Gnubbs Blog

So, things were pretty quiet on here last week. This is because my week spiraled totally out of control to the point where I was out of my house for 22 hours on saturday. Here is the run down, I will post more extensively on some of these things if I have time.

Monday — Climbing with JT after work, cook dinner for Jt and Stephanie
Tuesday — Stephanie and my 2 year anniversary. We go to dinner at Q’s after she gets done volunteering.
Wednesday — Ed Viesters slide show at the Boulder Theater, followed by beers.
Thursday — Team of the Year Dinner with my companies GM. We go the Flagstaff House and have a blast.
Friday — Stephanie and I go to this new place Aji followed by the West End.
Saturday — Get up at 3:30 am, leave at 4:30am, hike/climb in Rocky Moutain National Park from 5:30 am - 5:30 pm. Drive back to boulder and just make it to the start of the Hit Men premiere a ski movie by Matchstick Productions. After that we go to dinner at petes (Stephanie, Jt, Mariko, Fox, Arlene, and Me), and then for drinks at the West End. Jt takes off and the rest of us go to Bombay Bistro for drinks. I get home at about 2:30am.

So, those were the highlights, on top of all of the things I normally have to do in a week. So, needless to say my weekend is gone and I am exhausted. This week should be less crazy, but who knows.

gnubbs

About a year ago, I bought my wife a pair of Dansko Clogs. These are not cheap shoes, costing somewhere around $125. She wore them some, discovered that they did not fit right, and stopped wearing them. At some point I suggested them when she was picking out shoes, and she told me the whole saga.

At my prompting, she emailed Dansko and explained that she was unhappy with the fit of her clogs. At this point it was like 6 months after she bought them and no longer had the receipt. The asked that she send them in to be checked out, and asked her if there was another style she would like to try. About a week ago she sent in the shoes, and today she got a brand new pair to replace them.

This is exactly how customer service is supposed to work. The company stood behind thier product and said “If these don’t work for you, what can we do to fix it?” So, she now has a new pair of Dansko’s that will hopefully fit, and went from someone saying how uncomfortable thier shoes are to someone saying how great the company is.

gnubbs

So, Nasa has just announced that they intend to spend $100 billion dollars and return to the moon by 2018. That is cool. I am a big fan of the impossibly complex, dangerous, and expensive thing that is manned space flight. Since we havne’t been to the moon in like 24 years, it is time to go back.

12 years though…. Lets see. When JFK announced that he was going to send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth, only one american had ever been in space. The flight was suborbital and lasted fifteen minutes. 8 years later — read that again — 8 years later Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon in a moment of great triumph for humankind and the american space program.

Did you catch that 8 years part? Just to get this straight:

1961 — One space flight to date.
1969 — Apollo 11 completes it’s lunar mission.
2005 — Hundreds of space flights to date.
2018 — Proposed moon mission.

So, for some reason 44 years ago, prior to the amazing technological advances that have taken place, we were able to go the moon 50% faster than we are today. That is, um, inspiring. That is why JFKs speach will never be forgotten and Bushes has already. I wish the goal were more ambitious. I wish that he would have set the goal of landing a man on mars in 2020. None the less, this is at least a start.

gnubbs

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
– President John F. Kennedy presenting a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, May 25, 1961

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
– President John F. Kennedy on the Nation’s Space Effort, September 12, 1962

” Returning to the moon is an important step for our space program. Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the costs of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth’s gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging environments. The moon is a logical step toward further progress and achievement.”
– President George W. Bush, January 14, 2005

We get up early, check out of our hotel, and make it to the aquarium just as it opens at 10am. The Monteray Bay Aquarium is built to resemble an old cannery and one of the first displays you see upon walking in is a display of old fish processing equipment. If fish were smarter, it would certainly give them the heeby-jeebies to look out of thier tanks at the equipment.

