Geocaching

Our family has discovered geocaching. We're fashionably late to the game, which is at least six years old. C gave me a handheld GPS receiver for Christmas, after experience geocaching with her hiking group. Short version: folks around the world hide items in weather-proof containers (the "caches"), publish their latitude/longitude coordinates on the internet, and others seek to find them. A logbook is often included in the cache where finders can note their success. The caches can also include trinkets/gifts/souvenirs for the finders - traditionally you bring something to leave in the cache if you remove an item.

This weekend we had our second family excursion. We found one cache after a 10 minute stroll...


...and were eager for more. So I logged into the geocaching.com website with my cellphone, found another nearby cache, and we headed for it.


Instead of loading the coordinates into the GPS unit and letting it tell us the compass heading and distance to our next target, we set out knowing only the target coordinates - we used the raw readings on the device to decide what direction to walk. We could use some practice at this, as we took a very circular route!


But after a scramble to the top of a local peak, we found the second cache, a little waterlogged. The paper logbook was inside a ziploc bag and dry. We left a note on the geocaching site so the next seeker will bring a new outer container.

We had lovely views on the way back home.

Now we're planning to hide our own cache somewhere, preferably in a spot that requires a nice walk into the site (not drive-up). And we'll see if we can get the extended family interested in geocaching!

Work

On this transition into a new year, those thoughts that I do have about resolutions or change circle around how I view my job, how it fits into my life and values now, and whether there's a better version of this fit requiring either a change of job or a change in my outlook. That's been an undercurrent to 2006 for me. Today I happened on this snippet, a mid-discussion excerpt form a longer dialog about the joys of doing what you like (as it happens in this forum, work centered around bikes):

"Pensioners have typically even had a certain
personality stereotype, along with those going for a pension."

Sorry but that is such an incredibly condescending and elitist thought!!

Let's look at a few things made possible by those people who don't get to do
what they love and instead pursue a pension:
1) Roads (good luck riding without them!)
2) Clean water (good luck living without that!)
3) Plumbing (got a shovel?)
4) Telecommunications (good luck reading this without all those wires strung
around the planet!)
5) Electricity (what internet?)
6) Ships, trucks and railroads (say adios to all that merchandise you're
trying to sell!)

These and many more things are made possible by people who work really hard
at really miserable jobs all in the hopes of someday getting a pension.

Reality is if everyone only did what they wanted to do we'd all be supremely
screwed as a society! You think UPS and Postal Service people grow up
wanting to do that for a living? Ditto for sanitation workers, plumbers,
laborers, agriculture workers, truck drivers, etc., etc, etc. Imagine how
great the world would be if all these people woke up tomorrow and said "Gee,
I'm going to quit my job and do what I want to do!"

Reality is the idea of a secure retirement is a very necessary incentive for
advanced societies so that people like you can go out and do what you want
while they do the dirty work that makes it all possible in the first place.

Articulate response. This post has stayed with me today. I'm chewing on the thought that work can/should be compartmentalized as a pure means to an end. But my internal voice thorns me over the last two paragraphs - must these be characterized as miserable jobs? I know folk who do them who are no more miserable than those doing "elite" work. I'd rather focus on what would make jobs generally less miserable, and have folk be more justly compensated for them.

Visit to Coyote Point Museum

M invited us for a visit to the Coyote Point Museum near San Mateo - an environmental and community museum across the bay. They had a wonderful exhibit of gingerbread habitats put together by school children and families. Afterwards, we visited the grounds with exhibits on local wildlife.

You came by bike, you didn't drive?!

A wonderful post that turns the usual conversation on its ear. Brilliant.

Our Charlie Brown tree

Bought a Christmas tree yesterday. We chose a Norway spruce at 8 ft tall. Picked it for its shape, but it was a sorry looking tree at first. It must have lain at the bottom of some pile for a time. It's inner branches were coated with soil and the dead needles of other trees. Once we got it home, we hosed it down and and shook the branches vigorously to clean it up. It's got a fine shape and smells great. Here's a picture before decorating...



...and after.

Business trip to San Diego

Visited San Diego for 36 hours, meeting in La Jolla where the shifting morning fog and sunlight boundary added to the atmosphere. (click for full image)

Books

I've started keeping a list of books I'm watching for, so I'll have a list of things to run down next time I'm in a book store, or if you are!

Long weekend

Tomorrow it's back to work after a four-day weekend. Apparently I really needed it - I spent much of Saturday in bed and generally did a lot of recharging. After a gloriously blue-sky day on Thanksgiving, it gradually clouded up and got cooler (low 50s), with rain for a good bit of today. I took the weather as a hint and overhauled my Peugeot bicycle, converting it from off-road 29er to my favorite rain bike, with 35mm tires and full fenders (details). The highlight of today was practicing violin with H, me on the cello in support. We played 6 or 7 Christmas carols that she's preparing for a group recital later this month. Her intonation was quite solid, her left hand looked good, and she really had an easy time reading though the music. Great fun.

