Ryan's Journal

After another quixotic four months the contract at Backcountry has ended for the second time. With the day job gone time is now available for side projects – the TODO list that is posted on the fridge is imposing, but I’m anticipating attacking it with furious gusto and incomparable determination over the coming days, while simultaneously engaging in frequent catnaps and large amounts of snacking.

Also, as a preemptive strike against the number one most likely question: yes, there is a trip planned. More accurately, Audrey planned a trip and we’ll be off in about a week. Pictures will be posted, and the three-entries-a-month goal should be easily reachable for June. Because it’s fun to pretend I’m mysterious the destination will remain a secret for now, but provided all goes as planned the question “How many whale sharks have you seen in your life” will soon have an answer that is much larger than “one“.

The second Brother Day took place over the weekend in San Diego. The quick and dirty summary:

• I headed down to San Diego on Saturday night and the Goob and I went for a run around the bay before sitting down to a meal of Thai food and a hatefully respectful showing of Get Him to the Greek.
• The thought-provoking question of the weekend was “What person, real or fictional, wanted something the most?” After extensive consideration of everything from Woody’s quest for a twinkie in Zombieland to the terminator’s relentless pursuit of Sarah Connor, Gollum’s never-ending mission to regain the Ring emerged as the victor.
• Sunday was spent at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The park’s lorikeet exhibit was a highlight, and we arrived early enough that the lorikeet hunger meter was still on extreme. Also, due to the open air habitats the park turns out to be a great place for native California animals, so in addition to the giraffes, elephants, tigers, red river hogs and Eric the baby rhino, the park was the best viewing of egrets I’ve ever seen, and also home to somewhere around sixty-three billion baby toads.

In November 2004 I was staying in a converted farmhouse on tiny Pebble Island within the Falkland Islands. Including guests there were probably no more than a dozen people on this island, and the majority of the visitors were a quirky bunch of old British folks who explained to me that Venice Beach was the place to go for birdwatching in LA. At the time I looked at them as if they’d just told me about the great nightlife in North Dakota and went about ravenously consuming the steak pie that had been set in front of me.

Fast forward almost seven years, and the Venice Beach Pier is one of the places Audrey and I are most likely to head to for an evening walk. Last Saturday night our company on this walk included an egret who was fishing in the canal, a flock of pelicans that were plunge diving for mackerel, a heron that was intently observing the pier’s activities from atop a street lamp, and a few dolphins that were out enjoying the twilight. While it’s in no way comparable to areas along the Central Coast or even a place like La Jolla, I’ve got to admit that those crazy Brits might have known what they were talking about.

Audrey and I watched The Social Network a couple of weeks ago (good flick, by the way) and it was a reminder of what it was like to have the time and energy to focus on an idea and try to make it happen. Every software engineer that you’ve ever heard of became famous at a young age: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs were all famous by the time they were in their mid-twenties, and a major reason for it was because it was at that point in their lives that they had the focus and available time to take a chance on a big idea. They were probably also all single, but for software engineers that’s a separate, and likely unrelated, issue.

One major reason why older software engineers tend to make less of a splash is the same as it is for many jobs that require creative energy – once you’re spending 8-10 hours a day in a cubicle working for a company it’s terribly hard to find motivation to devote any significant amount of outside time to a similar endeavor. At the same time, quitting a good-paying job to pursue an idea that likely won’t pan out doesn’t make a lot of sense when weighed against the risk-reward formula that scientific types are ever-so-good at calculating. The end result is that by the mid-twenties a good software engineer is probably employed in a well-paying job that sucks up vast amounts of motivation that might otherwise have been spent founding Microsoft or Facebook.

It’s also for this reason that many older software engineers aren’t in as much demand as some younger ones – if you aren’t constantly learning new things and experimenting with new ideas, it’s tough for a company to justify paying 2-3 times more than what a young engineer might garner. While there are some very notable exceptions, software engineering seems primarily to be the province of the under-forty crowd.

The struggle between pursuing personal projects and working steadily is one that I’m given a chance to revisit whenever a job ends or a contract comes up for renewal. While it would be naive to believe that every idea will grow into something incredible if just given enough time and energy (the dotcom era drove that lesson home hard), there are always a million little projects waiting to be explored that, like any great unknown, are likely to generate at least a handful of interesting results. As a result, and understanding that in my field of work complacence often replaces excitement and innovation, I’m looking at my current work situation and doing some evaluation. While the ability to pay rent and buy groceries cannot be under-appreciated, the prospect of having some time to work on my own projects and potentially produce something new is an exciting one. The next few months may be interesting.