The aquarium is very nice. In ways nicer than the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, but a bit disappointing in other ways. The displays are top notch, but there are several type of aquatic life that are missing. The otter, kelp forest, and deep water displays are very neat. The jelly fish are truely extrodinary. However, at my heart I love tropical reefs, and there just aren’t enough of them. Their displays do, however, look much better than my tank at home…

After poking around for a couple of hours, we leave the aquarium, pile into the car and start heading towards Yosemite. We get to the park around 5pm, and find that all of the campgrounds on the valley floor are full. Luckily there are spaces available at Crane Flats, so we head off the valley floor and grab a campsite. The campground is very nice, although the lack of electricity in the bathrooms (flush toilets, but no lights) is a bit odd. We get some firewood ($9 a bundle!) and start a campfire. After a bit of experimentation, we figure out how to cook synthetic hot dogs on sticks and have some dinner.

After dinner we play scrable for a while before heading into our tent to read and then go to sleep.

gnubbs

Today (Tuesday) we get up and check out of the hotel. Good buy four star poshness, hello camping. Luckily the route out of San Francisco from our hotel is basically all down hill. We decide that we are going to leave town by the Golden Gate and then figure out how to get to Monteray from there. Our stay in San Francisco was definately too short, and there was a lot that we didn’t get to see. A return trip will definately be called for at some point in the future.

As we head over the Golden Gate, Stephanie and I talk about proposals that are being made to make it harder to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge. After driving over the bridge, I don’t think there is any type of barrier that would be effective and not absolutely destroy the astetic of the bridge. People aren’t commiting suicide because the bridge is there, so at best they would just be moving the problem off that bridge and to somewhere else.

After going over the bridge, we quickly realize there is no good way to get headed south along the coast from where we are at. Looking at the map we see that one of the best options takes as north a bit and pretty close to the town of Sonoma. We decide to stop in and taste some wine since we are in the neigborhood. After driving around the town of Sonoma a bit, we end up at Beuna Vista Vineyards.

This is apparently the oldest vineyards in the area, established back in the 1850’s. We go into the tasting room, and explain to Chris our host that we have never done this before. He tells us it is $5 for each tasting of four wines. Stephanie and I don’t have a ton of time, so we decide just to split one tasting. Well, we are apperntly entertaining because our 4 wine tasting ends up allowing us to taste pretty much every wine that they make. Chris was a great host, no stuffy wine talk or anything. After tasting just about everything, we buy two bottles for ourselves and two bottles as souvineers for our wine drinking friends. Unfortunately at $30-40 a bottle, this is not a cheap proposition. In the end, they are nice enough not to charge us for the tasting and give us a discount on the wine. Of course the other people who had asked for the same things while we were in there were not given them. It just goes to show that if you are polite, and don’t ask for special treatmeant you are much more likely to recieve it. I would highly recommend checking out this vineyard if you are ever in the area.

After that, we stop for gas in Sonoma and start making our way southwest towards Monteray. We eventually make it down there and check into our hotel which is surprisingly nice for being a Marriot. Stephanie and I head out to check out the wharf, cannery row, and the ocean. We eat at a very generic, almost bad, mexican restraunt because we happen to walk up to it around the time we decide we are too hungry to continue looking. Although the food is not that good, we get a nice table with waves breaking about 10 feet away.

After dinner, we walk along cannery row checking out the historic info about the old sardine business. We spend a while playing in the freezing cold ocean, and are amused watching gulls try and eat sea stars (aka. star fish) that are bigger than thier heads. We stop at one of the stands on the wharf and Stephanie gets a cup of clam chowder to make up for the mexican food. Heading back to our hotel we take a detour through the farmers market and a small festival. The farmers market is incredible with absolutely every kind of fruit and vegetable for sale. It puts the relatively good market we have in boulder to shame. We buy some fresh grapes for the drive the next day, and head back to the hotel to call it a night.

gnubbs

After waking up, Stephanie realized that she had forgotten some stuff in the car. I called down to the gargage and had them pull the car around for me. As I head into the garage I realize that this place is so swanky that even the walkways in the garage are carpeted. As I head back upstairs I stop and read some of the displays about the history of the hotel and am pleased to see that the hotel was built with fortunes from the Comstock Lode.

After getting ready, Stephanie and I head out to walk around the city. Our first stop is at the store of a screen printer that Stephanie really likes. Unfortunately, despite what she was told through email, the store is closed for the holiday. So, we continue on our way and make it to Japan Town. We poke around in the stores and Stephanie buys some magazines and assorted other imported goods. We have lunch at a cheap japanese place where she can get okanomiyaki (kind of a japanese omelete pizza).

