We summitted at 10,388 ft this morning at around 10am. We’re back alive, safe, but really sore.

Details to follow.

Day 1
7am - awake and re-packing gear.
9am - breakfast.
10 am - leaving Sacramento
1pm - arrive ranger station. procure permits.
2pm - arrive Carson Pass trailhead.
4pm - arrive 1km North of Winnemucca Lake. Start digging snow cave.
8pm - snow cave gains a “window” - we punched through the top.
9pm - snow cave is patched, we move in, and make dinner.
9:30pm - dinner, scotch, and motrin = sleep.

Day 2:
9am - bladder alarm goes off - wake up.
10am - out of the cave (it takes a while to get dressed out here during winter).
10:30am - breakfast in the belly, start formulating plans for the day.
12pm - depart for Round Top Lake on a training hike for tomorrow. The original plan was to summit today, but with such a late start, there’s no way that was going to happen. So, instead, we opted for a short, 1km hike to Winnemucca lake, where we proceeded to dick around, eat lunch, lounge, and perfect the art of building a lounge chair out of skis and ski poles.
2pm - back at camp.
3pm - lunch/dinner.
3:30pm - commit to a 4am alpine start to bag Round Top Peak tomorrow.
4pm - in cave, getting ready to sleep.
4:30pm - sleep
…
8pm - wake up, eat food, drink more scotch.
9pm - sleep again… this time for reals.

Day 3:
4am - 5 alarms signal the alpine start.
5am - coffee and breakfast are made and consumed, gear is packed.
6am - on the trail for Round Top Peak
7am - passing Winnemucca lake, 1.5km from Round Top Lake
8am - On the ridge above Round Top Lake - we’re making unbelievable time. We made very conservative estimates to boost our morale when we inevitably beat our projected time.
9am - We’re at 10,000 feet at the saddle below the summit, 1 hour ahead of schedule. This is the first direct sunshine we’ve had all day, and we relish every moment of it, stripping our cold, outer layers. Already an hour ahead of schedule, we decide to ditch everything, including water, for our push to the summit - only 300 meters as the crow flies, and ~400 vertical feet. Looking up, we come to terms with the next challenges - 100 vertical feet of loose rock, 200 vertical feet of a steep, snowfilled coulior, and another 100 vertical of mixed rock, ice, and snow. Smiles creep across our faces.

“Fuck it, lets get moving.”

If I thought the first 100 feet of loose rock was a tad bit intense, the next 200 vertical feet of snow was worse. High exposure level, poor runouts, and warming (aka: softening) snow formed a mixture of “oh, holy shit” in my head. This being only my second time in crampons made it a bit of a mental challenge to summit. 200 vertical feet of snow and ice climbing with no ropes, no belay - save for my ice axe, and no turning back made for a serious concern for descent. With the snow on our approach route already softening in the southern sun, we were banking on finding another route down. Without it, we’d probably opt to take the big ride - a controlled glissade down a warm snow face is much favored over an uncontrolled free fall down the same face.

The last 100 vertical of climbing turned back to rock/ice - too much southern exposure and high winds to allow for snow to stick for more than a few days.

10am - We reach the summit nearest the saddle. To our dismay, Round Top Peak proper is another 100 meters to our East, over very technical terrain that we were not prepared for. We check the elevation:

10,388 ft @ 10am - we’ve beat our estimate by nearly 2 hours!

We linger at the summit for a good 15 minutes - just enough to cool off. Then, we start the descent. The first 100 vertical feet down is unchanged, but - thank God - the next is much better. We found a northern exposure - still in the shade - that was covered in good snow. Post-holing down 200 vertical feet passed in a manner of minutes, and without all the head-games that went with going up.

11am - back at the saddle. now, we make lunch, rehydrate, and gear up for the descent. I’m on skis, but Bryan is on snow shoes, so he leaves first. With Bryan halfway down the ridge below the saddle by 11:15, I ride to the top of the face below the saddle and prepare for descent. Bryan wanted to film my descent (which wasn’t very graceful - the slope was icy as hell), so I waited until he was ready.

The film went off without a hitch, but I caught an edge on the ice and took a mild spill - nothing serious. Since Bryan was all packed and I wasn’t, and the avalance danger was very low, we agreed that it was okay for me to continue on ahead. I skied down to our camp @ 8500 ft by 12:15pm.

12:15pm - back at camp, I start to pack for the retreat. I also opt to heat water to make some food - the wind screen and fuel cozy I made for my stove proved worth their [minimal] weight in gold!

12:45pm - I’m packed, chicken teriyaki is in the stomach, and fresh water is heated. It’s time to break down the cave.
1pm - Our snow-cave-with-a-view is destroyed and we hit the trail. The going is slow with heavy packs, but we press on, frequently taking breathers.
2:30pm - We’re at the car, greeted by one ranger taking a survey, and another demanding to see permits. Thankfully, they’re both cheerful, understanding, and accomodating, and allow us to remove our packs and get a bit more comfortable before pressing further. The permits located, and the survey complete, we hit the road by 3pm, arriving in Sacramento at my Dad’s house by 4:45pm.

4:45pm and not a minute later - hot shower. And oh-my-god was it good.

From 8,500 ft to 10,350 ft and back, covering a distance of about 5 km in 6 hours, with another 2 km an hour later, and needless to say: a) i’m tired, and b) i’m sore as HELL.

but I’m still kicking!!

(photos by Bryan McCarville)

The verdict is in: Bryan and I will be repeating the last, ill-fated trip to Carson Pass.

The load is significantly lighter - no camera, no snow pickets, no tripod, no tent.

The goals are significantly more abitious: make it more than 1 mile in (damn weather), peak-bag 3 10,000 ft peaks nearby, get in some skiing, and stay warm — we’ll have help from the Weather on that one.

So, if you don’t hear from me by Saturday, send a search party somewhere in the vicinity of N 38.68717 W 119.98669 or N 38.66909 W 120.01213

Q: How can you beat $1 tacos?
A: Make them worthy of a culinary orgasm.

Taqueria Latina, a hole-in-the-wall on Maude and Murphy, makes one helluva taco.

I dropped in on my way to San Francisco last Friday, picked up 3 chicken tacos, and ate them in the car. It’s a good thing I brought a change of pants…

Those tacos were damn good.

plans are in the works for another backcountry trip this Thursday - Saturday.

Vacation procured. Bags packed (well, just “bag”). Food mostly procured.

Location - unknown… somewhere with snow. And possibly skiing.

I logged near 30,000 vertical feet of downhill skiing yesterday. My dad said I don’t look like someone who hasn’t skied in 8 years.

w00t!

I may also take this weekend off and go back country skiing/winter camping again. Hopefully this trip will be a bit less epic.

I kind of feel my energy/drive level rising. Interesting, that. On that last trip, I wanted to peak-bag 3 nearby 10,000 ft peaks in one day. If we go to the same place, I may give that a shot again.

I went up to SF and hit up Zeitgeist with some of the team last night. Having just successfully launched their baby, they were all busy getting very, very drunk. I’ve never had that much fun on a Tuesday night, and boy could I tell Wednesday morning.

One little detail I failed to take into account last night: they all have the week off - I do not.

Fark rolled in to work long enough to grab some stuff and head home. I rolled in, got in my car, drove home and slept for an hour or so. My head was killing me.

But yea, to be able to join in the collective sigh of relief was a neat experience. A couple of the team members thanked me personally for my work - that felt really nice, especially in the face of all the shit I have been catching.

I’ve finally updated my photos page with my latest galleries, including photos from my New Zealand trip that I took last January. My photo server is back online.

I’ve also linked up my Carson Pass backcountry photos (not the most recent one, as my camera was frozen, but the one after Thanksgiving), Curly’s 30th birthday, my National Photo Posting Month ‘06 submissions, and my current portfolio of personal favorites.

Updated Photo Galleries.

I on-sighted a V4 at the climbing gym today. Holy crap - I’m stoked! I’ve never been that good.

For comparison, the best I’ve ever done trad climbing, was a 5.8 lead[1] in Yosemite Valley, pictured below:

Church Bowl Lieback, 5.8, Yosemite Valley, CA

[1] I have top roped/red pointed up to 5.11 in the gym before, but that somehow doesn’t count. V4 is awesome, and I’ve never been able to do it.

I had a bad dream last night about my parents. I won’t go into details, but it was tempered with the obligatory sex dreams, so that made it a bit better. I still think I woke up with tears in my eyes in a friend’s house… kinda felt strange.

Another strange thing: the number 1 1/3 or 1.33 or 133% kept repeating in my dreams last night and I’m not sure why…

On the drive up, my left front chain broke - one of the cross sections that is in contact with the road snapped in half. No biggy (yet). We grabbed a keychain carabiner and tied the loose chain off to the rest of it. We had no other issue getting up to the pass.

We arrived at the trail head at approximately 12:45pm. Due to a late start hiking in raging snow storm and super heavy packs, we only made it to Frog Lake on Wednesday - about 1 mile in on route 2/3 from Carson Pass. By 2pm, we stopped hiking and started piling snow up for a snow cave. By 5:30pm, we had a place to sleep, and started moving into our snow cave. By 9pm, we were asleep, oblivious of the storm and high winds outside.

Thursday Morning, 9AM: Wake up, get dressed, crawl outside the snowcave. My boots are frozen as I go to put them on - someone forgot to sleep with his boots in his bivy sack… ooops!

Weather:
Windspeed: 40 mph, from the North East, gusting to 50 mph. On the ridges, the wind was at 70 mph, gusting to 90 mph.
Temperature: Approx. 24 degrees F, with a windchill temperature of approx. 6 degrees F. 30 minutes unprotected outside in this weather, and frostbite starts earning appendages.

9:30AM: Start (trying) to boil water. My gloves are frozen and I can’t feel my toes.

10AM: Water is still warm, but not boiling. Bryan and I are post-holing around in the heavy snow trying to stay warm - neither of us can feel our toes. The stove flame is starting to flicker out. I crank the fuel up, only to realize it is already on full blast.. I turn off the stove and shake the fuel canister…. yup - frozen. My 4 season mix of propane, isobutane, and butane has become slush. Bryan’s 3 season mix is frozen solid.

We crawled back in the snowcave, drank a bit of what was left of our unfrozen water, and waited until we could feel our toes again. We made the decision that if we couldn’t get hot water by 1 pm, we would leave in order to avoid becoming permanent residents of Carson Pass.

I hiked about 100 yards away out into a sunny clearing, hoping the sun would work its magic on my fuel and my toes - no luck. The water in my pot was freezing faster than it was boiling, even with the stove on full blast.

I figured I should at least get some pictures of our cave before we go. I got my camera out and realized, much to my dismay, that it too had frozen. There’s no way I was going to push my luck with my camera - I tossed it back in the bag, defeated.

By 1:30pm, we were hastily tossing all our gear into our packs, getting ready to leave. We made it back to the car by 2:45pm, jammed all our gear in and got on the road.

About an hour down the road, my other chain snapped. Same thing - a cross section that is in contact with the road broke in half. One more keychain carabiner and we’re good to go. The only problem was, we were in the avalanche prone area of Carson Spur - no stopping here. Once around the spur, we pulled off. Winds here we definitely near 70 mph. Without feeling in our hands, Bryan and I adjusted and jury rigged the right chain and got back on the road. The road was dry in sections, and impassable without chains in others - we had no choice but to drive at 20 mph for about 25 miles before we could take the chains off.

We had a wonderfully fun trip, although we missed out on making fresh tracks in the back country. I had a blast and learned how to make a snow cave when the snow pack isn’t deep enough for it. I also learned that I need to do a few things differently before I go out next time:

- Make a fuel cozy, to keep the fuel from freezing.
- Buy a plastic plate to set the fuel canister on while I’m cooking.
- Make a lightweight, packable windscreen to ensure the heat from the stove goes into the pot and not into the wind.
- Sleep with my inner boots either on my feet, or in my sleeping bag, to keep them from freezing in the morning.
- Buy an insulated sleeve for my hydration pack - it froze on the way in.

I just sent this email to my parents… Hopefully, it’s not my last.

The Plan:
I’m going up to Carson Pass on Wednesday - Friday. I’ll be going with Bryan, leaving Wednesday morning, and returning to Sacramento Friday Evening.

The Contingency:
If you don’t hear from us Friday, send a search party and tell them to start looking for Two Hikers. Give them the following information:
Each of us will be wearing ID tags on our arms. Each will be carrying an ariel flare. I will have a HAM radio.

The Routes:
Option 1. We’ll be leaving from Woods Lake Camp ground, with a destination of Round Top Lake (approx. 38.668ºN, 120.011ºW). 2 miles.
Option 2. Leaving from Carson Pass itself, hiking up to Frog Lake, across Elephant’s Back, east of Winnemucca Lake, climb the ridge, circling South of Round Top to Round Top Lake. This alternate route involves at least two ski descent across possibly avalanche prone terrain. We’ll be wearing beacons, and will have practiced locating a buried beacon before leaving. 4 miles.
Option 3. Same as option two, except we’ll travel around the West side of Winnemucca Lake, and hiking straight from Winnemucca lake to Round Top Lake. This option does not involve very avalanche prone terrain. 2 miles.

Shelter:
We’re planning on building a snow cave or igloo. As a backup plan, each of us is carrying a bivy sack. We’ll also have a tent rain fly and poles.

Map:

See you Friday!

I hope you all are having a better holiday than I.

in 8 years… I took a haitus to snowboarding, starting 8 years ago. When my Dad and I got into back country skiing, the snowboard started to make less and less sense. So finally, this year I broke down and bought skis. Today was my first full day on them (not counting the backcountry trip the day after Thanksgiving).

This time I remembered to lock my boots in the forward position. Recalling that one must “charge the fall line” really made a difference - by the end of the day, I was charging down the double blacks like they were a cake walk, ripping up the ice, and even getting air borne a few times.

Ice used to scare the shit out of me on a snowboard - one edge between me and certain pain. On skis, no problem. Looks like it is just like riding a bike.

Bryan, my sister’s boyfriend, and I have a back country trip in the works for Wednesday - Friday, to the same place Dad and I went back country skiing after Thanksgiving. I’m excited to get some decent use out of my skis and skins. I may need to purchase some crampons before heading up there - I do remember some very dicey sections of climbing that necessitated kicking steps - something that was destroying the toe welts on my boots. I’d much rather have 1/2″ steel teeth do the work for me.

More trip reports to come: Tuesday: skiing again, Wednesday-Friday: backcountry winter camping.

Another uHowto. Hasn’t been one in a while (click uHowto above to see the other one).

Increase your download speeds by tuning your IP stack.

Something is in the air. It looks like I’m not the only one effected by it.

One of my buddies just lost his last safe harbor in an unfriendly world. His family is not being as supportive as one would hope.

Personally, I’ve been hit by some stress at work - a couple of projects’ deadlines are approaching, and performance is critical. And of course, shit happens, tools break, and they want them fixed yesterday. So, pair 9-10 hour days and a rotating on-call-on-weekends schedule, with my current family situation and the holidays, and I barely have time for my own sanity, much less the support of another.

In addition, I’ve been feeling like a bit of a jack ass lately, both at work and in personal situations. Long story(s). (showed up to a formal party in jeans and a sweater, made a few claims against other projects that ended up being my fault, etc..)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting the hell outa dodge for a week and two days, using this 40-odd hours of vacation I have saved up soon, and doing some backcountry skiing, winter camping, mountaineering, and whatever else I can do to reconnect with myself.

I just hope I’ve not offended too many dear to me.

In the words of one wiser than I: Time for a near life experience.

Something is in the air. It looks like I’m not the only one effected by it.

One of my buddies just lost his last safe harbor in an unfriendly world. His family is not being as supportive as one would hope.

Personally, I’ve been hit by some stress at work - a couple of projects’ deadlines are approaching, and performance is critical. And of course, shit happens, tools break, and they want them fixed yesterday. So, pair 9-10 hour days and a rotating on-call-on-weekends schedule, with my current family situation and the holidays, and I barely have time for my own sanity, much less the support of another.

In addition, I’ve been feeling like a bit of a jack ass lately, both at work and in personal situations. Long story(s). (showed up to a formal party in jeans and a sweater, made a few claims against other projects that ended up being my fault, etc..)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting the hell outa dodge for a week and two days, using this 40-odd hours of vacation I have saved up soon, and doing some backcountry skiing, winter camping, mountaineering, and whatever else I can do to reconnect with myself.

I just hope I’ve not offended too many dear to me.

In the words of one wiser than I: Time for a near life experience.

I’m almost all moved in to my new hosting situation. Stay tuned (and look for a few posts to disappear… shit happens).

I’m up and running at my new host.
Yes, I noticed I lost my post about being hungover… whatever, it wasn’t that spectacular.

Anyway,
So yea, things have changed a bit recently. Been a rough couple of weeks, but I’m hanging on. Expect more photography soon!

By the way, the sum of NaPhoPoMo 2006 (photos) lives here:
National Photo Posting Month - 2006

I’m up and running at my new host.
Yes, I noticed I lost my post about being hungover… whatever, it wasn’t that spectacular.

Anyway,
So yea, things have changed a bit recently. Been a rough couple of weeks, but I’m hanging on. Expect more photography soon!

By the way, the sum of NaPhoPoMo 2006 (photos) lives here:
National Photo Posting Month - 2006

Yea, even though I said I wouldn’t be posting until after the move, it’s taking longer than expected (no worries), and I have something I have to say:

I didn’t know it was possible to have a hangover this bad without being dead.

Damn!

I’m currently looking for a new web host, so the remainder of NaPhoPoMo will occur here: NaPhoPoMo

NaPhoPoMo #23:

Santa Cruz Pier. A day trip to Santa Cruz, just for the hell of it.
Santa Cruz, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #23:

Santa Cruz Pier. A day trip to Santa Cruz, just for the hell of it.
Santa Cruz, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #22:

Baseball. America’s pass time. Oakland v. Red Socks.
Oakland lost, by a lot.
Oakland, CA 2006.

This shot shows the damage to my AA filter (the cover over the sensor) that I just had repaired.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #22:

Baseball. America’s pass time. Oakland v. Red Socks.
Oakland lost, by a lot.
Oakland, CA 2006.

This shot shows the damage to my AA filter (the cover over the sensor) that I just had repaired.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #21:

Jordana in rare form, spinning some serious fire near our camp.
I racked the lens for this exposure (to rack == to change focal length while exposing).
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #21:

Jordana in rare form, spinning some serious fire near our camp.
I racked the lens for this exposure (to rack == to change focal length while exposing).
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #20:

Tide pooliing, just after graduation, with my parents at Shell Beach.
Shell Beach, CA 2005.

