The stretch of vitality

I went out to California for work again. I flew out to San Jose on Sunday, arriving in the afternoon, and took the rental car up to San Francisco to meet Pat. Rebecca and Tanya were also there. I hadn’t seen Tanya since Burning Man 2008 so I was glad she was home. Pat and Tanya have been roommates several months now but had only very slowly been furnishing their apartment, so they wanted to go to Ikea and pick up a few things, so I offered to drive them their in the rental car. I had just driven past it on the way up. We mistakenly went to the one in Palo Alto, a good forty-five minute drive south of San Francisco, which I had just passed on my way up, so it felt a bit silly. In any case, we went in there and as expected I found it a bit uncomfortable and crowded with families with hordes of children literally running amok. We breezed through and picked up just a few things. They couldn’t find any window coverings they liked in their budget and the book shelf they were going to buy for Marcia was out of stock. So with three small coffee tables and four folding chairs in tow, we headed up 101 again, stopping at a Best Buy along the way for Pat and I each to get some headphones. This time we hit bad traffic getting into the city, so we were a bit late for the “family dinner” we had planned with Marcia, Rebecca, Rebekah, and another friend of theirs. We stopped to pick up some food and drinks then ate together on the new coffee tables. I gave Rebecca a ride to her new nomadic residence and then again made the long drive down 101 to my hotel in Sunnyvale.

The week of work was both disappointing and exciting. We did a bunch of planning and realized we would fall quite short of the mark for our next release, and a formal procedure was started to notify interested parties that we would be dropping features from the release, so there was some stress and frustration associated with that. However, almost instantly after the announcement, the team started making huge strides of progress, so that got me excited that maybe A) we could still deliver the main functionality we were shooting for but B) people might not be constantly panicking about it.

Bernie and I took a very nice run at Rancho San Antonio park Tuesday morning. We saw some wild turkeys and enjoyed running on the curvy, hilly dirt trails. I met up with Ed one night to do some rock climbing. I gave him a crash course in belaying and he took the test. Administration of the test took longer than it should have so I figured he was probably not quite passing it, but apparently he was good enough to be permitted to belay me that night after some additional instruction from the gym staff, but not convincing enough to get the permanent “OK to Belay” card. We did some fun climbs though.

I was set to come back Friday night but a bit of snowy weather in Denver caused United to cancel my flight and reschedule me for Saturday morning. I ended up booking a rather weird and appealing hotel called the Domain Hotel on El Camino Real in Sunnyvale for that final night since my original hotel was full. It was dirt cheap – $50 – so I expected it to be basically a Super 8 type setup, but I was surprised to find it fully remodeled in a modern high-tech but weird decor and nicely appointed with sleep number beds, a fancy office chair, and actual wired ethernet. I’m not particularly skilled at describing the weirdness of the hotel, but let’s just say it was weird and odd and I liked it. However, I had worked from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm that day, scarfed down a turkey sandwich at the Denny’s next door, and had to gas up the car, return it, and get on an early flight so I went immediately to sleep.

Back in October when I went to hear the Kronos Quartet Cynthia and I got Boba Tea. I have a fascination with Boba Tea, and some of Cynthia’s friends that we met at the auditorium asked why I liked it so much, and I wasn’t sure, but I said something like “I don’t know. It’s just yummy and Japanese and weird”. And that made me realize that Boba Tea is just strange and random enough to be weird and delightful and I think these days I am quite delighted by things that are pleasantly weird.

Michale picked me up in Denver and came with me that evening to the Imogen Heap concert at the Fox Theater in Boulder. It was an odd show at 7pm because apparently they had double booked the theater so they gave Imogen an early show and had a second show afterward. It was fun to see Immi in person and enjoy her fetching stage presence. As with most of her live performances though, it was fairly lackluster. Her opening act had technical difficulties that prevented him from doing anything at all. And sadly the new Ellipse album is just not stellar. It’s certainly got some good tracks, but nothing more. Just some good tracks.

