Road Trip Day 3

Sunday morning an early start out of Orange County and through Los Angeles. Early in the morning it was not as busy as the previous evening, but there is not time when the freeways in LA are quiet. Driving for over an hour at freeway speeds (in excess actually, everyone breaks the speed limit here) and you are still in the greater LA area – it is huge.

I decided to take the back way up to Sacramento – over to Mojave and up the East side of the Sierras on Highway 395 and over to Tahoe and down 50 to Sacramento.

In the Antelope Valley there were great displays of California Poppies, then on in the high desert around Mojave there were still some flowers left (the record amount of rain this year has delivered a remarkable display of flowers in the desert – they are past their best now, but there was still some nice colorful displays in places).

Things got a little tricky around Mammoth and Mono Lake with some really high winds. It was a little difficult keeping the bike on track – a motorcycle is a lot more susceptible to winds than a car. It all got so bad around Mono Lake when I was literally driven off the road by a squall of dust, tumbleweeds, and other debris. Shortly after that I arrived upon the scene of an accident – a semi truck had been driven across the road by the wind and had flipped over. I waited while the two guys in the cab scrambled out of their cab – they seemed to be shaken but otherwise no real damage. I bet you get fired as a driver when that happens.

I got out of the wind when I crossed over into California on the Kingsbury Grade, but then it started to rain. That’s not what I wanted for my drive over Echo Summit. So with a great deal of timidity I crept up the hill and sneaked over the summit in a light drizzle. I thought I was home free but just 60 miles from Sacramento the rain turned into a downpour and I was stuck in the middle of it – the visibility was terrible. I stopped at a coffee shop in Placerville until it subsided a little. Not to worry, the electric vest did its job and kept me nice and toasty, and of course the BMW comes with heated hand grips.

I finally arrived home a little soggy but safe and sound after a 1200 mile round trip. It was a great experience and it took in some of the best parts of California. I do feel that I am a much more experienced rider because of it. My top three lessons learned are:

1. Don’t ride in busy LA freeways if you can at all avoid it.
2. When there are extreme winds, it is not nice - try and avoid them.
3. If it rains really hard, stop, drink coffee and eat pie until it stops.

Road Trip Day 2

I stayed in Monterey overnight and on Saturday morning started out early for one of the best bits of road in California, if not the entire planet – down Highway 1 from Monterey to Los Angeles.

Some of the hightlights - Big Sur – a nice place with a great name and a good name always helps; Hearst Castle – if you have to have a castle then this is a pretty good place to put it; Morro Bay – an ugly little town and how on earth did they get permission to put that power station there; San Luis Obispo – what a difference a University in your town makes; Santa Maria – a not so attractive town currently famous for hosting the Michael Jackson trial (I took a ride around town, the unimpressive Court House was surrounded with fencing to keep the crowds at bay and had a parking lot full of TV trucks); Ventura – my old residence for a few years, not as attractive as I once thought it was; Los Angeles – I had forgotten how horrible the traffic is (driving through Los Angeles down to Orange County was just too stressful on a motorcycle - too many cars, either stop and go, or racing along at 80 to 90 miles per hour, and all too dangerous for a motorcycle).

I stayed the evening in Mission Viejo with my old friend Lynn on Saturday. It was nice to catch up after all the time that had passed. I knew Lynn when I lived down in Southern California and that was 25 years ago. Where did all that time go!

Road Trip Day 1

So this last weekend, I thought I should go for an extended trip on the motorcycle. If I ever stand a chance of getting to Alaska this summer then I need to do more than a leisurely afternoon ride down the Delta. So with that in mind, I took off on Friday afternoon for something a little more challenging, and headed for the coast.

By the way, if any of you do not know about my wonderful new motorcycle - it is the BMW 1200 GS. The BMW 1200 GS is the latest, and in my opinion, greatest from BMW, that was just voted motorcycle of the year. A very beautiful machine indeed!

I rode down I-5 to Santa Nella and then headed west to San Juan Batista, Castroville, and Monterey. I haven’t been riding a lot in the past but this afternoon’s trip was most enjoyable – I really like this kind of thing – its good fun and quite exhilarating.