As you’ve probably noticed, I just did a major push to catchup. Please click back through the history (scroll down) for more National Photo Posting Month madness! Also, KK is mostly caught up too (see links below).

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #20:

Tide pooliing, just after graduation, with my parents at Shell Beach.
Shell Beach, CA 2005.

As you’ve probably noticed, I just did a major push to catchup. Please click back through the history (scroll down) for more National Photo Posting Month madness! Also, KK is mostly caught up too (see links below).

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #19:

Jordana’s sweet eyes, giving me “the eye” after probably having made my last lame joke for the night… or not.
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #19:

Jordana’s sweet eyes, giving me “the eye” after probably having made my last lame joke for the night… or not.
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #18:

Waiting in line for the Tower Diner’s famous Sunday Brunch.
Sacramento, CA 2005.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #18:

Waiting in line for the Tower Diner’s famous Sunday Brunch.
Sacramento, CA 2005.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #17:

White-barked trees lined the trail.
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #17:

White-barked trees lined the trail.
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #16:

My father on his [makeshift] backcountry rig. We had just climbed through powder, corn snow, and ice for the first tracks on an untracked bowl.
Castle Peak, Truckee, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #16:

My father on his [makeshift] backcountry rig. We had just climbed through powder, corn snow, and ice for the first tracks on an untracked bowl.
Castle Peak, Truckee, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #8:

I’m a little behind on NaPhoPoMo, as are all the others. To make matters worse, I’m going to Yosemite this weekend, thereby getting even more behind. But, I should return with a slew of photos, so stay tuned!

Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

The night before the Zero One 2006 event opened up, the cafe’s tables eagerly await visitors.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #15:

Vivid colors greeted us on the hike in, and escorted us out on our trip through the Sonora back country.
Dardanelles, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #14:

A Giant chess board, graduation weekend, at Morro Bay. I had just finished my graduation celebration dinner.
Morro Bay, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #13:

A broken down bike on the beach at Point Reyes, where we also discovered a dead deer floating in the surf (not pictured, so I can sleep tonight).
Point Reyes, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #12:

Jordana takes a shot of whiskey at decompression.
San Francisco, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #11:

Jake and Allie look at… something depressing?
San Francisco, CA 2006.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #7:

July, 2006. Sacramento, CA

This one is for the recent voting day. Cheers!

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #7:

July, 2006. Sacramento, CA

This one is for the recent voting day. Cheers!

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #6:

Jordana next to the fire, October, 2006. The Dardanelles, CA.

We sat up next to the fire, with no moon, talking and watching stars until 1am (which was really 2am, as that was the night time switched over).

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

NaPhoPoMo #5:

My sister’s rearview mirror. I’m obsessed with mirror shots for some reason. The green lens flare looking stuff in the upper right is actually the letters “SE” for South East, the direction we were travelling at the time, and, incidentally, the direction I will be travelling this weekend.

NaPhoPoMo #4:

The exit escalator at the Millbrae Bart Station. This was a common sight for me for a month or so prior to Burning Man, when I was going to all sorts of city-based parties and such.

NaPhoPoMo #3:

A friend of mine, shooting photos of an intersection at night in Cupertino, CA.

We went out late to shoot photos of this intersection, for the streaky-lights effect. It amazed me how many people flipped us off, spat at us, and were generally rude… What’s up with people these days?

Jordana and I on Halloween.

This photo, and more, are part of Neil’s set: Halloweeeen

(fyi: this is not part of my NaPhoPoMo stream).

NaPhoPoMo continues…

The San Jose Museum of Art, the night before ZeroOne 2006 opened.
All the art pieces are eagerly waiting to be viewed.

First post of NaPhoPoMo:

A Bonsai Tree
Near Sword Lake, in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness, CA
October, 2006

Perched on the top of a cliff overlooking Sword Lake, my tent was about 15 feet from two different little bonsais, growing out of the granite rocks.

You’ve all heard of NaNoWriMo, right? Well, a few photographic friends of mine and I are starting NaPhoPoMo. NaPhoPoMo is National Photo Posting Month - for one month straight, each day, we’ll post a photo that has never been posted before. Each photo will have a teensy bit of background, an anecdote, or some history. Techincal information does not count - we don’t care what f-stop you used, we just wanna be awed.

Travel/Absence can be made up with back posts - so long as it works out to one a day, that’s fine.

With that, stay tuned for my first post of NaPhoPoMo.

Other cats to watch out for this month:
KK
Ryan Joseph
Neil

Finally got some photos from farktoberfest online.

farktoberfest

I just bought new skis for this season!

The Flaming Lotus Girls - the people responsible for the Serpent Mother (below) - are having a fundraiser this Friday. Their creation has cost them dearly - I highly encourage anyone who can to go (I, unfortunately, will be out of town).

For the fundraiser, I’m donating 3 prints each of the 3 photos seen below.

Fundraiser info:
Friday October 20th at the Supper Club
http://www.supperclub.com/

Burning Man Decompression 2006.
San Francisco, CA

A $0.25 weather gasket around the base of my 2001 Jetta’s Antenna cracked, the day before it starts to rain. Admittedly, I’m partly to blame for leaving it covered in playa dust (extremely caustic, so all the moisture left the gasket).

However, in order to get the gasket replaced, I need a $50 antenna base assembly (they don’t sell the gasket separate). What’s worse: in order to replace it, you have to drop the headliner (the inner, upholstered cover on the ceiling of your car) - a task that’s infeasible even for my usual mechanic.

Drop the headliner to replace an antenna? double-you tee eff?

All said and done, a $0.25 gasket replacement is going to cost me over $100. Who designs this shit??

Phil’s coffee, in Gateway market on 24th and Folsom in San Francisco, makes the best damn cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life.

Definitely get it with mint. Get the large - for $3, you can’t go wrong. The Tesoro roast is unbelievable…

This can often be overheard while purchasing said brew:

CUSTOMER: “This is an amazing cup of coffee.”

PHIL: “I know. I make love to it.”

I spent the day here, Sunday, with Jordana. mmm, what a good day. We ended the day with Sushi at the Inner Richmond.

of wasted bandwidth…

*hangs head*

Hope you’ve enjoyed it!

f0llis:
“i can tell, haven’t seen you this excited about a girl…in….well, i don’t know if i’ve ever seen you this excited”

Eric: “I had big aspirations for the amount of work I was gunna get done today….”

*pause*

Me: “You had a big ass what??”

Yea, I’m a little distracted today…

KK-

this new backpack of mine is great. I feel rugged just looking at the fucker.
…

even if it does have my security pillow in it.

Seriously though: I’m way tired. You’re terribly cute.

These things are both true.

one man grounded, born to fly
spreads his wings to the wind
and goes for a ride.

upside down and inside out,
he sees the world around
is full of doubt

in the dessert, independence day,
he’s found a place
to put his cares away

dancing up to him, she offers a quip
he brews the words, like a coffee drip
and she drinks ‘em up

one, two, three a.m.,
he pulls her in for a kiss
and the world goes dim.

off in the distance, lightning strikes
the wine flows, the world fades,
and fingers dance to sweet nirvana

blissful sleep, soon, and warm
he raises his head to see the storm
but she’s gone

she left the most beautiful dawn
in what still seems like a dream
he raised his arms in an elated scream:

“FREEDOM!”

Anonymous
11:38:49 »
i’m in trouble, when i’m looking at the linux kernel source stoned and mistaking it for poetry.

I’ve finally got my photos color corrected and online! Please check them out and give me your feedback.

http://homepage.mac.com/red0x/bm06/
All Content Copyright 2006, Ryan Du Bois.

Feel free to pass the link around.
Reproduction in print or digital form without express written permission from me is strictly prohibited.

2BLEVE, Black Rock City, NV 2006
1/160 s | f/6.3 | iso 160@50mm

This photo is of two 5 ft tall, spherical tanks, presurized to 200 PSI with Gasoline, Propane, Kerosene, Diesel, and whatever else will burn. The artists set the top of the tanks on fire, placed lit road flares above the fire (secondary ignition), and then opened the valves all the way. The ensuing fireballs shot about 6 stories high, and drenched us with radiant heat at 300 yards away.

More Burning Man 2006 Photos coming soon!

I had a good time at Burning Man this year. I worked a bit too much (three 12 hour shifts + one 5 hour shift, all graveyard) as an EMT supervisor. Since all my shifts were at night, I didn’t much sleep either… Still, I got out and had a damn good time, albeit with less art photography and less stories. Unpacking took me about 2 days of solid work; undusting will take 358. Or more.

I ran into Nic from DPW (4th of JuPlaya), though she didn’t seem to remember me.

I also met a cutie from Seattle.

Yea, it was a good week.

I’m headed up to Gerlach, NV.

Be back in two weeks.

Namaste.

8:30am - out of bed
9:30 am - in to work
11:30-1pm - lunch (yes, it went a bit long)
1-9pm - work

Long effing day…

Holy crap,

 I’m definitely not quite packed for Burning Man, even though I leave early Friday. I don’t even have much food yet. I do, however, have a ton of booze. >:-)

N 40.76222
W 119.22661

My brain is already there.

See you in 2 weeks!

—————,

    Everytime we hug, you hold me just an instant longer. I can’t get enough of that instant.

dub.

I just got home from Meadow Lake and I’m exhausted. Being behind a desk might be starting to catch up with me, I’m not sure…

Meadow Lake

Bryan Follis and I left work at about 1 on Friday, rearing to go backpacking. Unfortunately, so was everyone else on the highway (or so it seemed). 5 hours of traffic later, we arrive at the “trailhead” for meadow lake. After much confusion about where to park (and meeting up with my dad), we decided to park below the damn, notify someone who looks like they are in charge, and take off down the trail. With light fading fast, we’re racing down the 5km to Meadow Lake. Yes, this trip was not very long, as one of my cousins who hasn’t been in a while was supposed to be going (turns out she had work complications, and couldn’t make it).

Anyway, we reached camp around 7:15 or so, set up camp, and dined with my Uncle Steve, Uncle Mark, and cousin Matthew. We didn’t bother to get our own food out, since they had plently of left overs. After that and a few sips of whiskey, it was time for sleep.

My Rainbow Trout

The next day, we lazed around, Bryan climbed almost up to the northern ridge line, and I fished. I caught a nice Rainbow Trout (which we later ate — it was delicious!), but my dad had no luck.

That night, I set my camera up to do 20 minute exposures of camp on a 20 minute interval. Got some awesome shots!

The Earth’s Rotation

Review of Meadow Lake:
There is a 4×4 trail that goes pretty much all the way to the lake (this was the trail we hiked on). Because of this, I felt it was not quite representative of a true wilderness experience — there was a surprising amount of broken glass bottles and a few crushed and forgotten beer cans; real backpackers would never leave a trace — 4×4-ers, on the other hand, tend to be less “leave no trace,” in my opinion. It was a good weekend escape, but I would recommend other lakes that are only reachable on foot and that are within a wilderness area for a better backpacking experience.

WWDC ‘06

I’m going backpacking this weekend, and I have nothing queued up, so no photo-a-day for at least this weekend. However, work is picking up again, so I predict a bit of a lull in the storm of photos…. sorry.

See ya soon!

Quote of the Day:

“Beauty and kindness are all right, but truth is fucking STACKED.”
- red

Bubbles.

San Jose Museum of Art.

Okay, I swear, last post for a while…

*must….. keep…… posting…… photos….. erk!*

Hippies Use Side Door

Many Worlds

Part of the ZeroOne Festival at the San Jose Museum of Art.

Interactive Cafe

Part of the ZeroOne Festival at the San Jose Museum of Art.

DLP

This concludes my photo-a-day streak (went about two weeks, woohoo!). I’ve got a talk to give at WWDC and therefore will be quite busy this coming week. See you on the other side?

Awesome T-Shirts!

…should not drink alcoholic…

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Unravel

WWDC ‘06

I’m going backpacking this weekend, and I have nothing queued up, so no photo-a-day for at least this weekend. However, work is picking up again, so I predict a bit of a lull in the storm of photos…. sorry.

See ya soon!

Travel

Burning the Midnight Oil

KK’s posts.
seph’ posts

This concludes the photo-a-day week. I’ll keep posting photos, obviously, but with WWDC coming up, I’ll probably have much less time.

Beer Run

seph’s post
KK’s post

A day in the life of an intern.

KK’s post
seph’s post

Intimate Dinner (shot last night)

KK’s Post
seph’s post

It’s a Gamble…

seph’s shot
KK has yet to post at the time of this writing.

Michael Michael taking a photograph at a playa wedding.

KK’s photo
seph’s photo

So far, I’m getting totally pwned.. :-/

Quote of the day:
“use a thesaurus to find the clitoris, young padawan, women dig a cunning linguist.” -KK

KK, rjoseph, and I have decided to, once again, do a photo a day for a week. The rules are: you don’t have to take a new photo everyday, just publish a photo everyday.

With that in mind, here’s another favorite from 4th of JuPlaya.

Playa, Tent, Fire, People, and Sunrise
Black Rock Dessert, NV

I had an amazing weekend! I went with Omar to see the Foo Fighers’ acoustic tour in Berkeley — amazingly awesome show! Then we came back to my place, had a few beers, and talked about life.

Saturday, I had convinced my friend Rick that I wanted to hit up the city to see a movie, do something a bit more low key after my night at the show. What he didn’t know is that we had tickets to Pearl Jam!

Now, that show was amazing. 2 encores! Very well performed. It helps that I happen to really like Pearl Jam.

In the crowd, while Sonic Youth was still opening, I swear I saw someone who resembled Ruthie. Maybe I’m just hallucinating…

A.,

  Something happened on that walk into the house. Everything was going swimingly. You suggested we go inside before people get suspicious — I suggested people already were.

  11 pm, about an hour earlier, I came outside for a beer, and noticed you sitting off by yourself, people watching. I brought a chair over next to where you were; you watched me as I moved.

Was that a smile I saw? I’ll never know for sure.

  I tell myself it was.

  Immediately, we start talking. “Tell me something interesting,” you challenge. A moment passes as 1,345,490.7 interesting things fly into my speech center all at once and annihilate each other.

Another moment passes, the dust clears, and I’m left with this:

  “Did you know that the Sun is 8 minutes away, if you travel at the speed of light? Eight Fucking Minutes!” This has always amazed me. “Think about that,” I continue, ” That means the light from the sun is 8 minutes old; we’re actually looking 8 minutes into the past.”

You got me started, so I’m stuck in this train of thought.

“The sun is some 93 million miles away. Now, those stars you see now are much further away. The light you see from the stars is billions of years old. We can actually look into the past, right now.”

I look up and see what happened 93 billion years ago; your eyes stay on me.

A smile finds its way onto your face as you ask, “Tell me another interesting thing.”

You asked for it.

(trying something new)

Ruthie,

  I really had no idea who you were. You stumbled upon a bearded man photographing the roman candle jousts. Almost instinctively, you challenged one’s ability to photograph in that little light. I graciously accepted, and you conceded - such is life.

We got to talking, your name’s Ruthie, mine’s rdub. Nice to meet you. You slide in closer.

The joust is over, but I’ve long since lost interest. The warmth of your body replaces my desire to photograph with my desire to touch.

Walking away with you, I think do myself: “dare I?” I do.

My hand reaches yours and offers a challenge. You graciously accept. Such is life.

A smile creeps across my face.

“Wine?” you offer. My smile widens as we walk towards your car, ironically parked in the middle of an alkali dessert. A large bottle of red wine greets us at the car.

We make small talk as you remove the cork.

Only in this dessert can you get away with pouring wine into an empty beer bottle; only in this dessert can that be sexy. Or maybe it’s you who make it sexy.

We wander over to the Phoenix. My arm wraps around you, finding first your hips, then your stomach, then the bottom of your breast. Your skin feels so soft and warm in contrast to the harsh dessert.

I’m lost in thought as you stop short and turn to face me - your eyes are so large and bright, even at night in this light.

I think, “dare I?” I do.

I lean in, throwing all my past doubts and inhibitions away, kissing you gently at first, then more deeply. My hands find your butt and linger.

We continue to the Phoenix, and stop to watch as they prepare to burn it.

This is where things get fuzzy — too much wine perhaps?

My hands explore more of your body, enjoying every inch. You turn in my arms a few times; facing me now for a kiss, turning away now, pressing back into me while my hands explore you of their own will.

Some time passed, and I awake in my tent, alone but not cold. It’s 4am — too late to go back to sleep, too late to find you again. I stumble out of the tent, get water, rub my eyes, and enjoy the spectacular sunrise — it would have been much better with you to share it with.

It’s 9am now, and I’m breaking camp, and leaving here. The 6 hour drive back to the real world was occupied with two things: music, and replaying that night over and over again in my mind.

You shared your wine, and your love, and I appreciate that greatly — it was just what I needed. My only regret is that I couldn’t give you more. I wish I’d have got your number; you seem like an interesting person to get to know.

On the off chance you read this and remember what I’m talking about, thanks for the wine, the kisses, and the fire — all were great.

Cheers!

(trying something new)

Ruthie,

  I really had no idea who you were. You stumbled upon a bearded man photographing the roman candle jousts. Almost instinctively, you challenged one’s ability to photograph in that little light. I graciously accepted, and you conceded - such is life.

We got to talking, your name’s Ruthie, mine’s rdub. Nice to meet you. You slide in closer.

The joust is over, but I’ve long since lost interest. The warmth of your body replaces my desire to photograph with my desire to touch.

Walking away with you, I think do myself: “dare I?” I do.

My hand reaches yours and offers a challenge. You graciously accept. Such is life.

A smile creeps across my face.

“Wine?” you offer. My smile widens as we walk towards your car, ironically parked in the middle of an alkali dessert. A large bottle of red wine greets us at the car.

We make small talk as you remove the cork.

Only in this dessert can you get away with pouring wine into an empty beer bottle; only in this dessert can that be sexy. Or maybe it’s you who make it sexy.

We wander over to the Phoenix. My arm wraps around you, finding first your hips, then your stomach, then the bottom of your breast. Your skin feels so soft and warm in contrast to the harsh dessert.

I’m lost in thought as you stop short and turn to face me - your eyes are so large and bright, even at night in this light.

I think, “dare I?” I do.

I lean in, throwing all my past doubts and inhibitions away, kissing you gently at first, then more deeply. My hands find your butt and linger.

We continue to the Phoenix, and stop to watch as they prepare to burn it.

This is where things get fuzzy — too much wine perhaps?

My hands explore more of your body, enjoying every inch. You turn in my arms a few times; facing me now for a kiss, turning away now, pressing back into me while my hands explore you of their own will.

