Dan's Life

China Visit - Day 2 - Wednesday, August 11

2010-08-12T15:59:00.003-05:00

I'm writing this at 5AM on Day 4. I'll try to record as much as I can remember. The trip hasn't been entirely eventful so far:

We landed in Hong Kong almost an hour early, which was great because I had had my fill of sitting in coach for the time being. The views as we flew in were spectacular, with all of the little islands with steep, abrupt-rising hills and mountains and skyscrapers crammed in wherever possible.

The airport looked like any other airport I've seen. Immigration was easy and uneventful. I met up with my driver on the other side of customs.

When we stepped outside together I got my first taste of the heat and humidity. The air was much denser and wetter than what I can ever remember feeling, but I'm sure it was skewed by the fact that a) I came from dry southern California, and b) I had just spent over 12 hours on a plane with recycled air.

The driver shuttled me toward the Chinese border in some kind of Toyota van that they don't sell in the states. He was friendly enough. I think he said his name was Willie. We talked about Shenzhen and how he was from Hong Kong. Willie looked quite young.

The route from the airport to the border snakes around a few different islands, with great views of the lush Hong Kong countryside. We arrived at the border, where I had to get out of the van, go through an immigration line, and meet back up with the van on the other side of the building, all the while Willie taking my things through customs. It was a 15 minute, uneventful affair.

On the other side of the border, we were immediately immersed in urban Shenzhen. We drove through the Futian district, toward Nanshan, where my hotel is. The streets were nice and clean and everywhere was packed with cars, bicycles, and pedestrians.

Willie dropped me off here at the Crown Plaza. I had no trouble checking in. I went up to the room, showered, and looked around for something to eat. The only things in the minibar were candy bars I wasn't interested in, and a bag of "mixed snack" that had some prawn sauce crackers in it. Instead, I got dressed and went across the street to the 7-11, where I found some cucumber flavored Lay's potato chips. I got those and a Carlsberg beer and took them back to my room as a little dinner. The chips were very strange tasting. I don't think I'll buy them again.

The little trip to 7-11 was my first taste of Shenzhen. I don't know why, but I had imagined I'd see a bit more English on signs to help me through, but there wasn't any. The streets were packed with people and I had no idea what shops were what. At 7-11 the girl behind the counter gave me a strange scowl when she discovered I didn't speak the language.

I went to bed at 10PM and slept like a rock. I thought my ploy to stay up all night might have helped me avoid jet lag, but here I am typing a post I started at 4:30AM. I'm sure my body will adjust to the time zone just in time for me to go back to California, in the less forgiving direction (losing time rather than gaining it).

China Visit - Day 1 - Tuesday, August 10

2010-08-12T15:07:00.003-05:00

Here are the notes I took from my first day of travels, typed on the iPad on my flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong:

The night before my flight, I stayed up all night doing chores, packing, playing games, and trying to avoid jet lag.

I left with Kimberly for the Flyaway at 5:30AM. I was at the airport and through security by a little after 7, with over 3 hours till boarding.

Ate a Clif bar for breakfast and joined the a conference call. I was even able to see the presentation with my iPad via the WebEx app. I got in a small nap before boarding.

I saw the San Fernando Valley from the plane after take-off. L.A. had a thick layer of fog/smog, and there was a legit fluffy white marine layer colliding with the basin way out into the ocean. As usual, the San Gabriels peaked up above it all, crystal clear.

It was otherwise an uneventful flight to SFO. The plane made its way between the marine layer off the coast and the dirty smog of the central valley. I did see the Romero Canyon trail snaking up to El Camino Cielo on the ridge of the Santa Ynez mountains behind Carpinteria, which we hiked once. I slept most of the rest of the short flight after that.

I walked a long way from the domestic to international terminal at SFO, but still had about an hour before boarding the plane bound for HK. The only food choice next to my gate was a little French/Italian cafe. I had a caprese sandwich, which I salvaged into something relatively tasty with some brown mustard and black pepper, and a conspicuously good no-name Italian-sounding pale ale. I found out when I was leaving that it was actually Sierra Nevada branded especially for their restaurant.

I'm on a 747 for the big flight. I slept for a bit after take-off, unfortunately missing a snack and drink of some sort, but before I could ask for something anyway they started serving lunch, which was lettuce with some decent sesame Ginger dressing, a roll, and very lackluster pasta with red sauce and too much cheese.

Iron Man 2 had just started whe I woke up, so I watched the rest of that. Other than that, I:

-listened to several albums
-read my book and magazines
-read an article that was still open on wikipedia on the iPad about the Frontier strip
-ate a couple granola bars
-did some training slides on the laptop
-watched a couple episodes of the anime Trigun on the laptop
-watched the movie Date Night with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, also presented on the plane
-played games on the iPad
-watched the only movie on the iPad, the short part 1 of Wes Anderson's the Darjeeling Limited, called Hotel Chalier
-took a bunch of notes for my meetings in the coming week

All that and there are still four hours to go!

The laptop is nearly dead but the iPad still has 53% charge. I'll have to try to port some of my backed up DVDs to the iPad while I'm here so I have more entertainment options on the long trip back. Now they're playing some Miley Cyrus movie that I'm unlikely to give a chance.

Now I'm listening to Headlights, an album purchased at their show with David Bazan in Santa Barbara. I suddenly miss Kimberly and California quite acutely. We're almost done flying by Japan, though not close enough to spot any land, as far as I've seen. I dozed off when we flew over Tokyo.

Bleck. I was served rice and veggies, but the veggies are in some kind of sauce and there's no way to tell if it's animal based. Doesn't taste right to me. I'll have to plan my travel back a bit better than I did on the way out. I have a bunch of protein bars, but eating so many is doing a number on my digestive system. One can at least find some nuts and pretzels that are safe, I'm sure.

Back to the Simi Hills

2010-05-01T15:07:00.004-05:00

When Kimberly has class on Saturday mornings, it's a good opportunity for me to get up early and get in some outdoor exercise. Today was no exception. I biked with her to CSUN and then kept going to the western edge of the valley.

I circumnavigated the back of what looks like a sizable lake on the map (Chatsworth Reservoir), but was actually an almost completely dry flood basin. I saw a family of bunnies.

Past the reservoir I left the valley on a road called Bell Canyon, which climbed up to a gated community. There were several miles of nice homes crawling up every available side of the canyon walls. This section of the trip was the toughest. Over the four miles up Bell Canyon the road rose almost 1000 feet. Nearing the end of this road, at an intersection, I saw a big hawk or eagle, perched on a fence post. As a car and I both approached it took flight, made a large circle, and then landed back on his perch, after we cleared out of his way. His huge chest and razor sharp beak were impressive.

At the end I found a series of switchbacks almost too steep to bike up, leading to a ridge that paralleled the canyon road. I went out and back on this ridge for a bit, eventually turning off into Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area land, which went down the other side of the hill I was on into familiar grass-covered rolling hills.

The trail here was a bit scary, as it was completely overrun with wild oats in portions, with a steep decline. Barreling down a hill is one thing (I'm slowly gaining courage there), but it's another thing entirely to do so without knowing if you're about to run into a big rut or loose rock.

It turned out that the trail was well maintained, smooth, and safe under all those oats. My only casualty was some stiff oats stuck into my socks which I had to pick out at the junction with a wider trail.

After a pleasant few miles riding through the Simi Hills, I came back out into the valley in another gated community, called Hidden Hills. Here I saw a coyote at the edge of someone's property!

Out of Hidden Hills I caught the very end of Ventura Blvd. I followed familiar city streets back to the dedicated bike path that parallels Victory and Oxnard Blvds., and finally made my way back home, about 15 minutes after Kimberly. This was just long enough for her to be finishing up lunch, which was alright with me.

Here's my route:

click for a larger view

Random Album Covers, Revisited

2010-04-22T01:24:00.008-05:00

Tonight we celebrated our friend Vicki's birthday by going to Pitfire Pizza in NoHo with her and her husband Gavin. Afterwards we went back to our place for some homemade vegan ice cream cake a la Kimberly and somehow wandered across an old concept Kimberly and I explored in our blogs a couple of years back: using Wikipedia, Quotations Page, and Flickr randomizers to create a fake album cover.

Here's the one we did for Vicki:

Edou - Good Laughs You Can

and Gavin:

Vidmantė Jasukaitytė - SEEM TO BE INEVITABLE!

and our cat Keillor:

Breehn Burns - To Fulfill His Destiny

To really follow through we should now record these three fake albums...

Instructions:

1. The first article title on the page is your band:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
2. The last four words of the last quote on the page is the name of your album: www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

3. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover:www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

Review of the Echo

2010-03-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

Here's a review I just posted to Google for the Echo, Los Angeles, CA, titled "The acoustics ruined my chance to see a band I love (2 stars out of 5)‎"

Right now, sitting at my desk with my decent computer speakers, I'm listening to the debut album from Cymbals Eat Guitars with an empty feeling at the incredible experience of which I was robbed. My wife and I went to the Echo last night to see Cymbals Eat Guitars and were sorely disappointed with the sound. The system was simply way too loud for the room (like, conservatively, 12+ dB, often exceeding the pain threshold in something like a 4000 sq. foot space with nowhere to run) and the bass was boosted so far that everything above it was masked, which precluded earplugs from being a viable option. It was so bad it could have been a joke, albeit a terrible ear damaging joke.

I give the place two stars instead of one to entertain the possibility that just maybe these weren't the regular sound guys and it's not always like this. It's a real shame. Everything else about the place is good: the size and decor are cozy, the bar was generously stocked (though we didn't drink last night), the crowd was cool except for the usual couple of outliers, and the bands that come through are really great.

Fix the sound!! I'd consider reporting these guys to OSHA with purely artistic motivations.

Concert Tonight

2010-03-24T12:54:00.002-05:00

During our time so far in LA we've been getting more and more into the local scene, finding the best spots to hang out and seeing shows whenever possible. Tonight is no exception; we're going to the Echo to see two great bands: Cymbals Eat Guitars and Freelance Whales (check out some truly great videos of Freelance Whales playing live for NPR here).

The area, Echo Park/Silver Lake, also has some of the best bars and vegan food in LA so it can be tough to choose a dinner spot, but we're almost always drawn to Good Microbrew when we're in the area midweek because every Wednesday night they have Mystery Beer Night, where you get one of about 12 great microbrews in a plain plastic cup for $3 with a code on the bottom, revealing which beer on the list you were served. Woo hoo!

More Biking!

2010-03-22T11:32:00.004-05:00

I followed up the 43 mile ride with another 5 mile ride with Kimberly to go to dinner and back. Yesterday we rode 31.5 miles around the Westside and South Bay, bringing the grand total for the weekend to around 80 miles. I feel surprisingly good, considering. It can be hard to concentrate on Monday mornings after these crazy weekend adventures.

Our Sunday bike ride started after church. We planned to drive to Santa Monica and start biking there, but there was so much traffic from the LA Marathon, that we finally gave up and parked near Sepulveda, about 5 miles from the Santa Monica pier. It was actually nice to get to bike through parts of LA and Santa Monica that we wouldn't have otherwise, and it was a beautiful day as usual, so no complaints.

We stopped at West 4th / Jane for lunch and then made our way through the crazy crowds down to the bike path along the beach. We biked through Santa Monica and Venice, around Marina del Rey, and down to Manhattan Beach. We had dinner at the Manhattan Beach Brewing Co., which, despite the name, isn't a brewery. They did have a huge collection of beers on tap for good prices and some amazing nachos.

After dinner we tried to rest on the beach, but it was already too chilly to hang out for long. We made our way back up the bike path, back to Sepulveda, and back to our car, tired from a long day of biking around. With only about a mile to go, Kimberly wiped out on a bush and scratched herself up a bit, but she laughed it off and we finished up the trip.

We celebrated (and Kimberly recuperated) with some unbelievably delicious vegan mint carob chip ice cream from Rice Dream.

Here's our path (click for detail):

Long Saturday Bike Ride

2010-03-20T18:07:00.006-05:00

I decided to go on a long bike ride this morning, and it turned out to be the longest and most challenging ride I've done yet.

Here's the route (click for higher res):

It was challenging but not as hard as I thought it might be. The advantage of rolling hills, as opposed to long climbs, which I've done a few times now, is that though the elevation gain might be equivalent in the end, there's always a goal in sight and a rest for your legs. I was a big fan and I'll be back to these hills ASAP.

There's a long bike route through the southern part of the valley that I took advantage of, after which I followed Ventura Blvd. to the end and kept going on roads that paralleled the 101, up and down hills till I got to Chesebro Rd. I followed that up into Cheeseboro Canyon park.

There's a route out of the park that eventually meets up with Las Virgenes Canyon Rd., which gets back to the valley at the very end of Victory Blvd. From there I pretty much retraced my steps back through the valley all the way home.

It was such a nice day. The beauty of southern California never ceases to amaze me or fill me with a sense of adventure and longing for more. I was also surprised, as I've been many times here, at the volume of people found even in fairly remote areas. It's encouraging to see others enjoying this day and these hills as much as I did.

The High Desert

2009-05-18T00:35:00.006-05:00

I decided, out of the blue on Thursday, that we needed to go camping Saturday night. I knew we were really close to the true desert, but we've never had a reason to venture out there. It was the perfect opportunity to check out the Mohave, which starts just over the mountains from us and runs all the way through Las Vegas and into a bit of Utah and Arizona:

Kimberly had a big important test Saturday morning, which is why our trip was one night only. She got back mid-afternoon and we headed out.

It's about an hour and a half from our door to Saddleback Butte State Park. The drive was absolutely stunning. From the valley, we climbed about 2,400 ft. through a pass between the Sierra Pelona and San Gabriel mountains. We saw all manner of hills, mountains, impressive mansions precariously perched, canyons, desert, and the crazy and unique rock formations that define the southwestern US. On the other side of the pass we emerged to find a vast expanse of flat arid land: the frontier of the Mohave.

After a nice trip through the desert, we arrived at the park. The primitive campground had 50 first come, first served sites. We didn't know what to expect so there was a bit of risk in driving all the way out there. To our surprise, when we showed up there was the camp manager and two other groups. No crowds to be found. We set up our site and headed for town to find dinner.

Kimberly and her tumbleweed. Our site, under a lean-to, is in the background.

The nearby town was an odd place called Lake Los Angeles (we were still in L.A. county, though this was about as remote in spirit as one could get from a bustling metropolis). Apparently, the town was once known as Los Angeles Buttes, but was rebranded in the housing speculation explosion of the 1960s. The natural lake, almost dried up and forgotten, was artificially filled, and brochures were printed with happy people playing water sports. After the initial sale, the artifical lake was left to evaporate.

Lake Los Angeles, from the top of Saddleback Butte, with the San Gabriel Mountains to the rear.

The town itself was small, quiet, and showed signs of economic depression. The dry lake, it seems, is a fitting metaphor for the state of things in general for Lake Los Angeles. We found a pizza place and ordered one to go.

It was a great evening, with a nice little campfire, surprisingly great pizza, games, and warm, fresh desert air. After the sun set we actually watched as the stars appeared in the sky, one by one, until they were too many to count.