I was trying to think of where I’ve been on this date for the past several years, and was surprisingly able to nail it down fairly exactly from old journals and emails. This may not be interesting to anyone but me, but IMHO I’ve been lucky to have such a wide range of experiences during the past 14 years:

• 1998 On April 24 I was in my final year at Case Western, and on this particular weekend I was with the track team in Atlanta for the conference championships where I was running the 10,000 meters in insanely hot conditions. I’d broken up with a girlfriend two weeks prior, was finishing up classes, preparing for the final races of the track season, and planning a six-week trip to Europe for the summer. Life was moving fast.
• 1999 I was living in Oakland and working at Andersen Consulting’s research group in Palo Alto as the dotcom era was really picking up steam. My car had died a dramatic death during rush hour on the Dumbarton Bridge two days prior, and I was two days away from purchasing the best car ever. Other activities at the time included planning my first trip to the Galapagos Islands for the year’s end.
• 2000 After a long stint working a job in Phoenix I had been sent to Singapore and was just finishing my first week there. The project was only supposed to be for three weeks, but it ended up being more than a year before I was back in the US full-time.
• 2001 After two projects in Singapore and a short job in Korea I was assigned to a project in Kuala Lumpur, but due to delays I ended up taking some vacation and going to Cambodia and Indonesia. April 24 found me sunburned while exploring the temple complex of Angkor Wat. Two days later while flying to Indonesia (via Singapore) I got the worst case of food-poisoning in my life and ended up living in the airport for 24 hours, too sick to even move.
• 2002 After taking my dad to Egypt in March I was back at work in Los Angeles doing a job for Disney. A month later I would get dominated when a co-worker convinced me that I could do the San Diego marathon without training.
• 2003 After quitting my job at Accenture the previous August I had traveled to Alaska and then taken a contracting gig at Warner Brothers in Burbank where I was spending my lunch hours roaming the movie studio lot. I was running more regularly than at any time since college, and a second trip to the Galapagos was looming in May.
• 2004 I was back at Warner Brothers for another job after having fulfilled a lifelong dream the previous January by traveling to Antarctica.
• 2005 A month-long road trip through the Southwest had just concluded, and I returned to my rented room in Lafayette with no concrete plans for the future. April was the mid-point of an eleven month stretch without work that didn’t end until August, when I went back to LA and rented a room from a girl named Audrey.
• 2006 I moved to Culver City in December and visited the Antarctic again in January, and on this date was just a few weeks away from what would end up being my final trip to the Galapagos. Despite not having worked in a while I traded the car that had shepherded me through the Far North and on many, many road trips for a new model on April 25, a decision that actually led me to get a bit nervous about money and start looking for a job.
• 2007 April found me five months into a contract with DirecTV, a job I would continue for three years. The previous June saw the creation of JAMWiki, an open source project I’m continuing to work on today.
• 2008 My brother and I were spending more time together since he had moved to nearby Palmdale, and April saw us on a fishing trip in which he spent the entire voyage curled up in the fetal position barfing while I never ended up putting a hook in the water.
• 2009 After going to the Dominican Republic with Audrey to snorkel with whales in March, April 24, 2009 was spent flying to Florida for my grandmother’s 90th birthday. The following day was spent at Cape Canaveral looking at spaceships, something I’m known to do from time-to-time, followed by an evening at Disneyworld’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (yes, I am a dork).
• 2010 After leaving DirecTV in December I took a contracting job at Backcountry.com, but late April found me away from work and hiking through the Grand Canyon with my brother.

Since the only real excitement thus far this month has been a (*ahem*) roundabout flight to Salt Lake City nine days ago, it seems that another subject for a journal entry is needed. While spending a very, very long time at the airport I started going through photos from the Autumn 2009 road trip and found a few more that I kind of liked:

There is a line in the James Clavell book Shogun that I’ve always liked:

“Always remember, child,” her first teacher had impressed on her, “that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort.”

In a world where the country is fighting three wars, the economy is looking at its third straight bad year, and the environment is seemingly headed to ruin, it can be easy to overlook good news, but there are a lot of things going on that are worth feeling positive about:

• After disappearing for nearly one hundred years, 62 miles of the Owens River is now flowing again. In another victory for the Eastern Sierra, after losing forty-five feet of water depth and 99% of its ducks and geese, Mono Lake is slowly being restored, and with record snowfall this year it should gain a few more feet of water depth. In both cases the original devastation was due to diversion of water for LA, but for the most part the restoration has been done without diminishing LA’s water supply.
• Habitat loss has had a damaging effect on migratory birds, but the Nature Conservancy is working with farmers in Washington state to allow flooding of fallow fields during bird migrations, providing stopovers for wildlife without affecting the land’s usefulness for crops. Early results show improved bird habitat and increased soil fertility. Similarly, the conservancy also restored twenty-five square miles of floodplain in Louisiana by removing a levee, apparently helping to reduce the downriver severity of a major flood in 2009 as a result.
• After years of delay, the Boeing 787 will finally launch later this year. It offers 20% better fuel efficiency than comparable older planes, meaning that a flight that previously would have burned 10,000 gallons of jet fuel will now be using 2,000 gallons less. At the same time it’s a quieter plane, which is nice for those of us living in the flight path of a large airport.
• An eradication of brown rats on South Georgia Island is underway. While this is obviously bad news for the rats, since arriving with whaling ships in the early 1900s they have decimated many of the native nesting birds, and with the retreating of glaciers on the island it is inevitable that they will spread and destroy even more bird colonies. Thus, the prospect of their removal is a hopeful one for the future recovery of the island’s amazing native wildlife.
• In 2008 LA approved a sales tax increase to fund transportation projects over the next thirty years. The mayor then proposed accelerating those projects through the 30/10 plan, in which LA would borrow funds from the federal government against the future sales tax revenue in order to implement in ten years what would have taken thirty. Since building rail, highways, and subways in 2011 dollars is cheaper than doing it in the future, and since there are immense benefits to having better transit options now rather than later, AND since this is a loan that is backed by a revenue stream that has already been voter-approved, the plan is moving forward quickly and seems to be supported from both the left and the right, with those of us living in LA set to benefit from much-needed infrastructure improvements in the coming decade.