Some time passed, and I awake in my tent, alone but not cold. It’s 4am — too late to go back to sleep, too late to find you again. I stumble out of the tent, get water, rub my eyes, and enjoy the spectacular sunrise — it would have been much better with you to share it with.

It’s 9am now, and I’m breaking camp, and leaving here. The 6 hour drive back to the real world was occupied with two things: music, and replaying that night over and over again in my mind.

You shared your wine, and your love, and I appreciate that greatly — it was just what I needed. My only regret is that I couldn’t give you more. I wish I’d have got your number; you seem like an interesting person to get to know.

On the off chance you read this and remember what I’m talking about, thanks for the wine, the kisses, and the fire — all were great.

Cheers!

10:27:21
Me:
how’s your week going?

10:32:05 Miss-X disconnected

I’ve posted my photos from Rick and Hannah’s wedding. Thank god for Aperture — it made editing the RAW images so much faster (the lift and stamp tool — I could kiss whoever thought of that).

Anyway, I’ve posted them here:
http://homepage.mac.com/red0x/Rick-Hannah/

Rob
» there was a microburst today
» saw it rip a tree out of the ground

Me
» damn!

Rob
» yeah, it was like a hurricane got lost

Me
» hahaha

Rob
» “i made a left at cuba, now i don’t know where the fuck i am”

Me
» “oops, this isn’t where i parked my car….”

I come to you now, live from the playa. I’m sitting in the spot that will eventually be point 2 of Burning Man’s Pentagonal perimeter.

The dust is not too killer since there is absolutely NO ONE out here. No Joke, this place is empty — it’s really cool. I drove around yesterday (got my car up to 100+ mph!) and did some donuts in my car — haven’t done that since Pismo Beach.

Ryan Joseph is coming up Monday, and he wont be disappointed. Snafu - rjoseph never made it.

Photos:

KK, just before his Roman Candle Duel with Thumper.

KK’s hit! Medic!!!! Oh shit, that was the medic!!!

I did some stargazing myself (among other things):

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

I even stayed up long enough to catch a spectacular Playa Sunrise!

Oh, and if you haven’t figured it out, my trip to Alaska is a fake — I did it so Jake could fly home on the same date and completely surprise his parents at the airport. They’d get him when they were expecting me — which is awesome since they set me up for a blind date already!!

I come to you now, live from the playa. I’m sitting in the spot that will eventually be point 2 of Burning Man’s Pentagonal perimeter.

The dust is not too killer since there is absolutely NO ONE out here. No Joke, this place is empty — it’s really cool. I drove around yesterday (got my car up to 100+ mph!) and did some donuts in my car — haven’t done that since Pismo Beach.

Ryan Joseph is coming up Monday, and he wont be disappointed. Snafu - rjoseph never made it.

Photos:

KK, just before his Roman Candle Duel with Thumper.

KK’s hit! Medic!!!! Oh shit, that was the medic!!!

I did some stargazing myself (among other things):

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

I even stayed up long enough to catch a spectacular Playa Sunrise!

Oh, and if you haven’t figured it out, my trip to Alaska is a fake — I did it so Jake could fly home on the same date and completely surprise his parents at the airport. They’d get him when they were expecting me — which is awesome since they set me up for a blind date already!!

“Thanks for the reply,this is how this transaction works,as soon as i took your info to the USPS place i will give it to them and give them the amount i want to pay after then they will give me a reciept for the payment then you will recieve a payment Confrimation for the USPS that my payment has been approved so that you can know the amount i paid and the address to which the payment will be posted which is your address after then you will have to email me back as soon as you get the sonfirmation so that i can go to the fedEx place and provide the fedex prepaid slip for you i will scan it and email it to u for u to print it tout and paste it on the package before taking the package to the fedEx place,Then make sure you email the shipping tacking number which will be on the fedEx prepaid for you i will scan it and email it to u for u to print it tout and paste it on the package before taking the package to the fedEx place,Then make sure you email the shipping
tacking number which will be on the fedEx prepaid slip to the USPS customer care section so that they can verify the shippment and post your money order after the verification.”

I <3 Craig’s list.

Here’s how that one really works: Person A works for FedEx. He takes a fake check to the post office, has them draw up a money order, send it to me. I “cash” the money order, and — all excited — I print out his prepaid slip, slap it on my box, and take it to FedEx that day (this is the crucial part for him). Now, here’s the good part: the money order doesn’t clear since his check is a fake, they reverse the payment to my account, and he steals the box (via the tracking number I sent him) so there is no way to get my camera back.

Good job, buddy.

In the words of Andy Doe, “Do you know who I am?”

“Thanks for the reply,this is how this transaction works,as soon as i took your info to the USPS place i will give it to them and give them the amount i want to pay after then they will give me a reciept for the payment then you will recieve a payment Confrimation for the USPS that my payment has been approved so that you can know the amount i paid and the address to which the payment will be posted which is your address after then you will have to email me back as soon as you get the sonfirmation so that i can go to the fedEx place and provide the fedex prepaid slip for you i will scan it and email it to u for u to print it tout and paste it on the package before taking the package to the fedEx place,Then make sure you email the shipping tacking number which will be on the fedEx prepaid for you i will scan it and email it to u for u to print it tout and paste it on the package before taking the package to the fedEx place,Then make sure you email the shipping
tacking number which will be on the fedEx prepaid slip to the USPS customer care section so that they can verify the shippment and post your money order after the verification.”

I <3 Craig’s list.

Here’s how that one really works: Person A works for FedEx. He draws up a fake money order and sends it to me. I “cash” the money order, and — all excited — I print out his prepaid slip, slap it on my box, and take it to FedEx that day (this is the crucial part for him). Now, here’s the good part: the money order doesn’t clear since his check is a fake, they reverse the payment to my account, and he steals the box (via the tracking number I sent him) so there is no way to get my camera back.

Good job, buddy. Did you really think I’d fall for that?

In the words of Andy Doe, “Do you know who I am?”

My Alaskan vacation is coming up, and I’m quite excited to get out of dodge and into the wilderness for a couple weeks.

Many, many thanks to MotherFarkas for letting me crash on the couch on my way out of town. I, unfortunately, scheduled a very late arrival — hopefully MotherFarkas will still be willing to pick me up.

I’m also looking to upgrade my camera before this trip. Anyone want to buy a Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D)??

My Alaskan vacation is coming up, and I’m quite excited to get out of dodge and into the wilderness for a couple weeks.

Many, many thanks to MotherFarkas for letting me crash on the couch on my way out of town. I, unfortunately, scheduled a very late arrival — hopefully MotherFarkas will still be willing to pick me up.

I’m also looking to upgrade my camera before this trip. Anyone want to buy a Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D)??

Okay, so I’m not a hard ass. I’m not in any way intimidating. That’s fine.

But I did nail down a 6x performance increase in a certain piece of code today. Not bad for a performance thug.

Okay, so I’m not a hard ass. I’m not in any way intimidating. That’s fine.

But I did nail down a 6x performance increase in a certain piece of code today. Not bad for a performance thug.

I could go for a serious lay right about now.

I’m fucking exhausted…

I am going fly fishing this weekend, that’ll relax me a bit. Can’t wait to go home, see my parents (even though they live in different houses now), my sister, and just get my mind off work.

I could go for a serious lay right about now.

I’m fucking exhausted…

I am going fly fishing this weekend, that’ll relax me a bit. Can’t wait to go home, see my parents (even though they live in different houses now), my sister, and just get my mind off work.

Interns rock. Especially interns that take the Drink Train.

See photos of that night here: Intern Train Photos

Interns rock. Especially interns that take the Drink Train.

See photos of that night here: Intern Train Photos

I’ve finally gotten around to editing the photos from memorial day weekend. I’ve posted the 30-odd keepers for your visual enjoyment.

Photos include: Wine and Cheese train, Jam Session, and Noah in SF weekend.

Look here for the photos!

I’ve finally gotten around to editing the photos from memorial day weekend. I’ve posted the 30-odd keepers for your visual enjoyment.

Photos include: Wine and Cheese train, Jam Session, and Noah in SF weekend.

Look here for the photos!

I think I’m generally misunderstood.
I think I try too hard sometimes.
I think I don’t give a shit sometimes.
I think I never know what to say when I see you.

I think you think I’m shy.
I think you know better.

Fuck, I think too much.

“hi.”

Damnit!!

I think I’m generally misunderstood.
I think I try too hard sometimes.
I think I don’t give a shit sometimes.
I think I never know what to say when I see you.

I think you think I’m shy.
I think you know better.

Fuck, I think too much.

“hi.”

Damnit!!

— what-happened 2006-06-04 13:15:48.000000000 -0700
+++ what-should-have-happened 2006-06-04 13:16:01.000000000 -0700
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
cd ~
ls tmp/
-rm -rf *
+rm -rf tmp

Because of this half asleep slip up, combined with the fact that the host of this site and red0x.no-ip.com has upgraded tons of shit without telling me, my CVS and SVN repositories are lost forever.

I’ve learned to deal with this… but, god damn! I had some good projects in there… I’ve recovered a few, but still..

The moral: rm -rf is not to be messed with when half asleep.

— what-happened 2006-06-04 13:15:48.000000000 -0700
+++ what-should-have-happened 2006-06-04 13:16:01.000000000 -0700
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
cd ~
ls tmp/
-rm -rf *
+rm -rf tmp

Because of this half asleep slip up, combined with the fact that the host of this site and red0x.no-ip.com has upgraded tons of shit without telling me, my CVS and SVN repositories are lost forever.

I’ve learned to deal with this… but, god damn! I had some good projects in there… I’ve recovered a few, but still..

The moral: rm -rf is not to be messed with when half asleep.

Just finished the oscillator circuit on my little project: here’s a preview of the board (totally incomplete).

Just finished the oscillator circuit on my little project: here’s a preview of the board (totally incomplete).

Wow! That’s the only word I can use to describe this year’s Art on Fire exhibition at the Park Formerly Known as Candlestick. (Photo: a vortex of flames that reached 3 stories in height)

I met my buddy Neil at the Park with our tickets. Once there, my jaw dropped at just about everything I saw (especially Vau de Vire Society, holy damn, I’d do naughty, naughty things to those girls…). There we some quite amazing pieces of artwork. I just hope each and every one of them makes it out to the Playa this year.

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos!

Sequenced, Explosive Balls of Fire

A Turbine Engine with one Helluva After Burner (this shit was *loud*)

Firey Silhouettes

One Loud, Firey Sculpture (think jet engine that shoots flames and sparks), next to a Tesla Coil that happened to light the fuel in the jet’s afterburner every one in a while. Amazing Piece!

Wow! That’s the only word I can use to describe this year’s Art on Fire exhibition at the Park Formerly Known as Candlestick. (Photo: a vortex of flames that reached 3 stories in height)

I met my buddy Neil at the Park with our tickets. Once there, my jaw dropped at just about everything I saw (especially Vau de Vire Society, holy damn, I’d do naughty, naughty things to those girls…). There we some quite amazing pieces of artwork. I just hope each and every one of them makes it out to the Playa this year.

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos!

Sequenced, Explosive Balls of Fire

A Turbine Engine with one Helluva After Burner (this shit was *loud*)

Firey Silhouettes

One Loud, Firey Sculpture (think jet engine that shoots flames and sparks), next to a Tesla Coil that happened to light the fuel in the jet’s afterburner every one in a while. Amazing Piece!

What could be better than an Art show in the city, featuring grant-sponsored artists from around the globe? How about grant-sponsored art that just happens to be on fire?

I’ll be up in SF tonight at <insert phone and/or tech company here> Park (formerly Candlestick Park), (hopefully) shooting photos of the Black Rock Arts Foundation’s 2006 Fire Arts Festival (aka “Art on Fire”).

Stay tuned for photos.

What could be better than an Art show in the city, featuring grant-sponsored artists from around the globe? How about grant-sponsored art that just happens to be on fire?

I’ll be up in SF tonight at <insert phone and/or tech company here> Park (formerly Candlestick Park), (hopefully) shooting photos of the Black Rock Arts Foundation’s 2006 Fire Arts Festival (aka “Art on Fire”).

Stay tuned for photos.

Notice, when you click “map of site visitors,” that a blip shows up in Alaska.

I’ll be heading up that way soon, visiting Jake’s parents on my way to 8 days of hiking in Alaska. Should be truck loads of fun! Now that I got the green light to crash on their couch for a couple days on my way up (thanks Jake), I’m formalizing my plans. The trips not till July 1 (I’ll be leaving here late June), so I’ve got some time to get gear together and all that jazz. I can’t wait!

Notice, when you click “map of site visitors,” that a blip shows up in Alaska.

I’ll be heading up that way soon, visiting Jake’s parents on my way to 8 days of hiking in Alaska. Should be truck loads of fun! Now that I got the green light to crash on their couch for a couple days on my way up (thanks Jake), I’m formalizing my plans. The trips not till July 1 (I’ll be leaving here late June), so I’ve got some time to get gear together and all that jazz. I can’t wait!

working from home, today.

working from home, today.

I moved my sendmail server off of my linux box and onto my Xserve. My room is much quieter now! w00t!

I moved my sendmail server off of my linux box and onto my Xserve. My room is much quieter now! w00t!

In case you didn’t know, congress is trying to give control of the internet to the corporations. Bad move.

visit www.savetheinternet.com to send a letter to congress.

Here’s my sample letter:

Dear Congressperson,

Sincerely,
ME

In case you didn’t know, congress is trying to give control of the internet to the corporations. Bad move.

visit www.savetheinternet.com to send a letter to congress.

Here’s my sample letter:

Dear Congressperson,

Sincerely,
ME

I’d like to wish a happy farewell to my tired, old linux server. I’ve moved everything it was hosting (except for a special sendmail setup that tunnels to another friend’s server over SSH since my ISP blocks outgoing SMTP — if you didn’t understand a single word of that, it’s okay…) to my Xserve.

Check it out here: http://photo.genbukan.no-ip.com

Plans are to move the custom, and very tricked out sendmail setup over, and have my own mail server so I can give pacbell the finger. Once that’s done, I can retire my linux box.

I’d like to wish a happy farewell to my tired, old linux server. I’ve moved everything it was hosting (except for a special sendmail setup that tunnels to another friend’s server over SSH since my ISP blocks outgoing SMTP — if you didn’t understand a single word of that, it’s okay…) to my Xserve.

Check it out here: http://photo.genbukan.no-ip.com

Plans are to move the custom, and very tricked out sendmail setup over, and have my own mail server so I can give pacbell the finger. Once that’s done, I can retire my linux box.

I, yet again, have made the annual trip to Yosemite to see the family. It was lots of fun: we went on a hike, I got a phone number, and we blew off reservations for brunch at the Ahwahnee in favor of making our own damn lunch and eating on the banks of the Merced River.

An awesome time as usual. I met Laura from climblikeagirl.com — we had a great conversation and took photos for each other in one of the most beautiful settings in the world: Upper Yosemite Falls.

I took about 120 photos, most of which turned out. I’ll post a more here tomorrow night, but for now, check these out:

Working From Home Today.

The Semi-Urban Bivouac

I, yet again, have made the annual trip to Yosemite to see the family. It was lots of fun: we went on a hike, I got a phone number, and we blew off reservations for brunch at the Ahwahnee in favor of making our own damn lunch and eating on the banks of the Merced River.

An awesome time as usual. I met Laura from climblikeagirl.com — we had a great conversation and took photos for each other in one of the most beautiful settings in the world: Upper Yosemite Falls.

I took about 120 photos, most of which turned out. I’ll post a more here tomorrow night, but for now, check these out:

Working From Home Today.

The Semi-Urban Bivouac

I just finished my first power supply circuit. w00t!

I just noticed my booklist was completely destroyed by file corruption. I’ve replaced it — check it out here, and feel free to leave suggestions!

Book List

oh god, how many times must this happen?

I haven’t been home all weekend!

Here’s the play by play:

Friday: Beer Bash and Beer Pong at work, then the Pirate Drink Train, where many a wench was raized, and many a village raped. Also, an entire bottle of Captain Morgan’s disappeared.

Saturday: Woke up a bit hungover, walked to Nob Hill Noshery to get a breakfast burritto, and then made my way over to North Beach. Met up with KK from Burning Man and went on a photo safari of Lombard Street. Then I met up with a friend who was planning on giving me a tour of SF for the rest of the weekend. It was a damn good time!

Sunday: More of the same. Only we ended the night with Mythic Pizza and a gi-fucking-gantic hefeweizen at Toronado. Although, I did make it to work by 9:30 am on Monday, so it’s all good.

Photos!

The view from Eris’ pad.

Eris constantly has her gadget handy…

Street Jazz in the park.

Hope

Perfect timing on the shadows.

a good shot of my sister from last weekend.

I have this compulsion to get my place into semi rentable condition about once a month.

Some people say I need a girlfriend.

I say, “pass the 409.”

Anonymous
11:22 what do you like Least about sex

Me
11:23 i’m not sure you know me very well
11:23 sex is my friend

Anonymous
11:23 lol

Week from hell: 8
Ryan: 1, but it’s the only one that counts.

I finally — after countless hours of head banging, nail biting, late nights, and too much coffee — finally beat the bug i’ve been beating on for the past week. So, in turn, I should be more available for real life stuff again. Woohoo!

Me
10:15 i bet she’ll fail miserably
10:15 bad as that sounds
10:15 i think she’s too prudish

Anonymous
10:16 some people just are you know, and they should leave it that way

Me
10:16 haha
10:16 and stay the hell away from my bed

I drove out to Santa Cruz yesterday, to visit my friend rjoseph — what a blast!

We went body boarding at Cowells, drank a bit, chilled out, and had tons of fun. At one point, while watching a survival show, the narrator said: “and now Jim faces a tough decision: continue on alone, leaving his wife and child behind, or give up” — to which rjoseph and I both said, in unison, “Leave the Bitch!!!”

Had to be the funniest part of the whole weekend.

But yea, I broke in my wet suit, had a great time, and finished it all off with a killer breakfast burrito — no hangover necessary.

Yes, I haven’t had a real post in a while… work, ya know?

I’ll probably start changing format to a more random, IM inspired format, with links and pictures… we’ll see.

Me
12:59 wondering if i have the stamina to party thursday AND friday night

Anonymous
12:59 what about wednesday?
12:59 lol

Me
1:00 was planning on having a few beers with friends
1:00 so… yea
1:00 wednesday - friday

Anonymous
1:00 well there ya go!

Me
1:00 damn
1:00 i’m insane

Anonymous
1:01 you just figured that out?

Me
1:01 nope, known for a while
1:01 it’s fun to feign like i just figured it out though

Interesting weekend.