I'm pretty good at building a fire in the damp woods of New Hampshire, but ANYONE could start a fire here. I probably could have just taken a match to our biggest log.

A bit of the dazzling desert sunset, captured by Kimberly.

The next morning we had a rude awakening as the sun came up, shining directly into our tent window, heating it to an uncomfortable degree by 7:30AM. Our only other goal for the trip was to summit Saddleback Butte, the park's namesake.

Saddleback Butte trailhead

The butte stands out from its surroundings, a hard rock holdout from the erosion and flooding that long ago formed the flat desert floor. The trail headed straight from the campground, across an open mile of desert, slowly climbing to the base of the hill, and then abruptly up the side.

By the time we reached the saddle between the two peaks, Kimberly was spent from a combination of heat and not having breakfast. I scrambled the last half mile or so to one of the summit to snap some pictures. It was amazing how fast things heated up as the sun climbed ever higher.

From one peak of Saddleback Butte, looking at the other

One more interesting feature of our trip: Joshua Trees. Relatives of agave plants (the plants whose nectar is the main ingredient of tequila), Joshua trees are found only in the Mohave, and actually help to define the limits of the desert. They are a very whimsical spectacle. I concluded that unlike most plants, for instance stately and uniform trees, these guys just grow and grow without a plan.

One of the largest of the countless Joshua trees we saw in the Mohave.

It was so great to get back out camping again. Now that we have a taste I'm sure we'll get around to it more often from now on. California offers a year-round climate for sleeping outdoors, and limitless locales to find adventures as unique as this one.

Busy

2009-04-03T02:00:00.002-05:00

I haven't updated since December. First things were very busy with the move, then things were super busy at work. I have a lot of interesting things to share about our experiences with southern California life so far. I'll try to start posting some of them on here.

Oat Mountain

2008-12-28T20:49:00.011-05:00

Our first hike since we moved to SoCal was Oat Mountain. Oat is the highest peak in the Santa Susanas, the mountain range that forms the northern boundary of the San Fernando Valley, where we live, and separates it from Santa Clarita.

click for larger map

The mountain can be seen from all over the valley. In fact, if you go up to the 3rd floor of our apartment building and look northwest, it's the prominent feature of the view.

Oat Mountain is 3,747 ft. high, rising about 3,000 ft. above the valley floor. The trailhead is located in the Michael D. Antonovich Regional Park, a little less than halfway up the mountain on Brown's Canyon road, an extension of De Soto Ave. Oddly, the road is full of "No Trespassing" and "Local Traffic Only" signs, even though it is the only route to this public space. We got freaked out enough to almost turn back before finally reaching the park and seeing other visitors.

The entire trip is fully exposed, as the mountain is too low and dry to be forested. The views of the valley expand quickly as elevation is gained. The hike passes by an LAPD training facility, complete with multiple helipads, one that was in use for a practice rescue mission while we walked by.

It's a steady 2.3 mile climb with 1800 ft. of elevation gain. There were several oil derricks along the path, some close enough to touch, which was an odd little distraction.

As the sun set, the temperature dropped. Eventually, I gave Kimberly my hoodie.

The views from the top were awesome. It was, however, more of a peak bagging experience than a nature walk. We've since visited a ton of other spots with a lot more natural beauty, but it was definitely worth the trip.

The San Fernando Valley from the top.

Santa Clarita, north of the Santa Susanas

Downtown LA, to the southeast. The US Bank Tower is clearly visible in the middle of the skyscrapers.

Moved to California

2008-12-05T18:24:00.002-05:00

I have a cactus.

Update from the Road #2

2008-11-28T01:16:00.002-05:00

We ended yesterday in Chicago, where we had some Chicago-style pizza for dinner and explored the downtown Michigan Ave. area. We definitely want to go back for a longer visit to Chicago.

Today we drove through Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, ending just over the border in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Tomorrow it's 400 miles across South Dakota, stopping by Mt. Rushmore, and then across most of Wyoming. We'll end the day outside of Yellowstone so that we can travel through the park on Saturday.

Internet access is sparse on the road, so we've been communicating mostly with twitter. Our twitter usernames:

danpye
kimberlypye

Update from the Road #1

2008-11-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

Written Yesterday:

Yesterday I finished up the rest of our errands, returning the cable modem to Comcast, shipping some packages to myself, canceling the gym membership, etc. and then we left Kimberly’s office at quarter of four. We drove through familiar territory, south on I-495 and then west on I-90, the Mass Pike.

The thing that first made me feel that this trip was different was the highest point sign in western Mass. It declares that the elevation is 1700 something feet and that it’s the highest point on I-90 east of South Dakota. I’ve passed the sign tons of times, but this time I passed it knowing that in a couple of days I would actually reach the point it mentions in South Dakota! It was kind of a crazy thought.

We’re on I-90 for a long time, from almost the start of the trip all the way to Wyoming. Last night we made it to Rochester, NY, or outside Rochester where I-90 passes closest. We stayed at a Days Inn and immediately encountered several people who were much friendlier than the New Englanders we’re used to.

The most exciting thing to happen on the road so far today was seeing Lake Erie while we drove through Pennsylvania. Just as they say, the Great Lakes are like a third coast. It was the first time I saw a lake that went all the way to the horizon.

We’re now driving through Ohio, pressing through all the way to Chicago, where we have a room reserved for the night on Michigan Ave.

Well, it appears that my life really has fallen apart.

2008-11-24T16:23:00.002-05:00

Packing

2008-11-20T15:23:00.002-05:00

We're all packing up in my office today. It's weird but the morale isn't at all down. And the atmosphere is very light and casual.

I feel like I can't get started with preparations for our trip. I guess it's because there's very little to actually prepare for. All we need is clothing for a week, something to do when we're in the passenger seat, and stuff for our furry friends.

It'll all come together as the date approaches.

Post

2008-11-14T13:45:00.002-05:00

I'm so busy today that taking the time to post something defies all logic, but I want to get back in the habit of submitting something daily so I'm going to do it anyway.

I think the reality of the move finally started to hit me on Wednesday when I had my last ever mid-week practice with the worship band at Harbor of Hope. Now the coming events seem very weird and I'm starting to feel sad about leaving my friends and family.

At the same time, the reality of the good things is starting to hit me too. An amazing road trip, a new, bigger apartment with a pool and fitness room, an exciting new job, and most of all, a totally new world to explore and get to know.

I've always known, rationally, that this experience should be bittersweet. It's finally beginning to feel that way.

Life Alive and the road trip plan.

2008-11-12T11:31:00.004-05:00

I met Steve at Life Alive for lunch yesterday in what will probably be the second to last time I go there. Kimberly and I have a lunch date there planned for this coming Saturday. That place is truly a gem for vegetarians or anyone who can appreciate real food (as opposed to the food-like substances) we (modern people of the developed world) usually consume.

Here is the plan for our road trip from Chelmsford to Northridge.

Click to enlarge

We're heading out Tuesday afternoon. I hope to reach at least to Syracuse before we call it a night. Then I want to get to Chicago by Wednesday night. From there, it's a whole lot of flat nothing until we stop at Mt. Rushmore and drive through Yellowstone. It's then on to Salt Lake City, down through Nevada, and to our final destination via roads with no agro checkpoints.

If we drive 12-14 hours a day, we'll arrive on Saturday. Making room for some exploring of interesting places or a break here and there, I'm planning on us getting in sometime Sunday.

Oops

2008-11-11T09:16:00.002-05:00

I'm going to make an effort to start posting here again, since I'm moving across the country in two weeks. I've been very busy at work and elsewhere, but I think I can manage a quick post here and there.

We're down to the wire now, seeing friends as often as possible, checking things off of our "to do one more time" list, and mentally preparing for the biggest change we've had since we got married (maybe the biggest change ever). We're both really excited. I'm particularly excited about settling into my new office and being able to focus on my new responsibilities. It'll be very nice to finish up all of the work here in Bedford.

Google Earth Pictures!

2008-08-21T13:52:00.004-05:00

The pictures I took of Chelmsford Center back in June and uploaded to Panaramio have finally hit Google Earth! I take quite a bit of nerdy pleasure in this for some reason...

New Blog

2008-08-21T09:58:00.003-05:00

I'm going to shift gears in this blog away from talk about Chiari. I decided to create a separate blog to record my progress there, so that I can get back to normal updates here. The new blog (which so far only has copied text from previous entries here) is Dan's Chiari Log.

Why I think that doctor is wrong.

2008-08-20T14:11:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd lay out the details, for my own benefit, of how I disagree with the surgeon's assessment that Chiari isn't my problem:

1) The two main determinants he used for his conclusion were the fact that my cerebellar tonsils are only herniated 6 mm, and that to him it looked as though my CSF (Cerebrospinal fluid) wasn't being impeded by the herniation.

a) Herniation on its own has been shown in recent years to be a poor determining factor for the diagnosis of Chiari. It is a symptom rather than the cause. Many people have severe symptoms occurring with a much smaller herniation that 6 mm (the radiologist who analyzed my MRI actually reported 6-8 mm for me), and some have much larger herniation with no symptoms at all.

b) Specialized tests, such as Doppler ultrasound and Cine MRI are used to determine impedance of CSF, and even these tests are not conclusive. This doctor spent perhaps 3 minutes (or less) reviewing the still images of my standard MRI when coming to the conclusion that CSF wasn't blocked.

2) My symptoms. There are many diseases and disorders that cause the symptoms I have, but it seems that holistically, they are a near perfect confluence of Chiari evidence. These telltale symptoms include:

-daily (sometimes constant as today) pain in the back of my head

-frequent headaches in my entire head, at one point occurring nearly 24 hours a day for 3 weeks (this was the initial impetus for my CT scan that revealed the malformation)

-a host of eye problems that have not subsided for many months, such as frequent reduced and blurred vision, and disturbing flashes or slow moving streaks of light

-ringing in my ears

-moderate insomnia over a prolonged period

-profound fatigue and pain in the muscles and joints

-numbing in my fingers (and tongue! That happened for the first time yesterday.)

-stiffness in my throat and obstruction of my airways at that point--this was my first symptom and it remains a constant problem, every moment of every day. Recently I've noticed that when I try to run, once I get up to an aerobic breathing pattern, I believe I have what is called a "stridor," which is sort of like wheezing, but is a single high-pitched tone that occurs in turbulent airflow as I inhale.

The list goes on and on. The important thing is that imaging concluded that I have Chiari I Malformation and before I ever knew what Chiari was I had daily pain in the back of my head. It's basically a slam dunk diagnosis. Now all I need is a doctor who agrees.

Quick Update

2008-08-19T09:30:00.004-05:00

No posts in a while. I've been (and continue to be) quite busy at work, finishing up all of the outstanding projects here in MA and concurrently planning for the move to CA.

I went to see a surgeon on Monday. It seems that the guy was not up on the latest research into Chiari Malformations. He deemed (after looking at my MRI results for much less than 5 minutes) my case "borderline" and gave his opinion that I should not operate. I personally disagree with his assessment for several reasons and I remain very convinced that Chiari is the source of my medical problems, which still persist after 8 long months. Every symptom I've suffered is readily explained by Chiari, and both radiologists who have seen my imaging (one for the CT scan, the other for the MRI) concluded that I had the malformation. There was no reporting about a "borderline" case. I've read plenty of sad stories online of people in a similar situation, with persistent symptoms and misinformed doctors. Fortunately these stories usually end in the person finding a qualified physician and getting the help they need.

My next step is to get my imaging forwarded to The Chiari Institute on Long Island, who agreed to give me a preliminary diagnosis. The frustrating thing about these latest developments is that I had some hope of surgery and resolution before the move out west, but given the lead time on finding a new doctor, meeting with him or her, and scheduling a surgery date, a pre-move procedure seems completely implausible.

I'm managing the problem okay. I've been running almost every day lately, though the shortness of breath severely limits my former capacity for distance. I attempted a 4.6 mile run yesterday and simply could not make the last quarter mile. I ended up walking the rest of the way. All I can do is continue fighting to stay healthy and continue searching for the right doctor.

Confirmation!

2008-08-05T10:45:00.003-05:00

I just spoke with my doctor and the MRI I had last week confirmed that I have a Chiari I Malformation:

Wikipedia
Helpful FAQ

Basically, my cerebellum extends beyond my skull very slightly, pressing against my spinal cord, disrupting the flow of spinal fluid and causing pressure in the area. It easily and completely explains my wide range of symptoms (that haven't gone away for 8 months and counting).

I should expect to hear from a neurosurgeon soon to discuss my options, but there is a very good chance that I'll be having surgery to correct the problem.

I'm feeling overwhelming relief that there is a definite explanation for my symptoms, that it's not life-threatening, and that there is a good possibility of correcting the problem and going back to 100% normal life. I've already decided that if I have major surgery this fall, my goal will be to run my first marathon within a year after the start of my recovery. Exciting times.

Excerpts from my California Trip Report

2008-07-22T15:59:00.005-05:00

I thought I would share my trip report from our recent trip to L.A. (company-sensitive info removed, of course). There's a lot in there that's only relevant for people considering relocation to our office out there, but it gives a pretty good idea of how we spent our time. We decided to take the job, by the way.

Northridge Trip Report

Dan Pye

Initial Impressions

Kimberly and I flew into Los Angeles International Airport at a little after noon. The plane flew directly over much of the Los Angeles metro area. I was amazed at and overwhelmed by its enormity. Here’s a satellite comparison of the urbanization of Los Angeles versus Boston. The scale is the same for both images:

Boston metro is maybe as big as the San Fernando Valley, seen in the northern part of the L.A. image, to the west of center. The Valley, however, is a rather small part of the city at large.

We had an easy time renting a car and setting out on the 405 freeway, heading toward the San Fernando Valley. The 405 is one of several major highways crisscrossing Los Angeles county. Typical of an L.A. freeway, there were 5 or 6 lanes of traffic on either side, and even in the middle of the day (2:00PM at that point) there was heavy traffic volume.

The 405 cuts straight through the Santa Monica mountains (home of the famous Hollywood sign) on its way to the Valley.

We made our way through surface roads to our hotel in Northridge. The San Fernando Valley is one of the best laid out urban areas I have ever seen. There are major roads cutting north to south as well as east to west, in a grid, all about one mile apart, and all generally three lanes wide in each direction. It would be almost inconceivable for the kind of traffic queue seen here on the Middlesex Turnpike every afternoon to develop very often in the Valley. This also means that finding your way is as easy as going straight on any road until you see the right street sign.

That being said, our real initial feelings for the valley were, fueled mainly by the sensory overload of so many new and different sights and the vastness of the urbanity, lukewarm at best.

The Office

This is the only shot of the office I took. It’s at the northern corner of the main building.

The Northridge office (campus) is rather large. Though Harman doesn’t occupy all of the buildings on the lot, the campus is roughly 0.3 by 0.2 miles. Walking from the north entrance of the main building to the far reaches of the adjacent automotive building takes several minutes.

I had a very positive impression of the working atmosphere. Everyone I met was focused, friendly, articulate, and motivated.

