More Creation

As a junior in college I needed to loft my bed a little bit so that I'd have room for storage underneath. I didn't want to use the typical cinder blocks, they're heavy, unstable, and unsightly. I also didn't want to spend much money. I came up with the idea to use tree branches as legs for the bed. They were free, lighter than cinder blocks, and they branched out naturally helping to stabilize the legs. I scrounged through the woods near my house in NH for already downed wood that was still solid, branched nicely, and big enough. I screwed these onto two cross pieces and then laid slats over the cross pieces. This was version 1.0 of the Tree Bed. It lasted for 7 years and many relationships. It moved 3 times in NH, then to California, and finally to Salt Lake City. In fact, I slept in it last night.

This morning though I started to dismantle it. I'd been wanting to really remake the frame of the bed for a while. 1.0 was stable enough and sturdy enough, but I'd had to retrofit a few braces to keep it running, and a couple of the mattress slats had cracked. Tonight I'll sleep on version 2.0. I've reused 3 of the 4 legs from version 1.0. Khola and I found a nice new fourth leg when we were at the dog park this morning. The new upper frame has been completely redesigned around a queen size mattress, and the desire to make the bed more easily transported. I plan to cut the bed in half width-wise so that it can be removed from the room. I'll then re-assemble it using two metal plates (which I'll have to make at some point) and some beefy bolts. One of the big problems with version 1.0 is that there were almost no braces or diagonal members in the design. This allowed the frame to twist and deform easily and didn't allow me to support the mattress slats in the middle. Version 2.0 uses two diagonal struts from running between opposing corners of the frame. Since these members are primarily in tension I decided to use cables. They're lighter, and they can be unhooked and reattached once the bed is cut in half. Plus, I can use cable tensioners to adjust the tension, something that would be impossible with wood cross members. I'm also using the cables, in combination with small support blocks, to provide support to the mattress slats. In this regard wood cross pieces would be better, but wouldn't look as cool.

I've also added a pretty neat little feature. There's a small halogen lamp hidden under the bed which points at the back wall, under the bed. The lamp switch is mounted to the back leg and you can easily switch it on and off from bed. This makes for a really subtle and slightly surreal night-light. It also provides incentive to clean under the bed.

Overall I'm really happy with how this is turning out. I need to go and buy a queen mattress for it, and there are still some decorative things I want to do to give it a more finished look, but right now the structure is really solid, relatively light, and will be sort of easily transported. I think this version ought to last me another 7 years at least. Hopefully more.

You can check out more pictures on my Flickr account: My new bed

New Website and Domain!

So, I'm now the proud owner of my own domain name: bentonmiller.com. Wheee!!

In celebration of the new domain name I revamped my website. I think it's a little better than "Medium Rare" was. It's a lot easier to read and navigate, I think it has more style, and there's a little more sophisticated HTML and Javascript under the hood. The next thing I'd like to do is start adding in some Flash stuff.
BentonMiller.com

Awesome

Great Argument

This YouTube Video lays out a very compelling argument for action against climate change. It's 9 minutes long, complete worth watching. I'm not really sure why it gets the title that it does. Seems like a somewhat hopeful video to me.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See.

Awesome news

From Business Wire:

"SANTA CLARA, Calif. & MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) and Velocity11 today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Agilent to acquire Velocity11. Velocity11, privately held, is a leader in automated liquid handling and laboratory robotics for the life science market. Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be final in 30 to 60 days, subject to certain closing conditions."

This is pretty great news!! I worked really hard for the last 4 years at Velocity11, and exercised all of the options that I could before I left. This news means that I get a nice extra Christmas present this year. As the article says, the financial details won't be worked out for another 30-60 days so I won't know exactly what it means for me, but I have a rough guess, and it definitely won't be enough for me to retire on. Still, it's certainly better than having to pay taxes on options that have no real value!

See, this is the thing that sucks about stock options: Let's say you start working for Acme and their shares are trading on the stock market for $10 a share at the time. Perhaps you're a valuable employee and they give you some stock options. They say "You have the option to buy 100 shares of our stock at $10 per share, but you can only do that after you've worked here for a year." This is an incentive for you to increase the value of the stock. After a year if the stock is worth $20 you can buy 100 shares of it at $10 a share instantly making $10 per share, or $1,000. Isn't that nice! Of course, you have to pay taxes on that $1000. So you really only get to take home maybe $800. Still, you've made $800! Great!

Now, let's say you work for a privately held company like Velocity11. It's not traded on the stock market and so it's share values are harder to calculate, but the company makes an estimate and says they're worth $0.1. [Please note that I am pulling numbers out of thin air here. These are not real values. I'm making them nice and round so they're easy to work with.] Again, you get the option to purchase 100 shares after 1 year. So, at the end of one year you buy your options for $10 and you get, drum roll please...

nothing.

Velocity11 is a private company. You can't sell those shares that you bought because they're not on the market. Well, technically, you could sell them back to the company, and if Velocity11 doesn't want the shares (they have first right of refusal) you could sell them to another Velocity11 employee. This is only theoretically possible though. There really is no market for your options. During the year since you started, the company has grown and now the company estimates that the shares are worth $1. So, theoretically, on paper, you've spent $10 to make $100. A profit of $90. Of course, since you can't really sell those shares you haven't really made the money yet. You're still out $10, but wait it get's worse.

The IRS doesn't care. They don't care that you can't sell your shares. They don't care that you have -$10 in your pocket. In their mind, you've got $90 in your pocket and they want you to pay taxes on that, just the same as it were real. So, not only are you down $10 for the shares, you're down another $18 in taxes. How much does that suck? You haven't made any money on the shares you bought, but you have to pay taxes as if you had made money. But wait, it get's worse.

There's no guarantee that you will ever be able to sell your options. Velocity11 could go belly up and then you'd have spent $10 on options and paid $18 in taxes and have nothing to show for it at all! If that happens you can write it off on your taxes for the next several years until you eventually get the $18 back, but still you've lost $10 and given the government an $18 interest free loan. Awesome.

