a few days later and yet the problem persists. So I’m still driving Bessie as I try to locate a working distributor for less than $900… Freakin’ British cars. If we’d tried to replace the timing chain in Iowa, we almost certainly would have missed Sizhen’s wedding.

It will be hard to sell Bessie once I’m done with her… Her throaty flowmaster, her “get outta my way” stance, her bodacious mudders, her convertible top… If you ignore the rust, she’s one hot truck. But I only have room in my life for one gas guzzler and, despite all this, I think the Rover still has some life left in it. We’ll see.

The best part of the trip was spending a lot of time with Cassie in an uncertain, stressful situation. I admire that girl more each year. She was afraid of driving the Bronco+Dolly+Rover trainwreck and yet, when I could go no further, she drove through most of Nevada, hills and night and everything.

The second best part of the trip was finding $5.00 flip flops at a Nebraska K-Mart. Best flip flops I’ve ever owned. It wasn’t a real pleasant trip.

Weblocked

2006-07-14T05:22:00-07:00

I must invent a word to describe the condition that I suffer from. I shall call it being weblocked.

The healthy adult male will normally collect articles from his surroundings, digest them a bit, and deposit them into his blog. Occasionally, however, an article may be delayed for some reason. Maybe a picture needs to be rotated or a panorama stitched together. Maybe it’s the utter horror of the event or maybe it’s just laziness. For whatever reason one article just sits there and doesn’t get written. Subsequent articles pile up until the blockage is resolved. The more articles get blocked, the harder it is to resolve the blockage.

I’ve contracted this disease twice now (February and June, 2006) and it has been ugly both times. The cure? Just remember that blogs are stupid anyway. Why try for perfection? Smash it out, whatever you’ve got, and get on with life. A ton of imperfection beats a small amount of perfection, Google and Craigslist have shown that. Just don’t take that lesson too far!

And wouldn’t blogstipation be a more obvious and appropriate term? Too late. Bloggers have decided that “Writer’s Block” is not blogtastic enough and took it first. Problem is, their version of blogstipation describes the condition of a lack of material whereas the original term describes a crippling overabundance of it! Yes, all bloggers are stupid.

Well, maybe not so stupid. A beautiful definition by example can be found on blogstipation.com.

Defeat Garden

2006-07-14T03:29:00-07:00

The garden isn’t going so well… Right after we planted the tomatoes and peppers, a cold snap hit. The plants seemed to survive but a few weeks later, their leaves started turning yellow and falling apart.

Then the peas sprouted. At first they grew like crazy then, after a few more weeks, they started doing the same thing! Maybe there’s an herbicide in the soil? Although the soil looks rich, maybe it’s only suitable for weeds? Maybe they’re just not getting enough direct sunlight? It’s hard to say.

And then it was all moot. On the final Sunday of May we found that red crap was covering everything. Apparently the workers said, “Hey, I think there’s a garden here. Should we rethink this?” And, although the landlord gave us permission to plant a garden, the property manager said to bury it.

This is what you get when you rent.

A day later Cassie, Amola and I tried to dig up the hapless victims. It was too late. The peppers and one of the zucchinis were killed right off. Some of the tomato plants appeared OK, others had stem damage and fell over. The peas, amazingly, didn’t seem to mind and, last I heard, are still growing fine.

Our garden now consists of peas and weeds and some zucchinis. Good thing I like peas and weeds.

Hotlinking for Knowlege

2006-06-01T08:26:00-07:00

One of the many problems with shared hosting is that you can’t watch your network traffic in realtime. You might find out about a good slashdotting only after you owe your hosting company a few thousand dollars in overage fees. You gotta be careful.

While glancing over my logs last night I noticed two small blips coming from http://sb-pyrat.livejournal.com/3982.html and http://profile.myspace.com/>>. Hellooo hotlinking bottom-feeders!

Of all of my fine and not-so-fine pics, the one that gets attention is this nightime shot of The Hamburger Habit in 2003.

Dave talked about hotlinking two years ago. Any time you’re linking pictures that you have no control over into your own pages, you’re taking a big risk. I think people do it only when they don’t know any better. Or when they’re just phenomenally stupid.