Northridge

The office is in Northridge, near to the geographical center of the Valley. My rudimentary socioeconomic impression of the San Fernando Valley is that the poorer neighborhoods are concentrated east/northeast, and the affluent neighborhoods west/southwest. There are some exceptions to the rule, and as anyone who has visited would tell you, good and bad neighborhoods exist in bizarrely close proximity.

All of that said, Northridge, being in the center, seemed to be in the center of that economic spectrum as well. The northern part of the district is dominated by shopping and the California State University Northridge (CSUN) (the public orange grove on campus includes fresh and juicy fruit for the picking!), and the housing tended to be middle-income apartments and nice single family homes.

Toward the east and the south, the housing was less nice, but I found no part of Northridge to be scary or dirty.

Eastern Neighborhoods

We drove through many communities to the east of Northridge, including Mission Hills, San Fernando, Pacioma, Panorama City, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood. None of these places was very nice compared to the rest of the Valley, though I’m sure some safe but affordable housing could be found.

Van Nuys Blvd. in Panorama City. We saw my coworker (circled) who was also visiting to check out the area.

Northern Neighborhoods

To the north of the office (and west of Mission Hills) are the communities of Chatsworth, Porter Ranch, Northridge (the area of Northridge north of CSUN can be grouped with these other neighborhoods) and Granada Hills. These are more upper middle class to affluent areas, with many single family homes, gated communities, and pockets of retail shopping.

I was particularly impressed by Porter Ranch, which is the last area of Los Angeles to be developed. It consists almost exclusively of gorgeous gated communities, built on the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains, which separate the Valley from Santa Clarita. A commute to Harman from any of these communities would be fast.

A gate to single-family homes in Porter Ranch, Santa Susana foothills in the back.

Southern Neighborhoods

The only urbanized section of the Valley is to the south, concentrated around Ventura Blvd., the southernmost east to west major road. The communities in this section of the Valley include Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City.

Toward the west, large financial and commercial property is common. It seems that many Valley residents commute to this area, including Woodland Hills and Tarzana, for work. Off of Ventura Blvd. to the south, along much of this corridor, are average to nice apartment buildings, followed by upscale single-family homes as the altitude rises into the Santa Monica mountains.

North of Ventura is more housing with a denser layout, more akin to the feel of Northridge or Van Nuys.

Sherman Oaks and Studio City seem like the closest one can come to a hip urban feel in the Valley. The impression I got was that young professionals inhabit the area, particularly Studio City. This is reinforced by the fact that several people have given me advice recommending this district as a potential option for my own housing.

Encino seemed to be a cross fade between the west and east sections of Ventura. All in all, this part of the Valley seemed safe, fun, and interesting.

Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, and Thousand Oaks

We stopped in Santa Clarita only briefly and simply drove through Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. My impression of all three is that they would be great places to raise a family but are of little interest to my wife and me, childless as we are. Santa Clarita and Thousand Oaks are both a long drive to the office no matter how you spin it. Simi Valley, especially the eastern section that abuts the San Fernando, would be a much more viable commuting option. It also appeared to be the winner in my very superficial survey of the relative beauty of these communities. Its valley is rather lush compared to Thousand Oaks, and Santa Clarita is desert country.

West Hollywood

Another potential habitat, I was told, is West Hollywood. I found this area pretty similar to its Studio City counterpart on the other side of the mountains. West Hollywood is surrounded by affluence, with Beverly Hills, the Santa Monica Mountains, Hollywood, and Downtown at all sides. It’s obviously closer to the flashy night life, if one were into that sort of thing, but along with it would come more traffic congestion and added commute time. Northridge started to feel pretty remote to me once we were on the other side of the hills.

The Hiking

L.A. is a day-hiker’s dream come true. The Valley is surrounded by mountains on three sides, all with ample trails, all within the distance of a short car trip. We went on two morning hikes out of our three mornings in the city. The first was up Mt. Hollywood, which rises up due north of a main street in Hollywood, Vermont Ave. Mt. Hollywood is adjacent to Mt. Lee, home of the iconic Hollywood sign, and the sign can be seen all the way up the trail.

It was an easy hike (several people were running to the top for exercise) at 650 feet of gain over 1.5 miles. The view from the top was panoramic, though we didn’t make it until later in the morning, and the

smog was already omnipresent and obscuring the detail of all vistas more than a few miles out. To the right is downtown L.A., seen through the haze.

The hills really are vast. We were excited by the idea of returning and exploring a portion of the network of trails over the course of a long day.

Mt. Hollywood is part of Griffith Park, with its famous observatory. Griffith is of note for being the largest park completely within a major city.

Our second hike offered even more extreme contrast to the urban sprawl. We drove a mere 30 minutes from our hotel in Northridge, down into that same mountain range but further west, to the town of Topanga.

Topanga was horse country, with ranches all along the Old Topanga Canyon Rd. We turned off onto Red Rock Canyon Road (not to be confused with the more famous national conservancy area of the same name that is outside of Las Vegas). We set off on a short trail, perhaps a mile long, up to the top of a hill, completely surrounded by mountains. It was a fairly close facsimile to hiking in some of the great national parks of the southwest, and only minutes away!

The Beaches

We had the chance to drive on the Pacific Coast Highway through Santa Monica and Malibu, as well as a short trip down the 405 to Long Beach. It should be common knowledge for most people that the beaches are numerous and beautiful in southern California.

We drove through Malibu on Sunday afternoon, and the traffic was heavy. It seems to be a popular day trip area for people from all around. We saw some of the iconic dramatic bluffs rising steeply from the ocean, but unfortunately the build-up along the beach meant that we were afforded precious few views of the oceanfront from the highway.

Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach

I had the idea that Long Beach wasn’t going to be as nice of a place, and certainly the neighborhood from the highway to the oceanfront area that we drove through wasn’t pleasant, but the beach area itself was like paradise! We’re already looking forward to taking a weekend day trip down to explore and relax.

Final Impressions

We grew to love the area very quickly. After our initial tepid reaction to the Valley, we were able to get a little deeper into its culture and atmosphere really to feel the pulse and mechanics of the city, and that’s when we started to understand and appreciate it. We’re adventurous by nature and L.A. offers a limitless reserve of completely diverse experiences waiting to be exploited.

Life in southern California is very different from eastern Massachusetts. Obviously the flora and fauna are mostly unfamiliar, the terrain is a world apart (if you can’t imagine living without the cozy, tree-filled clime of New England, the wide open spaces of the southwest are most definitely not for you), but the real differences are more subtle. The quirkiness in the infrastructure seen in the northeast is totally absent. This was an area whose civil engineering began with the grid-based plaza mayor construction of Spanish settlers. Everything is more open. As a result, the pace is noticeably dialed back. This spirit permeates casual social interactions, too. We were repeatedly (without fail, even) surprised by the friendliness and attentiveness of every clerk or salesperson we encountered. We’re used to, and have always been fine with, the sharper, more indifferent attitude of such interactions in Boston, but it was a welcome and pleasant change of pace.

Also, very importantly, the atmosphere at Harman in Northridge is optimistic and enthusiastic. Kimberly and I are very excited and deeply honored by this opportunity to relocate to Los Angeles.

He cannot be stopped!

2008-06-30T13:38:00.003-05:00

We decided that the old solution of keeping the ferrets out of the carpeted half of the apartment wasn't going to cut it anymore, so yesterday we went up to Babies 'R' Us and bought a new door with a smooth plastic face that Mr. Pink couldn't possibly climb.

It took him mere minutes to figure out how to make it over. I've tried a couple of different angles, but it's already clear that this is by no means the silver bullet it was originally hailed as.

Notice how he masterfully grabs the stopper on the left as he hoists himself up...

Life Alive

2008-06-17T09:42:00.006-05:00

I wanna go back! The food at this place is beyond delicious. Unfortunately, it's also rather pricey (a little under $10 a head before drinks), but it's worth it! Totally fresh ingredients combine to make a generous helping of culinary delight.

This is happening over and over in my mind right now.

Let's go. I'll meet you there for lunch or something (whoever you are). Just say the word.

Disclaimer: Kimberly and I are doing a "raw fast" for two days where we only eat raw food (with the exception of boiled rice yesterday and boiled potatoes tonight), so my desire for good cooked foods might be somewhat inflated (seriously, Wendy's smelled really good when I drove by yesterday afternoon), but my above statements about Life Alive are 100% sincere.

Hiking Highlights

2008-06-09T15:38:00.004-05:00

We hiked Mt. Mansfield, the tallest mountain in Vermont, this weekend (read about it in Kimberly's blog here). Adding it to my growing number of hiking sets on Flickr prompted me to create a new set, with pictures that highlight some of our many hikes over the years:

Hiking Highlights

Dinosaurs! Golf!

2008-06-05T14:13:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday afternoon Kimberly and I decided, spur of the moment, to go check out the mini-golf place down the street on Rt. 4 in Billerica: Jurassic Mini-Golf at Rangeway Golf.

Every hole had its own dinosaur. The mascot for the entire course, a purple tyrannosaurus holding a putter, is seen in the background.

It was a decent little 18 hole course at $7 a person. Not too bad considering the high mini-golf prices in these parts.

The competition was fierce, but Kimberly clinched a victory (by a single point, I think). We both came in 10+ over par, so it seems we need to start visiting the mini-course more often to brush up on our skills.

Album Cover

2008-06-05T12:52:00.002-05:00

I copied Kimberly's post idea and made my own random album cover:

Just like Kimberly I only had a couple of minutes and MS Paint to flesh it out, but the emotional impact is all there, despite it being rough around the edges.

Find out how to make your own here.

Chelmsford Center Pictures

2008-06-04T11:00:00.006-05:00

As advertised on my blog a couple of weeks ago, here are some pictures of downtown Chelmsford that I geotagged and submitted to Panoramio:

a couple of shots of the Episcopal Church adjacent to our condo complex

* * *

Beaver Brook, first heading into downtown, then out of downtown

* * *

The Library

* * *

The park near the library. It's just begging for some bocce.

* * *

The Forefathers Burying Ground

* * *

The Congregational Church

* * *

The monuments of Penham Park

* * *

The main Fire Department

* * *

A pond on the property of a bank on the corner of North and Fletcher

* * *

Here are some interesting photos that didn't make the Panoramio cut, since they focus on subject rather than location.

That one is a red-winged blackbird. We tried in vain to get a good picture of him.

Scarlet - a haiku

2008-05-28T09:15:00.005-05:00

Meet Scarlet the car.

She knows where she is going.

Airplane light is off.

May Highlights (In Photos)

2008-05-22T14:11:00.004-05:00

We've discovered that Kimberly is DARN good at making homemade hummus. Combine this with the fact that Trader Joe's reintroduced their Wheat Crisps (a healthy and tastier Wheat Thins alternative) and May has been a culinary delight.

I was pensive when this guy showed up, but he moved along the very next day.

We whipped out the ice cream maker ball and tried to make ice cream from chocolate soy milk. It wasn't completely solid, but it was very delicious.

2008's first trip to Walden Pond.

The ferrets are doing as well as ever.

----------------------------------------------------------

This weekend we're going on the year's first camping camping trip. It'll be in the White Mountains with some friends. We're staying on the Kancamagus Highway, not far from North Conway.

I noticed that Google Maps has integrated photos from Panoramio (a feature that was implemented long ago on Google Earth). It makes me want to take some pictures of Chelmsford Center, where Kimberly and I live. Hopefully I can get some posted by next week.

Timeless

2008-04-25T13:15:00.003-05:00

Last night we watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). Kimberly had never seen it.

I was pretty scared that the movie, which despite loving it and watching it over and over as a kid (I hadn't seen it in probably 15 years or more), would be cheesy and unimpressive (remember The Neverending Story? Terrible!) My fears were quelled early and extensively.

The live-action big screen adaptation of the Turtles' story really got it all right. The action was entertaining rather than watered down, the plot was compelling rather than contrived, and the late 80s expressions and music were quaint without being (too) cliche.

If you haven't seen it in a very long time or at all, it's definitely worth your hour and a half.

Today I'm thinking

2008-04-24T11:39:00.003-05:00

-will we see 360° in our "new flesh" or will our sight continue to be limited to the ocular scope that we have now? Jesus's example certainly showed that we will retain our physicality, but also that there is physical transcendence.

-it feels really good to be excited about practicing my instrument.

-in California, this cool night/warm day thing lasts all winter long.

-it's been long enough since I've visited Maine that I'm really looking forward to this weekend's trip.

-I can't wait to have an awesome evening in with my wife.

One of those long catch-up posts.

2008-04-22T08:50:00.004-05:00

The weather is decidedly spring-like. The first warm days in early March had me longing for nice weather more severely than I ever have before. Our location in Chelmsford center lends itself quite nicely to walking from place to place and we take advantage of this almost every day.

Last week we cooked up a portable dinner and headed to the little park near the library for a picnic:

* * *

In anticipation of an open mic at a friend's birthday party next month, I started practicing, essentially for the first time since moving into our apartment last fall. I set up my bass, amp, and music stand as discreetly as possible in the living room, since I found myself unmotivated to cloister away in the spare bedroom to practice. The compromise is working very well. I've picked it up at least once a day since setting it up (I even practiced modal scales this morning!). I hope to have a couple of short parts of Bach's Cello Suite 1 polished up as one piece, and I've been thinking of reviving the first movement of Henry Eccles' Sonata in G Minor. Otherwise, if you're planning on attending and would like a bass accompanist, I'm open.

* * *

I realized that I haven't once mentioned my recent health woes in this blog. It wasn't intentional; I guess I just hadn't been struck with any one related event that felt like recording, though the cumulative experience has affected me pretty significantly. It can all be summed up succinctly: in December I started to feel very slightly short of breath when working out. I thought I must have some budding autoimmune problem, since such things are so prevalent in my family.

In January it started getting worse. As 2008 went along, the shortness of breath was bad, and it was joined by fatigue, dizziness, and several other smaller but annoying and persistent symptoms. After a long series of doctors and tests, it can be determined (not beyond a shadow of a doubt, of course) that I don't have asthma, allergies, a heart problem, or any visible obstructions in my chest. The latest of my doctors suspects sarcoidosis, a generally well-manageable... (drum roll) ...autoimmune disease. The tests are still out, and those tests might give me some clues one way or another (not beyond a shadow of a doubt, of course).

I've had ups and downs through the experience (right now I'm having a major up - I feel quite good) and it has very measurably affected my running performance, but I'm confident that a) I'll have an answer and relief sometime down the road and b) God has some plan for me that is perpetually hazy for me and clear for him, and this problem is profoundly low on things that are hard for Him to overcome.

* * *

My office is closing at the end of the year. I have the chance to possibly follow the work to southern California. It's a great chance to go on a life-changing adventure with my wife, who is more than supportive, and would be a wise step forward in my career. That being said, I have formed deep bonds of friendship in New England, and have a great affinity for the area. Tier one of the decision is to work out the details related to the job. Once that's all okay, tier two is making the decision for our life. God has not given me a sign in one direction or the other up until now. Everything is rather up in the air at this point.

