Posts from — April 2006

Brenda has been busy working a couple of jobs, and I was fairly convinced that this weekend she’d be working all weekend. So when I hiked up to Bear Peak via the Fern Canyon Trail yesterday, I really didn’t mind that my knee joints were solidifying as I sat on the couch last night. I figured I was done with physical exertion for the weekend. Imagine my surprise when Brenda emerged from her shop last night, having completed all tasks, and was all excited about going hiking on Sunday (today).

We’ve been meaning to summit South Boulder Peak for several weeks now, ever since we did Bear Peak for the first time last month. Weather and work have conspired against finally tackling the final summit of the nearest Boulder peaks, but today was the day.

We drove down to the South Mesa Trailhead, just south of Boulder and headed on out. We took the Homestead Trail to the Shadow Canyon Trail, and commenced climbing, and climbing and climbing, and climbing….

At one point, you reach a saddle, where you can hang a right and head for Bear Peak, or a left, and head for South Boulder Peak. The view at that point is already amazing, but we knew that more awaited us. Since we’d both already been to Bear Peak, we hung a left. There was about 500 feet remaining to the summit.

On the way up this last segment, we passed a trail runner on his way down from the peak. These people run up and down these trails, and my knees are still asking me tonight: “daddy, why do those people behave the way they do?” I have no answer.

Just shy of the summit, we were greeted by a huge pile of boulders and a couple of hikers just coming down from the top. “You have to climb the rocks!”, they said. No shit. Brenda & I stowed our trekking poles and crawled along the rocks to the summit. Here’s the view:

I have to say, I really like this local Boulder peak. I really think that it’s better than Bear Peak, which affords 360-degree views. A full panorama is nice, but Shadow Canyon is an awesome challenge, with great views along the way, and South Boulder Peak features amazing views with more dramatic vistas; there are plenty of perches on South Boulder Peak where you can look at the Continental Divide, and look down at your feet and stare in to a canyon that is three thousand feet below you (where you were just a few hours ago):

The hike down was accelerated due to an advancing storm, but I think that whatever speed I descended the peak today would not have mattered; between yesterday’s ascent and today’s, my knees and feet have been pounded more than they ever have. The views at the top(s) were worth it, but I’m quite certain that tomorrow I’m gonna be a hurtin’ puppy.

(Galen, if you’re reading, my FKT for Bear Peak via the Fern Canyon Trail is now 1:25.)

Today, a co-worker shared some of his recordings from when he was in a band. They had toured for a couple years, playing mostly in the Atlanta area, and were reasonably competent. A discussion arose regarding band names; I may have possibly brought it up.

You see, I have some really solid names for bands, and it pisses me off that I lack the musical talent, connections and material to plug into a band name. And tonight, I hit on the greatest album name ever, so now I’m really feeling down.

Lemme start with the band name: There are a few towns in New Jersey all ending with “Amboy”, such as South Amboy, and Perth Amboy. When you drive through central New Jersey, you can easily come across a highway exit sign or two with destination references to, simply, “The Amboys”.

The Amboys. Perhaps the Greatest Band Name Ever. Done.

This easily eclipses my alternate band name of “Best Before”, which I feel is a witty play on the bread expiry dates found on those little plastic things you clip on bread loaves to stave off staleness. I always held these two band names on equal footing until today. For today, I was listening to NPR and heard a phrase that could only be the title for The Amboys’ much-awaited second album: “Happy Zacarias”. (The Amboys’ first album would of course be eponoymously titled.)

The Amboys, Happy Zacarias. I’m totally seeing this as a hot download on the iTunes Music Store, aren’t you?

So how’d the title come about? Well, the radio was talking about Zacarias Moussaoui’s trial and how his defense lawyers (just when you thought Johnnie C was a piece of shit) were arguing that his childhood was a happy one, and the term “happy Zacarias” was floated out there. I thought it was pure brilliance, and was immediately delighted to have secured the second album title for my non-existent band’s follow-up to my non-existent band’s non-existent and eponoymously-titled first album. So, if I ever progress beyond barre chords and actually write a few tunes, you can bet that they will be unleashed on an unassuming public by The Amboys, with our best work appearing on “Happy Zacarias”.

Our later releases will likely suck, but I will still get interviews in Rolling Stone because of my personality, bitches.