Let’s start small.. I rode a 50km bike ride in 85 minutes. That’s an average speed of 35 km/hr on the bike. Holy hell, I’m a quick bastard. I guess the ride was a touch short of 50 km, though… it was a 26.2 mile ride (marathon distance), which leaves me with an average speed of 18 miles/hr. Still pretty damn fast.

In bigger news, I found out some family information this weekend. Things are really changing for us.. we’ve got bad luck in the love life area. Things just never seem to work out for any of us, do they?

Me:
12:41 damn, it’s like i’m getting to be an even lighter weight drinker…
12:41 crazy

Anonymous:
12:41 have a shot of tequila

Me:
12:41 that’s a recipe for either a) disaster, or b) sleep
12:42 option c) is grayed out since i’m alone tonight

This was the first backcountry ski trip where we actually implemented our avalanche protocol.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 6 am, packed up my gear (what was left to pack, anyway), hit Albertson’s for some oatmeal, then a bakery for breakfast, and we were on the road by 8:30. We arrived at the Boreal Sno-park (also the trailhead) at around noon; traffic sucked and the weather was insane — heavy snow fall and high winds. The wind chill was probably dropping the apparent temperature into the 20s. Since I knew I would be hiking hard later, I was wearing only a base layer and a jacket/pants combo — needless to say, I was frozen until we started moving. Once on the trail, however, I was the perfect temperature.

We hiked 2 miles and were one mile away from the hut when we came up on a small tent pitched beside the trail. In front of the tent, there was a little red cross like the ski patrol have. Turns out it was the Tahoe Backcountry Ski Patrol! They unzipped their tent and made sure we were prepared for an avalanche if it happend. “You got beacons, probes, and shovels?” Yup, we were good to go. Good thing too, about 1/4 mile later, we were crossing the windward side of a cornice and the snow started giving that tell-tale “fwhump” sound with every step. Tread lightly, ryan, this is the place. At that point, we went into full avalanche preparedness mode — walking 30 feet apart, yet always in eye sight (which was terribly hard given the blizzard conditions), with beacons on. About 1/4 mile of that and we’re in the clear — only 1/2 mile to the hut!

We arrived to find that whoever had all the reservations didn’t make it, probably due to the weather. Every last person who was in the hut didn’t have reservations! Not to mention, two of the people there owe their lives to the hut. Let me explain:

The two of them had set out from hwy 80 for a 3 hour tour in the backcountry, when the weather was a bit better. They made the life-threatening mistake of wearing cotton. In addition to that, they got lost. Soaking wet, with the sun going down, and no idea where they were, they start to smell smoke. Following the smell, they end up at the door of Peter Grubb Hut. Had they not found it, they’d have died out there that night — or at least lost a few fingers and toes to frostbite.

So that was pretty neat, meeting two really lucky people. Also, by way of coincidence, there happend to be 2 guitars and a mandolin in the hut, and about 4 guitarists (myself included). So, that night, we had a killer backcountry jam session! How much fun can this get? I met some people from Berkeley, and a girl from SF. I also slept like a baby that night — carrying a snowboard on your back for 3 miles in the snow is draining.

Next morning, at 6 am, I’m up, making the morning bathroom run and cooking breakfast (though not at the same time). We’re on the trail by 8am, headed for the summit of Basin Peak. In about 2 hours, we make it to 8805 ft (approx.), around 800 ft below the summit. The snow up here is more ice than snow — too much exposure to wind has frozen the top layer, so every step I take punches through the ice and threatens to send the whole mountainside down. Since it only gets worse as you go up, we decide to forgo the summit push in favor of a good ski run. About 2 hours of hiking for a killer 15 minute run in untouched and uncharted powder as far as the eye can see — absolutely breathtaking!

After that, we head back to the hut, pack up, and make for the trail. At this point, our trail is *well* defined, so hiking out is no problem. Once at the saddle, with the rest of the trail downhill from here, I strap on my snowboard and ride the trail out. It’s less backcountry snowboarding than it is snowboard luge at this point, with the added challenge of alerting people coming up the trail that there is a fast moving snowboarder headed their way and to kindly step off the trail. Having to walk/pole your way up a hill with a snowboard sucks, but the time saved headed downhill is well worth the few times you have to pull.

We had to dig the car out of the snow, but once that was done, we headed to Squeeze In in Truckee for a sweet breakfast (even though it was 2pm). From there, it’s a drive home, laundry, another drive to Sunnyvale, and sleep. I’m still a bit sore, though not as bad as last time.

Wow!

I saw 5 am on a work night, and not because I woke up early — that’s when I finally hit the bed last night. I danced from about 1-3 am and had an absolute blast at a bondage-a-go-go afterparty in the city.

Holy damn, I’m tired as heeellll today… >:-D

Finally got most of my photos from my pre-work Yosemite solo trip processed. These are film scans done with Costco’s crappy processing scanner, so sorry for the quality. However, I did get some decent self-portraits!

Even though he doesn’t work here anymore, I still hassled Nathan a bit — “working from home today, buddy!” muhuhhaha!

My first day working from home was quite an adventure — quite cool, actually:

I slept way the hell in (9 am is late for me, and 3 hours late on Monday and Wednesday), made breakfast, called my boss, who said I don’t ever have to ask; if I wanna work from home, just do it and send an email to the group. I love this job! Easily the best boss I’ve ever had.

I spent the day changing a feature into a really cool feature (probably can’t really talk about it). But, here’s the adventure, for lunch, I went to home depot, bought some tools and hardware, fixed my breakfast table (it was a wobbly sonnuva bitch), drove to Trader Joes, donated some old clothes and dishes to the Salvation Army next door, got groceries, put them away, came home and ate lunch. It was easily a 2 hour affair, but that’s okay because I worked until 7:20 pm anyway…

Damn, I love this job.

sore throats suck.

hopefully I can work from home today.

Note to self: even if the project icon has a C next to it (meaning, conflict in CVS), do *NOT* under any circumstances, think that Xcode will remove the project file, update it, and thereby resolve the conflict. It just ain’t so..

And because of this shortcoming, I, under my own power — even after having clicked the “Yes, I’m sure box” — blew away a whole days worth of work.

It’s been a long day…

Every time you walk into a room, I start smiling.

Too bad you’ll never know.

How does a guy on antibiotics get a sinus infection? Is that even supposed to be possible?

I guess I’ll use this “stay at home” opportunity to do my taxes.

I just got a letter from Jake’s mom, signed “MotherFarkas.” How rad is that?

She thanked me for the great photos, and states “I’ve tried for years to capture the subject awake and alert in the daylight hours — thanks so much!”

She is, of course, referring to Jake.

Quote of the Day:

the only real points on my itinerary are to visit a few friends in Germany, get caught up in several bar songs and piss-drunk in a few bars there, get to the GNOME conference in Barcelona, and cast my seed far and wide among the native women.

–Cap’n. Anonymous.

My sister is in town, and I just bought a projector last night, so we had a little movie night. What could be better than 100″ of movie, 3 bottles of beer, and chips?

Not much… not much…

I finally got my running shoes and got out for a 25 minute run. Short, I know, but ya gotta start somewhere!

Makes me remember just how much of a runner I am not. Google maps tells me my route was 3 miles roundtrip. Not a bad start for 25 minutes. That’s about 5k, which is half the running leg of an Olympic distance triathlon, and doing it in 25 minutes makes me feel good. I doubt that beats my 5k split at Thanksgiving (10K run in 54 minutes), but it’s a good start.

I still have yet to make it to 6 am spinning class (and I probably never will, way too early for me), and I still need to get in a pool. If I had to rate my readiness today, according to sport, I’d rate like this:

Bike: 75% ready
Run: 60% ready
Swim: 25% ready

I wouldn’t say swimming is my weak sport, but I definitely never train for distance.

Well, that was an interesting weekend. Jake and I headed up to Truckee to visit my sister, celebrate her 25th birthday, and go skiing. What we found when we got there was that one of her roommates is a sociopathic coke-head. So, after staying only one night, and skiing only one day (great skiing! I even finally jumped the cliff I’ve been scouting the past couple of times), we drove our asses back to Sacramento, and stayed pretty low key.

Coke-man decided it would be cool to a) take shirt off and dance around like a wild man, b) walk in on another roommate while he was using the bathroom, c) fall on my bed, topless, while I was sleeping, and take his time getting up, d) get my sister’s dog out (which he knows he’s not allowed to do), and toss said dog onto my bed while I’m sleeping, and (this is my favorite) e) come down from his room into the stairwell, at 3 am, and make loud cat noises right next to my bed… You’re damn right I slept with one eye open.

What a creep. And to think about 2 weeks prior he was threatening my sister. I think she’ll not be living there much longer.

I’ve officially crossed into the realm of semi-pro photographer. I’ve sold 4 8×10’s to MotherFarkas, 1 to Xenith, and will be shooting wedding invitation portraits tomorrow in exchange for dinner.

neat!

In other news: for the first time in months, I shaved this morning!

First day of training for Wildflower!

We did an 18 mile bike ride through the Portola Hills (not portola, as in way up north, but portola as in bay area). Yes, it was raining. Mere weather cannot stop us!

Also, I’ve got a bit of a trip report (pictures coming soon) from Saturday:

Justin showed up at my door at 9:30, with me still asleep. I threw on some PJs, let him in, made breakfast, took a shower, organized some climbing gear, and got out the door by 10:30. We drove up to Castle Rocks, geared up (he’s much slower at this than I, but, to his credit, I left my harness in the car and had to run back for it. 0.6 miles of trail running , woohoo!) We started at Castle Rock proper, where I led a 5.4 (warm up, really). We put a top rope up on a 5.8 hand crack, and another above a 5.10 hand crack. Both were pretty challenging. Good thing I wasn’t leading the 5.8.

After that, we cleaned up, and hiked another 0.6 miles or so to Castle Rock Falls, where I led a 5.6 hand crack (Great climb, aside from the mud at one stance that made moving out from that stance a bit precarious (mud on slick rubber soles is no good, indeed). After that, we toproped a 5.10c slab — very slick route that required fancy foot work and pulling on peanut M&M sized hand holds…

Very fun day, and a short approach. We finished the day off with beers and burgers at BJs. Yea, that’s like the 3rd time this week I’ve been there.. it’s sad, I know…

In reference to the last post, I have signed up to do the Wildflower Triathlon this may. Holy fuck, I’m going to be in good shape, one way or the other…

I only have a few months.

Good thing I have a training buddy. And a cute one at that!

we shall see indeed…

What a killer weekend skiing/boarding! I had blast, skied a ton, and haven’t smiled that much in one weekend in a while. My date had a blast too, which is good!

Friday: left work at 5:30, drove *5* hours to Sacramento, where it usually takes 2.5. Crashed hard.

Saturday: woke up at 6am, showered, got dressed, made breakfast, drove to Truckee, which took 4 hours, where it usually takes 2. Skied all day in unbelievable snow, and great weather (for me, great weather is a white out, sub 30 degrees). The cold made for really light, fluffy snow — easily the best skiing I’ve had in two years, and the most fun too. Again with all the laughing and smiles.

Later that day, we caught a few beers and live music at the lodge, caught up with my Sister in Truckee, had Sushi, some booze, and forgot the rest of the night. Crashed at 12:30am, woke up at 5am, thinking it was 1:30am, realizing, that it was, in fact, 6 am, and couldn’t go back to sleep. Too much fun!

Sunday: laid in bed from 6am to 8am, drove to Old Town Truckee, ate at “Squeeze In,” drove to Sugar bowl, met the parents, went skiing. I still can’t keep up with my Dad, even at our age difference; he can out endure me on the slopes. Not bad! Oh, and we all skied with Lance Armstrong!

Sunday was the first time I was truly in fear of my life and/or disfigurement — I hit a rock outcropping at speed, and did the “superman” — a face first, spread eagle flight over the sharp rocks, landing hard on my side. Not fun, but I’m okay. Just scary.

After skiing, we got some beers, went to Zano’s in Truckee, had spaghetti and pizza, and drove home. Again, 3 or so hours where it would have been 2. Got to Sacramento around 10pm, and decided to just crash there, and drive to work in the morning.

That turned out well — there was no traffic, and we made it to work before 9am. I am wiped out today. Posting this from work, after making some revisions, wiping them out accidentally, redoing them, and submitting. Long day… I don’t think I’d normally mess that up… whoops :p

But completely worth it - I had an awesome weekend!

I *whipped* ass at work today, and got a ski date for the weekend. Fuck Ya!

(I dragged ass at the climbing gym tonight, but we don’t talk about that… besides… I was up late last night…)

Read this, now. Hilarious! http://qdb.us/45632

For this Valentine’s Day, I blocked in a car that had stolen my *reserved* parking spot - all night, and hopefully, all day. I’m going in to work late, specifically to make this other person late. Oh, and I ride my bike to work!

Happy Valentine’s Day, moron!

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live,devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. — From Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson (taken from here.)

I still have 3 years to think that I could be badass…

Also: “Hunger is the best Sauce.” - Mike T from Active NZ.

KK would be proud, that’s all I have to say…

I finally got around to doing bare-bones edits on all my digital photos (levels/contrast/color, all in one pass. Thank god for automation). These are the second 300 or so digital photos from New Zealand. The last 100 slides are gorgeous (for the most part), but will take time to make it online. Stay Tuned!

Without further ado:

I’d like to welcome my newest reader!

Mr. President, you’re an idiot. Oh, and “Internet” is singular.

First week of work done! I finished on a great note, taking an idea from concept to proof-of-concept in less than 8 hours. And this is one fucked-up, complex, technical idea. Not bad!

Also, afterwork, I cleaned up my apartment, played guitar and sang with my sweet new mic and mic stand, drove over to Omar’s house to drink a beer or two and help him assemble furnitute, then his girlfriend, he, and I went out to a hookah bar in downtown Sunnyvale.

I seem to have the mark of death with bouncers. Before I even got in the door, the bouncer at this place threw a fit about my beanie. What the fuck, man? It’s cold out here, give me a break.

I guess I found my nemesis… now, if only I could satisfy the filthy whore requirement… (if I lost you on that last one, click on the site banner until you get the joke.)

I’m starting a photo wall in my place. These 4 will soon be in 8×10’s, hanging from the wall. Sweet, huh?

These are all older photos, re-edited into sepia tones.

Since I started my first day of work today, I should post the obligatory Grad photo that I neglected to post when I actually graduated. Yes, those are honor cords.

From left to Right: Grandpa Anderson, My Dad, Me, and Grandpa Du Bois. Hopefully I inheritted the Anderson hair line, otherwise, I need to find a girl, stat! I’ve pretty much written off my hair… although, the good news (for me) is that my dad was bald by like 22, so the outlook looks pretty good.

Might as well also post this good photo my Mom took from after the ceremony.

What do you mean I look like my Dad?! That’s insane! :-p

Hopefully my buddies from NZ will correct this as needed, but here is what I remember of our trip. Note, most of the places have retained their native Maori names, so they’re hard for me to remember.

Here’goes:

Aotearoa = Land of the Long White Cloud, aka New Zealand

Day 1: Depart Christchurch on the trip *without* the really cute female guide (sigh). Not that that is at all why I came, but it would have been fun. Next stop, Gore Bay. Stop for lunch, shoot some photos, and meet the other people on our trip. Leave Gore bay for Kaikoura. Arrive Kaikoura, drop bags at the accomodations (a bed and breakfast), and don a wetsuit to go swim with seals in a seal colony. Major fun! Return to B&B, drink some vodka, talk with the Spaniards, and hit the sack.

Day 2: Leave Kaikoura, destination: a winery in NZ wine country for *free* wine tasting. Stop in Blenheim just before reaching the winery for a bathroom break and a glass of tea. Blenheim is rad. Arrive at winery, wine taste, eat lunch. Here, we (the backpackers) part ways with the sea kayakers (see you in 3 days, erin!). They leave for Queen Charlotte Sound, and we head out to Nelson Lakes National Park, don our packs, hike 3 hours (they measure their trails in time, not miles), and arrive at Lake Head Hut. Fight sand flies, swim, eat, fight sand flies more, stay up late, watching stars, sleep.

Day 3: Wake up, breakfast, pack up, hike 6 hours to Lake Angelus Hut. This is some of the hardest hiking I’ve ever done. Also probably the close to the farthest, although Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness (last summer) was probably farther. As we arrive, so do the clouds, and the wind. A brisk evening, some south african drugs, and a kick ass night’s sleep.

Day 4: Rain! Wake up early, eat, pack, and retreat from Lake Angelus via the same way we came. As I’m hiking, my pack is getting wetter, and also starting to weigh a whole helluva lot more. After about 6 hours of strenuous hiking over a very slippery trail, we arrive at Cold Water hut (we took a different part of the trail home), hail a boat, call the water taxi for the rest of the group, and I hit the cafe, sneak into a shower, and order food. Feels great to get a shower! After that, we drive to Punakaki and do some laundry and sleep.

Day 5: Hike to Cave Creek, a really neat fresh water spring — it looks like the river just comes right out of the cave. Really neat! Return to the bus and drive to Hokitika.

Day 6: Leave Hokitika for Okarito, population 32 (I know I’m missing a few hikes in here…).

Day 7: Sea Kayaking Okarito Lagoon, lunch, a much needed Siesta, then a 3 hr hike through the woods, to a trig (surveyering peak), then to the beach. 3 hr return walk along the beach, barefoot. Excellent day!

Day 8: Drive from Okarito to Franz Joseph Glacier. We arrive at the foot of the Glacier just as the rain rolls in. Drive through Haast to Makarora.

Day 9: Hike Mt. Iron, just outside Wanaka (highly recommended place to see). Stop in Wanaka for a snack — beautiful place, right on a lake! Continue on to Queenstown, walk around, eat the best sushi I’ve ever had (and quite affordable), get separated from my sister, hunt her down by listening for her laugh (it worked!), and hit a karaoke bar. Sing my lungs out to Bohemian Rhapsody, among others, making a complete fool of myself, and drinking way too many beers. Sleep.

Day 10: Wake up, pee for 2 minutes straight (no joke!), shower, eat Joe’s Garage for breakfast (the best breakfast sandwich in the world), walk 12.5 miles (and this was my day off), taxi ride home, eat a Fergburger (best burger in the world), drink some 42 below (NZ honey flavored vodka), and get to bed early.

Day 11: More Joe’s for breakfast, Leave Queenstown for Te Anau, jump on the bike, cycle 58 km to The Divide, then drive into Milford Sounds. Breathtaking drive!

Day 12: Wakeup early, sea kayaking in Milford Sounds, some short short hikes, drive back to Te Anau, cycle 20 km more to Manapouri, sleep, eat, hit the bar, sleep.

