End of Summer Blowout

Well, summer is now officially over, and school has resumed. I did, however, manage to have a really great four day weekend leading up to it.

On Thursday a friend and I went on a hike to Eagles Rest about 30 miles from Eugene. Good exercise, company, and views. The next day my roommate and I did Spencer's Butte. More of the same.

Saturday I got really ambitious, and went climbing, then did a 20 mile bike ride in the hills south of Eugene. By this time, my knees were starting to hurt. But oh no, the fun doesn't stop there. My friend Andreas called and said they were doing a climbing trip on Sunday. So, I went to Flagstone and did a bit of that.

The best bit of the latter trip was when Andreas (the best climber I know) got stuck on a route. I've seen the guy climb some seriously hard stuff, so this was a rare event. Granted, he had a cold and wasn't feeling well. I managed to get a set of videos, though my stupid camera (which only records 40 seconds at a time) ran out of space just as he did a risky move that he ended up taking a fall on.

They are small and low quality, but you can check them out using these links:

1. Stuck. Ends with half of the risky move that led to the fall. Darn.
2. Very rare cheating. (a little "french free" action)
3. Super-sweet leap (about 2/3 into the video).
4. Finish. Anticlimactic...see (3)

I may have some pictures of me coming from other people's cameras, but they are as likely to show me laying on the ground lazily belaying as they are to show me on rock...I was tired.

The Librarian

My favorite librarian recommended a fiction find this week called "The Librian". She said, somewhat jokingly, that it made her begin to wonder about some of the conspiracy theories out there. She also noted that it was touted as "Liberal Escapism". OK, now I had to read it.

The story is essentially a fictional, behind-the-scenes recreation of a Gore/Bush election, though the Gore character is a female character. Of course, it also plays on terrorism, the use of fear and the media, etc. It is less than a year old, so if you watch the Daily Show at all, you've probably had some exposure to all of the viewpoints.

The characters were a little shallow, some of them almost caricatures, but overall it was an enjoyable book.

Societal Collapses

I'm reading a book called "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Diamond. It's about past societies that have succeeded and failed (Myan, Easter Island, etc.), and includes a parallel view of our current world trends.

It is a pretty good read. The archeological details are good, though they are a bit too detailed at times (he even has a habit of repeating things in a way that seems tedious to me). Some of the information is quite fascinating, especially if you don't know much about the ancient civilizations he presents.

The parallels he makes between past and modern societies is enlightening as well, and the information he presents about current trends in resource use is a bit frightening, though he does a great job of demonstrating how some companies (like Chevron, surprisingly) are actually finding that being environmentally friendly is not anti-business, as some in the establishment would have us believe. Oil companies, at least, are realizing the prevention of spills and damage is cheaper than cleanup, and improves public relations at the same time.

I highly recommend at least scanning through this one. The history is interesting, and he makes a good case for being aware and active about our environment while being able to point out where the most productive changes can be made.

I also liked his fair appoach, in that he isn't vindictive towards businesses that are competing according to current laws, and are causing environmental damage as a result. His opinion, and I agree, is that a business in a capatalist environment cannot afford to do things in a fashion that is more costly than competitors. What is needed is a body of law that requires a better minimum conduct to which they all must comply.

Google Story

New non-fiction this week included The Google Story. The latter half covers a bunch of the financial stuff, but the early chapters are quite entertaining for those who like stories and anecdotes of nerds with a mission.

Bits of fun trivia included:

- When they used Michelangelo's David for the L in a stone-carved Google logo to commemorate the artist's birthday, someone who though they were changing the corporate logo wrote them an email saying "Rockman sucks!". (see http://www.google.com/holidaylogos03.html)

- For a while, they were getting anonymous emails that contained single numbers: 37, 43, etc. They finally figured out that someone was counting the number of words on their home page and tracking the changes.

- The guy who works on the filters to keep unwanted content from inadvertently appearing in your searches is known as "Porn Cookie Guy", due to the nature of his job and the fact that he handed out homemade cookies to coworkers.

- In early (well before Google was a household word) observational studies of user behavior, they told users to go to the site and try to reasearch a topic. They were confused by users who would type in the site URL and then sit and wait. So many people did this that they finally started asking why, to which the user's replied "I'm waiting for the page to finish loading". They were so used to the extremely noisy pages, that they figured it was just stuck and still loading.

The first half of the book is a fun read for just about anyone. The latter chapters will appeal to the business-minded.

Digital Scales

My friend Renn gave me a nice digital scale last year that does body fat and water analysis, has a nice big readout, and a memory for your stats so you don't have to input them every time.

He got a whole stack of these things from Wal-Mart when they had them mis-entered into their scanners, and the $40 scales were ringing up for something ridiculous like $4...He bought their entire stock, then didn't know what to do with a dozen digital scales, so he started handing them out to friends.