That's the boat that I was in until this morning. I'd exercised my options and had nothing to show for it. Would the options ever have value? Would I have any savings left after I paid my taxes? It was basically a crappy old row boat that I was in. I'd spent my $10, I was going to have to spend another $18 this spring at tax time, and I'd have nothing to show for it except some hope that someday I'd be able to sell the shares for more than I paid for them. Today though, I'm in an entirely different, much nicer boat. This boat has a motor, and a cooler full of beer. As I've said, I don't know the details, but I do know that I'll at least get my $10 back, and will have the money to pay the $18 in taxes. And, that's great news for today: The options aren't worth nothing! In the next 30-60 days I should know what their real value is and have a better idea of what that means for me. For today I'm just glad to know that I made a good decision to exercise.

This is good news for me, my friends at V11, and in my opinion, good news for Velocity11 as a company too. Agilent seems like a really good fit for V11. They offer complimentary products and services, without really any overlap. I'm excited to see the company continue to grow and to feel like I played a small part in brining it to where it is now.

Moab

Went to Moab this weekend with some friends. Brian Feldman was in town from New York City so we went to Moab for the occasion. Brian, James, a future housemate, Cheryl, Mike, Khola and I all went down. We went rode the Porcupine Rim Trail on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to Mill Creek for some climbing. It was a great weekend and a lot of fun. Brian and I were on H-croo together and haven't really seen each other since then. Porcupine Rim had some absolutely amazing views, the trail itself was good and fun, but I still think Demo down near Santa Cruz is the best place I've ever ridden, aside from Whistler. Mill Creek is pretty amazing. It's a long sandstone canyon in the La Sal mountains. Seems to have an almost limitless supply of rock. I can't wait to go back there. Great weekend biking and climbing with friends. You can check out the pictures here:

Moab on Flickr

Some Photos

Hey Folks, here's a short post: Heading to Moab for the weekend for some biking and climbing. Two new photo sets are up on Flickr too.


American Fork                                     Little Cottonwood Canyon

Another Wedding!

Last weekend my step-sister Halsey got married in Orlando. It was a great location and ceremony. Her new husband, Martin, is great. I'm working on a longer post covering basically everything from my move into the new place to the present, including a description of the wedding. Hopefully that will go up soon, and the shorter I make this, the more time I'll have to work on that. So, for now you'll just have to check out the pictures and make up your own story.

Halsey's Wedding Slideshow
Photo index

Cannonball Run

Here's an interesting article from Wired online talking about one crazy, independently wealthy man's quest to break the record for driving from New York to LA. The previous record was set in 1983 at 32 hours 7 minutes for the 2,795 mile drive. I've driven across the country many many times, and generally we go quickly. 45 hours from Bishop, CA to Hanover, NH in a big 15 passenger van is pretty quick I thought. This guy will need to average almost 90mph in order to break the record. I personally would have tried to use a much less flashy car.

Wired: The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross Country Sprint for Glory

I have a new place to live!

I really didn't expect it to take this long to find a place to live, but now that I've found it I'm relatively happy about it. I've got the bottom floor of a duplex. The interior is really very nice now that I've finished cleaning the filth left behind by the previous tenant. There were 3 kids and 4 cats living in this place before me. The carpets were disgusting. They left behind a decent sized pile of garbage, and there are several holes in the walls and doors. Aside from those very localized sources of damage the place is pretty decent. I've had the carpets professionally cleaned, and they're actually decent now. I'm going to have to get in touch with the property manager to get these things taken care of and I'm not excited about that. She seems difficult to deal with. Aside from those downsides the place is pretty nice. It's in a quiet neighborhood, but only a couple blocks from a pretty major thoroughfare where there's a good coffee shop with free wifi. That's where I'm working and surfing from these days. I think I'll get internet set up at home soon. I'm still waiting for my stuff to arrive from California so for now I'm sleeping on my crashpad on the floor.

The place has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I'm looking for two housemates and have tentative agreements from two cool folks that I'm excited to live with. If everything works out rent should be relatively cheap split 3 ways. It's got a decent sized backyard that Khola can run donuts in and an old tree-house that needs some work. It's pretty close to the canyons where all the awesome skiing and biking and climbing can be found. It's probably a 25 minute drive from my house to the top of the canyons, and only about 5 blocks from a climbing gym. There's a school with a big yard for Khola to run in about a block away.

So, I have an address now. You can find some pictures of the place before I moved in here. Once my stuff arrives I'll post some new pictures of the place once it's been cleaned up and moved into.

Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth ... and beyond!

This guy Bill Stone is a total bad-ass. He invents underwater exploration devices in 2019 his most recent system will be sent to map the oceans of Europa while looking for life. In the second section of this Ted Talk he proposes a manned mining operation on the moon. He proposes that they send the mission without enough fuel to return, requiring them to successfully mine the fuel for the return trip from the moon. He makes this proposal to the TED conference, which is full of extremely wealthy and influential people. In front of all of them he proclaims that he will lead this expedition. He is deadly serious. This guy is like some crazy sci-fi hero super-scientist. It's truly inspiring. I'm not sure all his ideas are perfect but I think he's likely to influence the creation of a moon-based rocket fuel mining operation. I'm not sure his idea of launching without sufficient fuel for return is such a good idea; I'm not even sure if it needs to be a manned mission. Still, an amazing talk. Check it out.

Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth ... and beyond!

