Annadel: Lake Ilsanjo Loop

I drove up to Santa Rosa, and went mountain biking in Annadel State Park.  The loop was 10 miles long, but I got a little turned around and probably did about 12.  It's a lot harder to navigate while mountain biking instead of hiking.

This was a fun ride.  A couple of the ascents were too rocky for me to ride, and a few of the descents as well.

I always take a picture of the trail map, so that I don't have to carry along a guidebook.

Lake Ilsanjo.  I jumped in for a quick swim after a long climb.

I saw a few deer on the ride.

California is awesome.

Mountain Biking

I've been wanting to buy a mountain bike for the past several months, but things kept getting in the way.  I finally pulled the trigger on one today at my local bike shop.  My new bike is sweet.  It's a Giant Trance with dual suspension and 27.5" wheels.

Mt. Sutro trail map.

I took it over to Mount Sutro today, and broke it in with some nice single track.  I parked near Stanyan and 17th.  I did get a little lost on the ride.  There are actually a lot of trails over there, and I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going.  I ended up making it to the summit.  It was a fun ride, and I'll be back for sure.

Tomorrow I'm headed up to China Camp State Park.

I think my Epic Pass at Vail resorts might entitle me to some mountain bike park privileges.  I'm going to have to check on that to be sure.

Mt. Sutro Map

Update 6/15/2018:
I did the China Camp Loop Today.  A solid 9 miles.  Almost all of the uphill was in the first section, and then a lot of downhill.  Some solid rock gardens.  California is beautiful.

China Camp Loop

Pure fun.

Then I ate a delicious Puerto Rican meal at Sol Food

Stoke levels are high.

SF Critical Mass - May

Critical Mass is a group of cyclists who meet the last Friday of every month for a ride around the city.  There is no official leader, and there is no official route.  Someone ends up in the front for a while, and people tend to follow.  Originally it started as a protest for cyclists' rights.  At the moment, there isn't a universal objective.  Different people ride for different reasons.  Some maintain the original spirit is still there, some are in it for the traveling party, and others are just tourists.

Cruising down the Embarcadero.  Check out the guy with the green backpack on the unicycle.

I think that all bikes are awesome, and to me critical mass is a celebration of bikes and biking.  There will be mountain bikes, road bikes, tandem bikes, unicycles, fixies, low riders, recumbants, bmx bikes, beach cruisers, etc..

Cool stuff:

• Rode the Broadway tunnel in both directions
• Rode the curvy section of Lombard (see video below)
• Probably clocked in about 14 miles total
• Saw a guy on a unicycle ride the whole thing.

1 year at Google

When I was an undergrad, I remember reading about the initial release of Google App Engine.  It was on some tech news site probably Slashdot, but it might have been HN.  My reaction to the article was "Holy shit, that's awesome!"  As a broke college student, the idea of executing my code on Google's scalable platform using the free tier sounded incredible.  Even back then Google had super secret server farms.

Fast forward several years.

A few days ago, I celebrated my one year anniversary at Google.  One of my coworkers asked me to deploy a new version of the App Engine Administration Console to production.  My response: "no problem."  Just another day at the chocolate factory.

V3!

I was bouldering at Planet Granite last night, and I climbed my first V3.

A few minutes earlier I was talking with my buddy, and he was asking me if I had done anything past a V2 yet.  I said that V3s were still outside the limit of my abilities.  I took a look a part of the wall that was recently re-mapped, and this route just jumped out at me.

Stoke levels are high.


Update 6/1/2014:  I've climbed a few more V3s since this post.  I'm progressing!

2013-2014 Ski Season Recap

So the season is over.  That's not cool.  But let's review the season for posterity.

This was the first season that I did a ski lease in Tahoe.  We had a nice enough house in South Lake.  Bonus points for the hot tub.  The lease was setup so that we each had our own beds.  Super convenient to never have to deal with bed laundry or worry if all the beds are taken.

Snow conditions.  Not good.  Around mid-season, it was said that this was the worst season in 50 years.  It picked up somewhat after that, but not too much.  Kirkwood doesn't have much snow making, so we did a lot of days in the early season at Heavenly.  I've had enough of Dipper and Comet to last a lifetime.

This was my first season in the backcountry.  I took a Level 1 AIARE course at Kirkwood in February, and over the course of the season did about 5 days of backcountry skiing.  Tahoe backcountry got a really late start this year, because the base never really built up that big.  The base needs to build up to bury those pesky rocks and logs.

My favorite day of the year started off at Kirkwood.  It was a powder day, and the place was super crowded, because everyone was jonesing for some of the fluffy stuff and it had been a dry season so far.  Kirkwood was tracked out by 2pm, and honestly I had an ok day there.  So I left and met up with my buddy Aaron at Powderhouse Peak.  I skinned up, and met him mid-mountain.  Then we made our way to the summit together.  We skied all the way to the base.  18" of untouched fresh through some beautiful wide open glades.  After the first run, I turned to Aaron and said "That was the best run of my life", he replied "Me too."  Aaron and I did a few more laps, and made it back to the car around 8pm.

Powderhouse Peak

I made some tentative plans to go to Utah and possibly Jackson Hole, but those never came to fruition.  I didn't make it out of Lake Tahoe this season.  I skied 26 days this season, which beats my old record of 18.  Not bad for a working stiff in San Francisco.

So it wasn't a good season snow wise.  But I still had a freaking blast.  The stoke level is high for next year.

While the season is over, there is still the possibility for more skiing.  Either hiking up to some persistent snow fields(likely) or traveling to the Southern hemisphere(unlikely).  I'm always looking to get in some more turns.

Grad School

When I finished my undergrad at Georgia Tech, I took a job that wanted me to start working on a Masters degree.  My first job was with GE Energy in the Edison Engineering Development Program.  Part of the program was to take a few graduate courses.  It's kind of brutal to work 40+ hours a week, and then spend most of your free time on grad school.

After two years of that, I told my boss that I wanted to take a leave of absence and finish my degree as a full-time student.  He and HR managed to talk me out of it.

Then a year later, I received an insane job offer at another company.  It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I took it.  I kept working on my degree in my own time, because I was close to the end.

I took my last final yesterday.

A few days ago, someone asked me what I was going to do now that I finished my degree.  I didn't have an answer at the time.  But I should have said, "I am going to keep living the dream."