What can I say, he's a quirky guy. Who am I to talk?

So I was trying to weigh my head the other day, and I realized that digital scales are not all they are cracked up to be: My head is evidently too light to register.

"Why?", you are probably asking.

The very obvious and logical answer to this question is: "I don't know." I just got curious about how heavy the human head is. Nothing gruesome like "I wonder how heavy the basket was after a day at the guillotine?"; just general curiosity.

I normally would have just looked it up, but I don't let myself have Internet access at home (I have to have some non-geek life). Now that I have your curiosity up, I found this online:

------ http://danny.oz.au/anthropology/notes/human-head-weight.html -----
I couldn't find any references for this online, so I asked around my workplace (the Department of Anatomy & Histology, University of Sydney). The most convincing response came from the service room where the technical officers actually cut up the bodies:

"An adult human cadaver head cut off around vertebra C3, with no hair, weighs somewhere between 4.5 and 5 kg, constituting around 8% of the whole body mass."

-----

2.2 lbs/kg means about 11 pounds.

So now you know.

The Hills have Gravity

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth (or a cliff for that matter). I have been ramping up my get-in-shape-or-die (maybe it should be and die) program. On Thursday I went mountain biking again and noticed that after a big hill I was able to recover pretty quickly.

Later, I was talking to my research advisor (who does a lot of cycling), and he showed me a Lane County (where I live) cycling map. He said the a good hills route was out Dillard Road to highway 99, south to Creswell, over to Lorane highway, then loop back to town. Sounded good.

So, I get up Saturday, go to REI (I needed a few things for a distance ride, like a portable air pump). I left at about noon and headed towards Dillard road. For those not in the know, Dillard road is a bit steep and curvy. By the time I got to the top I was pretty tired, but I figured I was just getting warmed up. There was a bonus near the top, too: ripe blackberries. So, I took a break and ate berries.

The next segment (about 9 miles) started with a nice downhill section, followed by mostly flat terrain. I settled into the groove and felt pretty good all the way to Creswell. From there I headed west, and the road began to get hilly as I expected. Still, it wasn't so bad. About 15 miles into the trip I found an old pear tree next to the road which had some killer pears. I filled my bag, and ate one while riding on. By this time I was getting a bit hungry.

A few miles later I hit a bigger hill. My pace plummeted. I got about halfway up, and decided to stop for lunch. There was a nice spot on the inside of one of the curves that had nice moss-covered rocks and plenty of shade. I ate a sandwich and some popcorn I was carrying, along with another pear.

After my break, I struggled the rest of the way up the hill, and was very glad to reach the top. The descent was a blast. There were almost no cars on the road, so I took over the lane and sped down the hill at what was probably at or over the speed limit. The curves were great.

The next few miles had hills, but none to compare with that main one. When I reached Lorane highway the traffic was a little heavier, so I was glad when I was able to turn off and head for Eugene, though I was a bit worried that the sign said "Eugene 16". I was pretty tired by this point, and my legs were beginning to rebel.

A few miles of relatively minor hills later, and I came to Fox Hollow road. I turned onto this one with relief, knowing the road heads right to the south hills where I used to live. I hadn't realized at this point that I was 6 miles from the top of the hill.

I had never taken Fox Hollow to its end. I knew it was a big hill because I used to live off of it, but I didn't realize that Fox Hollow road would more appropriately be named "The Hill that Never Ends". It started to climb. My legs were already Jello. It kept climbing. I began to cramp.

I probably walked almost as much of that hill as I rode. I was never so glad to see the top of a hill as when I reached the top of this one. Luckily, there were no more uphill segments of note for the rest of the ride.

I got in at about 5pm. My friend Amanda called to see if I was up for a night hike with her and Matt up Spencer's Butte that evening. I said sure, but I was gong to be walking pretty slowly.

I cleaned up and at about 7pm I decided to take a nap. My alarm went off at 8pm, and there was no way in hell you were going to get me to walk up any kind of hill. I called and cancelled. I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning at around 10.

Cannon Beach Bonzai!

My plans to go camping and climbing with Andreas et al. this weekend were somewhat cramped by the University mail conversion this weekend. I couldn't leave until Saturday afternoon. I talked to my friend Gwynne in Portland, and she was planning to go surfing on the coast and could not find anyone to go with her either, so I decided to give that a shot.

It was hot in the valley, and once we got to the coast it was at least 20 degrees cooler. Very nice. Unfortunately, Cannon Beach was socked in with fog. Well, I say unfortunately, but we had brought mountain bikes as a backup, and decided to ride those instead. We found a trail that was clearly marked "no bikes" and rode that. Gwynne was initially paranoid about getting a fine until I reassured her that since it was my bone-headed idea, I would pay any fine. She relaxed and enjoyed herself.

