Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

I Got Carded

Posted from Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii at 9:05 pm, August 26th, 2012

Day one of the Hawaii vacation involved much legroom and warm cookies during the first-class ride over (note to American Airlines: if the first class ticket is somehow fewer award miles, don’t even both to offer the economy tickets). Post-arrival activities included some snorkeling with the Skipper and a handful of pretty fishes, followed by a tropical beverage on the beach at sunset. The conversation that led to the tropical beverage being procured was one that gets rarer with each passing year:

Ryan: "Can I have a piña colada?"
Bartender: "You’re twenty-one, right?
Ryan: "Do you want to see my ID (reaching for ID)?"
Bartender: "Are you twenty-one?"
Ryan: "I’m thirty-six."
Bartender: "That was a piña colada, right?

Aaron arrives tomorrow, and we’re staying at a separate hotel from the elder Hollidays in an effort to promote family harmony, and also because the stock market is up 1000 points so a fancy hotel became an option. We booked the super-snazzy resort down the road, and aside from some sticker shock there don’t seem to be any downsides – when you don’t get that much vacation, going big seems like a winning strategy. Scuba appears to be on the schedule for Tuesday (yes, we are for scuba), and undoubtedly many shenanigans will unfold over the coming week.

I should be better than this

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:48 pm, July 30th, 2012

I should be a better person than to write this post, but I’m one short of my three-posts-a-month goal, I get a ton of these sorts of requests, and I’m not in line for sainthood. So here goes – I received the following email today:

From: Elise Pearson <EPearson@vacationroost.com>
Subject: Question About Your Site
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:46:37 +0000

Good Afternoon,

My name is Elise and I manage web relationships for a mountain reservation travel agency called Vail Destinations. I am trying to get the word out about our business, and would love to have it be through a blog like yours. We are flexible with the opportunity, but have found that most people opt to:

1. Have us write a unique guest blog post for you and have you post it yourself
2. Have you write an honest review of our site, what you think

In exchange we are offering a $20 Starbuck or Target Gift Card. Please let us know if this is something you are interested in. If you have any questions you can contact me at (801) 559-3256.

Elise Pearson | Online Marketing Coordinator
P: 801.559.3256 | epearson@vacationroost.com

I do love Starbucks, and unlike many people who may take Ms. Pearson up on her offer, I have actually visited Vail (in December 2010), so I’ll go with option #2 and write an honest review of what I think, taking special care to ensure that my review has maximal online marketing value. I can already taste my lattes and scones…

Vail is a truly amazing place with a vast number of lodging options, so visitors should have plenty of choices. Companies in Vail can attract customers by offering great accommodation, excellent prices, or by employing shady and dishonest attempts to artificially inflate their results in search engines. Even though I’ve never used their travel portal, it seems unlikely that Vail Destinations and its parent company Vacation Roost would promote businesses that cheat customers, provide terrible customer service, or operate fraudulently. They have asked me to write a review for them sight unseen, but that does not imply they are engaging in manipulative online marketing, such as one sees with hotels whose rooms pose dangers of exposure to crabs, lice, fleas and STDs.

Since I have not actually used the Vail Destinations travel portal it is important to focus on what I can surmise from their unsolicited emails. At the same time as Ms. Pearson’s email arrived I also received several spam emails, including advertisements for escorts, pornography, and illegal drugs, but Vail Destinations and its parent company Vacation Roost are obviously very different from those internet scams. Also, while some might find it suspicious and unusual for a company to ask complete strangers to write about their business, what are the odds that they would rip-off travelers? Unfortunately I cannot recommend them without doing additional research, but clearly they would not want to pay for reviews like this one if they were just another crappy travel portal that should be avoided at all cost.

