GIGO: words unreadable aloud

Thursday 15 March 2007

Coyote Creek bike path

So, taking my own advice on Monday, I decided to take a ride on my (road) bike that's been sitting idle in my office for the past few months. The office is on Montague Expressway, just east of I-880, so I have to cross one busyish street (Oakland/Main), one freeway entrance, one freeway exit, and one less busy street (McCarthy) in order to get to the bike path. From there, I can go north to 237, and there are other paths along 237 that I didn't explore that day. Looking at the on-line San Jose and Santa Clara County bike trail maps and walking trail maps, it looks like the connectivity might still be incomplete on the 237 path.

Anyway, on my way back I took Tasman/GreatMall/Capitol (but I turn off before it turns into Capitol). Nice bike paths on that route! Felt pretty safe despite big street crossings at McCarthy and Abel, and the I-880 on- and off-ramps.

The Coyote Creek path itself is partly gravel, partly paved, heads north above the creek's west bank, and has a few dip-down loops that drop off of the levee, into the creek's wide flood channel. Heard lots of loud birds in a few spots; saw a couple of egrets.

I guess I'll try exploring south next time, but I don't think the path connects (yet) to the much longer ones near downtown SJ.
11:29:34 PM comment/

Monday 12 March 2007

Daylight Saving Time (DST) remains asymmetrical

For a few years, I would annually issue a "Daylight Saving Time Asymmetry Reminder" on certain work-internal email lists; a couple of times, I posted weblog entries about the DST Asymmetry. Whaddaya know, I check today and one of those is the top google result for DST Asymmetry.

Anyway, since the times of the DST changes are different this year (in the US), some of the timings noted in that article are different. However, the principle remains even though the springtime change has now been moved to (about a week and a half) before the equinox. The springtime change this year was this past Sunday morning, Saturday's sunset was around 6:13, and Sunday's sunset around 7:13, so full dark is already quite close to 8:00 pm.

The autumn change this year will be somewhere around seven weeks after the autumnal equinox, instead of the normal two or so; this year's change will thus be even more cruel than it usually is.

Oh, well, it's time to get out and enjoy the extra light. In California, this winter was (except for a frigid week in January) exceptionally warm and dry, which has me a tad worried about the severity of the coming summer, and gives me added incentive to enjoy this month's gorgeous weather.
12:29:09 AM comment/

Tuesday 10 October 2006

Google mac blog

After seeing a hint yesterday, probably on diggdot.us, that Google now has a Mac-oriented weblog, it took me a while to locate it again — the "More Google Blogs" section of their main Official Google Blog doesn't appear to link to the Mac one yet.

It did get me to finally download Google Earth for my mac; very cool and fun to explore with.

While looking around for the G-mac blog, I noticed their entry about participating in a 24-hour race at Moab. Cool. Time to get back in shape so I can do some massively parallel MTB searching...

It is a bit strange that the photo of one of their MTBers has a title that starts with "MOAB", but appears to be a photo from Long Ridge, just off Skyline here on the edges of Santa Clara County, CA.

11:58:02 PM comment/

Wednesday 13 September 2006

Remodel, two bike rides, and some backpack plans

Two plus weeks on Kaua`i, and only about one afternoon actually felt like it would count as vacation (a visit to Allerton Gardens). We (Deb and I) more or less remodeled my Mom's condo in Lihue. Came out great. I'll link to some photos once I put them in a more public place.

I got to do two more bike rides lately -- one on the 3rd or so, where Ben & Marty & I rode from Rincon, up U-Conn into UCSC, across the top of UCSC into Wilder, down Chinquapin and the east side of the Big Meadow, across Old Cabin, and then the long, long climb up Long Meadow. It's all covered with large gravel these days, icky to ride up. Ben and I were in crappy enough shape that we walked up. Still icky. Gorgeous day, though, and great scenery. Amazing amount of time without seeing anyone.

The second ride was mostly paved -- Ben rode the road bike. We started in kinda the western edge of Scotts Valley, near where Lockwood hits Graham Hill Road. Rode a mile and a half down G.H.R's bike-lane-less narrow shoulder, to that end of Pipeline Road. Then we could take Pipeline across the park (Henry Cowell) to park HQ. Some cops were driving on that end of the road, looking for a guy with a dog. We never got the story on why. We road through Roaring Camp, out to GHR, across to Conference Road, and then up through the Conference Center area, and along the landslide singletrack that connects over to Mount Hermon Road. Then it's a reasonably gentle climb back up Lockwood to GHR.

Next up: tomorrow night, we head for Tuolomne Meadows to see whether we can get a permit for the 18-mile semiloop backpack from there to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. Wish us luck.
11:35:14 PM comment/

Tuesday 1 August 2006

West Cliff, Wilder, Bobcat

Got to take a bike ride Sunday. First time in way too long. My nephew Ben and I drove down to Bay, rode down to the Dream Inn, and all the way along West Cliff (got rained on a bit) to Fallen Arches Park, then out to Wilder and along the coast road/trail to the Fern Grotto.

A couple of turns before the grotto, we saw a big bobcat out there. He was walking across the trail some 30 feet in front of us, and the only brush was a 20-foot-wide strip of low bushes between the trail and a plowed brussels-sprouts field. The cat walked to the other end of the brush, and then just held still (apparently hoping that we hadn't noticed it). We watched for two or three minutes, then rode on out to the grotto. On the way, we told a group of hikers to look for the cat.

After clambering down to the beach and checking out the cave, we came back up and rode back towards park HQ. The hikers were clumped at the cat's spot, staring. It had made it farther away from the trail, and the people were just looking. One said that he thought it had caught something, because of the way its head was moving.

The cat's tail was about six inches long, and it was amazing to look at, with tabby-like fur and black-and-white ear and tail markings.

Way cool.
11:57:36 PM comment/

Monday 10 July 2006

Rob and the Texas4000, More Puppies, and a touristy weekend

My long July 4th weekend was hectic: drove up to Grass Valley to pick up Henrike, saw a fun "American Music" performance by the Music in the Mountains orchestra, and returned on Tuesday.

Then I turned around and drove back up to San Mateo, to meet my brother Tim, his wife Jorja, and their son Robert. Rob is 21 and is in the middle of the Coastal route of the Texas 4000 bicycle ride, raising money and awareness for the fight against cancer, while riding bicycles from Austin to Anchorage. Monday was the ride from Carmel to San Francisco (passing within ten miles of my home), and he had a day off in S.F. on Tuesday. It was great to see them, and to see how much Rob is enjoying the event -- surely something he'll remember vividly for the rest of his life.

Tomorrow, they get a day off, in Redwood National Park.

The reason that Deb and I had to be in G.V. and miss Rob's ride-by: last Thursday, Henrike had three puppies. All males; the biggest one is a Blenheim, and the others are tri-color like Henny, though little brown appears on them yet.

Tim and Jo were in the area here for the rest of the week; we got together on Saturday to see some of the Santa Cruz tourist attractions -- rode the Roaring Camp steam train up into the redwoods, took the short stroll among Henry Cowell Park's old-growth grove, drove a bit up into UCSC, and spent some time out at Natural Bridges State Park. Fun day — I don't make a point of going and seeing those places as often as I'd like to.
11:15:50 PM comment/

Sunday 2 November 2003

Wilder Ride

A week ago, a friend was visiting; we took a nice MTB ride at Wilder Ranch and UCSC. It was almost too hot. Yesterday, there was plenty of ice on the table in my back yard.

I spent most of the day putting new shingles on the roof of our small greenhouse. Many of the old ones had disintegrated. Got it done just in time: we're getting some real rain right now.
11:57:48 PM comment/