Day 13: Drive Manapouri back to Queenstown, eat a Fergburger again (soo damn good!), grab a brew, drive to Lake Pukaki near Mt. Cook, sleep at Braemar Station, a sheep shearer’s hut. This is, by far, the neatest accomodation we’ve been in, with the best, BEST view I’ve ever slept next to. Except for Yosemite, and maybe up on a ridge on Shasta when the stars are out. But it’s pretty damn cool.

Day 14: Drive to Mt. Cook Village, hike to the glacial lake at the base of Mt. Cook (Lake Tarns), return the Braemar, have our fairwell dinner, toast to Grant and Mike T, our kickass guides, drink more 42 below, and sleep.

Day 15: Drive back to Christchurch, through Twizel, Geraldine, and Rakaia. Tour’s officially over. We hang out with Chris in Christchurch for ~ 7hrs, eat Sushi with Grant, Mike, Chris, Erin, Emma, Kathy from our trip, and Christian, Rachael (mmmm), Katy (another Apple intern who went full time recently… talk about coincidence!), and another girl who I believe was named Stephanie, but I could be wrong. She didn’t say much to me. Anyway, more good Sushi, then a drive to the airport, and a 12 hr flight to LAX. Then a big layover, and a flight to Sacto. Back home, trips over…

Sorry for the long post. This awesome trip is highly recommended, and is available from the wonderful people of Active New Zealand. Check out the Rimu trip, which is what we went on.

Hopefully my buddies from NZ will correct this as needed, but here is what I remember of our trip. Note, most of the places have retained their native Maori names, so they’re hard for me to remember.

Here’goes:

Aotearoa = Land of the Long White Cloud, aka New Zealand

Day 1: Depart Christchurch on the trip *without* the really cute female guide (sigh). Not that that is at all why I came, but it would have been fun. Next stop, Gore Bay. Stop for lunch, shoot some photos, and meet the other people on our trip. Leave Gore bay for Kaikoura. Arrive Kaikoura, drop bags at the accomodations (a bed and breakfast), and don a wetsuit to go swim with seals in a seal colony. Major fun! Return to B&B, drink some vodka, talk with the Spaniards, and hit the sack.

Day 2: Leave Kaikoura, destination: a winery in NZ wine country for *free* wine tasting. Stop in Blenheim just before reaching the winery for a bathroom break and a glass of tea. Blenheim is rad. Arrive at winery, wine taste, eat lunch. Here, we (the backpackers) part ways with the sea kayakers (see you in 3 days, erin!). They leave for Queen Charlotte Sound, and we head out to Nelson Lakes National Park, don our packs, hike 3 hours (they measure their trails in time, not miles), and arrive at Lake Head Hut. Fight sand flies, swim, eat, fight sand flies more, stay up late, watching stars, sleep.

Day 3: Wake up, breakfast, pack up, hike 6 hours to Lake Angelus Hut. This is some of the hardest hiking I’ve ever done. Also probably the close to the farthest, although Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness (last summer) was probably farther. As we arrive, so do the clouds, and the wind. A brisk evening, some south african drugs, and a kick ass night’s sleep.

Day 4: Rain! Wake up early, eat, pack, and retreat from Lake Angelus via the same way we came. As I’m hiking, my pack is getting wetter, and also starting to weigh a whole helluva lot more. After about 6 hours of strenuous hiking over a very slippery trail, we arrive at Cold Water hut (we took a different part of the trail home), hail a boat, call the water taxi for the rest of the group, and I hit the cafe, sneak into a shower, and order food. Feels great to get a shower! After that, we drive to Punakaki and do some laundry and sleep.

Day 5: Hike to Cave Creek, a really neat fresh water spring — it looks like the river just comes right out of the cave. Really neat! Return to the bus and drive to Hokitika.

Day 6: Leave Hokitika for Okarito, population 32 (I know I’m missing a few hikes in here…).

Day 7: Sea Kayaking Okarito Lagoon, lunch, a much needed Siesta, then a 3 hr hike through the woods, to a trig (surveyering peak), then to the beach. 3 hr return walk along the beach, barefoot. Excellent day!

Day 8: Drive from Okarito to Franz Joseph Glacier. We arrive at the foot of the Glacier just as the rain rolls in. Drive through Haast to Makarora.

Day 9: Hike Mt. Iron, just outside Wanaka (highly recommended place to see). Stop in Wanaka for a snack — beautiful place, right on a lake! Continue on to Queenstown, walk around, eat the best sushi I’ve ever had (and quite affordable), get separated from my sister, hunt her down by listening for her laugh (it worked!), and hit a karaoke bar. Sing my lungs out to Bohemian Rhapsody, among others, making a complete fool of myself, and drinking way too many beers. Sleep.

Day 10: Wake up, pee for 2 minutes straight (no joke!), shower, eat Joe’s Garage for breakfast (the best breakfast sandwich in the world), walk 12.5 miles (and this was my day off), taxi ride home, eat a Fergburger (best burger in the world), drink some 42 below (NZ honey flavored vodka), and get to bed early.

Day 11: More Joe’s for breakfast, Leave Queenstown for Te Anau, jump on the bike, cycle 58 km to The Divide, then drive into Milford Sounds. Breathtaking drive!

Day 12: Wakeup early, sea kayaking in Milford Sounds, some short short hikes, drive back to Te Anau, cycle 20 km more to Manapouri, sleep, eat, hit the bar, sleep.

Day 13: Drive Manapouri back to Queenstown, eat a Fergburger again (soo damn good!), grab a brew, drive to Lake Pukaki near Mt. Cook, sleep at Braemar Station, a sheep shearer’s hut. This is, by far, the neatest accomodation we’ve been in, with the best, BEST view I’ve ever slept next to. Except for Yosemite, and maybe up on a ridge on Shasta when the stars are out. But it’s pretty damn cool.

Day 14: Drive to Mt. Cook Village, hike to the glacial lake at the base of Mt. Cook (Lake Tarns), return the Braemar, have our fairwell dinner, toast to Grant and Mike T, our kickass guides, drink more 42 below, and sleep.

Day 15: Drive back to Christchurch, through Twizel, Geraldine, and Rakaia. Tour’s officially over. We hang out with Chris in Christchurch for ~ 7hrs, eat Sushi with Grant, Mike, Chris, Erin, Emma, Kathy from our trip, and Christian, Rachael (mmmm), Katy (another Apple intern who went full time recently… talk about coincidence!), and another girl who I believe was named Stephanie, but I could be wrong. She didn’t say much to me. Anyway, more good Sushi, then a drive to the airport, and a 12 hr flight to LAX. Then a big layover, and a flight to Sacto. Back home, trips over…

Sorry for the long post. This awesome trip is highly recommended, and is available from the wonderful people of Active New Zealand. Check out the Rimu trip, which is what we went on.

And so ends the life of a student, and so begins the life of a working man.

“A real man wants two things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything.” - Nietzsche

I know, I still owe you all the rest of my NZ trip report. It’s coming.

Tuesday: Pack up and leave for Yosemite, I took way too much clothing, since I pretty much lived in the same outfit or two the whole time. Drive 4 hrs, arrive at an empty camp 4. Camp 4 is never emtpy. I also expected snow on the ground, but there wasn’t any. Some ice, not much snow.

Wednesday: Wake up, 7am, make a breakfast of freeze dried eggs (way too much Cholesterol, come to find out… shoot…). Eat fast, throw on clothes, and pack a bag, including, thankfully, my snow gaters. Hike Yosemite Falls. I made it up to the top of the falls in 3 hours, another hour to Yosemite Point (highly recommended, amazing views). I shot 2 rolls of Fuji Superia (why am I shooting film you ask? And print film at that?! Why not… Besides, I’m being experimental, all 3 rolls that I shot this weekend were overexposed by one full stop — print film can take it). Ended up hiking where I should have been snowshoeing, but because I hike like an elf, I never punched through the snow. Woohoo. Great Great views from Yosemite Point. Hiked down from the top to base camp in 1.5 hrs (More like I ran and glissaded where possible).

Thursday: Stayed in bed all day, it rained from 8am till 3pm. Shit day. Also, figured out my tent needs one more guy line to keep water from getting inbetween the ground cloth and the the tent floor. Wet, down bag == cold night for the ry guy. brrrr.

Friday: Wake up at 9:30am, thinking it’s 6:30am cuz it’s 30 degrees out. Make breakfast, pack up, seek what Sun shine I can, dry out my gear, and wait for the condensation in my camera lenses to dry out before shooting more shots. Damn condensation… I had to wait like 30 minutes until I could shoot, 30 minutes of standing in the sun, watching the beautiful scenery … stay beautiful… Man, I wanted to shoot so bad. Patience, grasshoppa… Once the lenses dried out, I shot another half roll of film, and 15 or so digital exposures. Great stuff. You’ll see soon. I probably wont put too much effort into editing them since I have tons of NZ stuff still to do, and have been to Yosemite more times than I can count (at least once a year since I’ve been 5. at least. Last 3 years, it’s been more like 3-5 times a year — it’s my favorite place on earth).

Cheers. More NZ trip report to come later tonight.

According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.

I snagged 3 rolls of the now out of production Fuji Velvia 50 (a pro’s secret weapon for scenery) before leaving for New Zealand. I just got the slides today and a light table from my dad, and let me tell you, holy freaking crap! These slides are epic. I’ll see about getting them scanned somewhere, and some of them will be made into 20×30 prints and hung in my place. Come by sometime, after they’re done, and you’ll see them. really really really awesome prints. We’re talking, $200 20×30 prints. Amazing stuff.

It’s my 22nd birthday tomorrow, but as I’ll be in Yosemite, we celebrated tonight. Here’s a quick photo roll of me, my sister, and my birthday cake.

My personal Favorite.

This is a close second favorite, though. My mom was laughing so hard she could barely keep the camera straight.

My sister bought me a Mountain Hardware Tent, and my parents bought me a second mic and a mic stand (still on order), and a wind shirt, which will be useful in Yosemite. Kickass birthday!

3 rolls scanned, photoshopped (levels, curves, saturation, sharpening, and/or other stuff. No pixels were permanently damaged in the making of these great edits). 10 photos cut for quality reasons: they were shit. 98 out of 108 is a damn good ratio: that’s 91% keepers. My best ratio yet. The digital camera was about half, at a 44% keeper ratio.

Without further ado, the first 98 photos from my New Zealand Trip!

Ship Creek Beach, New Zealand

“98 photos?!?” You exclaim in disbelief! “But ry-dog, you had at least one camera around your neck at all times… what the hell?!”
Fear not, there are still 265 digital pictures (down from 594, editing rules), and 108 slides. The slides are probably going to be the most breathtaking photos, but also, alas, the hardest to show you all online.

post a comment, or send me an email, with any shots that you’d like printed. I’ll see what I can do. Please leave me what size you want, and which number (ie, 7.98 or 7 of 98) and i’ll get back to you.

Omar and I went out to Santana Row last night, and damn did we get trolleyed. After a bit too much diesel (kiwi slang for booze), we bought 3 drinks for 3 girls. 3 girls who all happened to be driving. 3 girls who also, it has been postulated, are still in high school. Ooops. Chalk one up to experience: I’ve bought high school girls drinks, and been turned down. One less thing on my todo list! Omar and I killed off most of the 3 lemon drops, after having 3 or 4 beers, a maragita (myself), and little to eat.

Afterwards, we went to the Straits, ran into the highschool girls, ordered them water, and told them to get lost, their parents are up, worried sick wondering where they are. (not really, but that would’ve been funny as hell). Omar and I order gin and tonics (mistake number… shit, i’ve lost count. Not a good idea). After those, the night gets a bit blurred. We drank, we danced with some ladies, who in my memory were older, and attractive. After that, a cafe, croissants, miraculously making it home somehow, crash, wake up, puke, hot bath (who does that?), crash, sleep all night, wake up 9am, drink some emer-gen-C, which makes a cameo in my toilet after about 10 minutes, drink some sprite (thank god for sprite, it’s the only thing I can keep down when I’m sick), brush teeth, drink some milk, snooze a bit, get up, edit photos all day, pickup prints at costco, and finally get some solid food.

The time now? 3pm. First real meal all day. The verdict? I had too much fun last night.

By the way: the E.T.A. for the first 108-ish photos (3 rolls of film) is tonight. I’ll keep you all posted here.

1/28: Updated with photos.

Well, I had an absolute blast in NZ. It’s about time I post a trip report. In it, I will include what I can remember of the itinerary, places to see, and perhaps even a few photos.

My Sister’s Eyes, Milford Sound, New Zealand

First off, we arrived in Christchurch a few days early, to acclimate our selves to the culture (not much difference, really), and to try to meet some chicks (or guys in my sister’s case) at the bars. Worked out better for her… anyway, moving on!

1/3rd of the area of Christchurch is parks. They have a HUGE botanical garden and a HUGE park that turns right into a golf course. The park and botanical gardens are completely open to the public — great city. I highly recommend you budget a whole day to exploring the gardens and the park. Also, do it on the weekend, and there is a neat outdoor market right near the gardens and the old University. Very cool.

Mt. Cook as seen from Braemar Station, New Zealand

Next day, We eventually meet up with a few locals at a bar called the Grumpy Mole, right after I happen to hit on some guy’s girlfriend. To make things worse, this guy is friends with, or at least knows the bouncer, who comes over, points at my *first* drink of the night, and asks “How much have you had to drink?” I laugh at him, cock my head to the side, “You serious? This is my first one..” “Why don’t you head somewhere else?” “Excuse me?” “I know how this guy gets when he’s drunk.” At this point, I just had to laugh, and go meet the people my sister was talking with. Fun night. I met a girl name Jasmine (”Call me Jazz,” she says, as she introduces herself — good start; I like Jazz). Nothing panned out, she was as shy as I am… boo. Very nice girl though. They slipped into the bathroom, and I slipped out of the bar — I felt about as interesting as a fly on the wall that night. Oh well, not at all the reason why I came.

Anyway, the next day was a lazy, hangover recovery day. Didn’t do much. My sister had got a date the previous night… a day on my own.

Braemar Station “Love Shack”, New Zealand

Next day, the tour starts. Since this post is getting long, I’ll put the itinerary and activities in another post. Stay Tuned.

I’m back in the USSR… er… USA. (bonus points if you can name the song quote)

I popped above radar briefly, only to tell the two of you that noticed that I’m too tired to talk (lots of travel time today).

NZ was absolutely insane; I had a blast. I’ll tell you all about it later, and I’ll be back on the radar in a couple days.

Thanks for understanding! Peace!

(also of note: I was in some of the same places that this lady (one of my favorite blogs) was in, at almost the same times…. rad!)

EDIT: by the way, I took over 600 photos… might take me a while to edit. but you’ll see snippets here first.

Heading to NZ for almost 3 weeks. Be back around the 23rd.

Peace!

That was probably the worst 40 hours of my life. The fever broke around midnight last night, thank god, and I feel much, much better.

Now, to pack up and head home for my trip to New Zealand. w00t!

I’ll be back around the 23rd!

What a shitty day to get the flu. so much for that nye party.

it’s going to be a kick ass party tomorrow night! woohoo!

Here’s some photos from my graduation… er, the hotel we stayed at for my graduation:

Pismo Beach, CA

Sunset, Pismo Beach, CA

Pismo Beach, CA

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
- George Carlin

When talking about Rap Music:

“none of the music is original, but they are still talented: they can talk fast… and it rhymes… and I can’t do that.” — me

Note to self: when it’s snowing hard, cold as hell, and you’re planning on going snowboarding, wear a face mask.

My face hurts… time for a hot shower.

Hope everyone has a great holiday/solstice. I am having a blast, that’s for sure.

Things on my hit list:

Snowboarding
Hitting the SFCA Bars
Sea of Dreams ‘06 New Years Eve Party
Crashing at fark’s place.
Seeing friends from school/work one last time before heading to NZ
Trekking New Zealand
Turning 22 just before February.
Work

Perhaps I am a jetsetter. >:D

Just got in from Truckee, where the weather sucked, skiing was worse (up until the last day), and I got yet another 2 phone numbers. We drove to Kirkwood Wednesday for some riding, got some in before the thunderstorm rolled in and cause them to shutdown the lifts. Who want’s to ride a giant, steel conductor through a lightning storm? Anyone? No? Alright.

Day two: Kirkwood. Rain. Power outage. 2 runs. Refund. 6 hrs drive total. LAME.
Night two: Priya spins records, I record and work digital effects. Live from Truckee. I have CDs if you’re interested. We’re both blasted drunk. Great time!

Day Three: Wake up at 7am. Think about hitting Kirkwood. Go back to sleep til 9am. Pack up, drive to Truckee. Eat “Huevos Mountana” at Squeeze In, another culinary orgasm, and the best breakfast I’ve ever had. 6 cups of coffee later, we take a lap through old town, and drive to Sugarbowl. Phone call to Erin, snow’s decent, strip down in the parking lot, throw on spring skiing clothes (full zip goretex pants and a T shirt), buy half-day ticket. Best boarding so far — on wet snow, no less. We even found some pseudo-powder.

After that, we hit the bar, ate a kick ass dinner, and drove to Sacto. Priya’s dad says “no music at my house.” We drive to 42nd street, kick it a bit, and crash.

Next morning, we wake up late, shower for about an hour (damn, hot water feels great), drive to “Fox and Goose,” have a kick ass English (as in British) breakfast, drive home, kick it a bit more, and bust out the turn tables. We record Live from 42nd Street, another 72 minute set with Priya spinning and Me recording and working the digital effects.

Overall, it’s been a great week, I’ve had lots of fun, Erin was a blast (though her roommates suck), got 2 phone numbers (though no one ever calls back).

The count:
Number of (damn fine) cute counselors from Walton’s ran into: 1
Number of phone numbers acquired: 2
Number of days boarding: 3
Number of equivalent days worth of actual boarding: 1.5
Number of CDs recorded with Priya: 2
Number of people accusing me of jetsetting: 1

Cheers, y’all

I have a few readers in Maryland, Alaska, Iceland, the UK, and, get this, Qatar (next to Saudi Arabia). Wow. Crazy.

Hello faithful readers, random people, and members of my family. I’ve had no internet at my (kick ass) place in Sunnyvale yet, so I’m blogging from the parking lot behind Apple.

I got all moved in! Sweet couch and rug donated from one of my mom’s friends, a queen size bed (well, matress and box spring, as my parents forgot the bed itself), a Sound Closet (for recording/DJing), a bookshelf (damn, I have a lot of books), and two large closets: sick diggs.

I’ve posted some photos for you curious types. Also, if anyone wants to come hang out or check the place out, feel free to drop me a line, and bring a bathing suit if you’re interested in hitting the Spa/Sauna.

I’m in SF, CA, at a bar, drinking anchor steam, and bloging.

I’m a nerd.