Tid bits

"bush makes surprise visit to work" from the onion http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_makes_surprise_visit_to_work

"how to be your own phone company" from sci am
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=3D964001-E7F2-99DF-36CD82E1F9ED0C84&chanID=sa003

10 ways the world could end stephen petranek
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/167

To all my biking buddies

Folks,

This is the official invitation. I have after only 3 weeks found enough awesome mountain biking that I think it's worth a flight out. Southwest often has cheap tickets, or it's only a 12 hour drive. I don't have enough space for you to stay, and I don't know all the trails yet, but considering what I've found in just 3 weeks, without even checking out the more gnarly, built up trails in Park City, I think this spring will be awesome. So far I've been exploring American Fork Canyon which is about "Skeggs distance" away. This canyon has awesome rock climbing, backpacking, and now, mountain biking. This trail I would say is about on par with Demo. It's a rough high-elevation climb to the top. You can do about half of the climb on the road, or add on an earlier section of single-track uphill that will kick your ass. I can not pedal up it. Maybe with a granny-gear, but I doubt it. So, skip that stick to the road all the way to Timpooneke Campground, which is the same place that my hiking trip started from. From here you climb up on single track alongside a little stream, then up through alpine meadows with aspen and views of Mt. Timpanogos. The climb is a bitch, but the views are pretty awesome, you’re right at tree-line for a while. Then the fun begins. You go downhill non-stop for about 5 miles. I would describe it as a really narrow version of the Tractor trail at Demo. Lots of tight turns. The trail has been carved out by both mountain and dirt bikers to form a nicely rounded chute about a foot wide at the bottom and 3-4 feet wide at the top. The chute twists and turns down through the woods. You just carve back and forth from one side of the chute to the other, bombing down these trails which are like 70% perfect dirt (as good as anything in California) and 30% rocks and rock gardens. The rocks have good shapes and spacing to them. Not too sharp, and not that prone to roll around on you.

The one thing Demo wins on though is fun jumps and stunts. There are basically none on this trail. There are a few little root-drops and some sections that you can float over rocks, but nothing man-made. Shouldn’t be too hard to change that. There are lots of downed trees and dirt around that could be sculpted. The awesome thing about the trail is that because of the chute-like nature every turn is perfectly banked. There’s very little off-camber riding, and you can really rail the turns.

So, it’s really hard to take pictures while biking. I brought the new camera out yesterday and took a few photos. They don’t really capture the nature of the trail very well, but I think they do a really good job of capturing the scenery. Combine this trail with several other epic rides in that area, several more epic rides much closer to home, and three lift served mountains within a 45 minute drive, and you’ve got a pretty good place for a mountain bike destination. I’m thinking late spring would be perfect. By then I’ll have a decent shuttle vehicle and hopefully a place for people to stay. So, if you’re interested, drop me a line. Let’s start planning it out.

-Ben

New Website! (Sort of)

Hey Folks,

I've begun updating my webpage. I portentously named my webpage "the beginning" hoping it would spur me down a long path of web design and development. Since it was only the beginning I thought it'd be fine to host it on a free service like Googlepages. I'm now beyond the beginning. I've started to reach the limits of what Googlepages can do for me. So, this new page is my first real attempt at web design (as opposed to using those nice pre-made templates from googlepages). As my first true attempt I'd have to rate it medium rare. Because really right now, it's only a new front page, and it doesn't even do anything cool, just look good*. But it's still cooking. I need to update all the rest of the content with the new look and feel, but I think first I've got to find a real hosting service outside of Googlepages. I think it'll be pretty tasty once all that is finished grilling. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think about it.

*I hope.

Quick Backpacking trip

This week I took a quick backpacking trip to Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountains. It's the second tallest mountain in Utah, and probably the most popular. It's only a 40 minutes drive and 7.5 mile hike from Salt Lake. Even though I went midweek I saw at least 40 people over the three days (I saw 20 hiking up as I was hiking out yesterday). Still everyone I saw was very respectful of the outdoors and obviously happy to be there and very friendly. You can check out the photos here: Flickr Photoset. I'm still cleaning them up, so a few more might make it up on Flickr in the next day or two.

Disgust

Have you seen this video yet? "UF student tasered at John Kerry Speach". Near the end of a question and answer session John Kerry calls on a student with a question. He steps to the microphone and spends about 30 seconds setting up his question. He recommends a book called "Armed Madhouse" by Greg Palast, which claims that Kerry won the presidential election of 2004. Kerry says he's already read it, and wants to know if the student has a question. A police officer taps him on the shoulder and says something to him. From his response it seems that the police officer has asked him to stop talking. From here things denigrate. The student manages to ask three questions before the cops drag him off. I've paraphrased them below:

1. Considering the amount of fraud and confusion as outlined in "Armed Madhouse" how could you concede the election on the same day?
2. If you're against invading Iran why not impeach Bush?
3. Were you and Bush both members of the same secret society at Yale?

He is forcibly removed from the microphone by the police officers as he asks the last question. This is just absolutely wrong. The student was allowed to speak for one minute 30 seconds before he was cut off and escorted away from the microphone. In the background you can see a man in a suit speaking with a police officer when the student first starts rambling, and you see this same man move his hand across his throat making a "cut him off" type gesture which immediately precedes the physical removal of the student. As the student is removed he is confused and resists the removal. He asks loudly what are you arresting me for? He struggles and is eventually subdued by 3 or 4 police officers. While on the floor he continues to shout and struggle and then he is shocked with a taser.

I'm amazed, but there are actually a lot of people who are siding against the student. They say things like "He's annoying" or "He had it coming". You know what? Carrot Top is annoying, but we can't get the police to taser him. They say "He was grandstanding and wanted it to happen." That may be true, but it is still not a valid reason to prevent his free-speech or forcibly remove him.

I listen to call in shows on NPR like Forum and Talk of the Nation. Those hosts do an excellent job handling callers with rambling questions. Why couldn't Senator Kerry handle this? How could he allow this to go on right in front of him? I'm really unimpressed by how Kerry has handled the situation and am interested to see how this all turns out.