Erik the Rhino

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:21 pm, July 16th, 2012

Highlights of last week’s trip to San Diego, including a visit to the San Diego Safari Park:

  • We got to the safari park at opening time and Audrey went immediately to the bat house. The girl is not shy around the creepy-crawlies.
  • Following the bats we were first into the lorikeet enclosure, where Audrey was swarmed by the hungry buggers. Sadly I somehow overexposed the pictures, but in three trips (nectar in hand) we met about twenty of the resident birds in a very up close and personal way.
  • From the lorikeets it was on to goat brushing, since girls like having goats snuggle up to them and use their big goat eyes to say “will you please brush me?”.
  • There may have also been some goose feeding. If you’re getting the sense that we went for the “hands on” trip, you would not be mistaken.
  • As temperatures approached levels usually reserved for blast furnaces our trip became a bit less adventurous, but still included most of the remaining animals of the park. There may have also been a delicious pudding break, since there’s always time for pudding.

Lorikeets

Maximum lorikeet landings-on-Ryan at once was five, which is most likely a new world record. Photo by Audrey.

Getting Amped

Posted from Culver City, California at 10:44 pm, June 30th, 2012

Audrey’s friend was the 237th person to place a reservation for the new Tesla Model S and asked if we were interested in joining him at an invitation-only test drive event today (my response: “Um, YES!”). Only reservation holders were allowed to drive, but even just as a passenger I’m confident in predicting that this new electric car is going to be very much talked about – we flew down a closed road at eighty miles an hour (0-60 time: 4.4 seconds), took a turn at about fifty with the car feeling like it was glued to the road, and changed the car’s steering and breaking characteristics via software on the huge touchscreen console. The interior is massive – it’s open through to the back, and the engine is in the rear axle so the front is what Tesla calls a “frunk” to provide additional storage space. JB and the rest of the Tesla team have a winner in this car – every single person who completed a test drive walked away ridiculously enthusiastic, a reaction that is probably only seen as frequently at Ferrari and Lamborghini dealerships.

Tesla Get Amped Pass

Only the cool kids are invited to get amped. Luckily I knew one who could get me in.

Model-S Photo

Post test-drive in the photo booth. Awesome car, awesome gangster poses, cheesy fake palm tree background.

Travelin’ Man Part 2

Posted from Culver City, California at 1:31 pm, June 23rd, 2012

The month of many travels concluded with a long weekend spent driving with Audrey from the Bay Area back to LA along the coast.

Thursday July 14

After working in Berkeley I picked Audrey up at Oakland airport and we then headed to Ma and Pa’s for the evening. The night concluded with a viewing of photos of young Ryan in an awesome Superman outfit, and questionable shots of a younger Skipper in a speedo.

Friday July 15

After bacon at the Hick’ry Pit in Walnut Creek we visited the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, because girls like to see cute animals and go “Awwwwww!” The museum’s eagle was calling, the hawks were hawking, and the owls were owling. Following that excursion we headed to Moss Beach under amazingly non-foggy skies to meet Audrey’s best friend Krissy, who is now a docent at the state beach across the street from her home and thus empowered to yell at anyone who gets too close to the seals. She gave us the beach tour, then took us on a walk that ended at a restaurant with amazing views and awesome Pisco Sours – everything after the second drink is a bit of a blur.

Saturday July 16

The next morning Audrey and Krissy went stand-up paddle boarding in Half Moon Bay while Krissy’s husband and I went kayaking. I got the sleek red kayak with flames on it ’cause it was super awesome, and jetted off to chase baby seagulls, loons, and other critters for the next two hours. Following that adventure we met JB at his new place, which somehow has a 1500 year old redwood in the middle of it. He gave us a tour in the back of a Polaris ATV before we had to drive down to Carmel for the evening. Audrey took me to a fancy restaurant with beautiful gardens for dinner, where I ordered a meal of buffalo chicken strips in an effort to keep things classy.

Sunday July 17

The trip through Big Sur involved many stops, including a visit to the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park where we were visited by five red-headed acorn woodpeckers. Further down the road we stopped in Piedras Blancas to see the elephant seals, made a visit to Hearst Castle (although sadly it was too late for a tour), then had the following encounter further south on Highway 1:

Me: “Why are all of those cars stopped ahead? What are they looking at?”
…pause…
Me: “There are zebras on the top of that hill.”
Audrey (not wearing her glasses): “C’mon! Tell me what it is, really?”