You should always copy the images that you usto your own site or use imageshack. Here’s why:

Hotlinking presents some random person (me, in this case) serious temptation to quietly slide a gigantic goatse.cx image into your site. It could happen at any time.

Hotlinking also gives some random person (again, me) full knowledge of your site’s traffic. I know how many people visit Midge’s myspace page, when they visit, and what their IP addresses are. The IP address tells me their school or company they belong to, what cities and countries they’re in, etc. This can be turned into valuable data.

Basically, hotlinking gives the hotlinkee a free web bug. If I were Midge’s jealous boyfriend, I could slip a picture onto her wall. I would then know whenever anybody looks at her myspace page. I’d monitor when she logs on, which of her friends visit, how often that sketchy guy from Philedalphea goes there, etc. If I were really jealous, I could use the zero-day exploit du jour to try to break into their computers.

This is actually a pretty serious privacy problem. I use two sites that allow others to leave content on my pages. Facebook doesn’t allow images on its walls so it’s safe. Skanky, spam-infested, buggy Myspace of course has this problem. I loathe Myspace. It’s the AOL for this decade. And you can bet that people are using this trick to keep track of their “friends”.

Now sb-pyrat and midge (yes, chelsea that posted the pic but it’s your wall), your sites aren’t busy enough to cause me worry. If the traffic goes up, though, the pic comes down. And next time, link to a smaller or tiny version of the image OK? That way, even if I do notice, I probably wouldn’t mind.

Wow, I miss the Habit. Tyson, we got plans for mid July.

Watering the Garden

2006-05-31T20:07:00-07:00

The temptation to water pedestrians is awful.

Victory Garden

2006-05-31T20:03:00-07:00

5 May:

A useless dirt patch

There’s a nasty dirt patch in front of our place and I’ve been complaining about the lack of quality produce on the east coast. Whatever can be done?

Amazingly, the landlord gave us permission to do a little planting. Cassie and I went out and bought gardening stuff: seeds, shovels, and 40 lbs of cow manure. At 5¢/lb, manure must be one of the cheapest and most complex substances on the planet.

Because it’s icy cold in March, the garden started inside. We took an old Trader Joe’s egg carton, drove a hole in the bottom of each egg cup with a screwdriver, and suspended it with twine. Then we added a bit of potting soil, dropped a seed or two into each cup, and left it in front of a sunny window.

Thriving little plants.

We kept the soil moist and look what we got! It’s really satisfying.

When my dad visited we stuffed these little guys into the ground. It’s a good thing he was here. Cassie and I would have taken all day immaculately laying out our wide rows. Plants don’t care – just chuck them down.

The biggest problem we needed to solve was how to water our plants. The building no longer has a water faucet on the outside (apparently landlord books say that water usage is the best way to figure out how many people are living there). It’s too much water to move with buckets.

Water problem solved.

Now water flows from the T-junction under the sink, into the hose, through the living room, and out the 2nd floor window. living across from a hardware store has its benefits. I had to get the nonstandard adapter that connects the small sink/toilet flare to the big garden hose nozzle from Republic but everything else came from crappy Economy.

I did have one difficulty. It turns out the most common valves don’t work in reverse. Unfortunately, there’s no avoiding this with the adapter I got. 1/4 turn valves work but even they seem to leak a little. It’s easy enough to just relieve the pressure in the hose every few days.

Water, dirt, seeds. That should be everything. Come on, little plants, grow!

Farmer Cassie. You can barely see the little tomatoes in the back row.

Aruba

2006-05-26T06:10:00-07:00

Aruba is OK. It’s just another desert island with nice water and poor hotel service. It’s worth going for a few days if you can’t go to Hawaii or Greece instead. Go snorkeling if it’s not too windy.

I loved hanging out with the NetScaler crew. They’re the right combination of nerdy and kick ass. Whoever brought the Balashis… That was brilliant. Just brilliant.

So, free snacks are just about the best way to get increased productivity out of an engineer… Company-sponsored booze parties in Aruba and Monaco are the best way to get increased productivity out of salespeople. Engineers, listen up. We’re settling for too little!

