that’s whacked

catchup rambling

Friday, Feb 8. 2008  –  Category: OpenSolaris, OpenSource, Outdoors, Pets, Songbird

i propose starting a new trend in web 2.0. first there was blogging. then there was microblogging (aka twitter’ing). i propose to start time-batch concatenating micro-blogging, or twitter with a touch of both diarrhea and constipation if you will.

so here’s my spew of random micro-blogging-type thoughts, concatenated into one post.

• psyched to be going to London for a week. looking forward to hopefully dropping by the LOSUG meeting while i’m there. would give my left nut to get tickets to the Arsenal/AC Milan Champions League game.

• super-psyched about FOSDEM. little bit nervous to be presenting my first conference preso about Songbird. looking forward to moules et frites with timf, catching up with other various OpenSolaris folk, and meeting more of the Mozilla Community.

• steak and bj day. seriously. i’m so in.

• i’m so desperate to go up to the sierras. i haven’t gone snowboarding at all this winter, and its been dumping lately. sigh. brand new snowboard and everything.

• work is keeping me so busy. feel like every day i finish 5 tasks only to add 7 more to the plate. i was expecting as much when i left Sun… and i love the work and my coworkers, but wow i could use a few days off.

• had a shite day at the gym yesterday, couldn’t get up the V2 & V3 routes i was able to do two weeks ago. ugh. starting to get really psyched about climbing Cathedral Peak with jesse in june though. i think my strength is there, but i could definitely do with some sustained route-climbing to build up the endurance. should probably go out somewhere (diablo maybe?) to practice some trad placements in case my rusty.

• isis is definitely getting worse. we’re taking her to the vet on saturday, but i suspect her time is near. she’s eating slower, and starting to strain so hard her body shakes a lot of the time she’s awake. her 10th birthday is in 10 days. bumming me out.

• great to see benr, tamr, and to finally meet derek c at redmonk‘s party a couple of nights ago. cheers to sogrady for a great party and for the beer.

• i feel like i’m spending so much time in front of my computer lately, and not nearly enough time outdoors or with the dogs. gotta figure out this work/life balance thing.

an epic day, indeed…. and a renewed faith in customer service

Sunday, Jan 27. 2008  –  Category: Cars, Outdoors

wendy and i headed up to tahoe this weekend for a fun, weekend snowboarding. the snow promised to be fantastic with a storm having dumped fresh powder all thursday & friday.

we left saturday morning, and everything was going great until my engine imploded somewhere going up the donner pass. all of a sudden my power sapped, i heard a whooshing sound, and i was flooring the engine going about 30mph up the pass. initially i thought a vacuum tube had broken and i’d lost my turbo or something – but realised that full-throttle going 30mph in 2nd gear was something bigger than that. i nursed it up to the summit of the pass, gave much thanks when i saw the “steep descent/downhill next 5 miles” and brought the car limping into a gas station/mechanic in Truckee.

the service guy there asked me turn the engine on so he could hear what was wrong and had me immediately turn it off after 1 second. “i’ll save you the $95 diagnostic: your engine’s blown, it’ll need a rebuild. tow it to your favourite dealer or mechanic”.

ouch.

he pulled the oil dipstick and showed me metal flakes in the oil indicating something inside the engine went nuts and blew chunks. sigh.

we called some people, checked out our options, and eventually decided to tow the car to Incline Village, rent a U-Haul + auto trailer, and tow my Audi back to Oakland.

so this is normally where i’d be pissed and annoyed; but instead i was actually pretty happy and satisfied. i was expecting people around every corner trying to rip us off, instead what i got was the following…

i called AAA and asked for a tow to Incline Village, the operator said my basic membership only covered 5 miles, and each additional mile was $7. i got off the phone and asked the service guy how far from Truckee to Incline Village. he said about 20-25 miles so that would have been about a $140 tow! he then suggested upgrading to AAA Plus which would get me 100 miles of free towing.

i called AAA back and asked very clearly “my car is dead. i’m stuck and need a tow. can i upgrade to AAA Plus right now and have it take effect immediately for a further tow?”

3 minutes, and a credit card charge of $16.73 later, and i was AAA Plus member being told to expect a tow truck driver in the next 45 minutes. sweet! we were a little worried though because the U-Haul closed at 1pm (by this time it was 11:49).