The cruise

2008-03-25T11:25:00.003-05:00

Pros:

-lots of sun
-lots of free time (read a whole book)
-the food!

Cons:

-too much sun (that was our fault)
-rough seas had us pretty queasy
-not enough time to really get to know the ports of call

My conclusion is that I'm very glad that we had the opportunity to go on a cruise. It was great to have the experience first-hand, and the ocean was so vast and gorgeous; I feel lucky to have had the chance to be surrounded by it. However, Kimberly and I are dive-into-the-culture, adventurous vacationers. If I go to the Bahamas again, I'd rather spend a week on one island than a week at sea with day long stops at several islands.

One highpoint:

Sneaking through the lobby of the Sheraton on Cable Beach in Nassau. On the other side we were met with a long beach shared by all of the upscale resorts. One look around and we suddenly felt like we were amidst the postcard ideal of Caribbean vacation.

Cable Beach across the little bay. We walked several miles looking for a place to hang out before coming across it.

More here (from Kimberly).

Mmmm

2008-03-24T14:24:00.005-05:00

Last night Kimberly and I had a muy buena cena a la Casa Blanca. It's a brand new Mexican restaurant that just opened in North Billerica, right off of Rt. 3 on Rt. 129.

I've long been yearning for authentic Mexican food around here, on a par with what you can get in the Southwest. After one visit to Cafe Azteca in Lawrence, I fell in love with the quality of their food and their low prices. Similarly, La Carreta in Nashua offers a good selection and quality food.

But the Lowell area has been lacking (unless there's some other place I don't know about). The two best Mexican places (Mambo Grill and Isabela's Burrito Bar) are really burrito joints. The food is great, but they don't offer a full plate and wide selection. Casa Blanca has come to finally fill this void!

We were seated by a very young girl who was obviously the daughter of the owners and then greeted almost immediately with water and chips. The homemade salsa was a yummy cilantro packed hint at what was to come. The prompt, frequent, and friendly service continued throughout the night (admittedly, there were only a few people eating while we were there).

Our waiter took our order in a thick-accented Spanglish, though I think it was stylistic rather than out of necessity. His speech hinted that he also spoke fluent English. I had the standard green sauce enchiladas while Kimberly ordered chicken flautas. Both of us were immediately blown away. Kimberly compared hers to this little Mexican place that we stopped at in Paige, AZ in passing on our honeymoon, where the staff were all first generation Mexican (the place stands in our minds as stereotypical authentic Mexican).

We were thoroughly impressed and started joking about what we would order when we came back the next day. Please drop what you're doing and go to Casa Blanca immediately! I would love to see this place flourish and we'll be returning very soon.

Feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden...

2008-03-24T09:22:00.003-05:00

I came into my office after a week away to find that Gmail chat is now being blocked by my network administrators!

I can't think of a single good reason why I should be allowed to use this service at work (other than the fact that my productivity was just fine while it was accessible), but I will sorely miss it. I feel pretty detached from the world right now.

Also to blog about soon:

1) The reason I haven't blogged in so long.
2) The cruise.
3) Casa Blanca.

Eye passed out.

2008-03-04T21:34:00.006-05:00

First thing yesterday morning I went to a new eye doctor. He found that I have a bit of trouble focusing close-range, so I got these spiffy reading glasses:

He also decided to dilate my eyes to check my retinas, which probably would have been fine if he hadn't told me that the eye drops numbed my eyes. I don't do well with numbness. In fact, it makes me pass out. The eye drops actually just stung a little and then my eyes felt cool. But it was too late.

I warned him in advance that I have a problem with numbness and then after he applied the drops I said something like "oh yeah, I don't feel so good," which was the last thing I remember saying.

While I was out, my mind was thinking of other things, trivial things, but like being awoken early from a dream, I forgot it all when I came back to the examining room, slowly realizing what had happened, with a slightly distraught optometrist tending to me. As I sipped some Poland Spring he wrote in his notes, saying that that wouldn't happen in his exam room again (meaning that he'd never give me that test again). It was certainly a rather odd start to the work week.

American English hits a homerun

2008-02-26T15:41:00.004-05:00

A gmail status that I posted today reminded me of something I've thought about this before, especially when I used to hang out with a lot of Finnish people. The number of baseball idioms that we use in our casual conversation is staggering.

Not surprisingly, Wikipedia has a list, though it feels like it's probably incomplete.

It's sort of fun to think of them, since many have become so ingrained in the way we speak that we give no thought to the baseball connection. Things like:

-a ballpark figure
-to cover one's bases
-out of left field
-off base
-rain check
-right off the bat
-second-guess (I didn't even know this one was baseball)
-touch base

Next time you're speaking with someone from outside the US, try to catch yourself using one of the innumerable baseball colloquialisms. The person might have no idea what you're talking about.

My status message, by the way, was "in the home stretch" which is actually a horse racing term...

Life in Six Words

2008-02-21T23:50:00.003-05:00

I've accepted a challenge passed along from Danielle in her blog to describe my life in six words and one picture. Except instead of thinking about it for two days, I thought about it until I had six words (which was about 20 seconds) and then found a picture to go along with it:

I see life as an adventure.

Move over, Hiro Nakamura

2008-02-20T11:02:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday Kimberly and I went to Nashua and picked up Guitar Hero III for the Wii. We had already become addicts from our experiences with the Athanases' copy and it was only a matter of time before we caved in.

The wireless Les Paul

I've found the game to be interesting from a musician's perspective. In a sense, playing bass and guitar does not give much of an inherent advantage, but I think that a general intimacy with rhythm and temporal thinking does.

The scrolling fretboard, subdivided by beat or half beats, is nothing more than a straightforward music notation. Once I learned to "read" the music, my experience with traditional instruments began to translate a bit better (and I've noticed Kimberly, who also has a musical background, nailing rhythmically tough spots on her first try, when others probably would get slipped up).

a screen shot of the scrolling fretboard

All in all this is a very fun and addictive game and in spite of being an easy substitute for actually practicing my instruments, it is actually making me want to pick them up a bit more often. Let's see if I can follow through with that desire and get back into a regular practicing routine...

Hope for clear skies on Wednesday night.

2008-02-19T09:57:00.002-05:00

There's going to be a full lunar eclipse between 10:01 and 10:51PM on Wednesday. The Earth's shadow will begin to cover the moon at 8:43PM. Assuming we have clear enough skies, it should be fully visible to everyone on the east coast.

Lunar Eclipse to Occur in "Prime Time" Wednesday

New York Pictures

2008-02-19T09:33:00.002-05:00

It's a little late, but I just put together a photo set with captions of our December trip to NYC.

Monadnock February 2008

2008-02-17T23:51:00.005-05:00

Yesterday morning Austin and I attempted Mt. Monadnock. It was about 20 degrees F, which is surprisingly comfortable while mountain climbing.

The parking lot was packed, helping the mountain live up to its reputation as the most hiked mountain in the world (since they built a tram up Mt. Fuji). We stopped off at the Park Ranger store to pay our fee. One of the rangers asked if we had cramp-ons, and when we said no he scoffed and said that we wouldn't make it to the summit.

-Side story: Kimberly and I once arrived at Monadnock mid-afternoon one spring along with the Kelihers. The ranger told us that we were starting way too late and that the mountain was covered in snow. He then turned to me (as opposed to my tall, athletic looking friend Nathan) and said something along the lines of "you know how experiences YOU are but you don't know about your friends." We've joked ever since that his judgment was a reaction to my full beard and Nathan's freshly shaved face. We went on to reach the summit, trudging through nearly half and inch of snow in some places and made it back to the car with ample daylight to spare.

Needless to say, Austin and I were skeptical of his prediction.

Off we went. There was quite a bit of snow on the trail, but we ascended the White Spot Trail, the most popular path to the summit, so the trail was well worn.

Austin on the White Spot Trail

It was a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky so the views were great. The snow was covered everywhere with a thick layer of ice and for the portion below the tree line icicles that had fallen every branch of each tree littered the landscape.

A tree still covered in ice.

As we approached the summit the path forged by people who trend before us grew narrower and narrower.

Ice everywhere, and the incline was steep.

Within the final 0.1 miles (summit in sight) the trail that could be traversed without cramp-ons came to an end. We each took turns losing our footing and barreling down several feet (into a bush in Austin's case, into Austin in my case) and then finally admitted defeat and headed back.

We descended the White Cross Trail, which was unproven in comparison, with only a few footprints rather than a trampled path.

Me near the bottom, where the White Cross/Spruce Link rejoins the main trail.

So we didn't reach the peak and had to settle for my car as an alternate spot to eat our lunch, but we were very glad to get out and enjoy the beautiful day and a bit of winter adventure with the precarious summit approach. It was really great to get back on the trail after so many months.

Bagels and Used Clothing

2008-01-17T22:32:00.000-05:00

Seven years ago I moved to Massachusetts to go to school and I've pretty much never looked back. I knew immediately that this was the place for me (or at least that Maine would never be "home" again). There are, however, two shining examples of awesomeness in Bangor, Maine that I have yet to find even a passable substitution for. They are obligatory stops when we go back to visit family.

1) Bagel Central, 33 Central St., Bangor, ME.

The bagels here are simply great. Chewy but soft, salty but not too much. I blame the dreaded Dunks for Massachusetts' serious lack of good bagel shops. I tried searching Google Maps once for "bagel shops" in "Lowell, MA" and the first three or four entire pages were exclusively Dunkin' Donuts. Ugh.

Anyone have any good hidden-gem suggestions?

2) Goodwill Retail Store, 805 Stillwater Ave., Bangor, ME

I get the feeling that most of the people I know around here, even people who are exceptionally thrifty, have a bad vibe about thrift store clothing. I can really see why. The used clothing stores that I have sampled in the area are lame, lame, lame, dirty, and lame.

Goodwill in Bangor is huge, has an ever cycling selection, and it's super clean. The patrons are not overwhelmingly sketchy. It's okay for the average person to walk into the store and shop. Almost every time I go there I walk away with exciting amounts of clothes that actually fit me.

Where's the secret spot for great thrift shopping around here? Let me know. We'll go together.

Towel Rack

2008-01-14T18:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in my handiest project to date (don't laugh), I finally installed a towel rack in the bathroom, which I agreed to do when we moved in in October.

I started this project earlier in the weekend, but found that I really did need to pre-drill holes for the fixtures to get the thing installed properly. After buying a pack of drill bits at Target, I was ready to go.

I didn't get any pictures of the work in progress, but basically I had to measure and mark where the ends of the rack would be, drill holes, insert plastic fasteners (not all the way into the wall but leaving about 3/8 of an inch sticking out, a fact that was absent from the instructions), attach metal plates to the fasteners with screws, and then attach the ends of the rack to the plates with set screws. The end result:

Vegan Pancakes

2008-01-14T18:41:00.000-05:00

Kimberly got this cookbook last week called My Sweet Vegan full of vegan desserts. She's made a couple of things from it that have turned out awesomely, so I was inspired when I found myself awake first on Saturday morning.

I cleaned up the kitchen and wanted to make something good for breakfast, so I brought the computer into the kitchen and searched for vegan pancakes. I found a good recipe, modified it to my liking, and came up with:

They were quite a bit like normal pancakes with milk, eggs, and oil, but slightly sweeter and smoother in texture. We were both surprised by how deliciously they turned out.

a shot of my plate, complete with some maple syrup (Green Mountain coffee not shown)

Recipe:

1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup soy milk
2 tbsp. apple sauce

Combine dry ingredients. Add soy milk and apple sauce and then whisk until smooth. Cook in a skillet (or pancake maker, like I did).

UPDATE:

I forgot that one of the reasons Kimberly suggested that I blog about these was that I knew how many calories they are. If you make four pancakes with the recipe above, each pancake will be approximately 140 calories.

Long Weekend Happenings

2008-01-02T12:05:00.000-05:00

Our four-day weekend was perhaps the best little at-home vacation we've ever had. We're beginning to understand the therapeutic value of getting things done around the house as opposed to being truly sedentary all day. In that light, over the course of the four days, we went to the gym twice, spent two evenings with friends, and finally reclaimed our second bedroom!

My music corner.

The computer area.

Kimberly's crafting hub.

I wish we'd taken some before pictures, but rest assured it very much resembled a messy storage unit. Now you can walk in and access the books, the computer, the music and instruments, and the craft supplies. Our behavior has already been affected. Last night we sat on the floor in there playing Scrabble and eating popcorn with some music in the background. In fact, we spent time in there doing fun things (mostly crafts and music practice) each night of the long weekend.

Another big source of our (or at least my) contentment with the long weekend was a concept that has really hit home with me lately. In the process of re-reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I picked up on a tidbit about how we (people in general) behave as if we have an absolute right to possess 24 hours a day as our own, as if we were the authors of our own time, which sounds rather absurd when stated clearly. What sense at all is there in saying that something is wasting MY time? I've been going through the mental exercise of freeing myself from the burden of owning time. The seemingly contradictory result is that I seem to have more of it, and the time I spend doing things I enjoy feels much more like a gift from God. It is a wonderful thing to come to the end of an evening, realize that other things prevented me from utilizing the time as I had planned, and being okay with it rather than frustrated.

Other than that, I beat (the final boss in) Super Mario Galaxy, which was my big Christmas present from Kimberly's parents. In the process of taking down our Christmas decorations, we remembered the pumpkin that had been secretly propping up Frankie on top of our bookshelf.

Frankie had a secret all fall long.

Kimberly suggested that I carve it rather than just throwing it out, and to her surprise, I agreed. I decided to carve two faces into it like the Roman god Janus, looking both forward and backward in time.

I wouldn't read too deeply into which face, the happy or angry one, is looking into which direction of time. You can either decide for yourself or leave it unclear. For me, it was all about getting variety into my carving -- both backward and forward are the happy face as far as I'm concerned.

A pleasant surprise!

2007-12-28T08:52:00.001-05:00

My wife is amazing.

Pemi Loop

2007-11-24T14:01:00.000-05:00

On October 6, Nathan and I embarked on a ridiculously ambitious one-day endeavor. We had decided to attempt the Pemigewasset Loop, a 31+ mile day hike over 10+ 4000 foot peaks.

We arrived at the Kancamagus highway late on the night of the 5th, hoping to find a spot to camp at the trailhead, the Lincoln Woods trailhead. We arrived at Lincoln Woods to find posted restrictions on camping for miles around. We would have had to hike in for over a mile and a half (it was after 10PM at this point) to reach a viable camping zone, and we were not prepared to carry backpacking gear on the entire loop.

So we set out to find a spot to spend the night. The surrounding campgrounds were all at capacity, so we drove up the road a few miles. We found a parking lot for a kiddy nature walk called the Discovery Trail. There was an unpaved overflow lot that was barricaded off, around a corner and hidden by trees. Perfect! We covertly gathered our gear and set up camp in my small backpacking tent, right on the corner of the gravel lot. Nathan remained pensive over the arrangement throughout the night, but we had a few good hours of sleep before the big day.

On the morning of the 6th we awoke at 5:30AM or so. We quickly packed up and returned to Lincoln Woods.