As it turned out, the last remnants of William Randolph Hearst’s private menagerie now roam the Hearst ranch, and it was indeed a herd of zebras grazing by the road. Definitely not something you expect to see on the California Coast, and yet another reason why road trips are such awesome endeavors.

Audrey in Piedras Blancas

Audrey being pretty in Piedras Blancas.

Travelin’ Man Part 1

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:16 pm, June 19th, 2012

Three Weeks Ago

The month of many travels started with a trip to Boise. Nothing too exciting to report from that outing, although I did get to fulfill the dream of getting sunburned at work during a particularly glorious afternoon spent working outside.

Two Weeks Ago

The traveling continued with a return trip to Boise the following week. The approach to the airport in a tiny commuter airplane was made with 49 mile per hour winds; it was not dull.

Once back to LA, Ma and Pa came down to see the new house. After they had driven six hours to get here I immediately put them back in a car and then spent forty-five minutes fighting traffic into downtown, but it was well worth it for a ridiculous dinner at WP24 – there was definitely more than one “wow” uttered during the meal. The next day was the day of many birds – Pa was impressed by the backyard feeders, Ma enjoyed the waterfowl during a walk around the Marina, and Pa and I tied on rabbit spotting 1-1 while looking at flying things at the Ballona wetlands.

One Week Ago

The consultants I work with at Bodybuilding.com are all contracted through Commerce Architects, but since we work remotely and rotate weeks onsite in Boise I’d only met one of the other guys in person. Last week we all got together to work from the Berkeley office for the week, and I managed not to do anything worthy of firing despite the fact that they had to spend two hours confined on a sailboat with me during a team outing.

On Thursday night Audrey flew into the Bay for a long weekend trip, but since it’s late in June and I made it a goal to write three entries a month, that summary will follow in another post.

YAY Spaceships!

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 9:05 pm, May 31st, 2012

Although it’s a little dismaying to be so excited about something that the country first did fifty years ago*, the launch by SpaceX to the space station is still a big deal. While NASA has done amazing things, the private sector is far better positioned to someday make us all into astronauts and help fulfill my childhood fantasies of looking at the earth from the other side of the clouds.

The second Falcon 9 launch (the mission prior to the most recent one) on December 8, 2010.

*This comparison is only correct insofar as the destination is still low earth orbit; the technology behind the Falcon 9 rocket is at least an order of magnitude beyond the rockets of the early 1960s.

The Nature

Posted from Boise, Idaho at 7:35 pm, May 29th, 2012

This post started out as a brainstorm of “things that matter”, but morphed into one about positive developments in conservation. Apologies in advance if it feels a bit too tree-hugger-ish, but these sorts of things excite me and seem worth writing about from time-to-time.

I’m a longtime member and a big fan of the Nature Conservancy. The group started in 1951 as an organization that purchased land for conservation purposes, and as of 2009 the conservancy’s assets totalled over $5.64 billion with more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers protected worldwide. Over the years, while continuing to buy and conserve land, the conservancy expanded its mission to include scientific research and partnerships with a huge variety of organizations, and today is known for its ability to find ways to bring together individuals who might otherwise be battling one another.

One early example of how the conservancy worked to bring together two very different groups is with ranchers. Historically environmentalists and ranchers haven’t been allies, despite the fact that most ranchers want to see their land kept natural and most environmentalists would far prefer a ranch to a subdivision. The Nature Conservancy wanted to maximize its conservation dollars, and so began experimenting with an arrangement known as “grass banking“, wherein they buy a ranch and allow neighboring ranchers to graze cattle on it in return for agreeing to manage their own lands more sustainably. Quoting a New York Times article on the practice: “A result is that the ranchers get more range than they could otherwise afford, and the conservancy protects more range than it could afford to buy.”