It’s nice to step back occasionally and get a reminder of why, despite constant predictions of doom and gloom, the future continues to be a hopeful one. The comments link is available for anyone wanting to spread some additional positivity, as good news should definitely be shared.

The first of many Brother Days took place last weekend with a trip to San Clemente (roughly the halfway point between Culver City & San Diego). Seafood was eaten, baseballs and basketballs were thrown, and minor injuries were sustained. All-in-all a smashing success. Another highlight of the day was a new game – to answer the question “how hard is acting”, we decided the best option was to come up with lines and deliver them; it is apparently tougher to be a pirate, checkout clerk, or random pedestrian than might have previously been suspected.

Following Brother Day I flew to Utah for a week of work in the snow. Upon returning home Audrey and I became proud members of the Aquarium of the Pacific, where, amongst dozens of tanks, the best exhibit is clearly the birds. They’ve got an enclosure that you can walk through with a cup of nectar and be swarmed by colorful birds – the “lorikeet hunger meter” was at “very hungry” when we entered, and three of the voracious animals immediately landed on Audrey when she emerged from the entrance; good times. The aquarium’s fish weren’t bad, either, particularly a sea horse that looked like a plant, a sawfish (aka carpenter shark), and a giant pacific octopus. As card-carrying aquarium members we’ll likely be back a few times in the coming year.

The hope that March would yield journal-worthy moments has not been fulfilled; things remain slow in the world of Holliday. The most notable events over the past weeks have been the bi-weekly trips to Park City, Utah to be onsite at Backcountry. The specific project that they brought me back to work on has since been postponed until later this year, and in the interim I’ve been relegated to a “fill-in” role, helping out where needed. Some days have seemed a little long.

Aaron left Vail to take a new job in San Diego, making a monthly brother get-together a certainty. Sadly the major attractions located halfway between my home in Culver City and his abode in San Diego are a sprawl of stripmalls and a nuclear generating plant that looks like boobs, so our outings might not be as exciting as one would hope. Still, never bet against the Holliday brothers finding odd ways of entertaining ourselves.

And lastly, because it would be a shame to end a post without pictures of little dogs in motion, photos of basset hounds running single-handedly justifies every dollar that has ever been spent to create the internet.

A handful of moderately interesting bits that may or may not be worth recording:

• Space Shuttle Discovery is on its final mission. More than thirty years ago I remember my mother taking me to the Nashua Science Center where they gave a presentation on the great new replacement for the Apollo rocket. After one more mission that era will be over for good, which is an odd thing to consider.
• In the world of airplanes (which are awesome) Boeing is getting ready for the first flight of the 747-8i, the world’s longest commercial airplane, and will shortly be announcing plans for the plane that will replace the 737.
• The wicked awesome JAMWiki 1.0 was unleashed upon the world at the end of January to a roar of silence, although on February 11 apparently 5800 Kazakhis downloaded it, a new record for single-day eastern bloc installs.

And with that, February now has three journal entries. Hopefully March will yield slightly more material and the last minute panic entries can be avoided.

The three entry a month goal is being put to the test at month two… that can’t be a good sign. Sadly February hasn’t offered up many journal-worthy moments, but a handful of highlights from the last two weeks include:

• On the twelfth Khalid flew into town from DC with his wife and three-month old son and met us for dinner at a very, very Chinese restaurant (“wow, they finally translated the menu to English”). The newborn has mad hair and slept through dinner, while the two grown-ups were fun as always.
• Audrey and I went for a very fancy dinner of lobster, oysters and New Zealand elk at the Saddle Peak Lodge for Valentine’s Day, and despite my lack of proper refinement we made it through the meal without being thrown out. Any place with wild game on the menu is worth a visit, but if you decide to dine at this amazing restaurant be sure to bring your gold, platinum, and corporate cards with you.
• The every-other-week in Utah schedule continues – last week was spent in snow and temperatures in the teens in Park City, while this week the LA weather is in the 60s and the commute consists of the walk from my bed to my desk. When in Utah, the Best Western I’ve been staying at in the town of Coalville is far enough from the ski slopes that the guests aren’t the most active bunch – one of the hotel staff just about jumped out of her skin when she walked into the workout room and saw me stretching, exclaiming "I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in here".

Things may stay a bit slow through March and April, although the current work contract could potentially end on April 30, leaving the possibility for adventure during the very beautiful month of May…

I’ve spent the past two weeks in Park City, Utah, trying to remember what warmth felt like – the temperature bottomed out at -17°F, and my first night involved a forty mile drive through a snowstorm on roads that caused a pickup truck in front of me to fishtail for a good thirty seconds before the driver was finally able to regain control. Luckily I had been given a Chevy Aveo by the rental company, a car that was apparently designed to handle as much like a boat as possible during inclement weather; I was fairly relieved to eventually arrive at the hotel alive and in one piece.

The work this time around has thus far primarily been technical project management, which means lots of meetings, spreadsheets, and tasks other than coding – it will be nice when/if things move on to design and programming, but in the mean time I am the master of the SWAG.