Lincoln Woods trailhead, around 6AM

After following Franconia Brook for several miles, we ascended the first peak of the loop - Bondcliff.

Bondcliff - this was one of the highlights of the trip

The Bonds would make an excellent (sensible) day hike by themselves.

the summit of West Bond

After the Bonds (Bondcliff, West Bond, Bond) came Mt. Guyot, South Twin, Galehead, then Garfield.

the wooded summit of Galehead

Galehead from the summit of Garfield - there is a storm rolling in...

The halfway point was between Galehead and Garfield. After Garfield came a long and grueling ascent to 5260 ft. Lafayette, a mountain that we had summited many times, but never from this approach (and never as a passing peak in the middle of a 33 mile day trip).

The weather turned after we summited Garfield, and by the time we topped Lafayette we were very cold and wet. We did our best to layer up and keep moving,

and the weather soon let up.

My favorite picture of the day. Wet air would flow to the top of Franconia Ridge (from the left), hit the cool summit air, and barrel over into the valley to the right as fog.

We were now on familiar turf, the Franconia Ridge Trail, which we had hiked many times, but it was getting late. Before reached the last two peaks of the ridge, Liberty and Flume, the sun set.

We had some difficulty keeping the trail on the open fields of the mountain summits, but otherwise it was pretty smooth night hiking.

After we summited Flume we descended a trail that was new to both of us, the Osseo Trail. Descending an unknown 4.5 mile trail in the dark in wet conditions was an uneasy prospect, but we soon discovered that the trail was extremely groomed, wide, and safe.

Wooden stairs! (Note the stylish headlamp courtesy of Nathan.)

Nathan in the dark.

So we made it! The last leg of the hike, all down hill and through the woods, seemed to take an eternity, but we at least knew we were in relative safety and heading in the right direction.

We made it back to the car at 10:20PM or so. 33 1/2 miles and just under 10,000 ft of elevation gain in little over 16 hour. We had completed a loop that was named the second hardest day hike in America (you're next, Mt. Hood!) and even added a couple of detours to bag some peaks not included in that assessment. It was an accomplishment that neither of us will soon forget, and it puts other area challenges that we've yet to attempt, such as a Presidential Range traverse in perspective.

Nathan has a Picasa album with all of these photos and more, each with captions and his own summary of the hike here.

Aurora Borealis in Bucksport!

2007-11-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Last night Kimberly and I were driving back to her parents' house after visiting my family in Bucksport when we saw a peculiar glow in the sky. Having seen the Aurora Borealis one other time in my life (coincidentally on the very same road that we were driving on then), I recognized it fairly quickly.

(This is actually a picture of an Aurora Australias from Wikipedia... It was the best approximation to what we saw that I could find.)

The sight was obscured by trees that surrounded the roads we traveled. We decided that we would keep driving past her parents' house until we could get a clear view of the sky. As we drove down the hill that leads to the house, however, we found that the Aurora was in clear view from the driveway!

We saw something very similar to the red/orange glowing vertical lines in the picture above. Once or twice per minute the bright green/white flash of an addition flare-up would be seen. The weather was cold and we were tired, so we didn't stay long (and unfortunately our little digital camera wasn't able to capture anything worth sharing).

Doing a little research this morning, I'm discovering that we were incredibly lucky to have chanced upon an Aurora Borealis under the circumstances. Several things that made the event unlikely:

-Bucksport is a few miles south of the Bangor/Brewer metro area, which is the biggest source of light pollution in central Maine.

-Aurora activity in temperate latitudes is most likely at the peak of the sunspot cycle or for the next few years that follow it. We're actually at the very beginning of a sunspot cycle -- the peak won't be until 2012!

-The most likely time to view the event is the middle of the night, around midnight. This occurred at 8:30PM and was gone in the next half hour.

-The full moon is today, so we were just a few hours off from the brightest night of the month. Auroras are most easily viewed during a new moon.

The event was an amazing, unlikely little additional treat for our awesome Thanksgiving holiday.

Hiatus

2007-11-09T23:53:00.000-05:00

I miss blogging. It seems that life is too busy lately. I used to blog during my lunch break, but lately I've taken to eating while working instead :-/ I'll try to set aside some time to chronicle some of the notable things that have happened while I've been on hiatus.

Right now I'm on the couch. Kimberly dosed off beside me. We went to Best Fitness, our new gym three minutes down the street from our new place in Chelmsford, for the first time today after work. When we got home we worked together to cook an amazing meal of chicken with pepper jack/parmesan cheese sauce, fingerling potatoes, and romaine lettuce with homemade garlic peanut sauce!

After that we watched a very interesting independent film called "The Girl from Monday" about a near future US society ruled by a mega-corporation and capitalist ideals, covertly invaded by subversive extra-corporeal extraterrestrials.

Tomorrow I have to go into the office for a bit to do some time-sensitive work but then we have dinner plans with friends on both days this weekend. I'm really looking forward to a couple of days of rejuvenation.

Carbon Bigfoot Print

2007-09-24T20:26:00.000-05:00

This weekend we went as far northeast as Calais, ME for a wedding. That's about 6 hours one way from Lowell. When we got back home we fed the ferrets and immediately headed for IKEA in Stoughton. Considering we had to drive separate vehicles back from Bucksport to Lowell, the grand total milage for the weekend is something like 1,057 miles! Yikes...

Work is Good

2007-09-19T11:56:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought my work couldn't get any better (nerdier), all this week I've been learning how to test delays and levels and stuff with oscilloscopes and Audio Precision hardware. Woo hoo!

Though I've had to get up and go to work early for the past four weeks (with no end in sight yet), I'm really fitting in well here. I'm getting to know most of the people I work with in engineering and I've really excelled at the tasks at hand.

On a related note, going into work early has allowed me to get out a bit early too. This has given me time to go for a long run almost every day for the past couple of weeks. I'm up to a daily run of about six miles without soreness or fatigue during or after. I've had a chance to go running all over Lowell, really appreciating the city that I'm about to leave (it's not all that melodramatic, though, since I'm moving three miles away to the next town over).

Kimberly and I have really managed to fill our calendar lately. There's barely a day in the next few weeks without a meeting here or a necessary trip there. I used to think that October would be the time when things settled down, but between finishing up the move, Kimberly's trip to South Carolina, and a Journey Group Leader's retreat, that month is getting pretty dense already. November! I'll relax a bit then...

Sunflowers of the Highlands

2007-09-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

There are many sunflowers in the Lowell Highlands. Yesterday Kimberly and I set out on a long walk and snapped some pictures of them.

We walked for 4 1/2 miles and it was surely a very cursory survey of the sunflowers in our neighborhood.

Here are some photos of bonus non-sunflower sights we found of interest:

French Fries and Relatives

2007-08-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last night we watched "Super Size Me," a documentary in which the director decides to eat only McDonalds for three meals a day for 30 days. He starts the endeavour in better than average health (he has three doctors and a nutrition specialist monitoring his progress from start to finish) and ends up in about as ghastly a state as you would imagine. It was very entertaining and somewhat enlightening. As someone who could do without fast food again for the rest of my life anyway, it stands only as an affirmation.

In other news, Kimberly's parents and her brother Ben are in town for the rest of the week. Ben is flying out of Logan Friday afternoon to embark on a nine month trip to Copenhagen. It should be a fun change of pace having guests around for a few days. Ben is probably even going to accompany me to the gym. It'll be good to have a running partner.

Work is going very well. I've started testing the software of a home theater processor and will be doing so for the foreseeable future. It's interesting work that is never the same from day to day, and I get a lot accomplished. What a difference my job change has made in my life!

Priceless

2007-08-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

I've been at my job for less than two months, and I'm already appreciating the software humor. Case in point:

Hilarious!

Review: Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight

2007-08-21T14:17:00.000-05:00

I went out at lunch and bought the new Rilo Kiley CD, "Under the Blacklight." They have long been one of my top five bands, so I was very excited to pick this up on its release date.

I went back to work editing test cases and popped it into my disc player. The first song, "Silver Lining," with its light folk-rock swing, soulful backing vocal lines, and high lead guitar licks, seemed to signal that this would be the logical next album for Rilo Kiley. It is the culmination of the masterpiece of alt-rock that was More Adventurous, and the country filled, vocal heavy, autobiographical Jenny Lewis solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat.

As the album progressed, though, it was quickly apparent that this was something totally different. Track two, "Close Call," was still Rilo Kiley, but with a distinctly more polished sound than I'm used to (this is their first major label release, so this is not surprising). By track three, "The Moneymaker," the album's true color is cemented. "Under the Blacklight" is a fusion of mere hints of the Rilo Kiley of days past with high production, classic hard rock (read Heart or Fleetwood Mac), and a surprising prolific Latin/R&B dance beat. This is perhaps slightly less surprising when one reflects that Lewis admits to listening exclusively to rap in her early adulthood, in the period between being a child actress and rising to indie rock stardom.

I have mixed feelings, since, like any devoted fan, I was anticipating and hoping for something that would add comfortably to the catalog that I know and love, but Lewis and co-writer Blake Sennett have never disappointed with their thoughtfulness and musicality. I'm sure this disc will grow on me in repeated listenings.

My one true complaint so far is that the lyrics are much less introspective and poetic than Lewis's previous pieces. Perhaps there is more solo material in her queue where she will employ her lyrical efforts in a more focused way once again.

We Need a Morale Booster

2007-08-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

It looks like several of my friends and relatives are pretty down, according to their Gmail status, anyway.

In other news, it looks like we're on for a Wednesday night Starcraft party!

If you're interested it's totally open to anyone with Starcraft and a computer that he or she is willing to bring to my house around 7PM.

Active Weekend

2007-08-20T07:53:00.000-05:00

This weekend started when I left work. I went straight home and helped Kimberly finish getting ready for our overnight trip to Effingham, NH.

No one really knows where Effingham is.

We decided to make this trip because Kimberly's entire family (her mom, dad, and brother) were at Camp Marist, on Ossippi Lake for the annual Northern New England Royal Rangers Pow Wow.

Traffic was pretty bad, but we made the distance in about two and a half hours. We stopped for dinner at the Poor People's Pub (flash and frames hybrid site!) in Sanbornville. The food was great but the locals took to making fun of Kimberly and me just loud enough so that we could hear. It's not even the first time that that has happened in New Hampshire. Hmm.

We made it to the camp to hear the last bit of a devotional from a visiting Teen Challenge member*, followed by an impressive fire works show. We got a chance to hang out with each of Kimberly's family members for a bit, setting up our tent with her brother Ben, sitting by the camp fire with her mom, and eating breakfast with both of her parents. It was sort of a long way to visit them for such a short time (another hour or so of travel each way and we could have made it back to our hometown of Bucksport) but it was fun. It had a bit of the crazy and illogical spontaneity that we love from time to time.

*Teen Challenge is an Assemblies of God sponsored rehabilitation program for young men that have been caught up in violence and severe substance problems.

Saturday morning we made our way back to Mass through the lakes region.

We got back fairly early so we decided we had time to go to the gym. We worked out pretty hard. I was thinking that we had a party to attend later, so I might as well push myself earlier in the day and then relax in the evening.

After the gym, we went and helped Nathan and Priscila set up for Nathan's big birthday party at the Lewis's in Billerica. The party was great. Kimberly and I ended up playing some volleyball and some hardcore ultimate Frisbee (so much for the hard work out theory, I was exhausted by the end of the night) and ate plenty of Priscila's delicious sushi and truffles.

Yesterday I played bass on the worship team at church, and then Kimberly and I went to see an apartment, which we weren't entirely impressed with. It's definitely time to get serious about finding a place, since our last month in our current apartment is coming right up. After this, we went with John and Laura to seek out an elusive Ribs and Brews festival in downtown Lowell.

Downtown was pretty much a ghost town. We searched all around to no avail and eventually went back to the Haven's where John looked it up again to find that the festival is actually several weeks away still. Oops. We gave up and had lunch at the Outback instead, which was good. We then had time to go back save a little bit of the universe in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for Wii.

After going out for groceries, Kimberly and I spent the rest of the evening in, watching Click. I really liked it (I thought it was classic Adam Sandler humor) but Kimberly was a bit disappointed.

This week should be good. We're continuing to make it to the gym several times a week, and our calendar is otherwise filling up with fun stuff pretty fast.

Alright. It's well past time to get back to my test cases...

On a MUCH lighter note...

2007-08-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

I've been going crazy with Google gadgets lately. They're quite handy. Kimberly tipped me off to them when she created "Kimber Daily News." Now I've made three of my own, mostly for me and Kimberly or else just for myself. The right column of my blog page on iGoogle now looks like this:

The budget is to help us keep track of where we're at for the month on our spending (as you can see it was a bit derailed this month by things I still plan on blogging about) as well as our savings ($50 a week for vacation and $15 a week each as allowance).

The wish list came about after I decided we would have our $15 a week to save up.

The 4000 footer list is just so that I can taunt myself. There are 48 of them that will be on the list some day...

On death.

2007-08-15T09:19:00.001-05:00

Like I said a couple of entries ago, I recently felt closer to my mortality than I ever have before. This brought about a feeling of discomfort that I've never tried to properly describe. I hope writing about it doesn't pass it along to those who would rather keep such things out of mind, so if that's you, just skip this entry.

The feeling I'm talking about is a sense of utter dread at the idea that my consciousness might cease to exist when I die. I'm very attached to being, after all. It is, of course, the pinnacle of doubt in my faith in God. Christ makes it very clear that we have eternal souls, that our death is by no means the end. Still there is a little part of me that is left to ponder the possibility that this is it. When I'm gone, I'm gone. And this idea scares me to my core; It scares me in a way that I can't properly describe.

Strangely enough, for me anyway, Kimberly doesn't share this feeling at all. It's not that her faith is impenetrable in a way that mine is not, its that the idea of ceasing to exist is fine for her--if it happens she won't be there to worry about it anyway. Even typing those words chills me. Getting close to the idea is hard for me.

I've decided to write about it now because I might have had a couple of small bits of revelation about it recently. Both are simple and I'm open to whether or not they are valid. First of all, when reading my brother-in-law's latest blog entry I starting thinking about this topic, and how it might be part of my spiritual maturity. When I have felt this way in the past, the Holy Spirit has often overtaken me in a way in which I again felt so sure of God's existence that it squelched my fears. Lately when I feel this fear no such thing has happened. Perhaps these feelings and doubts have been given to me as a test of faith, something of a spiritual barometer.

Secondly, just last night I thought of the words of Christ on the cross: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which mean "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me" (from Mathew 27:46). I am wondering if maybe some part of what Christ felt at this point, this separation from God, is very near to this feeling I sometimes have. This for me is a profoundly encouraging thought. Given who Jesus was and is, I'm quite certain that he never had an intellectual loss of faith, and neither have I ever had that problem. I think that logically, philosophically, the case for the existence of my soul far outweighs alternate explanations. What Christ had was an emotional and spiritual rift, as he sacrificed everything for us. At that point, he must have been flooded with this sort of dread. It would be a part of the doubt associated with His ultimate suffering.