In contrast with the gloom and doom that seems to be the status quo for most of the environmental movement today, here are a small selection of conservancy projects and partnerships that provide reason for optimism:

  • Oyster reef restoration. Scientists have recently been paying more attention to the role that oyster reefs play in creating wildlife habitat. Compared to historic numbers oyster populations have crashed, and as a result the reefs that once protected shorelines and helped to filter sediments out of the water have disappeared in many places, resulting in water that is too murky for plant growth, waves that are stronger and cause more erosion, a smaller food supply for fish and birds, and a major degradation of the local ecosystem. The conservancy has thus been working to restore reefs in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast and has already seen noticeable improvement to shoreline wildlife habitat in project areas. In addition to wildlife, beneficiaries of this work include fisherman, who will enjoy improved fish spawning habitat, and land owners, who should see reduced damage from storms.
  • Floodplain restoration. After years of levee building and river straightening, floods today are often increasingly destructive since the entire output of a storm is now forced into a single, narrow channel, instead of being able to spread out in a wider area as would happen naturally. One of the conservancy’s areas of focus is in proving that by selectively removing levees, thus allowing a river to reconnect to portions of its historic floodplain, that flood damage can be reduced while simultaneously improving river health and wildlife habitat. In one example, during a flood in Mississippi when a river prematurely breached a levee that had been scheduled for demolition, the volume of water that entered the adjacent floodplain almost immediately reduced the water level in flooded towns downstream. The hope is that the conservancy’s work will spur government to reconsider floodplains as tools for combating flooding, while simultaneously helping restore natural ecosystems.
  • Migratory bird protection. While areas of high wildlife concentration are obvious targets for protection, the conservancy also began looking into other threats to wildlife. For migratory birds, having “stopover” points during migration is a key to ensuring survival, so the conservancy identified and purchased several sites along the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere that were shown to be important rest stops for birds making long journeys. Even though the species in question might be there only briefly, having places to rest and refuel during migration proved to be vital to the species’ long-term viability.

Oyster reef restoration in Alabama.

Status Update

Posted from Culver City, California at 10:00 pm, May 16th, 2012

The latest happenings:

  • A blue jay unfortunately brought an end to our baby bird odyssey. After the jay’s first visit only three of the five birds remained, all of them scattered in the backyard after jumping out of the nest to escape. Having gotten rather attached to our little friends, we decided to put them back in the nest, and then went on blue jay patrol for several days. During that time there was more shuttling of baby birds back into the nest, until finally the jay showed up and the birds were big enough to fly away.
  • In a move that proves I am finally a grown up, Audrey and I now get HBO and our movies no longer make a beeping noise when someone says a naughty word.
  • Holliday IT Services, Inc is now a licensed California corporation. I am hoping that my meteoric rise to the role of company president will one day be chronicled by Hollywood in a film written by Aaron Sorkin.
  • The house continues to come together. So far we’ve become proud owners of an area rug, a new couch, and some end tables. It is a truly disturbing experience to walk into Best Buy and be excited about looking at appliances.

Baby phoebe returning to the nest

It’s worth two in the bush.

End of the Month Panic Entry

Posted from Culver City, California at 4:56 pm, April 30th, 2012

Following college graduation I took a six week trip through Europe. The only possessions that I had with me fit into a school-sized backpack and a small gym bag, and my money situation was such that sleeping in a bed each night wasn’t really an option; both of these limitations made for a very memorable experience. Here’s one entry from that trip:

02-July-1998

Yesterday was the first day I haven’t written anything, so here goes – I took the 1:00 AM train from Genoa to Pisa, woke up at 4:30 having long ago passed Pisa, and then took the 5:15 back to Pisa, arriving at 6:45. On the first train I met a really nice Tunisian fellow who spoke some French and was thrilled to tell me about how Michael Jackson had been to Tunisia. I also met an annoying German.

In Pisa I found the tower by 7:15, and no one was there so I didn’t have to pay or deal with crowds. They’re apparently shoring up the foundations – the tower was really funky. Neat architecture, but with the tilt it looked very odd. I later got a cappuccino and then caught the 9:15 to Florence.

