Death Valley Cottonwood/Marble Canyons Backpacking

Dec 032014
 

For Thanksgiving, we embarked on a hiking trip through Cottonwood and Marble Canyons in Death Valley National Park. It was an orienteering hike, in that there was no signage the entire way, and we would have to depend on old fashioned maps and compass most of the way. In addition, there was no guarantee that would be water through the 4-day hike, so I ended up carrying 11 liters in. Here’s the National Park Service info page on the hike, and below is a topo of the two canyons. View Larger Map If you’re going to do the hike, I’d recommend these maps: Cottonwood Canyon 7.5′ USGS Topo 2012, Harris Hill 7.5′ USGS Topo 2012, East of Sand Flat 7.5′ [more . . .]

Mammoth Ski Trip, Part 2: Tufas and Bristlecones

Feb 252012
 

Continued from Part I. (For the complete set of photos, see the SmugMug gallery.) On one of the days, we headed over to Mono Lake for the sunset. We were hoping to catch sight of some of the brine flies that we saw on Life (or was it Planet Earth?), but the main visitor center and local interpretive centers were closed, so we ended up going to the southern tufas, where none of us have been. Driving down the road to the lake, it looked like this: You can see the tufas near the edge of the lake off in the distance. Tufas are these vertical mineral structure that are built up over thousands of years of underground mineral springs [more . . .]

Mammoth Ski Trip, Part 1: No Snow, No Problem!

Feb 252012
 

(The complete set of photos can be found in my SmugMug gallery.) After the disastrous 2nd annual Mammoth Lakes ski trip, we embarked on our third one this year over MLK weekend. The problem was that there wasn’t any snow in Mammoth Lakes. Well, no problem, some of us said; we’ll just go hiking. And so we hiked through terrain for five days that’s usually completely impassable this time of year save on cross-country skis or snowshoes or crampons. Tioga Pass was open this time of year for the first time since the 1930s, which cut an hour or two from our drive from the Bay Area to Mammoth. Tioga Lake was frozen over though, so we had a bit [more . . .]

Bamboo Fields (Forever)

May 312011
 

A few weeks ago, I was walking past the Lorry Lokey labs and the Mudd Chemistry Building on Stanford campus, when I noticed how interesting the bamboo that lined the exteriors of the buildings looked in the evening light. If you just let your eyes drift, the bamboo is so thick that it creates this relaxing background. And if you look closer, and near the ground, where it’s dark, the bit of light that filters in gives the bamboo shoots some incredible highlights.

cr-48: A Month of Using Chrome OS

Feb 012011
 

It was about two months ago that a mysterious package addressed to me showed up on the front patio. As I wasn’t expecting any packages, imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a thin, sleek laptop with absolutely no identifying markings. If I were completely rational, I would have looked through the rest of the box, where there was a thick piece of paper clearly identifying that it was the cr-48. Or I would have noticed that that box it came in matched what I saw online, here. But instead, my first instinct upon receiving a mysterious laptop with no markings was to turn it on. Kaboom. The Chromium logo appeared, and everything made sense and nothing made sense [more . . .]

My Life is Atypical

Dec 162010
 

This was today’s dinner menu at work: Roasted Whole Beef Tenderloin w/ Béarnaise Sauce & Mission Fig Demi Reduction Steamed Maine Lobster w/ Drawn Butter (V) Grilled Vegetable Napoleon w/ Pesto Risotto & Blue Cheese Béchamel Sauce White Truffle & Caramelized Onion Potato Gratin Marinated Grilled Asparagus w/ Shaved Parmesan Reggiano Steamed Broccoli, Cauliflower & Carrots Cosmo House Salad Rum Brown Sugar Sautéed Bananas w/ Greenlees Cinnamon Loaf and Vanilla Ice Cream It’s times like these when I realize that my life is atypical. Or, at the very least, I work at a pretty atypical company.

Song of the Week #143 – “California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade” by The Decemberists

Nov 112010
 

Album: Castaways and Cutouts I’m heading down to Monterey this weekend for the Big Sur Half Marathon which will be a nice break after a crushing three weeks of constant work and sleeplessness. I’ve been heading down to Monterey and Big sur pretty regularly, and it’s become my favored spot for some contemplative repose. And with this song, I’m starting to run low on songs in my collection about the Highway 1 coastline. Anyone know of any others? Buy: CD/mp3

It’s (Almost) Here: #9 Stanford vs. #4 Oregon

Oct 012010
 

The Stanford-Oregon game day is almost upon us! Let’s go Stanford! A few articles to get the blood flowing and occupy some time while you wait anxiously for 5PM: A great piece on Harbaugh’s history and influence Sports Illustrated pretty much says, “We have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.” I think Ted Miller may be a Stanford fan ESPN also has no idea what will happen tomorrow. Any sports columnist that uses the word “erudition” has to have a good take on the game, right? Marecic is awesome Harbaugh quotes Emerson

TechCrunch Acquired…by AOL?

Sep 282010
 

Or, excuse me. They’ve rebranded as “Aol.” Casing matters. This is confusing. I know that Aol is trying to reposition itself as a content provider for the new social web, but this seems like a major integration problem with the culture clash between TechCrunch which exudes Silicon Valley, and Aol, which is, well, Aol. However, if the purchase price really is only $25 million, that’s a bargain for the brand. Maybe this is why Aol leased out the new building by my house. Taking bets on how long Arrington stays on.

Circumhorizonal Arc?

Apr 162010
 

It looks like a rainbow, but it’s not. It looks to be a circumhorizontal arc showing its colors over Stanford and Palo Alto. Or it could be cloud iridescence. Any meteorological experts out there want to comment? In either case, this is beautiful, and a nice start to the day.

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