What do you think about this interpretation? I'm open to the fact that I might be reading my situation into a passage about something else (though there is a case for some validity of God talking to us this way, too, I think). Does anyone share these feelings sometimes, or are most people more like Kimberly in this respect?

News and a Story

2007-08-08T08:45:00.000-05:00

News:

An epilogue of my last entry: I'm not dying! The dermatologist flatly said that my mole is of no concern at all. The slight raising that I've noticed is very common and in no way indicates possible malignancy.

As far as the toe goes, he also gave me confident assurances that it wasn't at all suspicious. He was immediately familiar with the condition I was concerned I might have and he let me know that my toe doesn't look anything like the early signs of it. He measured the mark that I have and said that I could keep monitoring it. He expects that it will move up my nail as the nail grows, or else fade away. He also said that even if it stays the same there is no cause for concern. I'll watch it closely, but it sounds like I'm pretty much in the clear. Now it is time for the long decompression from the stress I put myself under over the past few days. Phew.

Story:

Kimberly left a cliffhanger in her entry today, so I guess I'm obliged to tell the story.

I suppose it begins on Monday, when I went downstairs to deliver the rent check and tell our landlord that we'll be moving out October 1. He was even fine with us using our security deposit as the last month's rent, which is convenient. So the very next day we're contacted by his sister, who handles the finer administrative points of the renting process for our apartment. She has friends in town that want to view the apartment before they leave, which means things need to be in relatively good shape very quickly.

With that news I came home last night (on the day of our third wedding anniversary), practiced some Bach and ate some yogurt (my usual pre-gym snack). When Kimberly arrived we debated about whether we could still go to the gym when we had to do all the last minute cleaning and wanted to try to salvage a bit of time together on our anniversary. Since we had already eaten as if we were going to work out, and since I wanted to return Nathan's car that I had borrowed (another story all together) I decided that we should go to the gym anyway.

Kimberly followed me down the street toward the Keliher residence in her car, I in Nathan's. We made it down to Middlesex St. at the corner of Foster, when she pulled into the parking lot of Bain Pest Control, across Foster St. from Captain Jason's Pizza. I pulled in beside her to find that she stopped because of a flat tire. It was REALLY flat with a 2 inch nail going in, curving around, and coming back out.

No problem. She has a spare and a jack. We'd only lose 10 minutes or so. I jacked up the car and found that she was missing her tire iron (or at least it was nowhere to be found in her trunk, which wasn't totally orderly). Nathan's Honda had a different sized iron, so I zipped back up the street to get the one out of my Toyota.

I returned and took off the nuts. Trying to pull the wheel off of the hub was, however, a different matter. I banged with all my strength on the center of the hub, around the back of the wheel, through the spokes of the wheel, everwhere. It would not budge. I took Nathan's and my tire irons, wedged them in the wheel and against the hub to create a lever, and pulled so hard that I was bracing my legs against the side of the car. It felt as though the wheel were welded to the hub.

Okay, we have the old fall-back. AAA. We called in for roadside assistance and I suggested that we have a nice anniversary dinner at Captain Jason's while we wait. We walked over, me with a splitting headache that began earlier that afternoon (see my last entry, I'm sure it was semi-suppressed stress causing it), to Jason's and ordered some steak subs and fries. They were great! We ate outside on a picnic table overlooking Kimberly's disabled car, waiting for the tow-truck.

We finished dinner and made our way back over to the car. I continued to try to separate the wheel from the hub, becoming more and more convinced that the help that was on the way would try less hard than this and then want to tow it. If only I could get the wheel off, we could cancel the assistance and Kimberly could drive the car to work and we could arrange a more convenient time to change the tire. I called my dad (a few times) and his last desperate suggestion was to put the lug nuts half on and drive around the parking lot, forcing the wheel to separate from the hub as it turned. No luck. Like I said, it was as though it were welded on.

Now the story gets odd. Instead of the "45 minutes at the most" that it would take our tow-truck to arrive, it took an hour and a half (that isn't odd, it's par for the course). The driver was the unusual element. He immediately seemed to be in a very bad mood. He backed up his large flatbed tow-truck between Kimberly's car and Nathan's with excessive speed and force and sarcastically asked if would could have parked the two cars a little closer together.

His attempts to change the tire reaffirmed this initial impression. He turned on an air compressor, and eager to let him know exactly what this situation was, I told him that there was a nail in the tire, so he didn't need to try to put air in it. His response was, "did I say I was going to put air in it? Do you think I'm going to jack this up by hand? Hmph!" He went on to use a pneumatic jack to jack up the car. Around this time he made some other confrontational comment that I don't recall, to which I replied "Sir, I'm only trying to be cooperative." His response was to call me a wise-ass.

He took off the lug nuts and tried banging on the wheel with a rubber hammer. After 10 seconds of trying to loosen the wheel he said "Where ya bein' towed?"

Keep in mind that other than letting him know that I was trying to be cooperative, I gave no verbal, facial, or physical indication that his behavior was affecting me at all. I remained flatly cool in speech and only did or said what was necessary. He wanted me to tell him where he should tow the car. I told him Mechanics Direct. He scoffed about how he was supposed to know what that was, since he visits thousands of garages a month. His engine was loud so he was having trouble understanding me when while I pointed to Mechanics Direct, which was in sight. I moved closer to explain to him which of the buildings it was. At this point he threatened me with physical harm if I stepped closer to him.

He loaded up the car and drove it down the street. We followed in Nathan's. He plopped it down, crooked, by the garage door and then sped off without a word. We submitted the after-hours paperwork and deposited the key, and then moved the car into a proper spot, and went home, no gym, later than when we hoped to have our cleaning done.

I didn't dare ask the guy's name, but I made a point to remember his license number. When I went inside I immediately called back AAA and reported the highlights of what I just shared. The manager at the Merrimack Valley AAA that I spoke with was quite familiar with the towing company (M&S Towing, I think) and was aghast at what I had told him. He assured me that the matter would be taken care of.

Incidentally, our clean up was pretty speedy and we enjoyed the second half of our sandwiches with some Fresh Prince season 4 that I got Kimberly for our anniversary. It was certainly an anniversary celebration that we will always remember. (And thanks to my above stated news, I'm sure we will have so many more to celebrate in the future!) If you are ever in need of roadside assistance and you see MA license plate number 8945D approaching, it might be best to tell the driver to move on (assuming the fellow is allowed to continue operating that vehicle).

A worrisome situation.

2007-08-06T13:34:00.001-05:00

I've never been a private person, but neither have I ever had news quite of this nature to share. I thought about whether or not I should blog it, but I can find no reason not too, but all sorts of therapeutic reasons to do it.

Though our weekend was truly amazing, it had a blemish of worry. For as long as I can remember I've had a mole on my left arm. A few days ago I noticed that it was slightly raised. Not a huge deal. Worthy of a doctor's trip, but it looks truly unalarming. However, I also noticed (or re-noticed, since it's been there a few weeks now) a little brown line in my right big toe. I first noticed it (I think) a little while after the camping trip I wrote about a few entries back.

I did some research online, concerned with this unfortunate double suspicion and found that the toe problem matches very closely some descriptions of the early stages of acral lentiginous melanoma (a word of caution to the squeamish: this link has no pictures, but if you google the term you'll find all sorts of gruesome late-stage pictures of the condition). This is, encouragingly, the rarest type of skin cancer for Caucasians and no more dangerous than the normal sort. What is scary is the coincidence of finding both of these things together. That is very scary to me, since everyone knows that it's bad news when this stuff spreads.

So I was pretty much worried sick yesterday and this morning. Last night, we went out for an emergency dinner at Longhorn outside of our budget and diet to lift my spirits a bit, which it did (how could I resist some spontaneous fun time with my lovely bride!) My benefit package for work just kicked in last week and I don't have an insurance card yet. So this morning I had to call and get an interim ID number and find a primary care doctor. I went with Harvard Vanguard in Burlington, and luckily, my new doctor got me in today.

So what did the doctor have to say about the situation? I think the news was mixed. She was very unconcerned with the mole on my arm. It, in her opinion, raises no trouble flags apart from the fact that I say it has changed over the past few days. The toe, around which most of our discussion centered, she also seemed to want to dismiss. She interrogated me about my activity level while camping, and offered the theory that it might be blood. This, of course, is all good news. She did, however, schedule me an appointment with a dermatologist for Wednesday morning.

I say that this is mixed news because I am pretty skeptical about the blood theory. It has been there a while and looks too solid after all this time. Luckily, I'll find out more on Wednesday. So I'm still pretty nerved up. The evidence is now pointing a little more strongly to an unfortunate coincidence, but uncertainty abounds. It goes without saying that your thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. As I said at the top, this is new territory for us. Even if it is all in my head, I have never in my life felt so personally close to the idea of mortality.

Beaten to the Punch.

2007-07-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Kimberly just posted a blog entry with pretty much everything that I was thinking of writing about our weekend (though my own prose would have downplayed the kitten situation, I think). Just read hers instead.

In personal news, here's how I'm doing on my several points of improvement:

Exercise and calories - Today! We've started journaling the calories as of our breakfast today, and we're heading to the Campus Rec Center this evening. I'm really glad that Kimberly is on board with me for those things. It's the only way to keep myself going. (Thanks, darling!)

Budget - We started yesterday. Very conveniently, we both get paid bi-weekly, and they are on the opposite weeks, so we get a deposit every single week. That has enabled me to figure out our weekly allowances for everything: $50 a week for eating out/fun and entertainment, $75 for groceries, $50 a week goes into a vacation fund, all the bill money is set aside weekly, a check to the church every Sunday, and the rest goes into a general savings/non-periodic expense fund.

Time with God/Practice - I haven't had much luck here yet (though I have practiced every day). I think I'm going to partner with Ben on these things so that we can keep each other accountable. Maybe later this week or next week I can get into a more regular habit.

One night a week with Kimberly - I figured that this would be the easiest. It helps that we like hanging out with each other anyway. We've gotten out and spent time with each other several times in the few days since I posted my list.

Accountability

2007-07-25T07:19:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's been several weeks since I started my new job and even longer since I began my stressful job transition. Before that period started I was on a pretty healthy schedule as far as exercise and diet went. When things got rough at work some of that discipline went out the window. During my two weeks off I did develop a helpful habit of keeping up on the household chores when Kimberly wasn't around. Now this has faded. In the past couple of months I've been practicing my bass more than at any other point in my life, including when I was in college, but I've barely touched it this week. It's definitely time for me to hoist myself back up to par.

Here is the ambitious list of things that I want to develop or redevelop as regular disciplines in the next couple weeks:

1) Exercise/run 4-5 times a week.
2) Count and journal calories.
3) Keep a modest and accurate budget.
4) Spend at least a half an hour a day with God, in scripture, meditation, or prayer. (This would be a totally new discipline for me.)
5) Spend at least a half an hour a day playing my bass or another instrument.
6) Plan at least one night a week to be outside the house with the sole purpose of spending time with Kimberly (be it a 20 minute walk or a dinner date).

I mention these things here to have some semi-public accountability. I'll make sure to note my progress or failure here every week.

Wish me luck...

Checking in.

2007-07-23T11:50:00.000-05:00

I had a great weekend. We went to IKEA for the first time ever and bought some cool new stuff (Kimberly wrote about our trip in her latest entry too). We took it home and I rearranged the living room and the office, which was such a breath of fresh air after living with the same configuration for an entire year.

We picked up Harry Potter Seven, but I am still in the process of re-reading #6 so that I can be as up to speed as possible while finally finishing the series. I'm understandably anxious to get this book over with so I can start the one that I've been waiting to read for so long. I just got back from a half hour of reading and eating my lunch in the car. I'm down to the last 100 pages.

Otherwise life is going very well. Our small group just entered new and exciting phase of its existence (a fresh approach to there, just like with the apartment), the new job continues to be an amazingly good fit for me, and tonight we're going to renew our memberships to the UMass Lowell Campus Rec Center and start working out again.

We're still without a working DSL connection, which is frustrating, but we'll survive until we get connected again, somehow. Google wants us all to be connected all of the time. Too bad they haven't accomplished their goals yet. If they had we wouldn't have to stick the laptop in the bedroom window to check our email at night.

iGoogle Feeds

2007-07-19T09:33:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to share that iGoogle is a great way to keep up on everyone's blogs. You can click on "Add stuff" and then just type the address of your friends' blogs in and as long as they have an RSS feed (most do automatically) your page will update itself when their blogs are updated. Very handy.

Flickring

2007-07-18T09:20:00.000-05:00

We renewed our Flickr Pro account the other day, which allows us to store unlimited photos at their original quality on the web. We uploaded like crazy this weekend, and now our collection is up to date.

There is of course an endless amount of organizing and commentating that can be done. I think that the easiest and funnest way for us to share our photos with everyone is to make small photo sets with comments added and link directly to those from time to time. Here is a pilot example that I made last night. You can explore our entire collection, but this method will give a good overview of things that are important to us.

The forest through the trees.

2007-07-18T07:36:00.000-05:00

This Saturday I found myself 12 feet up in a tree (I think it was a yellow birch). My goal was to spend a half an hour figuring out what it means to "empty myself" before God so that I could hear him speak and then to do it.

My biggest observation of my time (of the act itself, that is) is that a half hour is nowhere near enough time to really bear fruit in an effort like that. At least not if one has no practice in this sort of contemplation. At no point did I reach a state anywhere near empty, which is not to say that it wasn't a worthwhile experience, just that it is hopefully more like a beginning to a journey than a singular event.

My process went something like this:

● My group all went our separate ways to begin our half hour alone. I ran off into the woods behind our campsite, across a marshy brook, and found my tree.

● I shimmied up to the lowest branch, and then climbed up to a fork in the tree that made for a good perch.

● I began my contemplation by trying to be aware of my surroundings rather than myself (or with myself as just another part of the surroundings). I could hear birds singing, squirrels and Austin rustling around, a bit farther off the sound of families at their campsites, and beyond that the sound of trucks racing down the highway.

● I started to feel all these things are part of the same earth. At first the people at the campground were a distraction, but soon they faded into the background of the world around me. Once I was at this point I could begin to feel myself as part of that material background as well.

● I could feel myself as part of the background except for my mind. I began to ponder the wonderful gift that God has given me in my consciousness that pierces the divide between the material and spiritual worlds. I worshiped God for his grace in this gift.

● The rest of my time was spent trying once again to remove myself from my mind, this time, though, removing my ego from my thoughts. It was this task that proved too much for so little time. As far as I might think I've traveled down the road to humility, it takes only a few moments to realize that I am the center of my universe almost all of the time. To recognize it for a while is wholly liberating.

I would love to make experiences like this common practice. The value of that time spent is so much higher than almost any other way that I might be spending it, so why not?

Camping!

2007-07-14T15:46:00.001-05:00

Kimberly and I joined the Havens and the Carrolls on an overnight trip to the DAR State Forest in Goshen, MA last night. We meet regularly to discuss Christian books and our thoughts about Christ, the church, and service. This trip as a group was to get away and have some time for individual reflection (and to spend some time together with food and a fire).