Florence was really cool. After running around with several Mexicans looking for a room I found one on my own. I then went to visit the Uffizi, which houses some great art. The Duomo is their big cathedral, which is huge and has an amazing dome. St. John’s baptistery has the famous bronze doors. The streets and buildings were all in good taste, unlike the baroque mess in Northern Europe.

The heat and lack of sleep got to me by 5:00, and by 6:30 I was in bed. I woke up at midnight, did laundry in the hostel sink, and overslept until 6:30 (I wanted to get up at 4:30). Now I’m on the train to Rome.

11:48 PM

Rome so far has been amazing. If I could afford it I could easily spend a month here. I first went to the Colosseum and met a Mexican guy named Raoul. We went to the Colosseum and Pantheon, he gave me a sandwich for lunch, then we went to some museums. After he left I bought a map of Rome, went back to the Colosseum, revisited the Forum, then walked along the Appian Way. It was awesome – I stood on the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated, saw some of the most famous sights in the world, and I’ve only seen a tiny fraction of Rome. Tonight I have no place to stay although I may try to get a train.

Caveat: I’ve got nothing against Germans in general, but that guy on the train was a weirdo.

The Birds

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:54 am, April 24th, 2012

The new house has proven to be a bit of an animal kingdom:

  • The two bird feeders are bringing in flocks of finches, sparrows, and doves, as well a variety of less-frequent visitors. It can be loud.
  • Proving the bird feeders support multiple levels of the food chain, a young sharp-shinned hawk has made the backyard his play area, and hangs out to terrorize the smaller birds on occasion. His attention isn’t only directed at birds: while I was doing some yard work he also took a shot at my head, apparently to ensure that I didn’t feel excluded.
  • There’s a crow who visits occasionally and has shown an irrational fear of salami.
  • The mammal situation consists of some wrestling baby squirrels, some very un-subtle neighborhood cats, and a family of tree-climbing rats that have made the area under the feeders their late night dining area.

It’s unclear what the future holds for the wildlife oasis that is our backyard, although some sort of water supply and potentially an owl house may be needed additions.

Our new roommates get lunch after the parent black phoebe checks out Audrey’s birdcam. Taken from the eave above our porch.

Dinner with Teddy, Carl and Jesus

Posted from Culver City, California at 6:37 pm, April 10th, 2012

The question that was posed: you can have dinner with three people who had a major influence on you. Who do you invite? While the answer is likely to change depending on mood, age, or time of day, here are my current choices:

  • Carl Sagan. If there is anyone who better encapsulates science, spirituality, and an ability to communicate, I couldn’t think of them. The opportunity to eat with someone who could explain details of the cosmos in understandable ways, who could expound on how the scientific wonders of the universe made him believe all the more in God, and who was infinitely curious about human nature and evolution, are all things that would make him a great dinner partner.
  • Jesus. I suspect Jesus would be on a lot of people’s lists, but for different reasons. It is questionable whether anyone has had a greater influence on philosophy and morality, and the opportunity to hear his thoughts about the world today would be a revelation in all senses of the word. Whether or not the real Jesus would have a direct line to the Almighty or simply be a teacher with profound views, spending a meal with him would be the most enlightening experience imaginable.
  • Teddy Roosevelt. America’s greatest conservationist President, the man who made the Panama Canal a reality, and an adventurer whose hunting and outdoor exploits are still revered. While he did a number of things that were worth questioning, a dinner with Teddy would be filled with stories and wisdom, and one that was sure to inspire.

The comments link is below – coming up with a list of three is a fun thought exercise, and I’d be very interested to hear what type of folks others would choose.

Summon the Heroes

Posted from Culver City, California at 1:38 pm, March 31st, 2012

The London Olympics start in about five months, and I won’t be attending them. However, sixteen years ago when the Olympics were in Atlanta I was there. Seeing as how that took place in the pre-journal days, it seems prudent to recount the adventure before senility sets in and I either forget the experience entirely or mis-remember and start believing that I won a bronze in men’s rhythmic gymnastics.

