that’s whacked

DemoCampSanFrancisco

Thursday, Apr 3. 2008  –  Category: OpenSource, Songbird

I was just talking to a couple of fellow Birders who are going to DemoCampVictoria tonight, which got me wondering….

… why isn’t there a DemoCampSanFrancisco? I’d love to have one. Anyone in the Bay Area interested? This place is such a hotbed of innovation, surely we can get people together for 10 minute real-world demos of stuff, no?

Leave a comment if you’re interested. This should be something complete open - no restrictions, focus, etc. software… hardware… world-conquering robots… artwork… music… whatever. What do people think?

grumpy and crappy morning

Friday, Jan 18. 2008  –  Category: Cars

so far this day has gone stellar and it’s only 8:37am. wendy got paged at 4 o’clock in the f-ing morning because her patient had hiccups.

hiccups?!?!?

seriously. wtf.

my carpool ride into work was a Land Rover (nice) with a girl blasting crazy loud evangelical christian music (which is just wonderful when you’re groggy and tired :().

normally i try to be painfully polite on my carpool rides. i know i’m getting a free ride into work. but damnit, she’s getting free toll and a faster drive in too. it works both ways. everybody is supposed to be polite and conscientious of each other. this is why people are generally quiet, and the radio is tuned to NPR

i tried to tune it out by putting on my headphones and browsing facebook/digg on my iPhone… to which the driver told me that i “was being rude, and if i wanted to read - there was a Bible next to me”

seriously. again, wtf.

i couldn’t help it, i was just too grumpy and tired and sleepy.

sorry. i don’t read fiction.

we then sat in strained awkward silence for the rest of the 20 minute drive into work.

to top it all off, once i got into the city, Peets had no soy milk. sigh

death at Cathedral

Friday, Jan 4. 2008  –  Category: Outdoors

Oakland climber dies descending Cathedral Peak

A bit late, but I only just found out about this from the SuperTopo monthly email. A bummer to hear about, to be sure - especially with them having already ascended, and descended and only being a mile and a half from 120.

I have my own love-hate-hate relationship with Cathedral Peak having tried to climb it 3 times and only been successful once. Indeed, two summers ago we got stuck in our own late-afternoon Tuolumne-special storm, though early August is considerably more forgiving than mid-November.

Jesse and I have planned to tackle Cathedral Peak again this summer. I’m hoping to bump my success rate from 33% to 50%; but we’ll see… I know I’m bringing a barometer and will be pushing for an early morning, early summer start.

Sigh. It’s always a little unnerving to hear about someone dying on a route you’ve climbed… worse yet when it’s a route you’re planning to climb in the near future. My sympathies go out to Noble’s family and friends. At least he died doing something he loved.

east bay skeptics society

Monday, Dec 10. 2007  –  Category: Musings

ran across the east bay skeptics society online last night while i was doing some googling/research for wendy’s job hunt.

sounds intriguing. i definitely want to go check it out sometime.

chinese food for dinner with a table of skeptics? could be good fun.

i drank and drove

Monday, Dec 10. 2007  –  Category: Musings

had a lovely weekend. spent sunday morning cleaning up the basement; this was the first good chunk of time wendy and i spent down there since it flooded, so it was nice to get things organised and sorted.

we then met geoff and chris for a terrific lunch at The New Zealander (or 1-866-I-EAT-PIE, no kidding) where we tossed back some Snakebites while Wendy and I had curry pies (yum). after lunch we wandered up the street, oggled geoff’s Kindle and then went slot-car racing at the HomeRoom Racing Club which was incredibly fun. $5 for 20 minutes? totally worth it. geoff pretty much cleaned up against the younger generation though i will protest that the wife got in my way on several occasions.

shaking it up in the east bay

Wednesday, Aug 15. 2007  –  Category: Musings

hrm. it’s been a shaky past month in the east bay with the various earthquakes we’ve had.

last night we had a 3.2 whose epicenter was 1.7 miles from our house

on Sunday we had a 2.7 whose epicenter was 12.8 miles from our house

and about a month ago we had a 4.2 whose epicenter was a mere 1.5 miles from our house.

i’m starting to wonder if we’re going to have a big one soon.