We then head down along the Filmore Street shops and stop and look at goods along the way. We get Stephanie a few more little things and eventually make it to the ocean. There we head along the docs to Ghirideli square. We don’t actually get any ice creame because of the extremely long lines. We next stop at the National Maritime Historic Park and look at the old ships. We play on a giant sail boat used to transport grain. After the park we continue on to Fishermanss Wharf. We poke around a bit, but it is just absolute chaos.

To escape the crowds we duck into A. Sabella’s Restraunt for a nice dinner. The food is extremely good, and Stephanie has a great time destroying a crab. We enjoyed a nice bottle of Viogner, but I can’t remember the name of the vineyard.

After dinner, we literally run to the pier to catch a ride to Alcatraz. We signed up for a night tour of the island and enjoy watching the sunset on San Francisco as we ride the ferry out. It is basically dark when we arrive and are lead up the ramps to the prison. We get the audio tour and it is fascinating. At about 8:30, we go on a tour of the kitchen and hear stories of brewing beer, stealing knives, and escapes. At the end of the tour the ranger leads us on a blitz tour of the prison hospital where they kept the crazies. This was mostly latern lit, and extremely spooky.

After the ferry ride back, we catch a cab back to the hotel. We relax in the Tonga room with some $12 drinks for a while before heading up to sleep.

gnubbs

I was just reading Phillip Greenspan’s post about some new toys he got for listening to music. It links back to his thoughts on Stereos and his stereo in specifc. After reading his thoughts, I purused some of the comments people have made. Man, there are some people out there with real hostility issues. I guess I should know this from driving everyday but…

I have noticed in other places that there seem to be some people who lurk about audiophile sites and attack people for being audiophiles. I am fine with people thinking that it is a waste of money, I am fine with people thinking I am an idiot for having a stereo that is the most valuable thing I own (the bank owns my car…). What I don’t get though, is why someone would waste time attacking another persons hobby instead of spending that time on a hobby of thier own. Although, I guess attacking audiophiles is a sort of hobby. Considering how dorky being an audiophile is, it is a sad laughing at the kid with glasses type of hobby though.

While on the topic, I should state that I am an audiophile of sorts. Not a latest fad type of audiophile, but someone interested in listening to music that sounds good in my home. To that end I have put together a stereo of nominal quality. The highlights are my Martin Logan SL3 speakers and Linn Axis turntable (not quite a sondek…) My preamp and amps are both Arcam and do not suit my speakers at all. I have been hoping to buy an old used Krell or Classe amp one of these days, but I have not had the money about for such things.

I do listen to a lot of records, although I admit that I spend more time listening to my iPod than anything else (about 6 hours a day at work.) The other day one of my friends who is a very serious audiophile was pleasently surprised when he listend to my iPod through my Grado SR-60 headphones.

If you think that CDs sound great coming out of your Coby brand stereo, then please by all means listen and enjoy. If you think that my stereo is an absolute waste of money and can’t believe that I spent $80 on headphones for my iPod than be thankful that I used my debit card and not yours. If you hate recorded music then by all means spend your time and money going to live shows. Whatever your choice, I am not going to attack you for making it. Although I welcome discussion, please don’t waste your time attacking me and my choice of listening to vinyl on an expensive stereo.

gnubbs

Now that I am back from my trip, I need to catch up on some of the freelance webstuff I do for friends and family. This, along with my new laptop, has left me wanting wireless access at home. I was hoping that a neighbor would have an unsecured wireless network I could leach from, but apparently all of the CU students in my building are too busy pretending to be on Melrose Place to waste time with computers.

So, yesterday I decided to go out and buy a wireless router to replace my trusty old linksys router. I look in the paper and am endless frustrated by items advertised as being $15 when in realty they are $75 but sometime in the future you might get a check for some of that back. Screw that. If I am going to have to pay $75 out of my checking account, then that router costs $75. If I walk into a store with a twenty, and can’t walk out with what you are selling it doesn’t cost $15.

