When the journal started, and still to this day, the idea of putting these updates online seemed a bit presumptuous – why should anyone care about day-to-day details of what I’m up to? – but in retrospect it’s nice to have a personal chronicle that records the path that I’ve followed, and it’s also kind of cathartic to sit down and go through the exercise of putting together entries whose goals are to give a status of where things stand and how they got there. Eight years ago I wouldn’t have guessed that this journal would last as long as it has, but today I’m glad it did and hope it’s still going strong for many years to come.

While I’m still a fan of sleeping in the Subaru and living the grungy backpacker lifestyle, the passage of time has made a few additional options possible, and a night at the Ritz clearly has its appeal. Audrey and I had a ridiculous dinner of crab and dim sum on the 24th floor overlooking downtown, and the following day I enjoyed my second-ever massage from a masseuse who looked like Britney Spears (circa 2001) and would have made a lesser man cry as she attacked any trace of non-relaxation in my back and shoulders. After the short drive home we hosted my brother, who arrived late in the evening, and the next day turned into a Fourth of July grill-fest and wine-drinking event highlighted by New Zealand’s finest $10 wine and a cornucopia of seared veggies.

While these events may not end up as epic memories in the way that a trip to Antarctica or the Galapagos might, they’re nevertheless one more page in the future autobiography (“Ryan Holliday: A Cautionary Tale”) to be released at some point 40-70 years hence.

One item of note from the past month that likely no one but me will find interesting is that JAMWiki 0.9.0 was released on June 21 after over seven months of development. While those in my immediate circle tend to stare blankly back at me when I introduce JAMWiki as something I spend my free time on, it’s still been a really rewarding side project, and with more than 36,000 downloads since the project started it’s actually been something that has been of use to a number of individuals and (increasingly larger) organizations. Although some of the more ambitious plans for the project have been slowed due to working full-time, I’ll make the prediction that before the end of the year there will be news to report that will be of interest even to those folks who typically see JAMWiki and enthusiastically state “It looks really cool! What’s it for?”

Before continuing the story, for anyone visiting the Grand Canyon don’t try to hike down and back in a single day. The park warns against doing this hike for a reason, but Aaron and I are both in pretty good physical condition, and more relevant, we’re both stupid people.

The route we chose took us down the Kaibob Trail to the Colorado River and then along the river before we started back up the Bright Angel trail. This is where things got interesting. Nature decided that ascending five thousand vertical feet wasn’t enough of a challenge, so she threw temperatures at us that were twenty degrees above normal. Hiking through the desert, uphill, when it’s 105 degrees in the sun isn’t an ideal scenario for someone who likes to vacation in Alaska and the Antarctic. Aaron and I were both suffering by the time we got back to the top, but sadly I was the one in worse shape. Despite having to stop frequently to rest my spasming quads this one will go into the books as a draw, which puts the current all-time record at 4-2-1. Next time, however, we’ll go in March when it’s guaranteed to be cooler, hike it twice, and put two more ticks in the win column.

First, the final standings in the NCAA basketball tournament pool. After the disastrous 2006 showing I had nowhere to go but up, and despite a somewhat terrifying late charge by Audrey (who chose Duke because it sounded like a tough name, as in “put your dukes up”) the final standings were as follows:

1. Ryan: 720 points (percentile: 81.2%)
2. Audrey: 680 points (percentile: 75.9%)
3. Lebron James: 630 points (percentile: 64.7%)
4. President Obama: 590 points (percentile: 51.1%)
5. Dick Vitale (world famous basketball analyst): 500 points (percentile: 21.1%)

Second, after living full-time in LA for five years the payoff finally came: Audrey took me, her friend Lauren, and Lauren’s boyfriend Neil to the invitation-only Magic Castle in Hollywood. Her friend Lou Serrano is a magician, and getting in requires an invitation from a club member, so this one has been a hard night out to schedule. For anyone not already in awe of the place based solely on the fact that it’s called the “Magic Castle”, the night was very much like it sounds: there is a strict dress code (jacket and tie), you eat a nice dinner, and then you’re free to explore a castle-like building with roaming magicians and several theaters ranging in size from 20 to 200 seats. Yeah, I know, pretty much what every person on the planet has dreamed of since they were two years old.

Apparently the Magic Castle is something like a Hall of Fame for magicians, and being asked to perform is a pretty big honor, so the quality of magic was unreal – Lou was talking to us after his show, and during the conversation handed me five singles, and literally when I handed them back they were hundreds. Not a clue how it happened, although my operating theory is that he can stop time, take out his wallet, switch the bills, and then start time up again. On another occasion we were waiting in line to get into a show and a roaming magician did a card trick where he shuffled a deck, pulled out ten random cards, and the numbers on the cards corresponded to the cell phone number of the guy watching the trick. Again, no clue, but my money is on time warps. The evening ended well after midnight with the Japanese guy from Heroes snaking me in the valet line, but the joke was on him when my car still showed up first. Yet another memorable Audrey-arranged evening.