5 minutes later, a tow truck showed up. 1 minute after that, i got an automated call from AAA saying to expect my driver in 5-10 minutes. awesome. @ 12:20, we were on our way – and the tow truck driver got us into the U-Haul right on the dot at 1pm…

… where the U-Haul guy was holding up shop waiting for us, having already gotten the truck and the trailer ready leaving enough room in the parking lot for the tow truck to unload my Audi.

we unloaded, got it secured on the trailer, and went upstairs to sign paperwork where he gave us a discount, gave us his card and said give him a call next time and he’d hook us up with Diamond Peak discount tickets. at 1:34 we were leaving the U-Haul on our way back to the Bay Area.

so, all in all – yes, the day sucked. yes the weekend sucked. my car needs a new engine. we didn’t get to snowboard. and i spent 10 hours driving up to Tahoe and back yesterday.

but because every single person whom we encountered: the mechanic, the AAA operator, the tow truck driver, and the U-Haul guy were so amazingly helpful, and sympathetic… i’m left surprisingly happy with a renewed faith in customer service.

… and wendy’s happy because i think this qualifies as a settlement to our running debate as to whose car we should sell to buy the Audi TT we want as our next car. i think we’re going to sell the A4.

what a weekend

Thursday, Mar 1. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

i still miss that utah snow

erik: you threw an awesome bachelor party. it was everything i thought it’d be…. 3 days of kick-ass powder. it was great to just be able to ride hard non-stop and then crash in the hot tub and chow down afterwards.

thanks again everyone for coming – i had a blast…. the riding was great, the snow was amazing, the food was heavenly (from the goat cheese ravioli…mmmm…droool…. even to the corn dogs), the drink was plentiful, and the company was brilliant.

even if i did “crap my pants”

cheers, steve da pimp

(thanks for taking the photos dan!)

heaven

Monday, Feb 26. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

i’m not religious… but i do believe in heaven.

not only do i believe in it…. i was just there.

heaven (or at least something akin to it) is flying down a double-black on your brand new snowboard crashing through fresh untracked fluffy light powder…. and then doing it again…. and again….. and again. repeat for 3 days straight… toss in a great dinner, great friends, and a ridiculous amount of eggs, corn dogs, beer, and a bottle of Laphroig – and you have the recipe for an awesome bachelor party.

epicness

Thursday, Feb 22. 2007  –  Category: Outdoors, Travel

between MLK day, all the jurassic (home directory server) outages on tuesday & wednesday, and me leaving soon for a weekend of epic awesomeness in the snow at Park City, this has got to be one of my shortest work-weeks ever.

… for which i do feel guilty …

but i can’t help but be psyched for this weekend. i haven’t seen some of these guys in a while, and i’m looking forward to 3 days of boarding in the powder. i’ve only been up to tahoe twice so far this year in our winter-of-crappiness we’ve been having, so i’m feeling totally ill-prepared for this weekend. but oh well… i’ve got my asthma inhaler and a crapload of ibuprofen – i should be set, right?

(utterly) inflexible

Wednesday, Oct 11. 2006  –  Category: Outdoors

i’m about as flexible as a lamp post.

that was my observation today during my first yoga class. i’ve decided to try yoga in my ongoing effort to ensure i don’t bonk heavily while attempting to summit/board Mt. Shasta next year.

“focus on your triangle, the space in between your hands… focus!” the instructor says calmly and clearly as we are all in the downward dog pose.

ugh. all i can focus on is the sweat dripping off my forehead down to the ground… into the space in between my hands. oddly enough, it was a strangely effective thing to focus on.

needless to say, an hour of yoga kicked my ass. it felt pretty good though, and i’m hopeful it will at least help drive some of the kinks out of my lower back.

i’ve been reading more accident reports and trip reports of Shasta. i tell myself its in the interest of being fully prepared for all things that may happen, but in reality my mindset is more along the lines of “whatever you do… don’t do something so utterly embarrassing and stupid you end up as an event in these accident reports”… like the girl who held her ice axe upside down, dripped, and ended up giving herself a tracheotomy. ugh.