Got power at my place. Now, it’s a cozy bachelor pad, with just me, and my stuff, chillin’.

Who wants to come over and have a gin and tonic with me?

I’m here. My place had no power last night, so it was a very romantic evening alone, in my place, with no power. Tons of candles, though.

Power should be on today, so it’ll be more fun tonight, and more moving in will get done. weee!

Last jam session in SLO, tonight, 8pm. Looks like m sister may be in town. Perhaps I’ll try to get the guys to record something? We’ll see.

Apple Employee Photo Contest…

These words mean it’s time to bring the pain.

I’ll be uploading my entries to my ownage gallery soon enough. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: on second thought, they’d get massive rights to my good stuff, so i’m submitting a small subset of it. The above link has a ton of good photography, though. On the advice of my friend KK, I’m gunna make an Apple Intern theme portfolio (since I used to be one), and hand it over, as an excercise. Links to that will come too.

I got Joel’s wedding photos processed, and it’s about damn time. Sorry it took me so long, bro!

Joel and Nicole Conary »

Just aced… *ACED*… my last final.. ever

Ever

just let those words sink in…

/me takes a shot… and another…

[11:50pm] red0x: why does beer make my head hurt

[11:50pm] Xenith: uh, yea

[11:50pm] red0x: it never used to
[11:50pm] red0x: it’s probably because i don’t eat anymore

[11:51pm] Xenith: Yea, that would do it….

[11:50pm] red0x: i just point at my stomach and say “booyea”

[11:51pm] Xenith: haha
[11:51pm] Xenith: And then your stomach climaxes
[11:51pm] Xenith: Which is odd.

[11:51pm] red0x: haha
[11:51pm] red0x: yea
[11:51pm] red0x: but it gets the job done

[11:51pm] Xenith:

Here’s my first scan from donner summit. Yes, I shot color IR film, but it all came out in the magenta range, so I just dropped it to grayscale. Looks better that way, anyway.

Me Near Donner Summit, Truckee, CA

Hwy 40, Donner Summit, Truckee, CA

I left one all magentafied for you.

Trees near Donner Summit, Truckee, CA

I just wrote my last essay ever.

I take my last test ever on Tuesday. Wish me luck.

So, I was supposed to go to this party with Jenn tonight — one of her friends was having a birthday. Looks like it’s back to the same old lame routine: I got stood up. She never called.

I really should start to expect this — it would hurt less.

I’ve been chillin’ at home, alone, on a Saturday night, listening to music, and working on my bottle of Jaeger. I did take a nice walk downtown, though. I use the term “nice” losely.

Perhaps I should look into that border collie that my sister’s vet is trying to have adopted — it would give me a companion in Sunnyvale, and keep things interesting… for sure. Who knows…

Finally organized a jam session this quarter, and it was an awesome blast! At one point, we had 4 acoustic guitars going, and I was singing the words to “In My Place” by Coldplay. Great stuff!

However, my fingers and forearm on my left arm are soooo sore, it’s not even funny..

I finished my project. I built a Digital Signal Processor that will take an audio signal, amplify or attenuate the signal, delay it, add echo, or phase it. It worked pretty well, except for the phasing due to stupid design flaw in the hardware we were forced to use (not my fault… If I’d have designed the entire hardware, it would have been much better).

Success!

Oh, by the way, that was my last class ever at Cal Poly! w00t. Someone find me a beer.

dizzamn in tha dogg pound. I gots ?nuf gang bangin? ta do on this prizzoject ta makes a gangsta have ta dizzy some bitches . I started yo shit and i’ll end yo’ shit. ?doubt I?ll finish that shizzy wit mah lame-dawg brotha. We?ll be see’n if it?ll happen wit 6 foot 7 a blizzack starin’ down it . Chill as I take you on a trip. Can I git a hoe?

this proj happens ta be a sweet-ass digital bling filta, bouncin? up some sweet echo, a bit a phas’n, n some ballin? delay so sit back relax new jacks get smacked. only problem is, tha hoe don?t work fo` shizzle , betta check yo self.

oh, and also, I seem to have misplaced two critical parts… shit.

Here’s another tasty tidbit from the same place:
And God said, “Let there be light . Keep the party crackin while I’m
steady rappin’”: n there was light.

Damn, got in at 1:55 am, slept til 5:30 am, woke up a bit horny, and haven’t been able to sleep since. It’s probably the Yerba Mate from earlier kicking back in.

I went out to Garapolo’s with Jenn from Ahshe and her friends last night to listen to a really kick-ass Jazz combo. The drummer is absolutely amazing, and the keyboardist was playing two synths at the same time, one as a keyboard, and the other as the bass line — very cool. It was a bit loud, since it was an acoustic drum set, but very enjoyable. The guitarist, well, he was a jazz guitarist. Very talented, but I’d say the drummer and the keyboardist stole the show.

After that, we went to one of Jenn’s friend’s house to play shithead (I lost twice in a row, not a good night for the dub). Then, at about 1:45, it was time to go home. Since I walked downtown, Jenn dropped me off at home (thank god, cuz we were all the way over at south street).

I also happened to get yet another phone number tonight — that’s three in one day. Un-f#$%ing-believable… I must be more attractive than I think.

Anyway, I’m gunna go idle the morning away, and try to watch the sunrise.

Ryan: I’m gunna start saying l9r instead of l8r
Ryan: it’s more… numerically superior

12:28 AM

Red: hahah
Red: you been drinking?

Ryan: nope, why?
Ryan: do i only say funny shit when i drink?

Red: who said it was funny?

Red: just kidding
Red: really random though

Ryan: for sure
Ryan: up there with: “hey… your house is on fire…”

Red: haha
Red: I was just playing my bass

Ryan: niiice
Ryan: how’s it feel?

Red: my strings are almost rusty
Red: it’s awesome
Red: The possibility of getting tetanus adds an extra level of excitement that wasn’t there before

Ryan: haha, nice
Ryan: extreme bass challenge

I got my high speed black and white contact sheet back — it was a complete success. However, my IR slides didn’t get mailed out until the 21st, so they should be done tomorrow. Damn, they lagged on mailing that out…

Here are some of my favorite negative scans from this project so far:

Hey All,

I’ve added a wishlist to the right sidebar, so, if you wanted to get me something for my birthday/graduation/christmas, feel free. A lot of the stuff is WAY too expensive for you, my friends, to get me, so don’t worry.

Also, don’t even feel like you have to get me anything, I created this more at the bidding of my family, who can be heard to say things like “I’d like to get you something, but I have no idea what you would want…” -or- “You’re too hard to shop for”

So, scroll down a bit, and check it out.

I wake up today, 8am, the time I set my alarm for, and shut it off to go back to sleep. It’s Sunday, why do I need to get up? Besides, I’m still recovering from the race.

I get up 3 hours later, grab my cell phone to see what time it is, and it says “Check SIM…”

3 hours ago, it worked fine, now, my cell phone is dead. What a great time for it to die. I’m gunna go head downtown and hopefully the Cingular store will be open, because someone needs to get bitched out.

I hate Cingular.

UPDATE: They replaced my SIM card free of charge. It works again.

Number Spiral
This is damn cool, check it out.

So, I’m home for Thanksgiving. I can’t sleep at all. Perhaps it’s knowing that I’m about to die a horrible death trying to run 10K tomorrow to help feed the hungry. It’s gunna be a tough run. I haven’t ran anything for a damn long time, except for that little stint of trail running with Cicily, outfitted with a photo vest and shoulder slung fat ass camera and lens — let’s just say it was interesting.

I finally updated my server to ubuntu, gentoo was pissing me off. All the needless version bumps are annoying as fuck, since you have to recompile everything, even though it’s the same damned source code… They really need to fix that design flaw.

Anyway, I’m gunna go idle online a bit and try to sleep…

Here’s a little taste of my work from Donner Summit. I blew a whole roll of high speed black and white, and a whole roll of color Infrared film up there (36 exposures each), so, expect some damn good pictures (hopefully). Both rolls were shot bracketed at half stop intervals, so hopefullt at least 12 shots will come out of each roll. Let me just say that God Damn Color IR film is expensive….

After shooting the film, I busted out my digital and took a few wider angle shots (all the film was done at 50mm, this digital shot is at 28mm, probably).

Donner Summit, Truckee, CA

I have no idea how many counties I’ve passed through in the last 48 hours — it’s gotta be in the double digits.

Anyway, I have a culinary orgasm to post today:

The Squeeze In in Old Town Truckee has about 2 pages of Omeletes that will blow your mind!

I just got a random call from my sister, inviting me up to Donner Lake, to her new digs with Sicily, her best friend. Looks like I’m headed to Sacto tonight, possibly to another date with Rachael, and then up to Donner in the morning. Should be a fun, if not completely random, trip home.

I just read the entirety of “Heart of Darkness” in less than 5 hours. Damn.

I love photography. Check out these shots from the ISS.

Check this out, you can watch someone draw a person starting from the skeleton, and working up to fully clothed. It’s rad!

Flash Movie

In other news, Pandora Radio stores it’s mp3s in your /tmp directory, so listen to the music, and run ‘file /tmp/*’ and look for mp3s.

Wow, so my mom IMed me tonight, and told me that my entire family was just hit by a drunk driver. How f-ing nuts is that. Everyone is alright, thank god, but that’s freaking scary!

Can’t wait to hug everyone at Thanksgiving…

Man, I’m such a slacker. I haven’t finished editing Joel’s photos, and I’m already out taking more and editting them. I guess I feel daunted by 97 images waiting for my love.

At about 3:45, I was downtown at Linnaea’s, hanging with Red, working on Apple stuff, and talking over IM to Liz. I ask Red, “Hey, what time do you think the sunset is tonight?” Red: “5pm?”

At that point, I say later to Liz, grab my bike, ride home as fast as possible, put on hiking boots — still sweating from my ride — and head for the door with my camera in hand. I make it up to the hill below The P just in time for a few fleeting glipses of the sunset proper, with ample time for dusk photography, one of my favorite times to shoot.

As I look up from the trail, I see the most beautiful contrasting colors on the hill, with the moon in the background. *snap*

I look up again and notice a flight overhead, leaving trails across the sky.

I hike up a bit higher and sit down — the magic is about to begin.

Sunset with a very neat, wispy cloud. *snap*

I look over to the North, and catch this baby rain cloud trying desperately to form. As soon as I turn around, and look back, it’s gone. It did this to me 3 or 4 times before it gave up. How amazing!

I stay up there until its almost black out, and score a good shot of the moon before turning down the trail and walking home.
Note: This image’s original looks like shit — thank god for shooting in RAW!

I went up to Bishop’s Peak yesterday to hike, training for New Zealand (and also working out a hang over). I took my camera and photographed some climbers up at the summit who were practicing, for what I don’t know. None of the climber’s pictures turned out very dramatic, partly because I had no polarizer, and also because by the time I got to the summit where I could photograph the climbers, they were already off the climb. However, I did grab a cool shot of a bolt, the 25 kN support that separates climbers on belay from the deadly force of gravity.

As soon as I got down, and showered, I went to Jim’s to drop off film, pick up prints from Joel’s Wedding (which, by the way, turned out pretty good), and picked up a polarizer for my 50mm lens.

I checked out our Brotherhood Night tonight. Mainly because my little bro wanted me to go — I’ve been inactive this whole quarter, so showing up was a bit odd. However, everyone was really nice about it (unexpected — I really expected eveyone to give me a hard time). Anyway, it was fun — the usual fraternity stuff, drinking, partying, etc. etc.

That whole thing is not really my scene anymore. I almost feel like I’ve grown out of it. Plus, I’m so old now that I don’t know anyone anymore. But, my little bro made me a sweet paddle! So, I hung around, and had some fun. By the end, I was ready to leave — feeling a bit sick (not from drinking, but from being actually sick). It seems like we have a pretty good group of guys. Way to go — keep it up.

Ever played cups? That game gets you drunk, fast, as my friend Liz found out last night. I had met her before, but never really hung out (we went to a movie with Alex), so last night was the first time I had really hung out with her.

Apparently, she knows my friend Bryan Follis from Apple! They hung out a ton this summer, and I guess he said good things about me! How neat. Bryan, you rock.

So, cups. Yea, we got Liz way too drunk. I ended up holding her hair back for a good 30 minutes last night, and I gotta say, that’s some soft hair! Anyways, playing cups is a good time for everyone — highly recommended.

While Red thought it was appropriate to post a picture of many, many naked men dancing around in the streets when talking about Joel’s wedding, I thought I’d show you my progress in editing my photos of his wedding, instead. Here’s one that reminds me a bit of one of my favorite album covers.

I’m trying to catchup on image editing so I can get to Joel’s wedding shots. It’s taking a damn long time. Here are some of the fruits of my labor:

Trees in a grove in Truckee, CA

Railroad Crossing, San Luis Obispo, CA

Church, San Luis Obispo, CA (for some reason, I’m fascinated by photographing Churchs at night)

The Fremont, San Luis Obispo, CA

I created a way for you to send me pictures you have of me. Anything, really, it doesn’t have to great. I just don’t have many pictures with me in them. It’d be cool if I wasn’t the only one in the picture, too, so I can better remember you all!

Post your pictures to the PhotosOfMe Project.

To post, edit the page, and add a few lines:


==Your Name==
[[Image:image.jpg]]

This picture was taken (where) (when) (etc...)


and then press save. Click the link to the image.jpg file to upload an image.

I just posted a wiki on this site for your enjoyment. Feel free to write stories about me.

Wiki Me

Between driving to Sunnyvale, signing a lease, driving to Sacto, going on a date, partying, hanging out with the ‘rents, sleeping, driving back to Sunnyvale, moving boxes into my new place, sleeping on the floor, getting sick, and driving back to SLO in time to ditch my first class for food and grading Lab 2 of the Operating Systems class, I’ve been one busy muthafucka.

I’m a bit tired, and I still have air fare to purchase, graduation announcements to mail, and Apple work to do.

Ho Ly Fuck.

Wednesday is a Spike’s night. Who’s gunna be around?

Had a date last night with one of Joel’s friends. It was fun. We started at Paesano’s, went to the Monkey Bar, Blue Q (a pool bar), and then somewhere else that I can’t remember. Sacramento’s night life is pretty fun, compared to SLO; there are more bars that aren’t all about bump and grind with a multitude of faceless humpsters. Blue Q seems like a fun place to hang out if you like pool.

Anyway.

I’ve got the worst headache ever. Just thought you should know…

Here’s an interesting read. Don’t buy Sony BMG Content Protected CDs (at least if you run Windows).

Sony, Rootkits, and DRM gone too far

I was looking across my photo library, and realized there are not many pictures of me (since I spend most of my time behind the lens).

So, accordingly, I am requesting from you, my loyal friends, a donation of pictures of me. Preferably something with me smiling, or looking generally badass.

email them to [ rdoobie <at> gmail <dot> com ]

Thanks!

In accordance with my previous post, and with the exorbitant air fare to and from South America, my trip to Patagonia has been sacked.

On the bright side, I’m still going to New Zealand! That will be tons of fun, and it leaves me more time to move in to Sunnyvale and get settled.

My dad offered to go with me to South America at some point in the future. That’d be lots of fun, and I definitely plan on it. We’ll see how long it takes me to acquire a few days vacation.

I’m really missing having someone to talk with when things aren’t going terribly well. Hugs, I miss hugs.

Just having a stressful day, that’s all. It’s good for me to go it alone for once.

*sigh*

Between Joel’s Wedding-weekend, and halloween, my liver really hates me. The rest of the week I will be working on getting in better shape, and drinking lots of water/cranberry juice to recover.

Cheers to all the people I met last night at the bars (which is zero, because downtown sucks (other than spike’s, of course)), and thanks to Omar for walking home with me. I’m not sure if you wanted to go yet, but I appreciate the company.

w00t!

Nothing can make a guy feel more isolated than being out of town, in a hotel room alone.

I’m down in Camarillo for Joel’s wedding (crazy, huh?), staying a smoking room (gah! it’s all they had left… to my dismay), and chillin’ out. I’m not surprised I’m not in the wedding party; I’m not surprised when Cuz dropped off the face of the Earth, that Joel didn’t ask me to take his place. I’m mostly wondering why I’m here.

I’ve always considered Joel to be a good friend, but we had a major falling out Sophomore year, and I know some people he was much better friends with from then on who didn’t even get invited. Was it that email I sent to him thanking him for challening my (at the time) skewed world view of Cal Poly?

I guess I just feel a bit awkward, not having really seen or hung out with Joel for a long time. Turns out, I miss it. We had a ton of fun last night, playing pool at Nicole’s Parents’ house, drinking beer, and generally being asses. A lot of our old, funny sayings came back.

So, Congratulations to Joel and Nicole! I wish you both all the best on your marriage (which I happened to mispell on your wedding gifts because I’m semi-retarded… sorry), and I hope you both live long and happy lives! Cheers!

I had the BEST breakfast burrito in the world that I’ve ever tasted in my life yesterday! Bobbi’s Mexican Food, in Camarillo, makes a “Jack’s” burrito that is the BEST thing to have in the morning when you want mexican food, or something hearty, especially when you’re a tad bit hung over.

So, if you’re in Camarillo, look up Bobbi’s and grab a Jack’s burrito, but know they only serve them until 12 noon.

Here’s my pre-plan for airfare around the globe on my treks.

My first roll of film ever came back today, and god damn must they have been confused about how to process it. I got some prints in matte, some glossy, and some had quadruple prints, others just one. How odd.

Anyway, at 25 out of 36 exposures worth of keepers (almost a 70% success rate for my first roll of film), I’d say it was a complete success. We’ll see how my color roll turns out. Not sure about the film I’m using (Fuji Superia 100), since I’ve never used it, but we’ll see.

One thing cool came out of the odd printing snafu: I learned that I like the matte finish better. At least for black and white.

w00t!

I made some kickass portraits of my family tonight. Let me know if you want one.

The dad unit.

The mom unit.

The sis unit.

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”

–W. B. Yeats

So, my CPE 329 professor made the mistake of asking permission to use the other teachers’ tests for his section. Never ask permission, only ask forgiveness. So, as a direct result, I just took the lamest test ever. About 3/4 of the way through the test, it was getting close to 6:30, the time that class is out. So I’m thinking of cutting my losses and answering the easiest questions first. However, teacher chimes in that there are 40 minutes left. Okay, I’m thinking. Its cool to linger a bit on this problem, I’ll have plenty of time for the next one, which is easier. About 5 minutes later, he says “Okay, fold ‘em up, time’s up!”

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

I could have easily answered the last question, the one that now, because of his lame M$ time skillz, I failed to even attempt! mother fucker.

In other news:

Linz’s Powerbook crashed and crashed hard, apparently. That makes me nervous, since I bought mine shortly after she did.