We passed through some pretty intense rain storms on the way,

We spotted a great rainbow on the other side

but when we arrived it was totally dry. Austin, John, and I foraged for some wood and got a pretty decent fire going. Kimberly, Missy, and Laura made us up some super tasty pizzas.

It was certainly great to get away for the night without any commitments or obligations. It was fun, as always, to build a nice fire, to sit in relative quiet, and to have a good excuse to just talk with friends.

Two Awesome Weekends

2007-07-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Two weekends ago, before I started the new job, Kimberly and I went to Keene, NH for exploring, camping, and hiking. We left Friday afternoon intending to camp for one night, but after setting up camp I decided that we needed an extra night there, so we reserved Saturday night as well.

Friday night we ate here:

A seafood place called Nick's. We couldn't resist. The food was actually really good.

The campground was gorgeous. The sites were big, riverside, and clean.

Saturday morning we headed to town and ate at a local diner, then went and did some hiking on Mt. Monadnock. This was the first time I've ever summited Monadnock twice in one week!

After the hike we showered and went back to town for dinner. We ate at the Margaritas in town (shameful that we went for a familiar chain instead of a local place, I know, but it was what we were really craving in the moment). Keene is a very cool college town, with an active main street complete with local shops. We bought a nice art print and some supplies, visited a musical instrument store, and a record store.

a yet-to-be-molded record bowl

Both nights we made a great campfire and had s'mores. Here are some shots from Saturday.

a single star on 8-second long time exposure. These are my hand movements and I tried to hold the camera steady without a tripod.

--------------------

This past weekend we went to the annual cookout at Kimberly's parents' camp in Northern Maine and Nathan and Priscila decided to come along with us! We left Friday night, stopping off in Portland for a late dinner, Yarmouth for a visit to Delorme and the world's largest revolving globe, and arrived at Kimberly's parents' house at 1AM.

Her name is Eartha. Kimberly and I always give her at least a nod on our way through in Maine.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Tim Hortons for breakfast. Nathan and Priscila were very excited for the opportunity, since Tim Hortons is a staple in Quebec where they lived previously, and it has expanded all throughout Maine, but there are none near us in eastern Mass. After breakfast Kimberly and Priscila went shopping while Nathan and I hiked Blue Hill Mountain 20 miles southeast of our hometown, Bucksport.

Nathan taking pictures on the summit.

The mountains of Mt. Desert Island

We met back at the house and then continued on an additional 100+ miles to the camp in Merrill, ME. We stopped off at an outlook with a view of Mt. Katahdin on the way. After the party we visited with Kimberly's family, had a huge campfire, and slept in tents.

We buried our ferret, Rocky, who passed away in January. I picked up Kimberly's little cousin's First Act accordion and worked out Amazing Grace for the ceremony.

The Katahdin outlook:

The campfire:

On Sunday we took all day to travel back, stopping at the Kenduskeag stream and our favorite bagel shop in Bangor, visiting my family in Bucksport, eating dinner in Augusta, and outlet shopping in Freeport.

It was the first time we had a chance to show our friends from Massachusetts our home state and it was great to see all the familiar places and people in a vicariously new light.

A quick update on the new job...

2007-07-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

Week one has been great! So far it seems that I'm a great fit for the position, my coworkers and boss are very nice and enthusiastic, and I'm picking things up quite quickly. I am still waiting for the catch.

Thanks to everyone that prayed for me and Kimberly as we went through this long transition. Things can now slowly come to a place of more stability and rest. Things certainly would have been much more difficult if not for our friends.

Lonely trip to Boston

2007-06-28T14:27:00.000-05:00

I went to the city today thinking that I would do a bit of shopping and then head for the Blue Hills to hike. My first problem was that instead of parking in a garage and taking the T I decided to search for a spot myself. It took about an hour and I was at least a 10 minute walk from Downtown Crossing. Street parking in Boston is such a gamble. I've had several trips where we found a spot in minutes, but all too many like this, where it becomes a long and frustrating exercise.

I went to Strawberries on Washington St. and cleaned house. I bought a couple of those discs I said that I wanted back a couple of blog entries ago, as well as a few others. Their used CDs were buy three, get one free.

After scouring all of the used discs at Strawberries I went down the street to H&M. H&M is my favorite clothing store because their size small clothing actually fits me and some of their clothes are so cheap I'll buy them before they're on clearance.

On my way back to the car it was very hot and I was starving so I got some soft serve.

Here's everything I bought:

just because I always have pics in my posts lately

Unfortunately, it was around 1PM when I was done shopping, not to mention 90+ degrees. I could have hit the trail in the Blue Hills, but by the time I was done I would be sweaty, exhausted, and most discouraging, caught in outbound rush hour traffic. I decided it was best to head back to Lowell.

I'd love to go out for a run, but it's still very hot out. I might have to settle for the exercise bike at home. In the mean time, Putin is getting crazier and crazier.

Morning trek to Mt. Wachusett

2007-06-27T13:59:00.000-05:00

This morning I made some coffee for Kimberly, saw her off to work, and then prepared for a hike on Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, MA. It was a nice drive on Rt. 2 through Fitchburg, not too far out of the way.

The temperature was in the high 80s at the trailhead, but a bit cooler in the shade of the wilderness. I took a fairly long loop suggested on this site: Conditioning Hikes Near Boston

Here is what I did (starting at the ski lodge in the upper right):

click to enlarge

The trip involved summiting the mountain twice, which was interesting and fine, since the total elevation gain was still under 2k. Here are my stats:

Distance: 6.2 mi
Time: 2h 10min
Elevation gain: ~1900 ft
Pace: 2.86 mph

And here are some interesting pics:

Balancing Rock, not far from the trailhead. A glacial feature.

examples of the hard to capture beauty of the ascent up Old Indian trail. It seemed to me that there were far more flat, flaky sedimentary rocks mixed in with the glacial igneous and metamorphics that are so prevalent throughout New England.

a closed up fire tower at the top. Had it not been so hazy I might have bothered to jump the fence and take a peak.

the Boston skyline should be in this shot, but the ozone levels were higher than I've ever seen.

Buying some previously stolen goods...

2007-06-27T13:38:00.000-05:00

Early last month I decided that it was best to re-import our entire CD collection into iTunes. I did this because we had some mp3s encoded at 128kbs, some at 160kbs, as well as some unprotected AAC at 128kbs. To standardize everything, upgrade the older lower bitrate stuff, and make everything compatible with my mp3CD player in the car, it all had to go.

The biggest issue with this was that though we no longer pirate music from anyone, we had a sizable collection of friend's files and even stuff I downloaded seven years ago in the Napster heyday. We came to the conclusion that even retaining these files was pretty immoral.

I deleted everything (save some non-stolen files and protected iTunes store AACs) and started from scratch.

Yesterday, I took a bunch of old CDs that we no longer wanted to Newbury Comics to cash them in. They took a few of them and gave me $39. I put every last bit of it toward repurchasing some of the music that we had been missing:

Jack Johnson - Brushfire Fairytales

Barenaked Ladies - Maroon

Ben Folds Five - The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

Beck - Midnight Vultures

I still very much miss:

The Shins - Oh, Inverted World

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Death Cab for Cutie - Something about Airplanes

and all five Dismemberment Plan discs

It feels really good to listen to this stuff knowing that the artist was finally compensated (not that I don't have serious issues with the state of the industry and the extremely questionable practices of the RIAA).

Mt. Monadnock made difficult.

2007-06-26T08:20:00.000-05:00

On Monday I took a trip to Mt. Monadnock. I've gone hiking here many many times (this is the second time this year), but I've never started from any trailhead other than the state park HQ.

I began at the Dublin Lake trailhead, north of Monadnock. It is 4.4 miles on the Pumpelly trail from the trailhead to the summit. After I reached the top, I went down the entire White Cross trail and across (mostly back up) the east face of the mountain on the Cascade Link, which then rejoined Pumpelly 3 miles from the trailhead.

My goal, since I was hiking solo, was to see how fast I could complete the loop. These are my results:

Distance: 10.28 mi
Time: 3h 50min
Elevation gain ~2500 ft
Pace: 2.67 mph

Some pictures:

a typical shot of the Pumpelly trail

a view of the summit with some hikers

a summit view of the Pumpelly trail extending from Dublin Lake on the left, all the way up the northern ridge of Monadnock

someone's home beside the Cascade Link trail

Cannon Mtn.

2007-06-22T10:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got up bright and early and went hiking with Ben on Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch State Park. It was a beautiful clear day and the trail was in great condition (it was the first time I've been mountain climbing this year when I haven't encountered any snow). We reached the summit in no time, even while taking a moderate pace.

Here are some photos from the trip:

Ben looking manly on the trail.

A view of I-93 from an amazing overlook near the summit.

A handy compass at the observation tower on the peak that indicates what mountain you're looking at.

Enjoying our time at the peak.

My time off so far.

2007-06-20T12:16:00.000-05:00

This weekend Kimberly and I went to the park to play some catch and I found the first four-leaf clover of my life.

--

Later on Sunday Kimberly's parents and grandparents came down to visit (mostly because Kimberly's little cousin was having surgery in Boston, but they stayed the night with us).

Kimberly's grandmother meeting Mr. Pink.

We all shared some cake (with homemade peanut butter frosting courtesy of Kimberly) and ice cream for my birthday.

--

Since then I've been playing music,

Bach cello suites

learning lots of chords on the uke

playing Starcraft,

performing iPod surgery,

and continually punishing Guacamole with cage time for scratching at the door to the closet, which he spends most of his waking time doing. The punishment seems to have no behavior-modifying affects, but I'll keep trying.

--

Yesterday I met Kimberly at her office for lunch. We drove down the street to Kimball's and observed some of the animals after we ate.

This was the alpha rooster. Twice the size of the others, he easily made it known that he was the boss.

After Kimberly went back to work I drove down to Boxborough and played some music with Ben. Later in the evening we went to dinner with the Jordans and then to our first Lowell Spinners game, courtesy of our old boss from PPM who got us the tickets.

--

My time off conclusion so far: I really enjoy working. Time off is great when Kimberly has it too and we can go explore the world, but I couldn't easily make the transition to a stay-at-home dad or anything. Music and games go a long way, but I feel pretty empty after a full day without much accomplished. I'll probably have a different perspective at the end of the two weeks when I've fully adjusted to this, so I'm trying to be cognizant of the unique blessing this time of recovery is, so that I won't take it for granted.

Highlights from my spring trips.

2007-06-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

In March Kimberly and I went to Pittsburgh so that she could present a paper. We stayed in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh

where we had a lot of great food (such as sushi)

at great prices (much cheaper than east coast cities) and we took in a bit of culture

including these sculptures, but also a play and walks through historic places.

Pittsburgh was a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't recommend it for a week without a car. It's not a walking city like San Francisco or even Boston or New York.

--

In April I went to Las Vegas for a week on business. It was my second National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention and my first one being in charge of the setup and operation. Due to a semi-scam from the agency we booked our hotel block with, we ended up at the Tropicana instead of the brand new Westin. It was mostly a painless downgrade, though the decor was exceptionally tacky.

Vegas was still Vegas, which I'm thoroughly sick of after about 30 minutes, but the show setup was a big success. Here's the finished booth:

Some other photo highlights:

Me with the international sales manager, Lars-olof Janflod.

Myspace-style picture from the hotel room.

The lobby of the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage.

--

The very day I returned via red-eye flight from Las Vegas we went picnicking

and hiking

with the Kelihers at a state park called Purgatory Chasm outside of Worcester. It is a beautiful natural feature that was quite accessible for a short hike.

I fell asleep in their car on the way back, but I was so glad to get some fresh air after being stuck in the mire of Las Vegas life for an entire week.

--

On the following week (near the end of April at this point) I got my daily job responsibilities back in order and then took a Wednesday off to go do some more serious hiking. I chose Mt. Moosilauke in the White Mountains since it was the only 4000 footer that Nathan had bagged without me last year.

I chose to attempt the steepest approach, only to find several feet of snow still on the ground.

The snowy hike was certainly grueling, but provided many beautiful sights.

I thought this natural ice sculpture was particularly inspiring.

As I approached the summit, the snow suddenly gave way.

The last several hundred feet were totally clear.

Ominous Mt. Washington in the distance.

I had a friend that I met on the trail snap a picture of me at the summit.

--

My next adventure was a Mt. Monadnock hike with the Kelihers, including Nathan's brother Josh who sold me my Corolla but who I hadn't had the chance to really hang out with.

--

We made it up to Maine once this spring. Here are some pics of us with my siblings.

--

Our last big adventure of the spring was a trip to the Adirondacks.

Kimberly picked me up at work on Friday, we ate some good dinner at the Melting Pot in Framingham, and then we headed west on the Mass Pike. We ended up in Lee, MA Friday night, where we parked at the end of a trail near the AT and camped by our car.

Saturday we had breakfast at a local diner and then continued into New York. We checked out Lake Placid and then went on our first overnight backpacking trip.

Here we are loaded up with our gear.

We camped on the side of Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in New York state.

Our tiny campsite we scouted out.

Due to Kimberly forgetting her brand new hiking boots and there being much more snow than we had anticipated, we didn't go for the summit. On the way back down it rained, so we broke out the ponchos.

After we got back to the car we drove to the ferry that goes from Port Kent, NY to Burlington, VT where we checked into a hotel to shower and relax for the evening.

On Monday we took a trip through Stowe, VT to eat at our favorite pizza place there, Pie in the Sky, and then went to the Cabot Creamery. Since it was Memorial Day the cheddar guys had the day off, so we didn't get to take the tour.

On our way back through New Hampshire we stopped in Tilton and met up with the Havens and Nathan K. who were on their way back from Montreal. We did a Nathan swap and he had dinner with us in Tilton and then joined us for the rest of the trip.

--

I'll try to keep up with my happenings a bit better from now on to keep the entry length down. The best thing I have to post this week is an amazing comic by Kimberly and Shannon, courtesy of the built in camera and software in Kimberly's new MacBook.

(click to enlarge and admire)

An attempt to resurrect the blog.

2007-06-07T22:31:00.001-05:00

Okay, I haven't written in a long time, but tonight is as good of a time as any to start up again.

Both Laura and Ben had student concerts tonight and the Athanases are getting ready for their big day, so we cancelled small group and had a get-together at our place instead. We picked up some delicious Broadway pizza to share with the Kelihers, the Astolfis, and the Butzs.

After dinner the girls did some needlecraft while the guys played music together. I've never had such a long informal session with more than one other person. We did some jazz songs and a few jams on random progressions.

After everyone else left, Nathan had his way with the camera built into Kimberly's new computer:

And then there's a happy family picture:

The fun never stops in the Pye household.

Over the hump...

2007-03-25T17:33:00.001-05:00

...of my work marathon before we leave on vacation this Wednesday.

Yesterday morning Kimberly and I got up bright and early in order to get to Rocking Horse Studio in Pittsfield, NH by 9:00AM. I delivered some 1032A speakers that they purchased from us and measured and calibrated them in their control room. Though I'm quite familiar with our MLS software, this was the first time that I visited a client for a calibration by myself (Kimberly was my lovely assistant). Everything went well and it was great to put my acoustics knowledge to practice and show the engineers there how their speakers were interacting with their control room.