Paul Revere and Sam Adams

2006-05-25T14:48:00-07:00

My dad visited during the brief respite between Mammoth and Aruba. We took the Freedom Trail tour from the Common to Fanueil Hall, then continued on our own up to Bunker Hill. Our tour guide was entertaining and undid some of the damage caused by taking US history class in the 80s. For instance, Longfellow’s poem (“Listen my children and you shall hear; Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”) makes better Yankee propaganda than any sort of historical account.

The Wikipedia article is pretty good but doesn’t go on to describe how Revere and Dawes went drinking later that night and then were captured by the British. It’s a great story. Both Revere and Dawes wrote about that night first-hand in their memoirs, so why can I find 14,300 copies of Longfellow’s poem online but not a single copy of either man’s actual writings?

I think that Longfellow’s poem actually does Revere a disservice. Revere created the communication system that organized the colonial militia and was instrumental in defeating the British. He forged the bolts and plating used to construct The U.S.S. Constitution. He was influential in starting the United States’s industrial economy. He was an an amazing American. It’s a shame that everybody knows him for something that he didn’t really do.


J.S. Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere wearing American linen and holding a silver teapot that he made.	His hairline has changed and he’s holding a beer stein but why is Paul Revere’s picture on the Samuel Adams label?	Because this is Samuel Adams. In fact, this picture probably rather optimistic. Adams was said to be fatter and uglier.

Samuel Adams inherited the family brewery in 1748 and, mostly though incompetence and neglect, finally drove it out of business in 1764. He was a great patriot and revolutionary but a poor brewer.

So the picture is a little less than legit. And the name. So what? What about the beer?

Microbrewers tend to regard Jim Koch (creator of Sam Adams) as a wife regards a mistress: while they built breweries from scratch, he contract-brewed his beer in idle capacity at large industrial plants, then labeled it “microbrewed.” Not having to invest money in a brewery allowed him to spend more on advertising. “Samuel Adams is a marketing shell,” says Kurt Widmer. – Portland Weekly

The new, more festive label!

A few weeks ago, Cassie and I toured the local Sam Adams “brewery”. It’s small and cheesy because they don’t actually brew any significant amount of beer here. Most of the Sam Adams drunk on the East Coast is brewed at Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis plant. Even the gift shop was devoid anything tasteful to buy. The best thing about the tour? 21 oz of beer at the end.

Ah well. I always did like Sierra better.

Mammoth Spring

2006-05-04T09:15:00-07:00

It snowed the night of my birthday. How amazing is that? Here’s mark getting a powder shot and some fresh tracks at the top of Dave’s Run. On April 24th!

Here is scariest jump I’ve ever seen in person. That’s a snowcat building the kicker. The speck in the foreground is a snowmobile. Far right is Mark dropping in on Dragon’s Back.

The Vertigo Shot

To everyone who called on my birthday, you all rule! That meant a lot to me. Not many of you believed me when I said I had powder fields to destroy. See? See? I wasn’t kidding!

Brinly and the Oakland Zoo

2006-05-04T08:34:00-07:00

19 Apr 2006:

L-R: Scott, a real alligator, James, Brinly


The rightmost shots are an action sequence. Brinly’s left leg has already buckled and she’s on her way down. Keeping firm hold on the treasure, she slams into the ground. Quick systems check, consider crying, decide against, back motoring within seconds. Babies are bouncy. Wish I was.

Marathon Monday

2006-04-25T11:57:00-07:00

Still catching up: 17 Apr

The Boston Marathon goes right past our house, somewhere around the 25th mile. So, about the same time as the runners left the starting line, we started warming up the grill and cooling off the ones.

The wheelchairs come tearing through first.

Then the women

Rita Jeptoo
Women’s Elite Winner

Jelena Prokopcuka
Women’s Elite 2nd

Then Robert Cheruiyot, the men’s elite winner, scorched through a minute ahead of the next elite man. He had been clicking down 5 minute miles for almost two hours and looked as fresh as if he’d just started.

Robert Cheruiyot out for an afternoon jog

Shame about the guy with the bullhorn.

