Ryan's Journal

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.

When the Backcountry job started in January it was initially scheduled to last until May 1. That date later became June 1 before mysteriously morphing into October 1. Because of the short initial project duration I didn’t schedule any vacation, and through the first half of the year had managed only two days off – Memorial Day and one day of hiking and heat stroke with Aaron. With burnout building the little men in the brain were screaming for a long weekend, so the July Fourth holiday became a five day affair, with two days of lounging at home, a night at the new LA Ritz Carlton, and then a visit on the Fourth from my enigmatic brother.

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.

With the retirement from DirecTV back in December there was a brief window of opportunity to travel and work on side projects, but the Backcountry.com job fell immediately into my lap and the window was quickly closed. The new project has had its up and down moments, but it would be unreasonable to complain about a job that allows working in pajamas at home (and occasionally from Utah), so despite some slight burnout no such utterances will be made. As of last week the job has been extended through October 1, which unfortunately means that June is yet another month in which the journal updates are essentially “got up, worked, ran, worked a bit more, slept, repeated”; with luck the last three months of this year will be more eventful.

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?”

The job with Backcountry.com has again brought me to Utah for a week, and since this time there was talk of working over the weekend I flew out on Friday night. The work didn’t materialize, so the time was instead spent roaming around the Wasatch Front. Rainy weather and lengthy naps limited exploration, but never being one to ignore a green dot on the map I made my way to Timpanogos Cave National Monument this afternoon. Unbeknownst to me Utah apparently has some fairly impressive caves, and after a hike to the cave entrance that was a mile-and-a-half long and involved 1100′ of elevation gain I was treated to the most enjoyable caving experience since a visit to El Malpais National Monument five years ago.

Lost finale party, May 23, 2010. We are dorks.

Two more photos from my “who are the people in your neighborhood” series. Now that spring is moving on to summer it seems that LA is becoming slightly less attractive to the wild animal population, so these might be the last photos until the critters return in the fall.

I’m off to Arizona to go hiking in the Grand Canyon with Aaron, but before I head off there are two items from the past month that need recording:

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.

Despite being located in the midst of a sprawling megalopolis, our neighborhood is still a pretty good one for nature. The past month in particular has been great for variety, although most of the buggers won’t sit still long enough to allow photographs. While I’ve heard this hawk dozens of times, and seen him several more, tonight was the first night where he was feeling photogenic. The photo below was taken about seventy-five feet from our front door.

It’s been far too long since the camera has been out of its case, so below are today’s results from putting a mediocre photographer in a pretty neighborhood with a giant lens:

Here are the bracket prediction standings after the first day of the NCAA Tournament:

• Barack Obama (President of the United States of America): 120 points – overall rank: 96.9%.
• Lebron James (NBA Superstar): 90 points – overall rank: 38.3%.
• Ryan Holliday (34 year-old bald man): 110 points – overall rank: 87.4%.

Barry and I were tied until Wake Forest hit a last-second shot over Texas, meanwhile Lebron can start making up lost ground on both of us if fourth-ranked Purdue beats 13th-ranked Siena tomorrow.

I convinced Audrey, who watches no sports whatsoever, to fill out a bracket, and she currently has 80 points, tying her with legendary basketball analyst Dick Vitale (overall rank: 13.2%) despite the fact her rationale for making picks included “I have a cousin named Siena” and “Wofford is a really funny name for a college”. If she beats me the shame will not be bearable.

Since putting a bird feeder outside several months ago the house has become a bit of a Disney movie – finches gather by the dozen, ducks hang out looking for spilled seeds, and increasingly-round squirrels discover surprising ways of invading the feeder. After our third feeder became a victim of the squirrels – they somehow managed to chew off a metal perch – the sad decision was made to move to a more squirrel-proof feeder. The Squirrel Buster 9000 arrived a few days ago, and this picture (by Audrey) does a decent job of capturing the frustration of our furry little friends.