The London Underground Map

For those of who don't know the London Underground map it is a thing of wonder and beauty and, at the same time, it is a revolutionary piece of cartography. It was created in 1933 by a Harry Beck and the special thing about it is that it was the first map that didn't attempt to accurately portray the geographical position of things. Instead it focused on clarity for the user and so attention was paid to legibility of station names and distinction between the different lines, particularly in congested areas. All this caused the layout to change from the normal geographical presentation to this stylised version. Now most of us think that the map represents the actual layout of the city - but it doesn't. Embankment is not due south of Charing Cross, like it is on the map, it is actually due east.

There is a nice presentation of this at the London Transport Museum site. You can morph between the original 1933 map to the current map to the true geographical map. It was all quite a radical thing considering the norm for cartography in the 1930s. And the web site presentation is pretty cool too.

My political compass

There is an interesting site called Political Compass that attempts to figure out where you lie in the political world on an economic scale (left wing - right wing) and a social scale (authoritarian - libertarian). You answer a series of questions and they place you on a tw0-dimensional matrix along with other notable and notorious figures like Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Hitler.

It is quite interesting and well worth the time to take the test. While answering the questions I became aware of how conservative I had grown in these past years. I was worried that I might be a soul-mate of Margaret Thatcher. However, thankfully I turned out to be just a little ouside of Gandhi and the Dalai Lama (Economic -7.13 and Social -4.82) so all is not lost and at least I am in good company.

In praise of Fatwallet

Ian, one of my colleagues, who is the consumate deal person for technical equipment recently steered me towards the Fatwallet.com site - this is a site where would-be purchasers can check out what the best sales deals and offers are and where users can exchange information about coupons and special deals. I have been checking the site for a good price on Dell flat panel monitors recently. The Dell UltraSharp 1905FP seems to be a good piece of equipment and we have decided to get some for the office when the price is right.

Yesterday I struck gold, someone posted a coupon code on the site for a 40% price reduction and low and behold it worked. So I snapped up 6 of these beauties for our use at Infostat. Now we will all have dual flat panel monitors to ease us through our working day.

The normal list price for this Dell monitor is $529 and we got them for $317 each - what a deal. Dell kicked in free shipping and we got all 6 for just over $1904. You can't beat that. Now all I need is a similar deal for a new PC at home and all will be well with the world.

Alaska Planning

I have been trying to lay out the plan for the bike trip to Alaska this summer. Trying to figure out if I can get to Anchorage in a week, in time for the Midnight Sun Marathon. It looks like it is going to be do-able if I can manage to ride from 400 to 600 miles per day.

The first draft of the route has the following nightly stops:
Day 1 - Eugene, Oregon
Day 2 - Seattle, Washington
Day 3 - Prince George, British Columbia
Day 4 - Fort Nelson, British Columbia
Day 5 - Whitehorse, Yukon
Day 6 - Anchorage, Alaska

So far I have only ridden for about 2 hours at a stretch. I need to find out if I can ride for a complete day. Then I need to find out if I can string 6 such days back to back. Then there is the little issue of running the marathon, but hopefully that will be something I know all about. Of course everyone who I have related this intent to has chuckled and looked at me as if I were crazy for even thinking about it. I wouldn't mind, but most of them know a lot more about motorcycle riding than I do.

Bee Activity

This year has been a terrible year for bees in California. The Varroa Mites are becoming more resistent to the miticide that is typically used and so lots of hives just haven't survived the winter, causing great grief to the farmers that rely on bees to pollinate their crops (some useless information for you - the typical commercial bee keeper in California does not get the majority of his income from honey production but from renting his bees to farmers. They start in the southern end of the valley when Spring breaks and move up north as the season progresses).

For whatever reason, my bees survived this last winter and they are now getting pretty active. Its time to put on a new box on the top of the hive. I usually leave two full size boxes on for the duration of the winter and then in the spring add the third box on top for the honey that I will harvest. With my small scale operation, the only reasonable way of harvesting the honey is to destroy the wax comb (it is just not economical to rent a centrifuge and recycle the wax comb). So, each year I buy a new set of wax combs that costs around $40. Not a very economical operation this bee keeping. It would make more sense if I really liked honey but I don't see the attraction.

Cold and Flu for another weekend

I have been down and out with some flu/cold/chest infection. Well over a week now, and I thought I was getting better and then I took a dive back down again. These last couple of days were really miserable. I actually went to see the doctor, who was most encouraging saying that folks have this thing for up to 8 weeks. Yikes!

The hardest thing about this is that I will have to miss the Way Too Cool run this weekend. I have been training for it since Christmas and all was going well and now after all the hard work, I can't do it. I am seriously bummed.