American Fork

I went climbing Saturday and Sunday at American Fork (45 minutes southeast of salt lake). I went with Heath Saturday morning and then again on Sunday with Mike and Cheryl. After being out late the night before (80's themed birthday party for Craig and Luke) we had a leisurely morning and didn't get to the cliff till about 1pm. No one was there; probably scared off by the very brief stream crossing required to access the cliff. We hopped on a few climbs and then worked on "Teardrop" a 13a and one of Cheryl's many projects. I've been in a perpetual state of soreness since I moved to Utah a week ago and it's great. This problem was well out of my grasp yesterday, but I can't wait to get back on this problem once the soreness starts to fade.

Flickr Photos of American Fork

New Camera!!

I just got my Tamron 28-75mm lens for my new Canon Rebel XTi and took it out for a test run in Mike and Cheryl's backyard. I took 48 pictures (I need a bigger memory card). 19 photos made the cut. I'm pretty damn stoked! The named photos have been "developed" I haven't cleaned up the others yet. The control and precision over the image taking process this camera gives me is awesome, and I don't even know what I'm doing yet. Practice will make perfect. I'm reading through the manual, but in the meantime if someone can tell me how to manually set the F-stop, or if you have other hints to improve my shooting I'd love the advice.

There are some really great photos of Khola I think as well as two kinda fun shots of the backyard. The camera allowed me to grab some really cool action shots of Khola too. It's got an auto-fire feature where it can take 3 pictures per second as long as you hold down the shutter button. The shots of her shaking the frisbee and chasing the ball were taken with this setting. I'm not showing all frames on flickr though, only the few that I thought were interesting on their own. I've still got a lot to learn. I'm sure I'm not pushing the limits of this camera or lens yet. I'm excited to take it out and try some landscapes later this week, hopefully after a bit more practice.

Check out all the photos on Flickr

Maple Canyon

Yesterday Mike, Cheryl, Khola and I went to Maple Canyon. It's about 1:45 south of Salt Lake City. Really cool area with strange conglomerate rock that makes the cliffs look like a big pile of river stones turned upside-down. The rock is relatively solid and makes for really interesting climbing that is very difficult to read. Is that next cobble going to be smooth and slippery-slopery or is it going to have some big sinker secret pocket? Who knows! It was great to get out sport climbing again. It used to be my favorite type of climbing, but there just isn't much around the Bay Area, so this was the first time I'd gone in about 1.8 years. The last time I went sport climbing was in Thailand in 2005/06. It's nice to be living somewhere close to sport climbing again. Maple isn't even the closest place to Salt Lake. American Fork is about an hour closer, but Mike and Cheryl had the whole day off so we went for a longer trip.

Photos of Maple Canyon on Flickr

Light Pollution

Great article in the New Yorker about light pollution. Here's an excerpt:

"In Galileo’s time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9, at the other extreme of the scale, and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away. To see skies truly comparable to those which Galileo knew, you would have to travel to such places as the Australian outback and the mountains of Peru. And civilization’s assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder."

Read the article: "The Dark Side" by David Owen

Arrival

Khola and I are now in Salt Lake City. These last couple weeks it's been really hard to say goodbye to all of my great friends out in the bay area. Every dinner was a going away dinner. Every time I saw a friend it was the last time I'd see them for a while. I don't think moving or changing is supposed to be easy though. It's been hard for me to leave because the last 4 years were so good. I'll miss all the great people I'm leaving behind, but you've all got an open invitation to come visit me in SLC.

On the positive side, I am now officially "retired". At least that's what I'm calling it. I'm working for the fun of it, not for the pay. I live in a cool city close to the mountains and work part time as the product manager for Guyot Designs. Sure, I'm not making much money, and at my current pay rate I'll have to work forever, but the work is fun and not too burdensome. This whole thing should be a really valuable experiment for me. Is this really what I want? Can I follow my passions and find happiness? Only time will tell.

So, for now Khola and I are staying in the guest bedroom of my good friends Mike and Cheryl. They're on call at the hospital for the next 30 hours, so I've got the run of the place. In no particular order goals for today are:

• Look for more permanent rental housing
• Read the manual for my new D-SLR camera cover to cover
• Go climbing
• Update Blog (Done)
  

Beach Party, Going Away Party

Had a wonderful, sleep deprived, party at the beach on Saturday after the all night mountain bike ride. It was really nice to see everybody that came out. The weather was perfect. A special thanks to Dave Asmussen who made the whole weekend smooth and easy. Thanks especially for the beautifully constructed beach table decked out with grilled and marinated vegetables, sausage, brownies, chips. Can you tell which people were biking all night?



Flickr Photos

Night Biking for Geoff's 30th

This was an epic weekend. I realize that the term "epic" can have a variety of different connotations, and this weekend was an epic weekend in a variety of different ways. One of my favorite uses of "epic" is to describe an adventure that has gone terribly wrong due to bad luck, and/or poor planning. Lots of climbers can tell you stories of "epic-ing" on this climb or that mountain. Stories of getting stuck on ledges overnight, dropping belay devices, getting off-route, cutting stuck ropes. Simple adventures become dangerous and uncomfortable, but then later in the retelling they become great stories. Of course an Epic adventure doesn't necessarily have to be accidental. Sometimes you can push yourself into one on purpose.

That's what we did this weekend. Friday, my "last day" at Velocity11. Geoff's 30th birthday. We needed an epic. Geoff provided the inspiration: Poach the "Something to the Beach Trail". The name of the trail has been changed to protect the guilty. The Something to the Beach Trail runs 30-35 miles from the top of Something at about 2,500' all the way down to the beach. Why poach it? Why change it's name? Why be vague? It's a hiking trail; biking it is illegal. It's in the bay area and normally crawling with rangers and snot-nosed kids. We had to legitimately worry about getting caught. Of course, we also had to worry about how to get there and back. Who would drive which vehicle, who would ride who would camp where would we camp?

Wednesday we met at my house for planning and pizza and beer. We talked and researched and Dave, playing secretary, laid out the entire plan on the pizza box lid (see first image). I then translated it into text and sent this email:

"Everyone* but Geoff and Amber meet at Velocity11 (3565 Haven Ave Menlo Park CA) I don't care when you arrive, but we're leaving promptly at 8PM. That means all the bikes are loaded and we're pulling out of the Velocity11 Parking lot at 8**. Arrive enough time before then to get your shit together and into the truck.