Outside of work, last weekend was spent in Carmel visiting Audrey, who was working on a studio in the downtown area. A free room in Carmel is all good, and when she wasn’t working we enjoyed the scenery and some good food. I attempted two runs while there, but a note for anyone considering doing the same: one of the reasons why Carmel is pretty is because of the evil, evil hills that will sap your will to live should you decide to do some jogging. The 17 Mile Drive is much less appealing when you realize that the first mile is all uphill.

In addition to Carmel, last week included a trip to meet Aaron, Dave Pugmire, and Dave’s family for dinner. The Goob was driving from Vail to San Francisco after spending the winter snowboarding, and Dave lives in Heber, twenty miles outside of Park City. I’m not a big fan of kids, but Dave managed to make a couple of good ones, and we enjoyed a fun dinner and a nice trip out to Heber’s ice castles before I had to head home.

January wasn’t supposed to be the month of bird photos, it just sort of worked out that way. Here are two more from the pond next to where Audrey & I live in Culver City:

Full-time work at Backcountry will resume at the end of the month, but in the mean time here are two more photos from the recent La Jolla trip:

I spent yesterday and today in La Jolla attempting to photograph birds since it’s a good time of year for animals, hotel rates are distressingly low, I am at least temporarily my own boss, and an occasional trip to La Jolla is just plain old good sense. After about three hundred photos of seabirds in flight my talent for taking pictures of headless, blurry birds has been re-affirmed; call if you are in need of that skillset.

Having never been to La Jolla expectations were limited, but the town is now high on the list of places to visit regularly. Between seals, sea lions, pelicans, cormorants, gulls, and even a peregrine falcon there was a massive amount of wildlife on display. The photographs below are a handful of the keepers from the trip. Special thanks to Phillip Colla, someone I’ve never actually met but whose guide to photographing pelicans in La Jolla inspired the short road trip.

Following a recent and disturbing annual tradition, here are the predictions for the year to come. Based on past history, anyone with any sense should assume that the vast majority of the predictions below will be so utterly wrong as to shame a man with any dignity into never again putting in writing his thoughts on the coming year.

1. Gasoline, currently at about $3.30 per gallon here in Los Angeles, will rise in price to over $4.00 per gallon by the end of 2011 as the economy improves. There will be numerous predictions in the news media about prices hitting $5.00 per gallon for 2012.
2. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will all announce that they are running for President. Michael Bloomberg will toy with people and then announce that he isn’t running (this may last into 2012). Newt Gingrich will not run as he will calculate that he can’t win while splitting votes with Palin and Huckabee. No Democrat will mount a serious primary challenge against Obama, although someone like Dennis Kucinich may run solely for the purpose of “expanding the debate” or some similar reason.
3. Apple will offer minor updates to the iPad and iPhone but will not have any major new product offerings in 2011. They will, however, offer users the ability to store content such as movies and music on Apple servers and access that content on any Apple device, thus revealing the purpose of their massive new data center. In 2012 my guess is that they are planning a 4G iPhone for release early in the year (instead of the usual mid-year release) along with an Apple TV product, although those obviously aren’t predictions for 2011.
4. The national unemployment rate will drop from its current rate of 9.7 percent, but will remain very close to nine percent. I’ll pin the prediction range at 8.8 to 9.1 percent since there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of job creation going on right now.
5. US men’s distance runners will set national records in at least three of the following events: 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 10,000m, marathon. The current crew of American distance runners is by far the best since the 1970s.
6. Neither court challenges nor budgetary maneuvering will affect the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare. There is currently much hubbub about the courts overturning the recent health care law, or of Republicans in the House crippling it via lack of funding, but in the end neither will have an effect and the law will move forward as planned.
7. Yahoo and Adobe will both be purchased. Companies are currently sitting on record amounts of cash, and I suspect Yahoo is actively shopping itself as a way out of financial trouble, while Adobe might be snapped up by the likes of Oracle or Microsoft as a hedge against Apple.
8. SpaceX will launch only three of the five Falcon 9 missions on their current launch manifest, but all will be successful. They will also launch two of their Falcon 1e rockets successfully.
9. 3D televisions will still not be a big deal, and may in fact be less of a big deal than they are now.
10. Splits in the Republican party between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives will increase significantly. While this divide has always been a tension, Republican gains in the last election were made primarily by focusing on economic issues and avoiding social issues. Now that many social conservatives are in power those issues will again rise to the surface, causing party divisions that will lead to calls for “purity tests”, more frequent “RINO” accusations, and at least two Republican Congressmen leaving the party to become independents or Democrats.
11. Labor disputes in the NFL will not affect the regular season as players and owners come to an agreement to avoid significantly damaging America’s most popular sports league. However, a lockout will be imposed in the NBA and the regular season will be shortened as a result; millionaire players and owners will be on TV crying about unfairness while fans look at $100 ticket prices and feel no sympathy.
12. Cape Wind and Bluewater Wind will both start construction of their offshore wind farm projects in 2011 after years of legal wrangling and delays.
13. Total downloads of JAMWiki (a pet project of mine) will exceed 15,000 for the year. This would be a huge jump given past year’s stats, but assuming I have a few months outside of the corporate world then some surprises may be in store. Stats for past years:
    

    2010: 10,841 downloads
    2009: 9,191 downloads
    2008: 11,146 downloads
    2007: 7,898 downloads

14. Last but not least, 2011 will see not just two, but three journal entries every month. The quality of said posts will carry on the great tradition of poor writing and questionable judgment that has been a hallmark of this journal since its inception.