Principles at work

This is an older entry once clipped from a blog that I frequent, but it's central to how I think about my worklife:

Forget worrying all those smart leadership techniques until you have developed the judgment, understanding, insight, trust, wisdom, and compassion necessary to become a leader. Until you do, giving you good techniques is like arming a blind person with a machine gun and telling him or her to go into your yard and shoot some rabbits. In place of courses to teach techniques, what about some time devoted to:

*learning how to think straight;
*how to spot false conclusions and faulty notions of causality;
*how to understand the rights and wrongs of evidence;
*and how to apply civilized values to day-to-day business situations?

Original source

Photography fun

I am fooling around with a new camera, risking a digital camera again after losing two to accidents in the last 2 years. Photos get uploaded here

East coast worksite

Here are some shots of where I've been spending a fair bit of time since we acquired a business this summer.



A glassed-in internal courtyard.



Entrance to the office proper, with lab and warehouse behind.

Space Derby with the cub scouts

M had space derby night with his pack last night. His rocket was much thinner and lighter than last year, and he designed some neat tailfins for it. He jumped up with excitement and struck his rocket mid-race on one of the heats, else he would have been undefeated. Great job!
(click for larger pictures)

Night bridge

Commutes home on my bicycle are now in the dark. This bicycle/pedestrian bridge at the foot of University Ave in Berkeley is not far from the start. (Click for full size)

Hot Day, Summer in the City

Took a loopy bike ride into Boston Saturday, following this route. Weather was 95/95 in downtown, cooler by the Charles. I hadn't been through Cambridge in twenty years. Approaching Harvard gave rise to unexpected feelings, put me back in a mindset of what the world and my place in it looked like in 1986/7. Also ventured to Belmont to the house of R and G who were probably in Tiverton. Finished with a sastisfying Hefeweizen at Long Warf, then a T-ride back down to Braintree.


Spent alot of time here during college, most of it scholastically unproductive!



Then on Sunday, joined BFAS for a visit to the Pawtucket RedSox (PawSox). Train to S. Attleboro and a quick ride to the stadium (hot!). Noticed every cloud that went by because it seemed to reduce the temp ten degrees. McCoy Stadium seets 10,000, and the Sox handled Charlotte 10-6. Standout performances from a hard-hitting shortstop (Dustin Pedroia) and DH Wily Mo Pena, probably returning soon to the majors after recuperating from injury.

Haziness

View towards Boston this morning from a ridge in the Blue Hills Reservation. Foggy last night, and humid this morning, but only ~70F at 6:30 am.

Father's Day mountain bike ride

Ever since we found M's Christmas bike, I've been wanting to take him to a ridge trail above Berkeley for an off-road ride. Today the whole family went, with four bikes on the roof of the car. We started from the Steam Trains in the Berkeley hills, riding north. M's bike, while arguable the most mountain bike-ish, was also the heaviest, meaning he had to pedal mightily on uphills. We learned about riding down steep slopes with controlled speed, starting on an uphill, weaving across the trail when things are too steep, enjoying a snack by the side of the trail. Both kids did great, with much stick-to-it-iveness and willingness seemingly intact to do this again sometime.

Sand shapes

On Saturday morning, the Alameda parks department hosted its annual sand castle contest. M's cub scout team was scheduled to enter, but our family enjoyed a slow start to the morning and simply visited by bicycle at midday for a picnic excursion. There were some very inventive designs:

A night at the A's game

M's little leage coach organized a trip to the ballpark to watch the A's take on the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night. Wednesday's are $1 hot dog night (limit 10 per purchase), so you know what we ate for dinner! The A's hit well and fielded well, winning by 8-2 or something like that. We sat in the bleachers, which used to mean the wooden stands beyond the outfield, but in this rennovated park just meant open seating beyond the outfield in regular plastic seats, back where the concession stands are sparse since the folk in the luxury skyboxes above your head have full meal service! No sweaters needed, and we were in the shadow of the wind.

Abed

A trip to the Cow Palace

Gi was 65 today, Gu 70, so a celebration was held in Tiverton. There was talk, games, music-making, eating, drink. Everyone was in good humor under grey skies but no rain. Everyone asked about my family and looked forward to August when we'll all be here together. Many greetings from everybody. Here some photos from the day.


"Topfschlagen" (pot-hitting), where a blindfolded player strikes wooden spoon around the floor hoping to strike an inverted pot with a prize inside. The onlookers shout "warmer" or "colder" to help direct them.

a few more

yet more

Time for music-making.







pop-pop


Listening carefully!