Sunday evening I had a meal with Jennifer in Denver and then took a swing dancing class at The Mercury Cafe. The band they had was called Impromptu Musique and they were “gypsy jazz” and quite good, especially the trumpet player.

This past week I had two fun climbing sessions Wednesday and Thursday with Stephanie and Safia, respectively. I’ve been working a lot and not doing much else, although it was good to do a little yoga now that I was back home. Last night I went with Michale and her friends Tollie and Zack to an America Indian Fry Bread Taco place and then to the Bindery | Space theater to see a very funny black comedy called “Big Love”. It was really quite great. It was a modernization of an ancient greek play and there was some great acting, singing, riding around on roller skates, and a constant swing between the macbre and serious grandious and the silly and humorous and humble. I go to very few plays, so it has been quite a while since I have enjoyed one this much. I also really like being very close to performers, and the theater had seating on three sides of a square stage at floor level, so it was very up close.

I’m composing this post on a flight to Newark. I’ll be in the NJ area until December 1. Tonight Marc is getting me at the airport and we’ll have Thanksgiving The Prequel with the band crew. I haven’t seen most of my old bandmates and their families in two years since last year I got a cold in transit and had to cancel the visit while I was contagious, so I am very much looking forward to it. Tomorrow it’s up to Mom’s for a big Italian Pronzo meal which I am also very much anticipating.

I had a very good week and weekend this week. I went bouldering Wednesday and top rope climbing Thursday. Both were good sessions but I’m in need of a few days rest for sure. I have a new pull up bar in the yoga room so I was messing around with that as well. Saturday I did some nice yoga and went for a run. Then I headed in to Denver to help Michale get a couch into her apartment. We had a fantastic meal at Watercourse, a really cool vegan restaurant. It was delicious. I had polenta with cashew butter, carrots, beats, and grilled tofu. When we were done I wanted to eat it again. We also got two delicious desserts to go. After a brief tour through the Tattered Cover book store we headed home to lounge on the couch with our decadent vegan cake. It was heavenly.

I’m currently in DIA headed out to California this week for work.

Did another nice full moon hike with Mags and Chaos Monday night. We went up Sanitas on a cold and misty night under some hazy clouds. There was still ample light on the trail. I had never actually hiked Sanitas, the most popular trail in Boulder, so it was good to get that done. I baked some banana bread for the hike which I think came out great. Yesterday I was working up at Fort Collins since HP had a big town hall meeting. They gave us New Belgium beers (brewery is in Fort Collins), hurray!

October 2009 was undoubtedly the best month of my life so far. Back in this September blog post I listed a bunch of goals to take my life up a notch. A month later, I’m making big strides on at least three or four of them. Some of them won’t kick into high gear until January, but it looks like it will be all systems go, so that’s really great.

Work has been going pretty well. We’re finishing up a release and also knee deep in code for the next major release. My team had a strong demo for our second phase (“sprint”) and although we’re behind on our estimates, we’ve delivered enough working code to keep most folks optimistic I think. Also on the work front I attended about half of the developer day they had in town, which was pretty amusing and informative. The really interesting part was it was held at the offices of a tech startup incubater company call Tech Stars. I didn’t know there was enough activity locally to have such a thing, but I guess there is, so that’s encouraging. Also on the same day I ran about 13 blocks in the snow to attend part of a Python Unconference at the Google Boulder office. They have a rock climbing wall in the freaking lobby for Christ’s sake. There was a cool vibe in there and it was clear that lots of the folks in the room were smart and technically sharp. I also got to meet and hang out with Bruce Eckel, who has some widely used books on computer programming out there and (including my first ever computer programming text book Thinking In Java) and a very popular blog that I enjoy. Plus, he’s a burner.