Turns out she’s lucky as hell: I made a backup of her personal files right after burning man this year. How handy!

I’m doing the same tonight, using flexbackup to save my Preferences, Applications, and Home directories. Everything else can be restored from a DVD, and all my other stuff already lives on my external HD.

Who knows when I’ll be able to hand her a DVD of her stuff, though, as we’re broken up, and I don’t plan on going up to Sunnyvale until I start moving junk in, later in November. We’ll see though. I’m sure she’ll appreciate having her photos for the last few years safe, not to mention her music (which I am plundering, ever since I figured out I have it :-p).

Well, I’m back in SLO. Seeing my family was great this weekend. Erin (my sister) and I headed to a local dive bar and had way too much to drink, played shuffleboard, and drank more. During the course of the evening, I got hit on by a single mom! Funny, that.

Anyway, I’m back in SLO, living in my refugee style, with barely anything of importance in my room, with the exception of one painting by Linz, a mini fridge full of Fat Tire Amber Ale (who want’s to come help me drink it? We can hang out, talk about random shit, and listen to cool old school funk…), my guitar gear, and my photo gear. I also have my work computer here with me, but hey… I gotta pay the bills, right?

Seriously though, I’m only here for two more months, so give me a call, come over, and lets hang. Also, I need to get my ass in shape for Patagonia and New Zealand, so anyone who likes to hike, give me a call or send me an email. Word.

For Sources/More Info: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/

At about 0200, Level3 botched a world wide software upgrade, taking down their entire global network, and slowing much of the internet. “It seems the problem is worldwide. Here in Italy I lost both BGP sessions (primary and backup) at 7.51 CET, I can’t even ping their router anymore. And still no response from their European Support,” was Marco Matarazzo’s report.

We have a time-delay feed of their BGP here, or a direct Looking Glass (BGP) feed here, so check for yourself when you read this to see if the links in your area are still down. Rumors are that Level3 is going to be sued by Comcast and others, and that they are close to bankruptcy. Sucks to be in that position, and have many clients see you fuck up royally on a routine software upgrade. I hear one company specifically called a meeting with its COO to discuss removing Level3 from its network plan and spending their backbone money somewhere else. Probably a good idea at this point…

The other theory is that Level3 is owed about $30,000 from other peers, and is intentionally depeering them to extract fees. Credibility is lent to this theory by the company’s recent financial reports, citing losses in excess of $200 million.

Here’s at least a partial map of Level3’s backbone: map

Live Health Report

Here is a live internet health report: [link]

Here is how Level3 looked at the start of this “event:” Event Health Report

As you can see from the link, Level3 was completely dead, and Verio was taken down with them.

I just met with three people from IBM regarding the san project and gave them a quick, off-the-cuff presentation and demo of the system. They were very happy to see their hardware (they donated the disk space) being put to good use, and were eager to get more of it into the capable hands of your’s truly.

They also seemed like they wanted a resume, and an email — the first I didn’t have on me, but the VP of Global Financing, a Senior Software Engineer, and a representative of the IBM Academic Initiative all walked away with a good first impression, in addition to my contact info. I wonder if I’ll be hearing from them any time soon …

(photos to come).

I’m heading home to see the Sac town today, that’ll be interesting. I’m sure my parents want to know what the hell happened with Linz and I. Plus, tomorrow, I’m going to be busy as hell. I need to get passport photos, renew my passport, and somehow squeeze in 8 hours of work for Apple (like that will happen with my Mom constantly bugging me to do something or other).

It’ll be good to see my parents again, but I think this may be a bittersweet weekend. I’ll have no one to hang out with, other than my Sister and parents, and probably nothing to do, other than work and relax. We’ll see how it goes.

I got a haircut today, from Jenn at Ahshe, and damn do I look “teh secksi.”

Also, Jenn gives the most f-ing amazing scalp massage as standard fare before a haircut. Made my day. At $30 for a scalp massage, shampoo, cut, and style, it’s not bad at all. I also think I overheard her say “five off” to the cashier before she rang me up. Could have been something else, but she may have just given me a discount. Fuck yea, Jenn.

I’ll post some pictures once I get something natural looking. The light in my room sucks balls, so, perhaps I’ll make Omar take a shot of me at Spike’s tonight.

I recorded another cut tonight, making use of all the pedals and effects I own. I still got it!

And no, you don’t get to hear it. I learned from my mistake last time, and you’ll just have to wait.

Cheers!

I had a very tough conversation with Linz last night. It seems, now that I’m no longer “a given,” that she is really missing everything about me. Hearing her describe all my little idiosyncrasies made me cry.

I’ve never cried like that in my life. She’s the most precious woman in the world, to me, and she never knew that. She never knew how amazing she is.

It seems like she had been looking (and so had I) recently. We both lost sight of what mattered. I became the given, not the prize, and that hurt me incredibly. She would flirt with other guys at every chance — Noah’s wedding, Burning Man, etc — leaving me without the benefit of a single drop of flirtation (not to mention affection). Then, she showed me that it was possible for someone to make her feel understood without the use of words. That it was another guy that could make her feel that way sealed it for me — what was the point of me staying around anymore? I couldn’t give her what she needed, she couldn’t give me what I needed, and we were both essentially reduced to comfort food. We enjoyed being together because it was safe, not because either of us inexplicably wanted/needed the other. All our passion died in an instant, and reviving it seemed impossible.

I tried so hard, so fucking hard, but I can’t love someone who won’t love herself. I had such an amazing idea of how things would be — this is not it at all…

Looking back over 4 years, at the very least, I can say it was an awesome journey. Getting to know you was great, and I always felt more understood by you than anyone else I’ve ever known, or have met since. We’ve had a lot of fun together, and I’ve always enjoyed your friendship.

It’s quite odd, for me, in all this; I feel a profound sense of calm. You’d think I’d be out of my head, but so far so good. I’m happy for Linz and John, not sure what will become of those two, but, at the very least, I know our time was up. Just know I still consider you both friends; no hate harbored here.

My weekends will probably be somewhat more boring, with no one to visit, and no excuse to go work at Apple on the weekends anymore — at least until November 1st, when I can start moving into my own appartment, ironically located in the same appartment complex as Linz. “You’re still welcome to use my barbeque,” she tells me.

On a totally different note, this was probably the most mature breakup I’ve ever been through, and can leave this relationship without a single regret; I know I couldn’t possibly have done anything different, and don’t really think about it that way. Just a profound calm. Perhaps my angel has found her way back to my side, and is staying with me for awhile — how nice. Good to see you again.

I just walked away from a 4 year relationship. Turns out she found someone who understands her better. Even if she’s not in love with him, she definitely forgot about me.

I’m probably off by myself somewhere, drinking a beer and contemplating.

The hardest part was that last “goodbye.”

I feel so small right now.

If you’re anything like me, you have an extensive music collection, and you want only a subset of it to be on your powerbook, while the rest lives on an external harddrive. You want all this with the added benefit of not having to fuss with making copies of your iTunes Library and replacing them when you want to move between the two.

For you (and I), I have created a new micro Howto catagory, and its first post: iTunes: Multiple Sources.

Read the howto.

Communication through blogs sucks. I’ve been busy, working, grading (at a wage that is now comical, only doing it because I agreed to before I knew I’d be working part time during school…), getting in shape for my trips, and chillin’.

Kinda had a big blow to my relationship this last weekend, missed decompression, and am lacking in one-on-one communication. I don’t feel like calling because of the aforementioned blow, and that I never know if she’s too busy with school herself. Too add to that, she came online, had an audio chat with someone (not me), and I’m sure she saw that I was online and available, and didn’t even send me a “hello.” What do I think?

dunno… it just sucks…

Anyone who has been there before knows this: Don’t ever go there again.

When I went in, looking for a Canon EOS 3 Body to play with, a conversation like this transpired:

Clerk 1: “Can I help you?”
Me: “Yea, I’m looking for a Canon EOS 3.”
Clerk 1: “Oh, okay.”

Clerk 1 then proceeds to pick up a *Digital Rebel XT.*

Me: “No, I said EOS 3. Its a film camera.”
Clerk 1: “Oh, okay.”
Clerk 1 walks to the other side of the glass and starts reaching for a *Rebel 2000.*

Me: “An EOS 3, not a rebel.”
Me (in my head): “What a fucking idiot.”
Clerk 1: “Oh, I’m not sure we carry that, pretty much what’s behind the glass is all we have, but I’ll check in the back.”

Me: Rolls eyes “Okay.”

After she returns from the back:
Clerk 1 to Manager looking guy: “Hey, do we have the Canon EO 3?” (yes, she called it an “EO 3″)
Manager: “EO 3?”
Me: “No, Canon EOS 3.”
Manager (head cocked to the side): “What’s that?”

At this point, I know this conversation is doomed, so I decide to rub his face in it.

Me: “Oh, just a Canon *Professional* Film SLR. Do you have one I can look at?”
Manager: “Canon? Film?!? No, sorry.”

Yea, that’s right. They didn’t know that Canon makes film cameras.

Moral: Don’t ever even think about even maybe stepping into a Wolfe Camera store. Bunch of Fucking Morons.

So, the Itinerary for the next three months of my life looks somewhat like this:

November: Slowly move my gear from Sacramento and SLO to Sunnyvale, CA.
December 10th: Graduate, walk, celebrate, go home!
December 11th - January 6th: Disappear completely on a Trek in Torres del Paine in Patagonia (Chile and Argentina).
January 8th - January 22nd: Travel to New Zealand, and tour, hike, etc.
January 23rd - January 30th: Decompress, Process images, post trip reports, recover.
January 31st: Celebrate 22nd Birthday
February 8th or so: Start work for Apple in Cupertino, CA.

Fuckin’ eh, it looks like an exciting three months.

“I sometimes hold it half a sin,
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.”

— Tennyson

I guess people have been feeling let down by the limitation of language for a long time…

Oh man, I just looked up the complete browsing habits history of my family’s computer. It feels so good to get back into hacking stuff, even if its something as lame as remotely checking their browsing history (when i know the password, and everything), to look for something that could have fucked up their computer. It was likely my youngest cousin, as she doesn’t know any better. Good thing we put Linux on there, all her downloads were .exe’s, and we all know how dangerous that is.

;)

You know what makes me sick?

Clinton has a purely personal affair, with no bearing on his ability to run the country — it’s an issue between, him, his wife, and Monica — and we impeach him, straight away, for lying.

However, Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, thousands of people die needlessly, he drops the ball on hurricane relief, and now, he is spreading illegal propaganda in the United States, and we all just stand by and turn a blind eye.

WHAT THE FUCK ?!

I’d like to publically acknowledge my friend. He recently challenged me in one of the best ways imaginable, shifting my world view dramatically.

Joel, you’ve always been there when I need you most. Throughout Highschool, and early in College, you were always there to exchange views as I formed my thoughts, giving me the benefit of more than my own limited point of view.

Thank you always, and congratulations again on your upcoming marriage! All the best!

In another conversation with a dear friend:

“Scotch on the rocks in a good mood to be in. I am in a similar state of contemplation, only, sadly, without the ethanol supplied buzz.”

Check out digg.com, it’s the way slashdot was supposed to be.

So, planning a trip for two people with very different goals is much harder than it seems.

I’m thinking of a long, adventurous trek to Patagonia or Nepal, and my sister is more thinking of heading to New Zealand and chilling on the beach.

Subsequent talks have convinced her of my Patagonia idea, but we still need to find a trip that is less strenuous than 12 miles a day. So, if any of you faithful readers (yea… right…) know any good, low-medium level treks to Patagonia, keep me posted.

Let me know what you think of the new layout. It changed again, the images up top rotate now.

Woohoo!

Well, my hosting provider dropped the ball yet again.. They forgot to restore my content from backups after my accidental deletion of said content, so much of my content (read: kickass photos) is lost. Luckily I dupped most of the photos over on my dA account. Redundancy to the rescue. This is the sneaker-net equivalent of RAID-1.

Grrr.

In light of that news, I decided it was time for a new layout. Check the new site out. Whacha think?

So, about my last rant. I feel kinda silly posting it here. It’s more about the lack of useful feedback I’ve been getting from a site designed to generate feedback for digital art, deviantART. I’ve been getting great feedback from friends, and spend all this time posting images on DA, and get comments like:

omfg! LOL! That pix is so kickass!!!1!one!omfgwtf!

Yea, I know… I took it. Thanks for the constructive criticism. Along with that rant, I was ranting about the lame people at Cal Poly. So many people here are or seem to be fake, and it pisses me off. Along with the fakeness, I see too many people walking around “asleep” with no idea who or where they are, in life, or in general. It makes me sad, and angry at the same time. Sorry for dumping my garbage here on my few faithful readers (I know of 3. If there are more, leave me a comment or two.. )

Also, I do feel like I’m stepping out of an old life that was very up and down. Leaving generally sunny days, with the occasional thunder storm, for the always sunny skies of Hawaii, with the added benefit of living on a beach and constantly drinking margaritas.

Sorry for the imagery, but its true. Things are looking up and I wanted to share my enthusiasm.

Photographer? You’re god damned right I am!

Lately I’m feeling a bit vindicated. Let me explain.

The last few years of my life have been great, but marked with crapiness. Fraternity brothers betray me, no source of permanent income, stuck doing crappy odd-jobs for the past 3 years, and wondering what the fuck is going to happen.

Then comes DA. A great place to air our my talent (or lack thereof) with photography, only no one comes. No one looks at the pictures, so I absolve myself and ditch DA for my own format of displaying my work to my friends, who I know will pay some fucking attention and tell me of my strengths AND weeknesses.

Then, I come back to Deviant Art. Post a few pictures. Results are good. Who cares, not the point. I’m not here for a Daily Deviation, or top ratings; who gives a fuck about DA, I’m here for me.

Furthermore, I’m moving on and moving up. Way the fuck up. Its my last quarter at school, and then its travel, photography, and my job. Yea, you heard me right,

J O B

Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA. I start in February, after my travels. Fuck the backstabers, fuck the ken and barbies of SLO, fuck all the bullshit drama. I have my own place now, my own style, my own job, and my own friends, all of which are real people, who are more about going out and creating a worthwhile life for themselves (as am I) than they are about bitching about what Barbie is wearing today, or what Ken said at the last drunken brawl party.

Screw all the college crap, I’m out. I’m out to the tune of $XX,000 a year (censored for possible legal reasons, but believe me, its a good amount), my own apartment, and a kick ass job. What do all you Ken and Barbies have to say for yourselves? Oh, and above all that, I have talent.

Fuck it.

*** Sorry for that rant, I just needed to express my current feelings. I recently started posting a string of images with captions in a dream-like narrative form. They start from [link] and head toward newer work. I will eventually put links in the descriptions, but for now, browse from the gallery, starting at The Road Ahead and working your way toward newer images. Also, please let me know what you think of the short story so far.

Cheers!

Oh, and I don’t hate you, you have talent too. Life is good when you get off your ass and create something, anything.

Okay, I finally got the best of the best of my photography from Burning Man all editted and posted online.

Check this shit out.

Yo, I put my CVS back online finally. Check out some code that now lives on the Cal Poly SAN.

Cal Poly Sucks: I’m a graduating super-senior, with 12 units left, a full time job waiting, and I’m still last priority, with Sophomores and Juniors in front of me. What The Fuck?!

Frankie, Johnny, and Luigi’s in Mountain View has some amazing Italian cooking. Linz had an amazing spinach salad with bacon. The spinach was warm, without being covered in oil or shrinking, and the plate was cold, so they didn’t bake it. How they got everything warm is still a mystery to us — it was damn good nonetheless.

I had the most amazing Salmon pasta dish (the name escapes me currently). It was in a cream sauce, which is usually too rich for me, but this sauce was just right. I could still only finish about 1/4 of the plate, but it was damn good. Culinary Orgasm, for two!

While uploading a new version of WordPress with Transmit, I mistakenly chose “Replace” instead of “Merge” on the new directories, and blew away ALL my content. So, pictures: gone, themes: gone, pictures…. gone.

Fuck.

We’re waiting on (hopefully) nightly backups to restore. I need to restore from 9/11… funny, that.

I got a job offer at work on Friday.

I will start my Career as a Performance Engineer, working for Apple Computer, Inc. in Cupertino, California. I make more than my Dad (surgeon) when he started working.

Wow!

I arrived in Black Rock City late Saturday — pre-event — and had the pleasure of seeing the city unfold around us. Sunday night, just before 9pm, we were invited by Kate, one of the Med Chiefs, to go hit Frog pond, a local natural hot springs before the event started. Of course, we accepted. We were a bit rushed; with Linz’s feet still hanging out of the car, we had to chase down the other vehicles. Driving on the Playa is aventurous in a 2 wheel drive car — doing it at night is amazingly nutty: all you can see in every direction is dust. The whole goal of driving at night on the Playa is to keep the previous car’s tail lights visible at all times — HOLY SHIT, where’d they GO!?

At 80 mph, losing sight of the previous car’s tail lights was not an option. It happened. Speeding up to catch them would be equally stupid. The only option at this point was to use the radio and ask the other cars to wait up. By the time the dust settled, I was 1 mile behind.

Next day, I had my first med shift. Linz scheduled all her shifts at times that I didn’t, since we were both busy and neither of us knew when the other was scheduling for. The only shift we had in common was a RIT (Rapid Intervention Team) on the burn night (more on that later). They had flaming jump rope burn night, which was awesome, but so many people fucked up — Linz and I both jumped many times, and thought a few people would for sure catch on fire. Nope, no injuries, no problem. Just a shit load of great pictures.

However, some adjitated ranger came up with a “Medical Emergency” right as the man was going off big… GRRRR! Turns out the guy was just drunk and taking a nap. He needed no help at all. FUCK! We missed most of the kick ass fireworks….. oh well…

The whole week was insane (as it always is). The artwork this year was bigger and badder assed (a new adjective I invented).

Also, I got told by Seth that I was being slated for a supervisor position, and Mike asked if I’d be interested, because Kate wanted names of recommendations. Its awesome that people are thinking of me for this!

Well, I’m mid packing, waiting on my Girlfriend, and almost ready to leave for Burning Man. I’m so stoked. I’ll see you all in a week with photos and stories!

Exhibit A: She’s got a plan for dinner: left overs….
I arrive at her house to see a candle lit dinner table and fresh pasta (along with a shit ton of left overs) and a bottle of wine.

Exhibit B: We’re driving to a friend’s house, and I start to play my iPod, worrying that Audioslave may be a bit hardcore for my girlfriend.
She then proceeds to crank it up as loud as possible and rock out.