There they are, the fearless and (likely) completely wrong predictions for 2011. Check this space again in a year for the retrospective, and add your thoughts, predictions, and insults via the comments link.

Following a massive number of incorrect predictions for 2009, here’s the wrap-up of my predictions for 2010; clearly no one will ever mistake me for Nostradamus.

1. SpaceX will launch their Falcon 9 rocket successfully in March or April and will have two successful launches before year end.

   The rocket launched successfully in June, and a second launch took place in December. This is a big deal for anyone interested in space, and, even though I was off by a month on the launch date, this scores as a correct prediction since I’m doing the scoring.

2. Despite Democrats losing their 60th Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election there will still be some sort of health care bill passed this year.

   When this prediction was made there was near universal agreement that the bill was dead, yet it passed about a month later. Two out of two so far for the prediction game, but it’s all downhill from here.

3. Tiger Woods will be golfing again in time for the Masters, will win at least one major championship, and at least five tournaments.

   He was back for the Masters, then didn’t win a single tournament. Historically I think my record for sports-related predictions stands at something like zero-for-ten…

4. The iPhone is going to be available from carriers besides AT&T by mid-year.

   Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times says this is happening in early 2011, but that doesn’t make my prediction any less wrong.

5. The stock market will end the year around 11,500.

   Another rare correct prediction. It rose from about 10,200 at the beginning of the year to close at 11,577 at the end of the year.

6. NASA’s ARES rocket program will be canceled or scaled back to the point where it will no longer be a shuttle replacement.

   The program has effectively been canceled, although budget wrangling is keeping some aspects of it alive. While this scores as a correct prediction, in fairness anyone who is a big space dork would see this as a very safe prediction given the public pronouncements prior to the actual cancellation.

7. The Beatles and Garth Brooks will start selling their music on iTunes.

   The Beatles came through for me, but Garth held out.

8. The Browns will finish at .500 or better.

   I don’t want to talk about this one.

9. I’m going to run a marathon.

   Nope, didn’t happen. 2011 may be a different story though.

10. The 2010 elections won’t change Congress significantly… I’ll say the Democrats will have 57 Senate seats (plus-or-minus one) and 240 House members (plus-or-minus five) when it’s all over.

    This prediction was spectacularly wrong. Democrats now have 53 Senate seats and 193 House seats, so I was only off by… A LOT.

11. Tesla will IPO and announce the opening of a plant in Downey. The plant will break ground, but full Model-S production will slip from 2011 to 2012.

    They did do a very successful IPO, and the Model-S has slipped to 2012, but the new plant will be in Fremont. Two out of three ain’t bad.

12. Despite recent protests, the political situation in Iran won’t change in 2010.

    …and it hasn’t changed. Things have been relatively quiet in that corner of the world after a very noisy 2009.

13. Google will partner with someone to ship a low-cost, Google branded PC running Google apps and the Google operating system.

    This is a prediction that probably should have waited until 2012. Oops.

14. Apple will be on the verge of announcing an Apple television product.

    Another prediction that would have made a lot more sense for 2012. When they do finally announce it I’m definitely going to want one.

15. China will announce plans to sell cars abroad.

    Although Jane says China is already selling cars in Asian markets, I’ll be surprised to see them in the US for another 2-4 years. My prediction batting average continues to fall into the “scary bad” range.

16. It will be another bad hurricane year.

    While 2010 tied for the third most named storms and second most hurricanes in history, they mostly stayed out to sea or weren’t very severe when they did make landfall. Given the potential for damage, this is actually a good one to be wrong about, even if it is another blemish on an otherwise ugly prediction scorecard.

17. I will make at least two journal entries a month.

    Nailed it! That’s right, for every month of 2010 there were at least two entries in the journal, even if many of them did come on one of the last days of the month.

The game will continue with predictions for 2011 coming soon, and the comments link is there for anyone who wants to join in the pain fun.

“Have you left on your road trip yet?” has been a popular question of late.

“No” has been the only accurate answer.

“When are you leaving?” and “What have you been doing?” have been the equally-popular follow-up questions.

“Probably Thursday” and “Absolutely nothing” have been my very happy responses.

In this case, “absolutely nothing” really is what it sounds like – aside from just under two hours of work on JAMWiki code and this journal entry, the past two days have been filled with naps, a game, and a couple of CPK frozen pizzas. While regressing into a waste of life might normally be cause for scorn and self-loathing, after a mostly-unbroken stretch of working for Backcountry, working on side-projects, and trying to have a social life, this new (and hopefully short-lived) degeneration into worthlessness seems to be having a restorative “reset” effect; burnout is ever-so-slowly giving way to a renewed desire to go out into the world and shake things up.

After an inglorious eleven months, tomorrow will be the last day working for backcountry.com until at least January. The contract was only supposed to last through March, but unsurprisingly it got extended and likely would have gone on even longer if I hadn’t begged for some time away to focus on other pending projects. In a perfect world some of those projects may actually be taken care of by the end of the year, but a gambling man would be smart to wager that 2011 will still start with an extensive TODO list.