After we finished up there we went a couple of towns up to Tilton, to the Tilt'n Diner and then the outlet stores. I got a new light jacket at Wilson's for a wicked deal, and Kimberly got some new dressy shirts for the conference.

Today I got up bright and early once again and went to worship band practice and church. After second service I stopped by the house to pick up some food and then went down to Acton to the Wellspring Sound for a recording session. I engineered a three song demo for a young operatic tenor with his teacher accompanying on piano. It was a ton of fun to be back in the studio, especially after taking a half hour or so to refamiliarize myself with the nuances of the setup there.

So now I have two working days before our vacation to Pittsburgh, and I'm expecting them to be long ones. Since all of our freight for our next trade show in April will be shipping the week that I get back, I have to have everything packed before I leave on Tuesday, which is no small task. I'm feeling much better after finishing everything exciting and stressful I had lined up this weekend though.

In other news, our ram overlords are closer than you might think.

Back to the blog.

2007-03-18T13:32:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while since I've had an entry. I'm not sure if I ever deluded myself by thinking that I would have the discipline to update my blog regularly. I think that the past six or seven years of my life has been a steady battle against the unmotivated person I was by nature and nurture. That being said, I'm much more proactive than I was back in the dark woods of Maine...

Things are going well lately. I've been running just about every day since joining the school gym a couple of weeks ago. At work I'm gearing up for the first big trade show of the year. Still diligently learning what it means to be a leader in our small group. Kimberly and I are always a bit too busy, but we're doing well to capture those moments of togetherness that dot our weeks.

I just finished The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, which was one of my favorite Lewis books (though there are a dozen great pieces by him that could contend for that honor). Tony and I had a great discussion about Christian influence on the world and how C.S. Lewis set such a unique example for those of us who are in no way extroverted. Tony pointed out that Lewis reached more unbelievers with his message that almost any other Christian of the last century, but he used none of the methods that are commonly taught to evangelical congregations. Rather than engaging strangers and acquaintances with a verbal appeal to faith, Lewis spent much of his life alone, becoming a greater and greater scholar, never ceasing to study, to think, to learn, to write. Through the perfection of his skills, so many have been and continue to be touched and moved.

So as I make plans with Kimberly and the Havens to begin a study on influence with unbelievers with my small group, I find myself very sensitive to these new insights. I'm not sure how this will influence our curriculum, but be sure that there will be no all-too-familiar discouraging talks on how we should be as bold as Peter when God made some of us to be influential in a totally different way.

Yay

2007-03-06T12:26:00.000-05:00

I'm filled to the brim with a sense of self-worth:

Feeling renewed

2007-03-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I paid for a three month membership to the UMass Lowell rec center and Kimberly and I worked out there. I even went back today after church while Kimberly went to go copy-edit the school newspaper. Over the past few weeks I've been bundling up and running outside sporadically, but since we got a bunch of snow that blocked parts of my normal route, I've been uninspired. The imperative of having paid for the privilege to work out should be a nice boost of incentive.

I'm also feeling a sense of renewal in other areas of my life. I've practiced the bass nearly every day this past week, working on scales, jazz lines, and some James Jamerson transcriptions. Kimberly and I also had a very spiritually revitalizing time at the prayer and worship night at the church on Friday night. Having the chance to pray in groups with other believers for the unity and well-being of our church body was amazing.

Of course, with every period of refocus, some things that had been going well get taxed. I've had trouble finding time to read lately, and I have about twenty pages left of "The God Who is There" by Francis Schaeffer. I don't think that God ever intended for us to settle so much into routine that we feel as though we're achieving every beneficial activity that we could be pursuing. Time management, sacrifice, and prioritization are continual disciplines that we must practice all our lives.

Another great weekend

2007-02-25T17:43:00.000-05:00

I've been slowly recovering from that crazy nearly sleepless night on Thursday. This weekend I've had the chance to sleep in both days (I had to get up at 8AM this morning for worship band practice, but we went to bed pretty early).

Yesterday Kimberly and I got up and had breakfast together, and then I went to Greg and Marie's to help with bathroom renovations, along with John. We successfully replaced their old light blue toilet with a nice new and modern one. They're fixing things up in preparation to sell their place later this year.

After we finished up there, John and I went back to my apartment and picked up Kimberly and Laura and went up to Nashua. Early last week, John read a Penny Arcade entry that was eerily reminiscent of Funworld and decided that we had to make a trip. Spending $20 on tokens gets you an extra $7 worth free, so each couple contributed $10 and the fun began. Highlights included spending six tokens each on this huge space shooting game in which Kimberly's half of the projected screen was out of focus, and weaving through huge crowds of teenagers and their kids. But serious, it was pretty darn fun. Dinner was at Tio Juan's Margaritas in downtown Nashua.

Today was church and then Kimberly made Thai noodles with chicken for lunch. The weather was so nice that we took an hour walk around the Highlands. After playing some Zelda on the Wii I joined Kimberly at her 3-10 shift at PPM.

I could use prayer for peace from my recent anxieties and for strength and humility for times ahead. I do feel like things are looking up, so thanks to everyone who has remembered me in their prayers lately.

It's 2:15AM and I find myself awake and contemplative...

2007-02-23T02:19:00.000-05:00

Stress related insomnia :-/

So I've decided to go back to school, one way or another. Most people with bachelor's degrees go on to careers, or post-graduate studies, or both. I am inclining rather strongly toward the initially less lucrative, counter-cultural second bachelor's degree. Many considerations have gone into this decision and I'd like to lay them out for my own benefit.

The first vital step is examining my current degree: Bachelor of Music, Sound Recording Technology, Magna cum laude. This degree is presented as being not of the trade school, instructional sort, but rather as conceptual and theoretical. That is, in fact, exactly what it is. I did not finish the program with total understanding of the workings of a professional music recording studio, but rather with a foundation that allowed me to adapt and quickly comprehend a host of audio related concepts. This wonderful sounding truth is exactly where I find myself in trouble.

At this point in my life, I'm on the verge of regret over choosing and completing this degree. I cannot, however, bring this sentiment to its conclusion. I do not regret pursuing a recording degree. I love this art, and I am proud to have worked so hard to be a part of it. If I do regret anything about my tertiary education thus far, it is that I didn't sooner understand the state of my industry, sometimes ignoring signs about my personality or direct but sparse warnings from others.

The state of my industry is such that the barriers to being an architect or pioneer of the technology are too great for my degree to bridge. The signs about my personality were that though I love recording, I'm fundamentally not a producer, but a conceptualist. The warnings from other similarly minded people were that if they could do it all over, they would have a double major in recording and proper engineering.

Though proper engineering will forever remain a fundamental component of my industry, a trend that began decades ago, digital audio, has come to totally dominate. More and more functions that were once in the domain of mechanical and electrical engineers are now the brainchildren of computer programmers.

So I find myself craving entry into a world that is just out of reach. My solution is to take a cue from this industry trend toward bits over circuits and supplement my education with a second foundation: computer science. The end result of this huge undertaking will be that I'll be in a rather elite position of being intimate with both sides of the industry, which is the point at which I will truly find myself at home in professional audio.

Winter hiking!

2007-02-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

This morning Nathan and I went up to Peterborough, NH to do some winter mountain climbing. We decided to attempt Pack Monadnock and North Pack Monadnock, in Miller State Park. Though we've done some hiking in Franconia Notch in early spring and late fall, this was our first real winter excursion.

At quarter of seven this morning, the weather.com reading for Peterborough was four degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of -16. When we reached the trail head a bit before 9:00AM, the temperature was about the same. To our surprise, there was another hiker in a pickup truck preparing for the climb.

Shortly after beginning our ascent, we noticed that our gear was actually sufficient! Though the temperature was very cold, we were quite comfortable. Through the day I came to decide that the most crucial piece of gear I was missing was gaiters, which prevent snow from getting one's boots, socks, and pant legs wet.

It was a beautiful day! The sky was so clear that we had no problem at all immediately seeing Boston from the fire tower atop Pack Monadnock. After a short break there we continued on down the saddle that separates this mountain from North Pack. To our surprise, a few minutes into this leg of the hike we came to the end of the packed snow. No one had attempted to traverse the saddle since the last snow fall, early last week. So the next and longest part of the hike was spent taking turns in the lead, breaking the snow and taking care to follow the trail blazes.

So we continued on to North Pack Monadnock, ate some snacks and some hot coffee, and then circled back the way we came. It was surprising how challenging the snow made the ascending portions of the hike. It felt like we had experienced quite a bit more elevation gain than we actually hiked. Going down, though, was a blast. It is so easy to run down with a cushion of snow to break your fall, should you slip.

On a whole it was a great experience, and a decent benchmark to teach us about preparedness for future, more serious winter hikes.

Time: approx. 5 hours. Distance: 8.3 miles. Elevation gain: approx. 2030 feet. Lowest temperature observed: -4°F (approx. -25°F wind chill with 20 mph wind gusts).

Me with Mt. Monadnock in the background.

Finally an update

2007-02-17T22:53:00.000-05:00

This weekend has been very restorative so far.

Today we slept in, had a great breakfast, and then went up to Nashua where Kimberly had an eye doctor appointment. We stopped into Trader Joe's and bought some frozen food for the week to come, as well as some Harpoon IPA flavored cheddar cheese from Cabot, which is strangely amazing.

We then had lunch at On the Border to celebrate seven years of being together (it was seven years ago today that Kimberly finally said "yes" in a conversation on AOL [instant messaging, before the stand-alone Instant Messenger was popular]). We shared a fajita plate, which was enough to stuff us both.

Later in the day we made it back home where Kimberly took a nap and I played Zelda on the Wii for the first time in over two months, which I understand is shameful. We had some dinner and watched the first half of Seven Samurai, until it started skipping in our Playstation 2, which is a poor DVD video player. We had to switch over to the last couple of episodes of disc four of season one of Lost, which now has us completely hooked.

I can only hope that the last couple of days of the long weekend work out as well as this one. It is encouraging to finally have a proper day of rest.

http://drawergeeks.com/Kid_Creatures/Kid_Creatures.html

Cogito, ergo sum.

2007-02-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

Tony and I are in an ongoing carpool discussion about the duality of the mind and the physical universe, as it relates to information theory, and the logical conclusions thereof. I thought it might be helpful to write down my thoughts on the the subject of this duality.

The physical universe is, by the standards of physical law, self sustaining. (This standard is not, of course, what I believe to be a complete world-view, which includes an active and present God sustaining creation at all points, but by this I mean that these physical laws, as far as they go, are probably enough to account for a complete closed system.) The universe obeys physical law. The subject of the origin of these laws does not need to enter this argument, only that they are observed to be a thorough and complete description of "what the universe does."

The human mind, however, is a complete oddity in this scheme. If the universe were truly such a closed system then we would have no basis to believe that consciousness (and with it morality) were any more than an illusion. What we observe introspectively is an absolute reality of the mind. No person can live as though they were an unconscious machine. Without delving deeply into a philosophic quagmire, the practical absurdity of man as a physical law abiding machine should be, if we are at all honest with ourselves, totally apparent. Likewise, even in our age of moral and intellectual relativism, not even the most die-hard naturalist (in this case, someone who believes that the physical universe is in fact a closed system) cannot live as if they had no absolute moral foundation.

So it seems that we cannot get rid of this oddity in the universe: the mind. If we accept this, it is helpful to examine how the mind differs from the physical universe. The mind, of course, differs from the material world in its immateriality. Thought does not have weight nor does it occupy space. The mind is rational, whereas the universe is a network of cause and effect chains. The mind is moral. It has laws and imperatives that do not and cannot apply to the physical world.

The real question is how these two exclusive entities interact. My thoughts are that the human mind invades the closed physical system of the universe through the human brain. The brain is a conduit, so to speak, or a transducer. When our brains are damaged or not functioning at their peaks (e.g. when we're tired, hungry, fatigued, intoxicated, etc.) it is not the mind that is disabled, but the brains transitive functions. The only way that the brain affects the mind is in our ability to analyze the physical universe through our senses. Our brains respond physically to physical stimuli, and the mind captures these stimuli and translates them into information.

Information is, in my system, totally mental. No information exists apart from the mind. The physical universe is real. It is an absolute. It exists. Information concerning it, though, is not woven into its independent and closed existence, but rather is woven into this separate and adjacent reality of the mind.

Through this understanding, and only by these conclusions, I find ideas such as PCs that will one day become sentient, and the universe containing proto-conscious tendencies that are substantiated in the human brain to be incomplete and incompatible with reality. There are wonderful and coherent conclusions to which my system will lead (not the least of which is the relation of our mind-over-matter duality to Biblical miracles,) but these ideas are certainly excluded.

Monday

2007-02-12T11:59:00.000-05:00

Wow, I actually finished everything on my list for yesterday evening. I think I was partially motivated by the fact that I wrote it down here. Taxes looked scary for a while, as Kimberly had an improper amount taken from her check at both of her jobs early in 2006, but I found an educational credit that she hadn't been eligible for in the past that she could take this year, so we'll be getting a decent refund!

I also had the chance to check out a bit more of a PHP tutorial last night. I've recently decided that I'm going to go back to school to get a second bachelor's degree, this time in computer science. Any survey of the music industry will reveal the host of opportunities that this sort of degree could provide, and the deeper I get into this industry, the more compelled I am by acoustic research and product development.

I've begun studying PHP in particular not for these ends, but because (with the invaluable help of Tony Astolfi) I've been working on an idea to help increase the transparency of the warehouse at my work. If we had a web app that could interface with our printed product codes, it would be very easy to communicate the location of any item in the warehouse.

This evening we're picking up a book for one of Kimberly's classes at the Lowell Public Library and then heading out to do some shopping. It is looking like Wednesday will be our first full evening staying in since last Monday. Making proper use of the time we are given is a constant challenge.

Stand plate, anyone?

Entry One

2007-02-11T15:58:00.000-05:00

Today started with worship band practice. The orignal plan for today's service was to have two worship sets, one led by Rhesa with the full band, and one with Damon and no drums or electric guitar. Unfortunately, Rhesa was out with a sick child, so it was an impromptu practice of repatching the stage and hurrying through a few of our songs (with new Damon-friendly keys.) Despite this hectic start, I felt like things came together exceptionally well. I played in a very worshipful state, which is a blessing for someone who too often ends up focusing on the parts and not the purpose.

I just got back from a run. We're about a week into our new (old) healthy lifestyle of counting our calories to prevent overeating and exercising whenever possible. It is truly amazing how quickly one begins to feel better after returning to this sort of lifestyle. I lost a couple of pounds in one week (thanks to the loss of that great initial easy-to-burn and water-heavy glycogen reserve), which allowed me to wear some clothes that have been in the closet for a few months and gave me a ton of much needed extra energy.

On the agenda for the evening:

-Pick up groceries, etc.
-Cook dinner and bring it to Kimberly at her work.
-Do the taxes (woo).
-Do the budget.
-Prepare for small group.

Funny