Exhibit C: Back at home, I’m brushing my teeth in her bathroom. When I come out, she’s changed into a school girl outfit, with a cute, devious look in her eyes….
/me bites knuckles…

I love my girlfriend.

Late night at the Lab.

The titanium “spork” is a marvel. A curious symbol for the pursuit of weight loss among backpackers everywhere, and an acknowledgement of the fact that you really have no idea why your backpack is so heavy. You aren’t carrying anything heavy. You have a few choice essentials chosen for their extreme lightness and suddenly the pack weighs 70 lbs. How did this happen? Maybe it’s the weight of the fork and spoon. If you could discard those two utensils and replace them with one ultra-light spork, maybe your pack would be light again. This is the reasoning of a backpacker. This madness originates from the fact that there are 16 ounces in a pound. What follows is that if you can shave 2 ounces off of sixteen items in your pack, you have just lightened your load by 2 pounds. It’s quite simple, but it leads one down the road to the $11.00 spork.

– taken from here

I am sooo ready to head out to the middle of the desert and party for a week.

I’ve got many cool things lined up to take out there:

New Camera Gear
Booze
Costumes
Other stuff
and one Hot Girlfriend!

Neil and Julie are heading out, as well; they just procured tickets for $200 a piece.

It’ll be nice to see KK and John and all the plug4 crew.

It’s gunna rock.

I had the weirdest, Kava induced dream two nights ago.

I think it was a flashback to my jaw surgery.

I was lying down, big lights shining in my eyes and on my face, and two doctors standing over my head, with a long metal thing — kind of like a screw driver without the head. Just a long thin metal cylinder.

And then they shoved it up my nose… They hit bone!

We’re talking Dana Sculley getting that Alien probe shoved up her nose, X-Files style, only I actually felt the pain in this dream. And let me tell you: that little fucker *hurts!*

I woke up sweating.. That’s two flashbacks in the last year…. how odd

What’s better than an after-hours LAN party, pwning n00bs on Q3A?

Oh, that’s right — leaving work early for a Dave Matthews Band concert in teh city.

pwned!

Downtown Mountain View, 12am.

Not much to do without someone with which to do it.

I drank WAY too much Friday night in SF. Drove home at 9:30am, and felt like puking for 2 hours. Way hung over.

I went out today and bought some of my BM outfits. Its gunna be kickass!

Where do you hide?

more

While visiting my lady love in Grass Valley, CA, we ran into Cooper’s, a local dive bar, and saw a show by a talented young group of rock stars, the Blue Turtle Seduction.

The show was very fun. As Linz put it: “It was hard not to move.” Great band. I thought about buying a CD, but with drinks at $8 a pop, I had no leftover cash. Perhaps I’ll do what you should do, and order one online. Good music!

That is all.

P/S: I will not remove those pictures… They constitute good artwork of many people in public places on a private server… sorry.

I finally made a panorama of Burning Man 2004. Bear with me, as this is my first panorama. I know the seams are ugly, stfu!

In other news: the fact that my fucking ignition coil is bad after 50K miles is bullshit. It pisses me off that I have to miss some work to buy parts, pick up my car, and replace that bastard part, as well as all 4 spark plugs (if you’re gunna do one… might as well put them all on the same repair schedule). Damnit! I’m already missing Friday, and may have to take the train home. Lets see if I can marathon through the repairs. Anyone wanna take me parts shopping tomorrow?

It has been an odd weekend… Allow me to explain:

1. My girlfriend came into town, and that was awesome. I’ve had a blast with her this weekend, and she’s greatly helped keep me sane through all the odd shit that has happened.
2. I heard on Friday that my girlfriend has the precursor stages of cervical cancer. Not good news at all.. How the hell do you take that kind of news? Fuck..
3. She used to live here, so she showed me around, we went to P.F. Changs with my new (crazy huge) paycheck. Celebrating both our newfound success was fun.
4. While exploring downtown Palo Alto, my car broke down. It would start, but it would barely drive. It seems like its running on 3 cylinders instead of 4. Maybe a loose spark plug? Who knows. It’s at the VW dealership right now, and I wont hear until Monday. WEAK!
5. So far, thats it.

I went to a Goth club last night for the first time ever, to hang out with Neil and work on a contest idea. There were so many people dressed up in neat outfits, and I managed to capture this girl’s fish nets through a window. I had lots of fun at the Goth club, even though it was obvious that I have no Goth style. Very fun.

Just received my 50mm f/1.4, and it fucking rocks!

I love my silly face.

Police with automatic weapons at the Golden Gate Toll Plaza. You best not be skipping the toll, boy.

For those of you just joining us, a good friend and I have made a pact to post a photo a day. He’s a fucking master photographer, so I highly recommend checking out his work.

link to KK

Another photo of the day. I went left, instead of right, on my way home and stumbled across this. Fucking sick huh?

Today, I finally went fully manual. Fucking pimptastic.

A nice display of dangerosity: photography while driving. Some people might frown on this, but with results like this, who can complain?

Last time I was in SLO, I was waiting for a package to arrive. Instead of chilling in my house, and being convinced to help my crappy roommate move out, I grabbed my camera, and hit the streets. On my way back home, I met this guy with a guitar, a little swatch of rug, and a sign that read “Led Zeppelin Requests.” I casually made a request of the most obvious Zeppelin song that I could think of “Stairway to Heaven.” I was rather impressed when he not only played the whole song, but knew the lyrics by heart, and did the whole thing with a cigarette in his mouth. A generally badass guy, and I’ve seen him bumming around other parts of SLO since.

I graciously donated $2-3 and snapped a few pictures before moving on. Hope you enjoy it.

I ducked out from work a little early Friday, and drove to Sacramento. This usually 2.5 hr drive turned out to be more like 4 hours with all the holiday traffic; needless to say, I was pooped when I made it home. The people I was going backpacking with couldn’t make it up to Sac on Friday, so they came up early Saturday, we all finished last minute packing, and headed out for the Sonora area. After another 3 hr drive, we arrived at the County Line trailhead. Much to our surprise, the area was packed; it was the worst crowd I’ve ever seen backpacking — oh well.

We hiked into Sword Lake (a good 2 hrs of hiking), made camp on a ridge, and all passed out. This is were the mini-epic begins: Since we were all exhausted from hiking, and since all our water was consumed on the way in, I went to filter some water. I was pumping for about 3 minutes before I noticed the filter was broken. Bad news, but not a killer. Factor in the fact that I only brought half my normal amount of Fuel (I figured we’d be filtering water, not boiling), and I started to get worried. Luckily, fires were okay in the area where we were staying, so, we opted to ruin our pots by boiling water in the camp fire, and save the fuel for cooking. Crazy, this trip was cursed from the start. Not only did I bring half my normal amount of fuel, but the stove was broken too! I quick last minute fix saved the whole situation. This will forever remind me to inspect my gear before heading out, however, being pressed for time never helped anything.

Later on, we all ran down for a swim in Sword lake. There is a great 25 ft cliff from which we all jumped into the water. Sword Lake is the only alpine lake I know of with a rope swing, and believe me, we all made use of that too! What a great way to cool off after a long hike.

Here are some pics from our trip (since I don’t feel like writing much more):

Also, if this sounds in any way fun, let me know if you want to go on the next trip over July 22nd-24th. I’ll be planning it, so any one is entirely welcome. Once again, sorry about the confusion about this last trip.

After working for Apple for two weeks, with only my powerbook at my side, and a 1.85GHz G5 tower and eMac at work, I miss my 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon 2800 linux box.

I also miss Lindsay, my parents (how odd), and having my own room. Its weird realizing how disconnected I’ve been. I also feel very uncreative lately. A bit disillusioned too.

Its weird working for Apple. Its a dream come true, but I keep thinking I’m gunna wake up. That would suck.

Anyways, here’s to Linz, Linux, and Love for Family.

TWO MONTHS TIL BURNING MAN, rock on!

Wow, crazy night.

Lemme tell you about a little experience I had with my good buddy Jaeger: I was over at my friends’ house — I won’t name names to protect the innocent — having a good time drinking. We both just had the same brutal, interminable networking midterm and were damned ready to forget it. After two shots, and a surfer on acid, we decided a little customary foos-ball was in order; I beat the pants off him, big time. Afterwards, I shared my Cuban cigars with my friends, and we hit up the neighbors for something a little more wacky.

This is where things start to get fuzzy.

We passed the controller to San Andreas, amoung other things — I’m not totally sure how long we were at it — until my body was so dry, my contact fell out of my face. After rescuing that situation with some borrowed solution, I decided it was time to make my exit, as my friends had done so before me. Having, by now, gone through a wide range of feelings and lingering random funny-thoughts — which is what I’m calling a random half-thought that you only really think of long enough to think that it’s mildy funny that you are thinking of it, and then presently forget and move on to another — I was sufficiently tired for a nap.

Cue funky trance-like state.

There I am, on the couch — only remembering to breathe in 5 breathe bursts, with a time delay of 25 seconds between each (bonus points if you can solve that pattern of pulses for a Fourier Series) — dreaming the aforementioned funny-thoughts, and hallucinating mildy.

I hear the bone-sawing sound of an automatic weapon from the video game next door, and suddenly realize: I haven’t really lived the past year and a half of my life, and am still desperately trying to wake up in the recovery room. I open my eyes and realize: my entire family is still there, encouraging my failing attempts at breathing, as I turgidly attempt to effect some proper form of gas exchange — one involving O2 and CO2. Then, in an instant, the glimpse that I have of that altered reality — that feeling of not having lived the past 18 months — is blown away as I recover my senses, and fill my lungs with oxygen.

A little background for those of you who are not so familiar with the story of my life: I had an incredibly invasive jaw surgery 18 months ago, which wired my jaw shut for 3 weeks, and left me 15 pounds lighter. Needless to say, the time between when I was put under — which, as it occured, happened right after one of my surgeons told me that the other surgeon likes to operate naked (I looked over to verify, and sure enough, he was taking his shoes off) — and the time that I got unwired, and felt more myself was less of the predicted 18 days, and more like 18 months. Hell, I still feel the pain — or lack thereof — in most of my upper jaw; I have not fullly regained the feeling in my gums. Having this sort of dream really trips me out after such an ordeal. Really, I don’t want to go through that again.

About $400 away from a new camera. Anyone wanna donate?

Damn! Tonights dinner was as good as sex. And what followed was better than dinner!

Chicken, marinated in:
Chicken Broth, ginger, basil, rosemary, garlic. BBQed.

Couscous with: Tomato, cilantro, broth, garlic, salt, and avocado.

Spinach, sauteed in garlic and salt.

Man, that was excellent food.

Why am I always so tired lately? Must be the fact that this is keeping me from eating. Damn you, Canon!

“I’ve learned to take my pants with me…” — Linz, while getting out of bed.

I recently received this email:
[quote]
Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the resume. Yes, we are currently looking for people.
We have a multitude of roles we are filling as we find the right
people. Presently we’re looking for junior and senior additions
to our technical staff as well as coverage for NOC shifts (24x7).
We’re a small company: most roles here are pretty broad regardless
of what it may say on your business card.

Things are a bit crazy this week and next — we’re about half way
through the build-out of a ~60 rack data-center addition. I’d like
to see when I can get time from some other members of the team here
before scheduling an in-person interview.

What’s your schedule like as far as scheduling an interview goes?

Here’s some questions to maybe get us started via e-mail and
determine which of us you should be talking with first. I’ve looked
through your resume so these are partially drawn from that.
[/quote]

Please review the following Email and post critiques:

Josh,

I’m available for interviews M/W/F, after 2pm, before 5pm.

As for your questions, I’ll get a quick start on them:

Hardware or software?

Both.

What do you think of Microsoft Windows?

I don’t hate it, but I spend most of my time running Linux/OS X. I try to avoid Windows mainly because of virus/worm problems and the amount of spyware and things that can automatically install without user intervention, especially when browsing with IE and ActiveX. Using Linux, or firefox in Windows greatly mitigates these problems. Also, Linux allows me more freedom to experiment and learn about the inner workings of an operating system.

Which do you prefer: Debian or GenToo? Why?

That depends on the application. On my box, I like gentoo. It builds all applications from the latest sourcecode, using highly optimized compilation flags. However, on my senior project, I am using debian because the servers do not have enough processor power to constantly compile source packages. Debian is great for staying current on packages where you do not necessarily need or want to spend the time to compile highly optimized packages.

How/why did you end up in SLO and at Cal Poly?

I applied to quite a few high end schools (MIT, Cal Tech, UCLA, UC Davis, and Cal Poly), and only got into two: UCD and Cal Poly. I came down to visit SLO in the spring of my senior year, and immediately fell in love with the area. Having just gotten into rock climbing, seeing Bishop’s Peak so close to campus really drew me in to the idea of going to Cal Poly. Additionally, I researched the ratings of the College of Engineering as compared to Davis; Cal Poly had a much better rated program.

Please tell me a bit more about your Senior Project?

My Senior Project is building a high-speed, networked storage array for mirroring popular open source projects, such as Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora Core. Eventually, we are pitching for local and corporate sponsorship to purchase up to 2 TB of storage in order to mirror Sourceforge.net. We are using hardware donated by Brocade, 160GB of high-speed SCSI over Fibre Channel storage at the moment. You can access it while we work on it at http://san.csc.calpoly.edu

What has been your favorite Cal Poly course thus far? Why?

Software Engineering was probably my favorite Cal Poly course. It taught me a great deal about real world software engineering and the requirements process. It was my first real experience coding under serious time and management constraints.

Who is your favorite professor? Why?

Michael Haungs, he’s my Senior Project Advisor. I like him as a professor because he is so approachable and understanding. He has a real appreciation for his students, and has a real knack for teaching and making dry subject matter interesting.

When did you first get into computers/networks/software/electronics/etc? Why?

I started getting into computers in grade school, around 5th grade. My parents had just bought a PC, and I was immediately hooked. I had always been interested in electronics, and the computer, especially with the emerging internet, seemed like a great hobby, and a ready way to spend my free time. In about 7th grade, I took two C programming course which greatly affected the way I used computers. Before those classes, I used our home computer for email, news, et-cetera, and after the course, I was able to create my own programs to use the computer in new and exciting ways. I’ve used principles that I learned in that Data Structures and Algorithms class in absolutely every programming project I’ve ever written since then; I feel I have a great advantage over all other students in my grade level because I am very familiar with the more technical usage of pointers, structures, and other classic C data structures and algorithms; I learned it all at a very young age, and its stuck with me ever since.

What do you think when you hear the word “marketing”?

Its a necessity. You could have the greatest product in the world, but if no one knows about it, its going to fail. I’ve noticed this first hand in some of my personal coding projects. While my projects are open-source, and not-for-profit, I can still see an positive impact with good marketing. Even open source projects need marketing; there are developers out there that can help with all sorts of projects, but only if they’ve heard of them.

What would be required of a potential employer for you to want to work
there for a long time?

I look for the following in long term employers:

1) Flexibility: I like to work with companies that can change with the times and practices of modern computing.

2) Employee Input: If one of Company X’s employees has a valid idea on how to fix/improve/adjust a process for the good of the company, I expect that idea to be given due process and merit, and not just filed with all the other memos. New employees bring fresh ideas and differing experiences that allow a company to tackle new problems from many different directions. Its a great asset.

3) Accountability.

4)

What do you feel is the most important thing in business?

Enjoying what you do.

How was Italy?

Great. That Europe trip was one of my most enjoyable memories to date. Venice was especially cool!

-jr

———————-
)’(
Ryan Du Bois
www.ryandubois.net
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

I absolutely hate my roommates. Party until 5am, I haven’t got a wink of sleep, and I am extremely pissed off. I should have slept at Linz’s house last night, but I went home to get some sleep. sleep…. yea,, right..

Fuck you andrew,
Fuck you andy.

You guys suck fat donkey cock.

Noah and My Senior Project, a Storage Area Network, is finally online! Check out the local Gentoo distfiles (and portage, but rsync isn’t online yet) and debian apt mirrors available here:

http://san.csc.calpoly.edu.

As you know, I’ve been working nights at the local community college. School has started to really pick up; I’ve never felt more swamped with school than I do this quarter. As you can imagine, with school and working nights, I haven’t been sleeping much. So, on Monday, I asked for the months of May and June off of work. My boss asked if I could work weekends. I was able to go in on Wednesday and tell him, “Not a chance.”

Long story short: I won’t be working May or June. How cool is that?

It seems I just left this place, and I can’t wait to go back. I’m quiting my job specifically to lower my stress level, which may indirectly allow me to visit my home more. My sister is getting married there in 3 weeks, so I will be back soon enough.

God knows, I can’t wait.

As an avid computer hacker and security (semi)professional, I encourage all of you to write your senators and encourage them to repeal the REAL ID Act. This act attempts to put an RFID chip into EVERY passport, broadcasting sensitive personal, identifying information to passers-by. Feel free to use the letters I sent to my senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, or goto the EFF to email, fax, and print yours, automatically.

I encourage you to take 5 minutes to do this; its free, takes zero time (just fill in your name and address where you are registered, and they do the rest).

I have recently submitted a request to be taken off the schedule for May and June in order to have less stress. I thought I could handle 18 units and a 12 hr/week job, but I just can’t anymore. So, seems I will have more time for school, myself, and free time to do the things that make me happy. The things that I haven’t been able to do lately — it’s really bringing me down. If they deny the request, I am quiting, and that’s all there is to it. It going to make saving up for a Canon Digital Rebel XT a bit tricky, but it’ll happen soon enough.

I’m tired and I wanna go home.

I recently received information from a friend of a guy at Digital West in SLO that they have heard of me, through some of the software I’ve written under the alias ‘red0x,’ and that I should apply for a job, either for the summer, or from here on out.

We’ll see what happens.
*/me dusts off the resume*

I really hate it when my roommate tries to help out by changing the network setup without telling or asking me about it. I tried to ssh from work tonight to get some work done, but was denied because the odd-ball put a second open Wireless access point on our network. He wonders why its slow?

Newflash: wireless is slower than wired. It always has been and always will be with 802.11b networking. Sorry man, your other access point only complicates the matter.

Maybe having two might make things faster, but really? Do we need that much bandwidth? At least let me lock it down a bit so we dont broadcast internet for every fool for a block.

Linz and I went slack lining the other day. It was a blast! Check out the pictures here.

While in line for the best Mediteranian food in SLO (Jaffa Restaurant), I overhead someone mention the name “Du Bois.” Then another person mentioned it. Then, they were talking about how they were both Du Bois’, but from different families. At this point, I chimed in: “My name’s Du Bois too!”

At first, this was met with laughter. But, after about 5 seconds, they could both see I was serious. We had all three just ran into 3 separate, distinct Du Bois families. What are the chances? I need to go buy a Lottery Ticket.