From V11 we'll drive Ryan's truck and my car up to [Something] where we'll meet Geoff and Amber. We'll plan to leave the parking lot just after 9PM***. My car will stay and Dave will drive Ryan's truck to Mike's parents house on the beach and set up. Meanwhile we'll ride. The trail's about 31 miles so figure like a 6 hour ride. Get's us to the end around 3AM****. From there some people pile into Amber's car and drive to Mike's, they pick up Ryan's truck and come back to get everyone else.

Then we sleep on Mike's parents beach until we wake up, then we'll drive up the road a-ways to the beach party location, set up and have fun. Rides will be leaving from the party going to various locations. There will definitely be rides back to Palo Alto after the party, but can't guarantee exactly when."

And that's pretty much how it happened. With only a few minor changes or explanations:

*"Everyone" wasn't actually everyone. It was Ryan, Dave, Mike H, Thorsten, Adam, Karla and me. At the last minute Mike N and Mike W got in on the ride and at the last possible second Forrest found a bike at 7PM Friday and made it out. All told there were 12 people on the ride. That many people riding for that long that late at night almost guarantees an epic. Something has got to go wrong.

**We actually left Velocity11 at 8:08PM. Only 8 minutes behind schedule. Not bad.

***Unfortunately we didn't leave Something till 10PM. It took Geoff and Amber almost 2 hours to drive from the end point where they'd stashed Amber's car to the starting point and that delayed our start.

****The ride actually ended up taking 7 hours even after we cut took a short-cut and substituted 4 miles of road for 5 miles of trail. We finished the ride at about 5AM but it took another hour to get all of our stuff shuttled to Mike's house. Ryan Karla Jeff and I crashed under a tree as the sky started lightening. Everyone else slept in the field right by Mike's house. We were too tired to bother moving down to the beach. We woke up at 11AM after about 4-5 hours of sleep, packed up and headed to the next beach.

Overall, the ride was amazing. I can't believe all twelve of us finished the ride. I'm not too surprised that things ran later than we'd intended. Actually, I'm pretty stoked that we estimated it as closely as we did. It seems like everyone was well prepared for the ride. Nobody ran out of battery power, nobody crashed super hard, nobody had massive mechanical problems. Everyone had a enough food and water, no one got whiny or bitchy. Everyone had a blast!

The trail itself was pretty darn fun too. Long sections of downhill, some interesting technical sections, and (unfortunately) a pretty decent amount of climbing that we weren't expecting. The trail seemed to constantly hug a steep slope or cliff on the left. If the trail was on the slope of a hill, the top of the hill was always to the right. Forever. Geoff said he'd subtitle the ride "Or, how I rode 31 miles with a cliff on my left", and at the time it was a very funny thing to say. Having the cliff constantly in your thoughts might have made the ride a little slower than it otherwise would've been, but most of the time it didn't dampen the ride, and did provide for several spectacular views of moon-soaked ridges heading to the ocean and one spectacular crash where Mike N. went tumbling down a 70 degree sandy slope for a good 30 feet. Overall a really fun trail.

This was my first time riding at night (I borrowed a light from Marc. Thanks Marc!) and it was really a blast. It's amazing how fast you can ride with a light. Especially in the beginning when the batteries are fresh and there isn't a cliff on the left. It was almost the same as riding during the day. Tons of fun. Tons of riding. I was impressed.

Flickr photos Sorry they're not so great.

More concrete plans

This is a purely informational post for those of you trying to keep track of me.

Work Schedule: Friday was the first of two "last days" at Velocity11. I'll be back in the office for one more day on Thursday Sept. 6th. That will really be my last day. Spreading it out gives people time to adjust to my absence and start asking the questions they should've asked before I left. Then I'll come back for a day and answer those questions. At the same time it gives me health care coverage through September, which is a definite benefit.

Moving Schedule: September 5th Goldstar vanlines will show up at my place and carry all my boxes and furniture into their truck and drive it away to store it until I call them to bring it to me in SLC. Friday September 7th I'll be in SLC. I'm not sure if I'll leave Thursday night, or early Friday morning.

Moving Eastward

Dear Everybody I know,

A common theme among self-help books and 12-step programs is a piece of advice meant to help you find your life's calling. Do now what you would plan to do in retirement. It is also a common question asked by every high school guidance counselor:

Q: "What would you do if you could do anything you want?"

A: "I'd live in a fairly populous location close to high quality climbing and biking and work for an outdoor gear company working on conceptual designs for products, but I'd have a lot of free time to get outdoors."

So, based on the advice of an archetypal guidance counselor, I've decided to move to Salt Lake City in September. I'll work part time for Guyot Designs (check out GuyotDesigns.com) and possibly do some contract work for Velocity11 while working on my web and photog skills, which I would currently describe as "nascent". I should have a lot of time to get out in the mountains which are nearby and filled with climbing and biking and skiing. Moab, The Wind Rivers, Joe's Valley, LCC, Maple Canyon, etc etc. The list is very long all of it is within a 4 hour drive.

I'm sad to leave behind all the great folks of the Bay Area. Thanks for all the wonderful memories and adventures. I'll be back to visit, and you've got a couch to sleep on in Salt Lake City when you come to visit. Not that I know where I'm living yet. But when I've got an address I'll send it out. Same old cell phone number and email address.

Hope you're all doing well.

-Ben

Memorial Day

Hey Folks, Finally published a new adventure: Memorial Day weekend. The pictures have been up for a while, but now there's a story to go along with them. I haven't finished it yet, but the first installment is up.