/me is still wearing his snowboard boots around the house

new snowboard boots!

Tuesday, Oct 10. 2006  –  Category: Outdoors

i stopped by our local Any Mountain store on Monday and found a pair of boots being cleared out: 2006 Salomon Maori’s. they had one pair left in an 8.5. on a whim i picked them up and they were amazingly light. way lighter and comfier than my old pair of Burton boots i’ve been riding around on for the past 5 years.

that, and they were on sale for $90.

score!

so i picked ‘em up. but just to make sure they’re comfy enough, i’ve been wearing them whenever i get a chance and walking around in them to make sure they feel okay…. which is why i cooked dinner, walked the dogs around the block, and am now blogging in my snowboard boots.

let me just say…. you definitely get some strange looks from the neighbours when you tromp by walking your dogs in shorts, a t-shirt, and snowboard boots.

these are definitely a pair i can hike up shasta in though, so woot!

and so the training begins….

Thursday, Jul 20. 2006  –  Category: Outdoors

A couple of weeks ago Jesse and I decided we are going to climb Shasta next June and snowboard down (inspired by a colleague who did it this year). Jaime and Zac have decided to join us, so we’ll have a good group of 4.

Last night we went to an REI clinic on climbing Shasta which overviewed the different routes. We’ve narrowed it down to either Avalanche Gulch, the West Face, or the Hotlum-Wintun Ridge descents, and we’re starting some research into which one we eventually want to do.

We’re obviously going to have to do a lot of training, so time for me to start hitting the stairmaster at the gym. We’re also going to have to start doing some higher-altitude backpacking/mountaineering to get used to the elevation.

I intend to blog everything and tag it in my ‘MtShasta’ blog category and keep track of my training progress, all the decisions we make, and research we do.

Right now it looks like the equipment we’ll have to buy: a pack capable of carrying my snowboard, lighter snowboard boots that I can hike in and strap crampons to, crampons, ice axe or whippet.

missing june in march

Monday, Mar 15. 2004  –  Category: Travel

we spent what is most likely our last weekend ever at June Mtn. this past weekend. sure, it was hot (mid-50′s to 60′s!), and the snow had the consistency of a Slurpee, but it was still great fun. the snow was actually alright…it was smooth and consistent, so i was able to fly down the black diamond bowl and thoroughly enjoy it. i finally bought a pair of wristguards and finally took some of the jumps without my usual wrist-snapping trepidation. and wendy finally finally got the hang of turning. yay!

i’m hoping the snow will hold for me to make one more trip in april. i’m really psyched about hitting up joshua tree this weekend. it’s been too long (>1 year!!) since i was there last.

what have i been up to lately…

Wednesday, Jan 28. 2004  –  Category: OpenSolaris

work. i’ve been working a lot. our project (a complete re-whack of the CPU Performance Counters for Solaris) integrates in a week, so i’ve been trying to get all our old test suites to pass. let’s hear it for contract engineers in Russia who write shitty code.

please tell me why someone would fork a child and then have the child just close descriptors 0-29. ??? why?????

anyway. we went snowboarding at Kirkwood this past weekend. we drove up and stayed at a cabin thanks to the organisational efforts of Angela’s friend Melissa. we played some seriously intense Taboo games, as well as some really fun Mafia games (where i proceeded to confuse and confound when i was the mafia and started killing the very people that would clearly implicate me as the killer).

snowboarding was great. it was nice to get out on the slopes for the first time this season. i did my first black diamond, and had a good time overall. dan and i finally cracked the bottle of MacAllan (single malt scotch) I had bought, and we toasted the finishing of my school, and the start of his. we ended up finishing about 3/4 of the bottle that weekend. scotch is probably the best alcohol you can sip on the slopes. a small sip just warms you right up.

am i an alcoholic? hehe..

i saw an allergist this past week who said i was allergic to alcohol, and that beer and wine (due to the fermentation process) were probably the worst for me (in terms of causing me to turn red and get asthmatic). hard alcohols like scotch are better.

all i heard was “scotch is better for you”. so now i’ve decided scotch is good for me.

oh yeah. and wendy got into highland hospital in oakland. time to go look for a place to live!!!! wooohooo!!!!!