From now on, I refuse to buy any products with a mail in rebate. Full stop. Even if it is a good deal without the rebate, I am not playing that game any more. Circuit City I am talking to you (No, you suck so much you don’t even get a link.) So, I bought a Belkin 802.11g router for $43 at best buy. It was much more satisfying than waiting for 2009 for a check for $17 before I got a good deal.

gnubbs

Sunday morning, we woke up in our room at the Eldorado. Unfortunately Stephanie had a migrane, so we slept in later than planned. I went down and won $10 at the slots, and bought her brakfast with the proceeds. We get on the road out of Reno at about noon.

Shortly after that, we stop at the Donner Party Memorial on Donner Pass. This place is an awesome monument to the inspirational power of cannibalism. We watch the movie, poke around in the museum, and look at the monument. If you are into cannibalism, you should check out the movie Ravenous. It is the only civil war cannibal movie that I am aware of.

We continue on 80 and make quick progress towards San Francisco. It is hard to believe how crowded california is. It seemed like every town we passed had hundreds of thousands of residents. The roads were packed. We finally cross the bay bride into the city and hit upon another moment of excitement.

Let me just say that I am not the best when it comes to driving stick. I do what I can, and have been steadily improving in the four or so years I have been driving a manual every day. San Franicisco though is like grad school for driving manual transmission. I was told how hilly it was, and that it was going to be, umm, fun, but I had no idea just how steep these hills are. Everything was fine going up Nob Hill on California Street. I hit every stop light of course, but manage to get started without too much trouble. Then, at the top of the hill, at the steepest section of the hill, is a bloody stop sign. There are a bunch of cars in front of me, and the guy behind me has pulled up so close that I have no room to rool back at all. I stall once and pull into my hotel about a block later with the smell of finely burned clutch in my nose. I need a drink.

I toss my keys to the valet where I leave my car until I am ready to leave the city. No driving in this place. Unfortunately at $50 a day for parking, it is not a cheap option. We check into the Fairmount Hotel which is probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. After dumping our gear in the room, I call the concierge to get reservation at the Millineum Restraunt. Unfortunately, they are booked up for both Sunday and Monday night. A vegan restraunt and I can’t get same day reservations? Only in California. Instead we decide to walk down to China Town and find some food. The place we choose is very good, but is authentic chinese food. If you have never had authentic chinese food, just a word of warning, it has little to do with what most americans think of as chinese food.

After dinner we walk around China Town for a while and roam around downtown. Most everything is closed, but we it is a good time none the less. As we make our way back to the hotel, we check out the park on top of Nob Hill. Here we have a relaxing couple of minutes in the midst of a relatively hectic city. Back at the hotel, we sit down for some $8 beers before heading to bed.

gnubbs

This is a backlog of posts about my trip to California that I took with my wife last week. None of the hotels I stayed at had free wireless, so you will have to do with my foggy recollections of the trip.

On Saturday we left Boulder at about 6:30am. We took 287 north through Ft. Collins to where it hits 80 in Larmie. Hopped on 80 heading west and gunned it. We stopped for lunch just west of Salt Lake City then continued past the Great Salt Lake and onto the Salt Flats. Here is where we had the first bit of excitement of the trip.

As I am cruising across the Salt Flats, my nose starts to run a bit into the back of my throat. I sniffle for a couple of minutes before turning to Stephanie and saying that I think I have a nose bleed. Just as I say this blood begins to pour from my nose. Stephanie grabs me some tissues and luckily we hit a rest stop right at this moment. I pull off and sit with my head back for several minutes until the bleeding stops. I have no idea what happened, but it was probably the worst nose bleed I have ever had that didn’t involve breaking my nose. I run over to clean off my face and see a large memorial to the people who have broken speed records at Bonneville.

We poke around on the salt for a couple of minutes before continuing on our way. I would like to say I am very disappointed that I couldn’t drive out and unwind my car on the salt flats. You have to jump through a bunch of hoopes and go at specified times. I thought this was the West!

We continue driving through Nevada and hit Reno at about 8:30 or 9 pm. The place is packed. Stephanie grabs her cell and starts calling hotels. All of them are packed, except the Eldorado Casino Hotel which has an economy room for about $150. Although a bit steep, the room will at least be clean so we take it. We park, check in, and then roam around the casino. It was, well, a casino. We head outside and discover that Reno is a pretty seedy city. It is kind of like the old strip in Vegas. So, we grab some dinner at a crappy italian restraunt and get to sleep.

gnubbs