Our beloved cat Emma has had a bout with celebrity of late, appearing in the latest issue of Delicious Living Magazine. Emma was one of two test subjects for an organic pet treats article for the mag. My buddy Lauren occasionaly freelances for this magazine, and while their dog Begbie was more than ready for the challenge on the dog treat side, Lauren needed another tester for the feline side. Enter Emma. (Lauren and her boyfriend Bill were both roommates of mine while in college at various times, have lived out here in Boulder for six years or so, and were great tour guides when Brenda & I were here last May for my job interview.)

The very scientific test period occurred a couple months ago, and I compiled reams of data, none of which added up to much, really. But each day I dilligently placed one of each treat on the floor, and noted in which order Emma gobbled them up. And here’s the thing: I placed the treats in a random order each time! This, I was convinced, bordered on sheer statistical brilliance. Emma didn’t really seem to care one way or the other. She got her dope, three servings a day, in fact. After the test period was over, I compiled the voluminous data into a spreadsheet for analysis:

As you can see, the Greenies were the clear favorite, but then again maybe Emma’s just partial to the color. In the end, Greenies suffered a bad rap of late and Emma loved the fish flakes that come in a variety of formats anyway(hint: you can skip the pet store and just go to any supermarket with a decent international foods section and buy the dried bonito flakes). Lauren hammered out a series of descriptions that pretty much told the story on Emma’s gravitation to the various snacks, revised to omit the Greenies since they have come under fire of late. But really, the main thing is to just look at Emma’s very photogenic mug. Here’s the article:

If you’re in Whole Foods or one of the other supermarkets that offer this free publication, snap up the April issue to see Emma and Begbie in all their glory.

Last week, I got all excited about Apple’s announcement of BootCamp, their beta software that would allow one to configure a new Intel Macintosh computer as a dual-boot configuration, allowing users to run WindowsXP on their Macs. This is exciting because even though I love Apple and OSX for just abut everything, my daily workflow involves creating 3D architectural models with a little program called AutoCAD, which is Windows-only. There has always been that missing void in my Mac’s capability.

When I got my last Powerbook I also purchased VirtualPC which allowed you to install and run Windows in emulation. What this means is that software is translating the instructions meant to be executed on an Intel cpu for the PowerPC cpu that was installed on my old Powerbook. This is an excruciatingly slow process, and as a result, even Notepad crawled along, unusably slow, causing me to re-name the product “Virtually Useless PC”.

So naturally when Apple announced that they were coming out with Intel-based Macs, a lot of people jumped to the vision of Windows on Mac. Initially, Apple said they would not support such a setup, then a guy figured out how to do it on his own, and I guess Apple figured if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, announcing BootCamp last week.

But BootCamp only supports WindowsXP, and requires you to reboot your computer whenever you want to use the alternate operating system — it’s one or the other. So imagine my delight when late last week I discovered another new product that allows one to install Windows2000 and run it on your Intel Mac alongside of OSX.

I installed the free beta of Parallels Workstation for OSX this weekend, which was extremely simple — no re-partitioning, no nothing; the biggest pain of the whole process was installing all the patches to Windows 2000 — and I now have a laptop computer that runs the most elegant operating system in the world, and is also able to run the shittiest operating system in the world, at the same time, for those times when I really need to do that.

The speed is pretty good, obviously much better than Virtual PC since there’s no emulation overhead. But there is still some overhead associated with the hardware virtualization — the operating system needs to be fooled into thinking it’s the only game in town — and so the boot process is a little slow. But once up and running, it loads AutoCAD drawings faster than my old Athlon desktop system, which I guess is about to be donated. Simply amazing.

Unfortunately, it’s not perfect, yet. At the moment the virtual Windows computer exists in somewhat of a void. The filesystem cannot access the main filesystem, which means the only way to get files to and from the Windows “hard drive” is via email or CD-ROM. But this is a temporary situation, support for sharing files between the virtual Windows computer and the host system is planned for the full release.

For me, I think Parallels is a better option than BootCamp, and I plan on purchasing a copy when they release it. I’ve got a month to play with the free beta, and I still sorta can’t believe my eyes when I see a Windows2000 boot screen on my Mac.

This is what I’ve wanted for four and a half years, right after I fell in love with OSX: Windows when I need it. Yeah!!

This evening Brenda & I went to hear Paul Rusesabagina speak at the University of Colorado’s Macky Auditorium.

Mr. Rusesabagina was the hotel manager at the Hotel de Mille Colines in Rwanda, a country that tomorrow will mark the twelve year anniversary of the beginning of the horrific genocide that rocked the nation.