Well, initially I'm not sure how much either of us enjoyed ourselves. The trail went straight up at an unrelenting pace, and we gained at least 1000ft of elevation in a little over a mile. There was a hike-in camp at the top, which we have to remember for some future visit: it had little shelters and such, and since it was a hike to get to it, it wasn't full, even on Labor Day weekend! Score.

So now came the really fun part of the ride: going down. The trail was a loop. The part we went up was on the back side of the cliffs that are exposed to the ocean, and as we climbed out of the fog it got seriously warm...of course the pedalling was adding to our heat generation. We had already peeled our outer two layers and were sweating.

We went down the trial on the cliff side, and it was a blast. I am sure I just about wore out my brakes. Once we descended into the fog it was even better. We cooled down very quickly, and the views were spectacular (we could not see the ocean for the fog, but the old growth forest looked really neat, and there were some really big trees).

We finished our evening with a picnic at the beach, and then headed for our camp. Gwynne, knows some people on the coast whose private driveway ends past their house at the top of 100 foot cliffs over the ocean. So, we drove there and set up camp. We still had a lot of fog, but we could see the sky, and it was nice to have solitude on a holiday weekend. The drive ended a good 100 yards past the house and around a corner, so it was like having our own private campground. The only downside was the dog poo: the owners have two big dogs. Gwynne managed to "stumble" onto some while setting up the tent.

Once we were set, we cooked tapioca pudding and read stories from "Surely You Must be Joking, Mr. Feynman". We're both such Physics geeks.

I didn't sleep so well: my bag was too warm for the air temperature, but it was too cool not to have it. Also, the grass or something made it difficult for me to breathe. I was half dead when we got up Sunday morning, and was not necessarily looking forward to being in cold water.

We got up, ate, and headed for the beach. It was nice and sunny, and we had two body boards, a surf board, and wet suits. The wet suit was very warm, and I didn't end up feeling cold at all. In fact, Gwynne took the thinner one, and she got cold well before I could even tell the water was cool. We later realized that we had gone body boarding last labor day weekend on my birthday, and we were about to start a tradition, since it was again my birthday...funny, it being annual and all.

I had never been surfing, but as I watched Gwynne, it didn't seem all that hard. After a little while I figured I better give it a try. I caught five waves, and managed to stand up on the board three out of the five times! I got some mad balancing skills...

By about 1pm we were exhausted, and Gwynne needed to be back in Portland by five, so we packed up and headed east. We found another nice mountain biking trail on the way, and stopped to check it out. It was a bit rougher that the one from Saturday, and not as pretty, but still a hell of a lot of fun. It was another steep uphill battle, followed by a downhill blitz. Definitely time to get new brake pads now. I noticed this morning that my handlebars are also misaligned...like I said, it was rough. I slept about 12 hours last night.

Today: rest day.

My Roommate has good eyes, or just knows me too well...

So my roommate was reading my Blog (she is currently in PA on an internship...scratch that, her intership ends today...she is headed to NY with her boyfriend), and she noticed two more fun things (i.e. things to make fun of) about my picture from my previous life: Not only was my hair a disaster, but I have a cheesy porn mustache (which in her words "wouldn't even grow yet") and am wearing what looks to be a calculator watch (I can't tell from the photo, but if it is I assure you it included a square root function).

Feel the love.

Non-fiction find

This week I asked a librarian for recommendations on books to read and she came up with "Swimming to Antartica" by Lynne Cox. It is an autobiographical account of the author's experiences as a long-distance swimmer.

Now, I am not much of a swimmer myself. I owned a house with a pool in Arizona (where it gets hot enough to melt most solids, including me) and I went in that pool a grand total of about three times in three years. It was great for the resale value and for my two dogs, but I just wasn't into it. It was also a major pain in the ass, especially when you don't even use it: balancing chemicals, vacuuming, skimming. Like I don't have enough to do without maintaining a 10,000 gallon bacteria breeder. I grew snails in the thing at least once. I finally wised up and paid someone else to deal with it.

So, when the librarian suggested it, I was a bit skeptical as to whether I would like it. But the librarian seemed like she really enjoyed it (and I'm such a guy (brainless automaton) whenever an attractive female tells me anything...I once roller-bladed my shins into a railing at some ungodly speed and limped home with lumps the size of walnuts because a cute skater passing the other way said "the hill is not so bad" when she saw me inching my way down the hill while holding a railing).

Well, it turned out to be a really great book. I wasn't familiar with the author, but she broke the men and women's world record for swimming across the English Channel when she was 18. She then proceeded on a series of impressive self-invented accomplishments, some of which had never been done by a woman, and many that had simply never been done (like swimming across the Straits of Magellan in insanely cold water and conditions that sink ships). The author has a great writing style, and a really vivid memory of all of the experiences she relates, which is understandable when you consider that most of them would kill an ordinary human, and regularly do.

Highly recommended reading.