Quick Yosemite Trip

Jonny5 and I were up in Tuolumne Meadows this weekend to do some climbing and meet up with some friendly squirrel researchers. Memorial day weekend Ryan and I met Haleh, Katie, and Jenny in Bishop at an artesian-well slash hot spring slash swimming hole. They're doing squirrel research in Tuolumne this summer which means they've got a free reserved campsite and can get us into the park for free. Haleh invited us up to Tuolumne for the weekend, and Jonny and I headed up.

We got in Friday night around 9:30PM after leaving San Francisco around 3:45. It always amazes me how long it takes to drive to Yosemite! Minor adventures and confusion ensued as we tried to find "The squirrel camp" which was actually being shared by the "Berkeley Butterfly Boys". There's an interesting and rich employee culture in Yosemite. People stay in cabins and tents throughout the summer doing field research on various species. I've met people who study frogs, owls, squirrels, and butterflies, and I'm sure there are other groups as well. Some researchers live in the valley, some live up in Tuolumne. Seems like a pretty fun job, living and working in one of the more beautiful places on the planet. It reminded me a little bit of the trail and bio crews that live and work at Moosilauke Lodge up in New Hampshire.

Saturday we woke up early and did a little bit of dog-smuggling and climbing. Yosemite (like all national parks) does not allow dogs anywhere in the park except on "improved surfaces" (pavement) and some campsites. My plan had been to leave Khola at camp while we climbed, but the camp host said that she couldn't be left unattended. It's too hot to leave her in the car, so we snuck her into the woods and to the base of the cliff. We managed to do that twice. The only thing that sucked is that Khola was very defensive at the base of the cliff and would bark at any new climbers that walked up. That was annoying and troubling, but in the end we didn't get caught. Still it was a big hassle and one that I would avoid in the future. It really frustrates me that our national parks don't allow you to bring a dog into the woods. Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

The climbing itself was great. We went up West Crack on Daff Dome which is a stellar 5 pitch 5.9. Really perfect rock with a nice long crack and some knobs and face-features, even a little roof you had to pull over! I got strung out accidentally trying to link the 2nd and 3rd pitches together. I was in the zone and blew right past a nice bolted anchor about 10 feet left of the crack and about 100 feet above the first belay. So, at about 135 feet I realized I had two slings left, and what looked like about 30 feet of pretty smooth, slightly flaring crack. I'd already had one 30 foot run out earlier on in the pitch and wasn't in the mood for another one at the end of the rope. I wouldn't have had any gear to build an anchor anyway. So, I built a nut anchor in the crack at a nearly vertical section of the cliff and had to hang there and bring Jonny up. Luckily he found the bolt anchor and we managed to get everything straightened out. I came down to the bolt anchor and Jonny finished off the third pitch with style. The remaining climbing was pretty easy and uneventful. I'd love to go back and do it again now knowing to stop at that bolt anchor.

We had a siesta back at camp and were pretty surprised that we hadn't seen Haleh or Katie yet. We went back out and smuggled the dog into the base of "Low Profile Dome", which should really be called "Low Profile Cliff" as there's really nothing dome-like about it, where we climbed a really nice two pitch 5.7R. The R rating was deserved, Jonny had a 30-40 foot runout at the top of the second pitch, but it was on relatively easy terrain. It was a nice finish to the day. It's amazing how much more pleasant climbing is when you can easily see and hear your partner. That was one of the biggest problems on west crack. When I ran out of gear Jonny was 130 feet below me and under a roof and it was windy. We couldn't really hear each other at all.

Again, back to camp, and some wading in the Tuolumne river, and then finally Haleh and Katie arrive. Car troubles delayed them by about 10 hours. Bummer. Jonny and I were both pretty tired and satisfied so we did a little bit of hanging out around a campfire, then off to bed, rise early, and head back home. I've got a big trip to Whistler coming up that I need to prepare for, and there wasn't much we could get done on Sunday without worrying about the dog and all that hassle so we just took it easy and headed back. You can check out Jonny's Flickr page for photos from the weekend. I brought my camera but it never got out of my bag.

Mr and Mrs McArthur

Last weekend I was back in Des Moines to see my sister marry Matt McArthur. They're a wonderful couple and it's great to see them tie the knot. Thanks for a great wedding and weekend Abby and Matt, hope you're enjoying Mexico. Congratulations Matt and Abby!

Click on the image to the left to see the Flickr photo gallery.

And these photos from AmMcarthur's Flickr page are even better.

Rope Robot from 60 AD

Here's a neat little article and video about a very simple two wheeled "robot" that can be "programmed" to move forward and backward, and turn left and right, based on the way strings are wound around the axles of each wheel. The video makes it pretty clear. Kind of a neat simple machine.

"A Programmable Robot from 60 AD"

Virtual Ecomonies

This article in the New York Times Magazine is an interesting look into "gold farming" where players of the game World of Warcraft gather gold and other valuables in the game which are then bought by other players too impatient to earn it themselves, creating real value for virtual goods. As a result people are playing video games for a living in China. An entire industry has grown up around playing online games to harvest gold. This article discusses how this affects the gaming community at large and also describes a variety of tactics that have been employed to make a living playing video games. Interesting reading. Enjoy!

The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

Quick link

Here's an interesting article from Scientific American: "Can Climate Intervention Turn Down the Heat?" Some researchers from Carnegie Mellon created a climate model of Earth and observed the affects of global warming in over time. They then introduced climate intervention techniques such as satellites supporting mirrors or particles dispersed in the sky to reflect the sun's rays.
They made the assumption that whatever intervention technique was chosen the affect would be uniform across the globe. That seems like an unrealistic assumption, but without that assumption it would've been pretty hard to model, so I can understand why they did it. Anyway, read the article for their interesting results.