In the summer of 1996 I was working as a glorified janitor for the mechanical engineering department at Case Western Reserve University. Money was tight – $6.25 an hour didn’t go very far, even in days before monthly cell phone bills – and options for vacations were limited. However, about a week before the Games started it struck me that I’d wanted to go to the Olympics my entire life, and they were in the United States for only the second time since 1932.

My boss’s response to a request for a few days off to go to the Games consisted of three questions: “Do you know how you’re going to get there?”, “Do you have anywhere to stay?” and “Do you have any plan at all?”. After answering all of these in the negative, the extraordinarily cool Dave Conger laughed, told me to have the time of my life, and asked that I bring him back “something weird”.

At the time Greyhound was offering a student pass for something like $100 that allowed you to ride any bus to any destination, as often as you wanted, for one week. As a result, the transportation and lodging plan that developed was to take Greyhound round-trip to Atlanta, and to then sleep on overnight buses each night so I’d have a safe-ish place to spend the evening. The economics of this plan were hard to argue with, although the logistics left something to be desired. Nevertheless, my good friend Mike Collins dropped me at the Greyhound station after work and, bus ticket in hand, the adventure began.

Event tickets were limited to the cheapest ones available: $11 for men’s field hockey on July 21, $7 for USA vs. who-cares in baseball on July 22. While waiting in a long line to pick up tickets strangers I met started offering places to sleep – one guy had a rental apartment downtown and told me he’d simply give me the key, free of charge. I was twenty at the time and very self-conscious about always wanting to be able to repay any kindness, so I declined, but was nevertheless blown away at how generous and trusting people were being. Had I known that sleeping on a Greyhound would prove almost impossible, and that night two would find me curled up outdoors in a construction site in the suburbs, I might have reconsidered.

The Olympics itself were pretty much everything that could have been hoped for. I sat in downtown Atlanta in front of a fifty foot tall TV and cheered with a few thousand people when Kerri Strug clinched the gymnastics gold medal on a sprained ankle. I watched road cycling in the rain (because it was free) and met a former professional cyclist who insisted I sleep on her family’s couch that night. I scalped a ticket to swimming for less than face value shortly after the event started, took off running the two miles or so towards the swimming venue, and was later escorted out of the Athlete’s Village by Marines after unknowingly running through it and somehow getting past the first security checkpoint.

The highlight of the events I attended came after scalping a ticket to the cheapest tennis match available. On the bus there I met guy from Belgium who had a ticket to center court, and he told me that he would change tickets with me for one match so I could experience seeing the best players in the world. After enjoying a match between two obscure players on Court 14 (or wherever my ticket was for) I met him outside of center court and he told me that, instead of exchanging tickets, I should follow him and act like I knew what we were doing. No one checked my ticket closely, and we confidently strolled down next to the court and sat in the second row – apparently the corporate seats were all filled with squatters who then enjoyed matches featuring Gabriela Sabatini, Monica Seles, and Andre Agassi. After the third match I got up to get water and was busted on the way back in, but it was still a ridiculously cool experience.

After four days in Atlanta I came back to Cleveland, a Korean press guide in hand for Dave. The cyclist and the Belgian and I kept in touch for some time thereafter, recalling the few days that we had shared such excitement. While I won’t be in attendance for London, it’s a good bet that in the future the Olympic experience will be revisited, albeit with slightly more comfortable transportation and lodging that includes a bed.

In front of the Olympic Torch at Atlanta

In front of the Olympic Torch in Atlanta, 1996. I had mad hair.

Our Little Grey Friends

Posted from Culver City, California at 3:07 pm, March 25th, 2012

New house, similar visitors. It took less than a day for the finches to find the feeder, and the squirrels followed shortly thereafter. Feeder #2 is currently en route from Amazon and will double the size of the bird buffet.

Squirrel on the bird feeder

The squirrels haven’t yet resigned themselves to the fact that this is a squirrel-proof feeder, so rodents flying through the air and slipping off of plastic tubes have been a common sight over the past days.