In terms of fitness, I hit two personal bests. I wanted to also add a third personal best run, but it didn’t fit into the month, partially due to 24″ of snow. But I swam 65 laps in a 25 meter pool and climbed a 5.11a route, so things are going well there. I deepend my yoga practice, as they would say, up to four or five sessions a week. That has been working really well. I enjoy my little yoga room I have set up and the consistency has made noticeable improvements to a few poses and my balance in general. I also got in one or two good mountain bike rides as the warm weather and evening sun were fading into winter, which I enjoyed a lot. I biked with a big group up around Dowdy Draw and Spring Brook loop, which was September 30 so technically not this month, but close enough.

On the music front, as previously blogged, I heard the Kronos Quartet perform early in the month. Also this month on the music scene was a very good Galactic show at the Fox Theater. I didn’t know this ahead of time, but Stanton Moore is their drummer. He’s a great funk drummer and I have some of his stuff as a leader and sideman, so it was a bonus treat to unexpectedly hear him live. He did a big solo where he took his snare drum off the stand and went up to the front of the stage, which, although gimmicky, was still pretty funky. It was fun to have Erin there too contributing her sarcastic remarks occasionally.

The main area of awesomeness this month was the social scene. I went with Erin to a family party since she’s got three family members that are all pregnant now. I did a CHAOS full moon hike with Mags, which was really pleasant (another one coming up tomorrow night). I met a really sweet and fun new friend named Michale and hung out with her quite a lot. We had tea and watched lots of Six Feet Under and had some yummy meals. I hosted a CHAOS pot luck that was pretty well attended and seemed to do a good job of introducing seven or eight new folks to the group. I also hosted the first YouFilmFest party where I asked some friends to choose a few favorite youtube videos and then we hung out and watched them all including introductory comments. It went over very well I think and I think most folks will come back for the second one, which I’ll probably plan for sometime in January.

Michale and I went to Elise and Josh’s for a fall festival party where we played Apples To Apples (well, everyone else played while I protested and grumbled about what a terrible pathetic game that is) and Cranium (yay). Josh melted some caramel and we dipped apple slices in it. Yum. Also had a few good family visits. Cousin Dr. Annie and her boyfriend Ryan flew in from Chicago and we had dinner with them, which was nice. Uncle Eddie came out for a visit which included a stop for dinner at my house and lunch at Lucile’s this afternoon. I’m writing this post from Eben G. Fine Park in gorgeous sunny 60 degree weather while Eddie reads his New York Times.

Halloween was a big deal this year. Jennifer and I researched some awesome costumes and had a fun evening a week or so ago driving around to costume stores, hobby stores, and Home Depot to get everything we needed. She ordered a few new items and I had some essentials shipped out from NJ. We dressed as the music group The Dresden Dolls in their costumes from the video Coin Operated Boy.

The costumes, when all put together worked great. Next time we’ll opt for a higher end white face paint since the cheap stuff doesn’t look properly opaque and smooth. We went to a party in Denver where we were mistaken for Charlie Chaplin, Marcel Marceau or generic mimes. Although I think two people knew of the band when we told them. We gave out little candies with the description so people could google it later if they liked. More Halloween photos are here.

I also had some fun home improvements this month. I hung a Metolius Slim Gym rock climbing exercise board over the door frame in my office. I’ve been enjoying working on pull-ups while gripping the slopers instead of a nice bar. I hoping to get some other cool equipment hung in my basement similar to what they have at The Spot. I hung the great big saxophone painting that my parents bought for me and kept in their house until I got my own place. You can see it behind the Halloweeen photos.

So yeah. It’s pretty cool to be sure you’ve just lived your best month yet. There was one minor bummer. I chipped a tooth (ironically while flossing) last Thursday and had to spend two and a half hours in the dentist chair getting a crown early Saturday morning, but overall it wasn’t too bad. Oh, and my lawn sprinkler exploded two hours before the guy showed up to winterize it, but that was just a minor busted part. I’m looking forward to a trip to Cupertino for work and a long trip back to NJ over Thanksgiving next month. Plus a live Imogen Heap show!