Plum Island in Late Winter

Last weekend, my friend and I wanted to get out of the city, so we decided to drive up North and go for a hike.  On our way north we checked the weather and saw that it would be well below freezing, so we decided not to be that ambitious and to instead detour towards the ocean and do a non-elevation hike along the beach.  Earlier, on the car radio we heard on WBUR that some houses on Plum Island (whose owners had basically built them on a pile of beach sand) had recently fell into the ocean.  We chose that as our destination.  We found that the tourist season had not yet fell upon Plum Island.

We first climbed over the rocks of a storm barrier...

 then ventured into the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

Bored with Quel

A Diptic of photos of Quel

Wellfleet 2011

Some pictures from weekend stay in Wellfleet over Labor Day

The parking lot of the Wellfleet Town Beach.

This is how to travel to the beach

The dune outside the Beachcomber

Crabs at the Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary

Seattle - Trip 3

In Late August, I traveled to Seattle for a friend's Wedding.  Since my cousin also lives in Seattle I decided to crash at her place, and since she is adventurous we decided to partake in a motorcycle tour of the Olympic Peninsula, including camping in the rainforest.  I was promised that I would get back to Seattle in time for the Wedding.  So I rented a KLR650 (nicknamed "squirrely") and packed her with all the necessary camping supplies and we took off on our adventure!

The first stop was on a ferry which took us over to the Olympic Peninsula.  This short ferry ride cut out a lot of boring roads, and gave us some spectacular views of the Peninsula we were about to visit.  If you squint your eyes you can see the Olympic Peninsula behind me.

As soon as we hit shore, we gassed up and started riding.  I wish I had a camera on the front of my bike because in the first hour there were two magnificent views. The first one was encountered while riding over a long bridge where the first half was bright and sunny and the second half was saturated with fog for the whole span of the scene from left to right.  The bridge was lengthy so you could really take the view in.  The second magnificent view was experienced while descending a long decline into a valley of thick fog.  I had to convince my brain that the road continued through the fog.

View Larger Map

I was a guest on this moto ride and new to the area, so throughout the trip I had no idea what the plans were or where we were headed or when the next bathroom break would be.  Above is a map of the area I explored.  Our first destination was Neah Bay.  Below is a picture of the riding group. 

The twisties (roads that twist a lot) to and from Neah Bay were amazing.  Next time I will invest in a moto cam for my bike!  From Neah Bay we took the ~50 trek towards Cycle Camp.  The rules at Cycle Camp are simple: There are no rules except Respect.  I justified having a dual purpose bike by riding over a few tree stumps at Cycle Camp.  After we pitched our tents we were all starving so we decided to ride into Forks, WA to grab some grub. 

When we arrived in Forks we drove straight through the town and kept going.  I was a little perplexed because my stomach was starting to eat itself, and 30 miles of more twisties later we arrived at Ruby Beach.  It was definitely worth skipping lunch/dinner.  In the picture to the left I can be seen reclining on the beach, with the beautiful view behind me.

When we returned to Cycle Camp we made dinner out of snacks, then sat around the fire until partway into the morning.  The picture below sums up the night.

Since we decided to camp in a rain forest, everything was wet in the morning.  I fell asleep with my feet and socks accidentally hanging out the tent, somebody else didn't make into their tent, etc.  It seems like whenever I camp I always wake up to the sound of a rooster wherever I am.  We all survived and were back on the road by 11am.  We took a different route, still full of lots of twisties, back to the ferry.

  Here I am arriving back in Seattle and ...

 ... here I am already taking my much-deserved nap!

... and here is proof that i made it to the wedding reception on time.

All in all it was a fun weekend.  I didn't see any evidence of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus but I saw a lot of other wildlife. 

Branchline Bicycle Storage

If you are in the market for sculptural bike storage you should check out Design Milk.  My favorite is the Branchline design, displayed above.

podcast: The Critical Path

There are some interesting conversations on the podcast "The Critical Path". The podcast looks at the causality, success, and failure in mobile computing, using Apple as a lens.






Episode 2 is title "Synchronized Failure" and it looks into why big companies (RIM, Nokia, etc.) are failing. The conversation at the end of the episode sums it up for me:

"Execution is about running a tight ship ... but where is the ship going? Some companies, if they think they can execute very well, then they can always say 'well, we'll just follow another ship'. But sometimes that ships starts to fly, and then you are in trouble. I think Apple is good at both. At the following, and they only fold things in when they are ready. And then sometimes they just completely say that being on a ship is the wrong thing altogether, and say 'let's make an airplane'.

If you want, you can download the podcast here.

Huron Beer Tasting

This Spring, my roommates hosted their annual work party at our apartment. It started out good with a make-your-own fajita station, then lulled out, but then everyone was surprised when it turned into a surprise beer tasting party.

We sampled 13 excellent beers in addition to a special appearance of Benlap IPA, which set the baseline for the scoring of the beer tasting.

This was the Beer rating system:

A - Annie would drink this, while pregnant, in Germany, in 1910, if she was there.
B - Tad would drink this, with work to do.
C - Coifable (Quaffable?)
D - Duncan pre game
F - Fit for Yale (My roommates went to Harvard)

In the end, Stone Brewing Company's Double Arrogant Bastard won with a B rating.