The future

A theory I've had for a while is that in the future we will mine the garbage dumps of today. All of the materials that we throw away today will become more and more scarce in the future. Eventually we'll pull all of the concentrated resources out of the planet. There will be higher concentrations of precious metals in our garbage dumps, than in the ground. As these resources become more scarce they will become more expensive. Eventually it will become cheaper to mine resources from garbage dumps of the past, than from standard ore deposits. I've been thinking this for a long time, and it's good to read an interesting article on the subject. Read this article. It's a photo-essay documenting electronics waste recycling in China. It's mostly pictures but there are some words mixed in, including:

Computers are much more than just wires and plastic; they are also a source of highly valuable metals, including gold, copper, and aluminum. One ton of computer scrap contains more gold than 17 tons of gold ore. Circuit boards can be 40 times richer in copper than typical copper ore. For this reason, workers in e-waste dumps in the southern Chinese city of Guiyu carefully sort the computers’ hardware and melt down the most valuable parts.

Mars

This article talks a little bit about exploration on Mars. It's pretty amazing. Three years after both Spirit and Opportunity completed their primary mission, they continue to make new and interesting discoveries. One of Spirit's six wheels no longer turns. As it drags that wheel it churns the soil yielding some exciting discoveries including further signs of ancient water possibly existing on Mars. It's a quick read, and it's pretty impressive to realize that these rovers are still being driven around remotely, on another planet, three years after their planned usefulness. Amazing.

Laughing is better than crying

Every once in a while the onion delivers up a great article. Check this one out:

Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

"In an attempt to increase public support of whatever the fuck it is he thinks he's doing, President Bush trotted out the same old whoop-de-do you've heard over and over at a solemn-yet-resolute speech attended by soldiers, or religious leaders, or firemen, or some mix of ethnic-looking people from one of those countries."

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/middle_east_conflict_intensifies

An end to oil?

Whilst in beautiful Utah this spring I bumped into an old friend from college. She's living in Boulder working on a PhD in Geophysics, after becoming disillusioned by her job working for an oil company. It was fun to catch up and talk. At some point during the day of climbing she mentioned this crazy woman named Leslie that would climb at Rifle. Leslie would use aid-climbing gear to work on sport routes by herself since no one would belay her for the length of time she needed to work on the moves -lashing herself to these routes for days and constantly telling everyone about the progress that she was (not) making towards sending the route. But apparently, she pales in comparison to the man who has a crush on her. The man who invented the electric windmill car. The man that could bring an end to oil. That's all they would tell me. He has a crush on Leslie, and he invented the electric windmill car. Google it. Actually, don't Google it. I've done that for you. Here, just click this: http://www.inventor-warp-speed.com/ and then after that, you'll probably want to know what the hell is going on.

This article from Total Drek really gives you a nice tour of Greg's website and offers up some interesting excerpts. It's a good introduction to Greg, and a nice article overall, but I have to disagree with some of their conclusions as to the feasibility of an electric windmill car. I think they've missed an important facet. First of all, as Total Drek stated details are "sketchy". I agree with them having completed my own research on the topic and come up with little information. Though, I should state that by "research" I mean: "downloaded one of Greg's 30 minute poems that Total Drek recommended and iTunes happened to start playing it randomly while I was out getting a burrito." I got back just in time for Greg to talk a little bit about the electric windmill car, his love for Leslie and an accident at a construction site. From what I could gather it's obvious that Greg lives a very special life. He is closely monitored by the government (and Leslie (maybe)) via hidden cameras. All of his life is recorded on video tape by the government, and this is part of what makes his claims to the electric windmill car so bullet-proof. When he invented the electric windmill car, he ran home and told it to the hidden camera behind his mirror. So, the government observers have a copy of the video tape of him inventing the electric windmill car. That proves it. I'm not sure what "it" is, but I'm sure you can define "it" in a way that makes the preceding sentence true.

So anyway, I listened to about 6 minutes of the tail end of his poem, flipped through a few links on his webpage and decided I was qualified to write this article. Details are sketchy. Details are sketchy, but I agree with Total Drek when they say:

"The basic idea appears to be that as the car drives, the windmills will turn, generating electricity to recharge the batteries. Thus, one need only charge the car once and it will be able to drive forever more with the assistance of its windmills."

And I agree with them again when they say:

"[Y]ou will have to spend power to get power out of the windmills, and the amount you spend will exceed the amount recovered by the windmills because of friction. So, far from eliminating our need for fossil fuel, the electric windmill car would actually increase it."

But, does that really mean that an electric windmill car is impossible? I think we're both missing something. Greg is special, and he knows special things that we can't know. Maybe, due to some weird synergistic twelfth dimensional coupling affect, when you put windmills on cars friction "flows" "backwards". Maybe if the wind blows on the car while it's parked, and the windmills have some method of efficiently storing that wind energy it could power the car. I'm pretty sure that's impossible, but hey, Greg knows a lot of things I don't. Maybe these windmills run on sunlight? It's gotta work somehow! I mean, look at the energy and passion that he's put into the webpage, into his poems. That electric windmill car has got to be real in some sense of the word. Greg knows things that we don't. What a crazy world.

Joe's Valley Photos

Joe's Valley Photos are posted on my flickr page now. They've actually been up for a couple days but I'm just now getting around to mentioning it. It's funny, I went to Joe's Valley to go bouldering but I have no good pictures of Joe's Valley, or of bouldering. When I was there the weather was great the rock was fun, and there were lots of folks to talk to. So I didn't really take any pictures. Plus, I'd seen so many pictures of Joe's before I left that I felt like taking pictures of people bouldering wouldn't be original enough. So, I didn't take any pictures till I hurt my finger in the Triassics. I decided to just walk around and take pictures.
I also took some pictures from the car while driving out and back. Most of them were crap, but, a couple turned out. They're on Flickr. Someday soon I'll put up the whole story.

April 1st

Google TiSP is a new service from Google that allows for free internet access through your home's plumbing. Seems like you'd still need to be in a large municipal area. I don't think this would work for people with septic systems. The graphic alone is pretty funny. Check out the PHD with the snorkel in the sewer connecting your flushed cable for you. Awesome. I Hope someone I know goes for this!