Since the side projects only require a laptop and an occasional internet connection, and since it’s been far too long since I spent any significant length of time dirty and living in the back of a Subaru, the coming month will likely also involve a road trip to one or more of the seven remaining states on the not-yet-visited list. Luckily, with the notable exception of North Dakota, the states on that list are mostly OK for cold weather visits, so December may be the month when I finally take a riveting vacation to… Kansas. I’m surprisingly excited about this possibility – while traveling abroad has been incredible, one of the many reasons why living in the US is great is that there is amazing variety here, and even a state with a less-than-stellar reputation as a travel destination will almost certainly have its share of interesting spots. The other stupendous and exciting states on the yet-to-be-visited list are Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina, so possibilities abound for gumbo, Forrest Gump analogies, and whatever it is that one does in Mississippi.

Yesterday was Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and while somewhat entertaining to watch on TV, I didn’t really find it that noteworthy until the last fifteen minutes. That was when Jon Stewart gave the speech linked below, filled with a fairly cogent set of observations about how important it is to get past the so-called “divisions” in society today. Sadly it was a comedian delivering this message rather than someone in a position of power, but hopefully others may notice between 100,000 and 300,000 people (the semi-official estimate: 215,000) cheering on the National Mall and see fit to take up similarly reasonable messages.

It takes until the 2:49 mark to get through the “thanks for coming” and “thanks to everyone who set this up” bits, but after that he says some fairly eloquent things.

On a much less serious note, Father Guido Sarducci gave a pretty amusing benediction to open the rally:

With this journal now beyond its eighth birthday, one use of it that I’ve occasionally enjoyed indulging in at the expense of my twos of readers is posting thoughts about what seems important in technology, politics, or whatever; it’s fun to look back a few years later to see how trends played out versus what might have been expected at the time. For those who are bored to death by such posts, head immediately to Lolcats to avoid a geeky trend analysis.

The dotcom wave crested nine years ago, and since then it has seemed more and more likely that the next boom would be led by energy and conservation technologies. Dotcom disrupted markets by introducing new ways to do traditional tasks faster and more efficiently, offering huge value for those who adopted the new technologies. With new energy developments on the horizon offering a similar value proposition, it seems that another burst of change is inevitable. That said, here are a few specific technologies that seem like they will end up being interesting and important with respect to energy and conservation. The comments link is available should anyone else care to throw out their own thoughts.

Electric cars

While there is some attention still being given to solar cars, hydrogen cars, and hybrids, electric cars look more and more like they will be the primary automotive technology in the future. Battery storage is rapidly improving, and if trends hold then in another 5-10 years cars could be on the roads with expected ranges of 400-600 miles per charge. More importantly, however, is that electric cars make better sense from a technology standpoint than hybrids or internal combustion engines – the motors are more powerful and more efficient, and the supporting systems are simpler. An electric car doesn’t need oil changes, doesn’t have an exhaust system, has simpler cooling needs, etc. As the range issues are addressed and the cost of battery packs come down, it’s very tough to imagine anyone choosing oil changes, gas stations, and a $600 maintenance charge every 30,000 miles to something that they can just plug in at night. I’m obviously heavily influenced by JB on this issue, but while I’m not convinced Tesla will lead this trend I’m fairly certain that it’s one that’s coming in a big way.

Solar panels

Similarly, as solar panel efficiencies are improving it is becoming cost-effective for greater numbers of people to install them. While for most people the allure of solar panels is currently that they’re a “green” option, as soon as the economics of solar panels offer a cost advantage over grid power it’s tough to imagine that there wouldn’t be a rush for the mass market to install them; companies like Solar City are already pushing a sales message that is primarily based on economics rather than environmentalism. With current rates of improvement, the economic argument should be a HUGE selling point in places like Arizona and Southern California within the next several years. Should home generation become more prevalent, it is also conceivable that the need for new power plants might then be lower than current projections.

Environmental Concerns

This may be overly optimistic, but a side effect of a move to electric vehicles and solar panels would be less air pollution and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Any such benefits would obviously take time to kick in as old technologies were slowly phased out, but if (for example) 10% of vehicles are electric by 2015, and 30% are electric by 2020, air quality improvements should follow. This optimistic view isn’t an argument against trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from traditional sources, but it does give some hope that even in the absence of legislative action there may still be some chance of avoiding the worst predicted effects of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Peak Oil

Oil production rises each year to meet increased demand, but at some point there simply won’t be enough oil that can be extracted from the ground for that trend to continue. The commonly held assumption is that demand will continue to rise while supply will remain stable, causing a massive shock to economies and industrial systems. However, as electric vehicle technology improves it would seem that there will, for the first time, be a viable alternative for the most common use of oil. Since people are driven by economic factors, given the choice between a $20,000 vehicle that runs on $5.00 – $7.00 a gallon fuel, or a $30,000 vehicle that can be plugged in, fears over a depression brought about by peak oil may actually be replaced by a mini economic boom as replacement technologies are adopted.

Traffic Congestion

It’s tough to tell if today’s political environment is an anomaly or not, but at least in the US there is a dearth of sensible long-term planning as candidates look to quick-wins and uncontroversial decisions. Currently candidates in several states are campaigning against transportation projects that could produce huge long-term benefits, albeit at short-term cost. In California, a much-needed high-speed rail line is opposed by the current Republican gubernatorial candidate and will at best be delayed by myriad lawsuits from cities impacted by the proposed rail route, and at worst will end up canceled.