In the spring of 1994, over the course of 100 days, nearly a million human beings were hacked to death with machetes. The story is a long one, and I recommend you read about it.

Mr. Rusesabagina was portrayed by Don Cheadle in the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, a film that awakened my interest in this sad chapter in human history and spurred much reading on my part. The sad thing is that nothing has changed. The same thing is happening in the Sudan right fucking now, which he pointed out.

Mr. Rusesabagina had a thick accent and the sound quality was not great, and he essentially recounted the story of his experience in Rwanda in 1994, so the presentation was a little tough to get through but it was fascinating to hear this awful story told by the protagonist in person. Unfortunately, there was also an annoying bitch seated in front of us who kept fidgeting and sending text messages to her likely equally vapid friends throughout the evening. It was a sellout crowd, and it really bothered me that this whore was taking up space — for free with her CU student ID, most likely — when someone who actually gives a shit and has a fucking clue about what happened in Rwanda could have been there paying attention and not breathing our fucking oxygen.

I’ve bitched about the Rwandan genocide on this site in the past here, here and here, and have read several books on Rwanda since. Hotel Rwanda was a great film because it moved me off my ass to learn more about the genocide. If only it inspired more people, maybe something besides killing would be happening in the Sudan right now.

Paul did a great thing in 1994 and I’m glad to see he’s able to spread his message. I also see that he has an autobiography coming out, which I have read excerpts from, but I think people are better served by reading about General Dalliare’s experience (he includes Paul’s valliant efforts) and Gourevitch’s excellent reportage. No offense to Mr. Rusesabagina, but it’s pretty damned difficult to write an autobiographical account of his efforts without sounding self-serving.

Suggested Reading
www.darfurgenocide.org

Rwandan genocide reading list (in order of preference):
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families
Shake Hands with the Devil
Conspiracy to Murder
Eyewitness to a Genocide
Machete Season
Season of Blood

In what amounts to a complete one-eighty move, Apple has decided to endorse the installation of Windows XP on the new Intel Macs. Wow.

It was only a couple weeks ago that a hacker scored $13,000 for being the first to solve the puzzle of booting Windows on the Mac, and now Apple has one-upped him by releasing Boot Camp, a (beta) installer that achieves the holy grail: the ability to run Windows on your mac for those times when you just need it. For me, that’s only to run AutoCAD and Flight Simulator, but that still happens enough that I’m still running my old Athlon desktop system at home for those times.

Boot Camp looks nice, and it even re-partitions your hard drive non-destructively so installation is about as easy as it can be. This just might be worth going out and getting a copy of XP…

So, Thursday morning Brenda says: “what are you doing for lunch today, I’ve been working from home all week and I need to get outta the house. Let’s have lunch today.”

“Sure, let’s do that”, I say, cluelessly.

And so there we were, standing in line with a bunch of my co-workers waiting to order at Wahoo’s Fish Taco, when Brenda says “so, your birthday present from your sister arrived today”. Imagining a huge crate full of presents, I pump my fist a few times and get back to concentrating on whether I want my burrito smothered with green or red chile. Brenda, cool as ever and without missing a beat, says “in fact, her present is right over there”, and points over her left shoulder, where my sister and brother-in-law are sitting, grinning like cats.

Now, being an April Fool’s Day baby, I’m used to pranks and surprises on my birthday, but this takes the cake. This was a full blown shocker, out of the blue, and the list of important people in my life that share complicity in this little scheme is long, and the implications are horrifying. But I’m happy to never trust these people again, because it was a helluva great surprise, and a great birthday weekend.

My immediate boss, in addition to playing party to the scam by driving me to the scene of the surprise, was cool about letting me take Friday off on short notice and so Brenda & I showed my sister and brother-in-law around Boulder and the surrounding area — Burgers in Nederland, elk-spotting in Estes Park.

Last night, I was happy to lose a bet with Brenda when it turned out that the fancy restaurant that my brother-in-law reserved for us was the Flagstaff House, and not the restaurant I was betting on when they said they made reservations “at a fancy restaurant” for us for my birthday dinner. We’d already been to the one I thought it might be, and the Flagstaff House experience was better by a wide margin. In fact, it was the best meal and dining experience I’ve had in years. Thanks, guys.

All in all it was a great birthday weekend; it was great to show Christina and Bob the town and surroundings that I have fallen in love with. My birthday dinner was amazing, and I got presents to boot.