This page allowed you to predict to within a few minutes when a friend would pass. You’d watch as they start off on an 8 minute pace. And you’d sympathize when you saw it drop to 12 as they hit the wall.

Kristi is training for a 5K in July. Sizhen is training for a 5K in, when, August? I did the Wharf to Wharf last year with a decent time but I’ve been getting pretty lazy since then. Time to change that. Running is great – you just need shorts, shoes, and a tolerance for pain. And it helps to have a goal in mind.

Finally, I admire this guy. The official clocks stop at 6:30 but he’s still charging it out of the Comm Ave tunnel. Athleticism is not just about elapsed time and who comes in first. It’s about personal records and not giving in. Go run.

Farmer's Market

2006-04-25T11:18:00-07:00

still catching up, 25 Mar:

The biggest shock of moving to Boston was, no, not the weather. Not the tortured streets. Not even the Mexican food. It’s the lack of decent produce in the grocery store.

$4.99/lb for red peppers? $2.00/lb for mushy apples? The meat aisle is the same size as the produce aisle. How on earth do Easterners survive?

This is how. Head to Haymarket on Friday or Saturday during the day and buy produce from a market that has been going on for more than 200 years.

Thing is, look at all the Dole boxes… There are no farmers here! This is a low-rent wholesaler’s market. But so what? If you’re careful, you can still get great produce at great prices. If you’re careful.

Take your skepticism, reject stuff if it looks bad, and don’t be afraid of getting yelled at. And there are other farmer’s markets if this one isn’t quaint enough for you.

Diana's Birthday

2006-04-11T11:49:00-07:00

25 Feb:

Here’s Jacqueline celebrating Derek’s – I mean Diana’s – birthday.

Cassie and I baked a cake for them from this recipe. Recipes titles always exaggerate but it really was one of the better cakes I’ve had. It’s rich without being overbearingly sweet.

Some notes:

Baking it for 25 to 30 minutes definitely wasn’t sufficient. The surface was springy but the inside was still goo. It took 45 minutes until our cake was finished. Use a broomstraw to determine when the middle is done (we just used a fork since the damage would be frosted over anyway).
Make sure the cake is chilly before frosting it. We didn’t leave enough time so we assembled the cake warm. And we paid the price. The top half split into 3 pieces and smeared itself around the inside of the cake carrier. It was tragic. Some quick repairwork and a lot of frosting saved the day.
You can read all the recipes you want but nothing short of actually baking a cake will let you truly comprehend the horrifying quantities of butter and sugar used.
The batter is bitter when it goes into the oven and mildly sweet when it comes out. I’d like to know more about the chemistry of cooking.

Prohibition Party

2006-04-11T07:59:00-07:00

11 Feb:

Kristi’s apartment threw a 21st amendment party. Apparently we celebrate well in advance. Why procrastinate for matters of such importance? A few pics of people looking good (unlike last weekend):

Kristi’s boy said he’d show up in an hour or two and then flaked without a word. Pulling that after only a few dates pretty much torpedos the relationship. Bummer. He seemed really cool at white trash. A few days later he phoned her up and invitend her out to Starbucks. To apologize, right? She paid for her own coffee and then listened as he spent his lunch break breaking up some more. Bizarre.

Our fine neighbor bested that performance last weekend. Moron that later. Guys, show a little more respect for your women?

It sucks to be meeee

2006-04-11T07:11:00-07:00

Wow, it’s been two months since I’ve updated this thing. Life didn’t stop but it did get wedged for a bit when Cyberonic needlessly booted rinspin.com off the net.

Feb 5th:

I took Cassie to New York for her birthday. We saw Avenue Q, which kicked just as much ass as Mark said it would. Beware, though. One scene in particular is, ah, disturbing. Hilarious, yes! But disturbing.

Though I’m not an out of work comedian and I didn’t particularly like the Brian character, I did relate to this line:

BRIAN It sucks to be broke and unemployed and turning thirty-three….

And, by the way, on top of the GE Building, the wind was not betraying any sort of receding hairline. I was just going for the Wolverine look that day.

Yeah Wolverine.