With so many obstacles to major changes to the existing transportation system, it seems that incremental approaches implemented at the local level are the only options to looming congestion nightmares. New York and several other cities already have implemented small-scale solutions, such as systems that allow buses to manage traffic lights to speed up bus routes. It seems logical that such “smart” traffic lights will be implemented elsewhere to optimize traffic flows. Similarly, cities will probably begin looking more at options like congestion pricing, reversible lanes, and better use of real-time traffic data for routing. While it would be great to think that large mass-transit projects will play a bigger role, it’s tough to see how such projects will be implemented, meaning that small-scale projects are likely to be the main area of growth.

Aerospace

While more efficient air and space travel could enable a number of new developments, this area sadly doesn’t seem poised for huge advances. With private companies like SpaceX now capable of launching payloads for a fraction of traditional costs it’s possible that additional uses for space will open up, but technology is still probably twenty years away from a cost point where really exciting changes could take place. Similarly, with more fuel efficient airplane technologies such as the Boeing 787 launching, air travel should become more pleasant, but revolutionary changes like blended wing body planes or hypersonic transports look like they’re still 30 years away from becoming a day-to-day reality.

Other Items

Water is going to become a bigger and bigger issue; if desalination doesn’t become a more prominent option then the world will face severe shortages. Assuming the energy requirements for desalination decrease and available fresh water supplies continue to be used up, the oceans should soon become a big part of the municipal water plan.

Smart grid technology is already being put in place to allow variable pricing of electricity, which should cause users to shift electricity usage and thus decrease the need for new power plants. The idea is that if electricity is more expensive when demand is high then people will defer usage until prices decrease; it’s less sensible to run the dish washer at mid-day if you can do so for half the price in the evening.

Biofuels will continue to gain attention, particularly things like cellulosic ethanol and algae fuel, but simpler technologies like electric motors, wind power, and traditional power sources may prevent them from ever being widespread. Instead, something like algae fuel production may be most useful as a way for large industrial facilities to reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously creating a commercially valuable by-product.

No journal update yesterday – I mostly lounged, and an attempt to photograph birds failed miserably when the wildlife refuge gates were locked at 4:30 PM.

Today was my last day on Kauai, so I decided to get dirty. After waking up at 5AM I left the disappointingly unimpressive Kauai Beach Resort and headed back towards Waimea Canyon for some more hiking. The handful of photos I took along the way turned out rather bland, but hopes were higher for a hike at the end of the road at 5000 feet elevation above the Na Pali coast. The trail started out slick and got about an order of magnitude sloppier with each quarter mile, and the last bit was a slog through a river of mud all the while pulling myself up rocks with whatever vegetation was available – six year old Tevas with worn off treads were clearly the footwear of champions today. The views along the way were great, and the challenge of trying to hike without getting completely disgusting was a fun one.

Following the jungle-slog-of-filth-and-domination I headed to the far end of the island to a beach that the guy at Subway said was his favorite. I was momentarily stopped by a “four wheel drive only” sign, but Hawaii is clearly not as hardcore as Utah and the rental Dodge made it to the beach without any trouble. Kauai is an island with narrow sand beaches and a lot of rock, but this beach was an exception with its massive expanse of sand set against the cliffs of the Na Pali coast – Subway guy is all good with his recommendations.

The red-eye for home leaves in a few hours, but luckily the weekend has a few days remaining before the slog back to work starts again. Vacations are definitely good things.

Today marked the last day of the family vacation, and the beginning of two solo days on the island. Aaron and I lounged around through the morning, making our daily Starbucks run, debating the merits of several chicken chases, and eventually heading off towards the Beach House for another snorkel. Ma & Pa decided not to join us, and while there weren’t any further turtle sightings we managed to check off most of the fish on the “fishes of Hawaii” brochure. Lunch consisted of delicious ahi tuna and pulled pork from the Koloa Fish Market, and the afternoon almost exactly mirrored the morning with an additional snorkel, aborted chicken chases, and a dinner consisting of more ahi tuna and pulled pork. One pina colada and a sunset later and we bid adieu to Ma & Pa, and having just dropped Aaron at the airport I’m settling in for two days at the Kauai Beach Resort before it’s time to head back to a land where morning snorkels and drinks at sunset aren’t the norm.

After a breakfast with swans, delicious coffee, and $17 pancakes at the Hyatt we finally found the dope spot for snorkeling later in the morning. Amidst myriad fish we hit the jackpot while watching an eel when Aaron pointed and exclaimed “dude, turtle”. We then spent fifteen minutes swimming next to a four foot long sea turtle who didn’t seem to care at all that two pinkish-red humans were floating along with him. The Skipper had disappeared during this episode (something about a grouper) while Sally didn’t join us for the snorkel, so the Holliday brothers were the only two who got to spend quality time with a marine reptile this morning.

The snorkel was followed by the world’s best fish tacos, some napping, and a second snorkel during which Aaron and I worked on our sunburns and Skip finally found some turtles and spent some quality alone time with them. Aaron is returning to the mainland tomorrow, so it’s the final day for any Holliday family adventures.