Creationist Theory in the Grand Canyon

I was just reading in the Sierra Club Magazine, in the bookshop at the rim of the Grand Canyon, they are selling a book, The Grand Canyon - a Different View. It explains the geology and geomorphology of the Canyon using creationist theory. The idea is that the Canyon cannot be more than a few thousand years old and was formed by the aftermath of Noah's great flood. All the fossils and layers in the canyon are explained as having been buried by the flood and the canyon itself was formed when some natural dam somewhere broke to allow the outflowing water to carve the canyon. So much for progress in this land of ours. Of course, if that were the least of it, it would be fine, but in some states they are teaching these theories in the schools and of course their proponents have a nice website.

Oklahoma City

I just returned from a couple of days in Oklahoma City. It is an interesting place, but not one of my all time favorite cities. It just happens to be the home of our largest customer so I get to go there from time to time. I have always said that you can make the best of a place and find good things in any city. It just seems that in Oklahoma City you justhave to dig a little deeper to find the good stuff. It was a successful visit however, and I did get to have breakfast with Heather, an old friend from Sacramento, who works as a social worker in the Veterans Administration Hospital. Every time I am around someone in a profession like Heather's I am reminded what a sheltered life I lead. I just brush shoulders with a few fellow techies - not quite a broad spectrum of society, not the kind of people you find walking the halls of the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Oklahoma City.

The Oscars

Not that there is any need to add to the all too much commentary about the Oscars, but I was disappointed Vera Drake didn't get a look in, though perhaps just the fact that Imelda Staunton was nominated for best actress is in itself significant enough. Also my other favorite film of the year A Very Long Engagement - didn't get anything either. And what's up with the fact that Martin Scorsese has never received the Oscar but his catalog of work is pretty darned impressive, who else alive today can rival that - not Clint Eastwood anyway. That's my 10 cents worth.

Trail Running and GPS's

This weekend was another long running weekend. 12 miles on Saturday, and 26 on Sunday. I don't think I have put that kind of mileage in before. The key to my survival was running slow (very, very slow). Since I am going to do the 50 K race in a couple of weeks and since the 50 mile race is still a candidate shortly after, I at last realized I needed to slow down to avoid burning out at 15 miles. So it was enforced walks up all the hills, easy going elsewhere, lots of stops for food. It seemed to work better as I was able to continue with relatively normal activities for the remainder of the weekend.

The new gadget for runners seems to be GPS systems. Of the 5 of us that ran on Sunday, I was the only one without a GPS strapped to my wrist. Garmin do this nice little compact device that tells you how far you have gone, current pace, average pace, elapsed time, heart rate, the current Dow Jones, $-Euro exchange rate, etc. (OK I kid about the last two but with the technology I am sure all is possible). I don't know if I need to be that well informed but they certainly seem to be catching on. I suppose on trail runs where mile markers are few then they could be worthwhile. I think I will hold out and be a luddite in that area for a while. All I need is another techhological toy - I have too many of those already. Isn't it amazing, and more than a little sad, that a good part of the world go to bed hungry every night and over here we know pretty precisely how fast we are running over some trail in the foothills.

The Toyota Prius...

This weekend I got to drive my friend Becky's Toyota Prius. I don't know if they have the same low-emissions vehicles over in the UK but in the US (particularly California) they are becoming increasingly popular (thank goodness). The Prius seems to be the best in class for this breed of vehicle and there is a waiting list for them.

They are quite impressive, the idea with the Prius is that there is an electric motor that runs off batteries and then when it needs assistance the gasoline engine kicks it to give it that extra boost (and to charge the battery). When you come to a stop the braking is used to generated power and charge the batteries and when you are at a stop the gasoline engine is off completely - all is quiet, clean and peaceful.

The really amazing thing about the Prius was how tricked out it was with nice little electronic gadgets. You don't need to put the key in the lock, because it can just sense the key in your pocket and know that it should unlock the door. You don't need to put the key in the ignition because it senses the key is still right there in your pocket. There's no cranking up of the engine, you just press a button (like turning on the TV) and flick a mini-gear lever into forward or rear and away you go.

The GPS system is great too. A nice bright display and they really have the technology quite refined now. It picked the best route to the destination, it recalculated the route when we took a variance from the route, it new that the destination was on the opposite side of the street and the street was divided so we had to do a U turn. I was very impressed. Plus the instructions come in a nice, non-annoying female voice. Who needs human friends when your car will talk to you as it guides you from your home to work each morning.