Slightly Injured, not in the dessert

Yesterday and the night before there were massive snow storms in Joe's Valley. I woke up to 2 inches of fresh snow on my tent. The boulders of the right fork were covered. I thought maybe the south facing, lower elevation of New Joe's might provide some solace. No such luck. Ended up driving through a near white out to the Triassic, an area near the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry just outside of Elmo. The weather there was perfect! What a difference a 45 minute drive can make. Unfortunately I grabbed a weird pocket a little bit too hard and really tore a pulley tendon in my right middle finger. So, today I drove back to Salt Lake City to hang out with Mike and Cheryl and get some other stuff done.

I didn't bring the cable to connect my camera to the computer so photos of the trip will have to wait. When they're on the web I'll let you know.

Speaking of that, I finally posted the first couple sections of stories from the Nepal trip back in 1999. They're pretty rough right now, but at least they're up. Check them out if you're interested.

Alive in the dessert

Hey Folks, really short post here. I'm at the Orangeville (Utah) public library taking a rest day. I survivde the drive out to Utah and am having a wonderful time. I'll be back in the bay area on Saturday night. See some of you then perhaps.

Struck a Nerve

This comic really struck a nerve with me today. This week has been hell so far. Every morning I get in a bit before 9 and by about 12:30PM I've almost beaten back the email, voice-mail, and phone calls. But it's like I'm out in the middle of the wilderness in a blizzard and I'm shoveling snow. It falls continuously; just slightly slower than I can shovel. So, if I shovel like hell I can clear a small spot for a while. Of course, I'm shoveling frantically because if I can keep the spot clear for a little while then I'll be able to build a fire and stay warm (and melt a little snow too). But of course, if I stop shoveling to eat lunch or go to the bathroom then the snow will accumulate and it'll take me a while to catch up. So, anyway, I'm fed up with email; this comic made me laugh.

By the way, I use this great program called iBert to view today's episode of Dilbert by Scott Adams. iBert is a nice application for Mac OS X of course, you could just check out his cartoon on the web (you still need a web connection for iBert) but for some reason I like iBert better.

And also, I'm going on vacation. Hopefully leave tomorrow afterwork. Sleep in the sierras somewhere, arrive in SLC in the evening on Friday to crash at Mike and Cheryl's, then drive the last couple hours down to Joe's Valley for some bouldering and camping out. Just me and Khola. Should be a very relaxing trip. Be back on the first.

The internet is still a wonderful place

Slashdot just directed me to this article about Michael Crook. Pretty creepy guy. It's nice to see the internet stood up to his ridiculous posturing and served him what he deserved.

The best playlist ever?

So here's an interesting little idea. I think I've created the best playlist ever, and it'd be fun to see what other people think of it. If you use iTunes, I can almost guarantee you'll like it, even though I have no idea what kind of music you listen to. This playlist is "smart" (a smart playlist in iTunes). Really a smart playlist is just a filter. The contents of the playlist are the results of the filter placed on your music library. Each person has their own library of songs that this filter is applied to. So the playlist has your own unique set of songs because the playlist is based on your iTunes library. Ok, so by default, this smart playlist is based on your musical tastes. That increases the chance that you'll like it. But, the meat of this, is the filter itself. It shows you music that you haven't listened to recently, but that you have liked in the past. Listening to this playlist on my computer brings up music that I've almost forgotten about, haven't listened to in a while, but have really enjoyed in the past.

Try it for yourself! Depending on how you rank your music, you might have to adjust your rating to more or fewer stars, and your play count may have to go up or down a bit depending on your listening habits.

Mr Deity

I think it was Justin who turned me on to mrdeity. Pretty funny parody of God as a modern day narcissistic creative project manager. We get a backstage view of the creation and other day to day activities of the deity. The stories bend time, blending the biblical with the contemporary producing some really funny situations. The acting and production quality of these videos is very impressive. There are 8 episodes right now. Each is a few minutes long. I'd recommend watching them in order.

Fontainebleau photoset

Folks, I posted some photos of Fontainebleau from the two bouldering trips I've had there. The first was an amazing amount of fun. The second was a surreal experience caused by lack of sleep and jet-lag. There are stories in there, but they're not coming out tonight. Still you can check out the photos:

Fontainebleau

Thailand

I finally got my Thailand page up and running. It's linked from the beginning but you can check it out right here: climbing in Thailand. This is kind of old news at this point seeing as how I was in Thailand over New Years of 2005/2006. At least it's up. Hope you enjoy it. Also, more photos available on Flickr:

Thailand

Michael Pollan

Unhappy Meals

A couple weeks ago Michael Pollan wrote a great article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He talks about what humans should eat, what we do eat, how and why the two have diverged, and what we can do to change the situation. I really appreciate his investigative approach, it feels like he's truly trying to understand a situation. If you enjoy the article above definitely check out The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire.

Dedication

The Lanyard

Click the link above to listen to a recording of Billy Collins reading his poem The Lanyard on "A Prairie Home Companion". I first heard this poem one night driving from somewhere to somewhere-else on the snowy roads of upstate New York or New Hampshire -pretty sure it wasn't Vermont. That first recording had none of the audience participation that this recording has. It made the humor more subtle. Hidden in the meaning of the words, not their presentation. Still the recording above is nice. It shows the writer's perspective. Besides, I couldn't find a free recording of the Garrison Keillor version in 90 seconds of searching. If you find it let me know.

In the poem the author remembers giving his mother a useless trinket he made at camp in exchange for the countless hours of labor she selflessly donated to raising him. In the same spirit, I dedicate this webpage to my parents. My parents who never get to see me. Who always want to know what I'm up to, and to "hear the sound of my voice". I know it's just a webpage, it's not time spent at home or telephone calls, but right now it is enough. It's all they've ever asked of me; the best I can do.

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

So, with that I'll kick off this blog. I'll share things I find interesting or special. Sometimes it won't be a mushy dedication to my parents. Sometimes it will be interesting, sometimes funny (I hope), sometimes serious.