We somehow slept until 6:45 this morning – investigative panels will be launched – and got a late start to the day. Ma & Pa made their arrival yesterday, so our first order of business was to drop in on them unannounced at 8AM, find out their plans, leave some luggage, and then retreat hastily. They stood up well to this onslaught, and we headed off to Waimea Canyon leaving two confused & bemused parents in our wake. Waimea Canyon is an impressive site – they call it the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, and with its vertical drops and deep colors it lives up to the billing. Our main focus, however, was the Awa’awapuhi trail, a trail that had been recommended by our large-eyed hotel guide Pearl. This trail led us through three miles of jungle to an impressive overlook of the Na Pali coast from 2000 feet above the waterline. The return trip involved 1500 feet of elevation gain and an unsuccessful search for mouse-rabbits that Aaron claimed to have seen, making for a good little adventure. Some snorkeling, ahi tuna, and drinks on the beach with Ma & Pa completed the day.

I’ve escaped from work to Kauai for our first family vacation since the days when Clinton was in office, “the Google” was still just “the Yahoo”, and Michael Jordan was finishing his second run with the Bulls. Aaron and I arrived yesterday, and we’ll be joining Ma & Pa tomorrow for a couple of days. I should then have two days on my own at the end of the trip, during which time I suspect the camera may see some usage.

To start the trip Aaron and I continued our long-running series of romantic getaways by booking two nights in a nice resort on Poipu Beach on the south side of Kauai. Upon arrival we found a lovely card addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. William Holliday”; Aaron was none too happy about having to be “Mrs.”, but he’ll survive. Still running on mainland time (three hours ahead) we went to bed at 8:30 last night and awoke at 5:30 this morning. A walk on the beach turned up a playful Hawaiian monk seal, one of only 1500 left in the world. He’s apparently a regular in these parts and there were “marine mammal protection” warnings lying further up the beach and waiting to be deployed, but I managed to keep Aaron off of seal-roping duty and he settled for just making boisterous announcements to the non-existent crowds to “step away from the seal”.

The chicken chasing started slightly after our seal visit. An anomaly of this island is that there are chickens everywhere – by the road, on the golf course, on the beach, and even in line at the car rental place. Following the morning’s seal encounter, and inspired by Rocky 2, I set off to chase one down; they are elusive, and a partial video of the debacle will probably be posted soon. Following that we hopped in the car, took a tour around the island, saw some impressive bird colonies, hiked along some impressive cliffs, and are now hopefully heading off to an impressive dinner. Vacation is a good thing, and I’m very glad to once again be on one.

For those not familiar with the great moment in cinematic history referenced above:

Mickey: Now here’s what I want you to do… I want you to chase this little chicken.
Rocky Balboa: Hey yo, Mick, what do I got to chase a chicken for?
Mickey: First, because I said so. And second, is because chicken-chasing is how we used to train back in the old days. If you can catch this thing, you can catch greased lighting.
Rocky Balboa: Well, I’ll do it if you say so, but it ain’t very mature.
Mickey: Yeah, well neither are you very mature!

Ma & Pa Holliday were in town for a few days, so Audrey and I met them for lunch and an evening out. My lack of enthusiasm for many things LA is well-documented, but this city has more than its share of memorable activities, and a visit from Ma & Pa was a good excuse to indulge in a couple of them. Lunch was at the bizarre and unique Encounter Restaurant located in the quadripod in the middle of LAX. Being in a science-fiction themed quadripod with airplanes all around is totally OK by me.

Following lunch, and after a long and losing battle with LA rush-hour traffic, we limped into Laguna Beach for the evening’s entertainment. Every summer Laguna Beach holds the Pageant of the Masters Festival, which is one of those you-really-need-to-see-it-to-understand type of events. The high-level description is that it’s a presentation of several dozen famous works of art, reproduced on stage with live actors as models, which sounds like complete yawnsville. However, being there in person with 2700 spectators while an orchestra plays, a narrator explains the artwork, and the curtain goes up on what appear to be huge, 2-D reproductions of famous works of art, all the while knowing that through some magic of lighting, make-up, and perspective it’s actually 3-D canvases with real people on them, is a pretty surreal experience. Even Pa, who can be notoriously stingy with his praise, admitted that it was “pretty cool”. Ma was more effusive, stating “I love it I love it I love it” on more than one occasion. From a slightly different perspective, the two old ladies in heavy costume jewelry that were sitting behind us frequently chimed in to let their neighbors know “that’s not people, it’s just a painting”; one might suggest they bring binoculars to next year’s performance so that they can see the “paintings” blink from time-to-time.

Eight years and one week ago, when I was 26, the first entry in this journal was made. The original purpose of what was then titled “Blowin’ in the Wind” was to chronicle an adventure to Alaska that began after I left the job that I’d held since graduating from college. That job at Anderson Consulting started in September 1998, just at the tail end of the Asian Financial Crisis. As a result of the slowdown in business overseas the San Francisco office was filled with new hires sitting around waiting for work and trying to figure out how to start their lives in the Bay Area. Since there weren’t any projects to go out on I decided to spend those days teaching myself the new “Java” programming language; little did I know this would be something I was reasonably good at, and one dotcom bubble later I had been involved with creating companies, working overseas, and designing systems for some of the world’s most recognizable corporations. However, after four years and too many 100+ hour weeks burnout made change inevitable, and I set out in the Subaru for Alaska with no real idea of what the future held.

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.