Blanca Lake

Ci, Orli, Brianne and I, along with Bri's two golden retrievers, Winston and Simon, braved a snowy, slippery, treacherous (well it wasn't that bad) trail to Blanca Lake. Probably 2500 ft elevation total. We took our time and it was a 5 hr round trip. This hike is in a newly annointed wilderness area called Wild Sky Wilderness.

[Wikipedia: The Wild Sky Wilderness is significant because it is the first new federally-designated wilderness in Washington since 1984. Also, unlike many other wilderness areas in the Cascades, Wild Sky protects significant amounts of high biological productivity low-elevation forest.]

There were some big trees up there.


We came across a guy with a chainsaw who'd been doing some serious work clearing the trail of LARGE trees which had fallen across the trail. He recruited Ci and I to help him roll some big chunks of log off of the trail. He was a volunteer from Seattle. Burly dude. He gave us his # so we could let him know how many more big logs there are up the trail. Ci kept careful count.

The dogs had a ball.



The lake was a beautiful emerald green. Wikipedia says: Glacial lakes can be green as a result of pulverized minerals (rock flour) that support a large population of algae. I didn't know (or, more likely, had forgotten) that algae is responsible for the color.


For all pics, see http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081025BlancaLake#.

On the drive back we stopped for pastries at the Sultan Bakery. That place is legendary. Then , back in Seattle, we stopped for burgers. Judging by how my stomach felt this morning, the guacomole bacon burger was a little much.

Ci did his Bryan Adams impression for us (which damaged his vocal cords years ago because of the gravelly voice required -- this was interesting to Orli and Brianna because they are in speech and hearing science). We started singing lots of songs. Dirty Dancing also came up. So many good songs on that soundtrack :) [I've had the time of my life (and i owe it all to you), she's like the wind, hungry eyes, etc.]

Good trip!

ice climbing training

Last Saturday, I went on an ice climbing training run with the UW climbers. We went to the Coleman glacier on Mt Baker. The day was sunny and clear. We were mostly in the shade and near freezing, so the ice was good. Learned a thing or two about ice climbing technique. We didn't focus too much on placement technique -- one really must use individual judgment for this (in addition to reading about it).

A couple of pictures:

The group at the base of the Coleman below Baker.


The whole scene. The big ice blocks we climbed on are called seracs.


Jon leading 40 feet of vertical ice (photo credit Chirs Moorehead).

Religulous

I thought Maher's new movie, Religulous, was entertaining, reasonably well done, and spoke some truths that we all need to hear again and again until a few things change.

He gets booted off of the Mormon temple grounds, and out of the Vatican. Some truckers, who he is engaging in conversation in their "trucker chapel", almost whip his skinny ass. He meets Jesus on many occasions. Hilariously, he often expresses astonishment with "Jesus Christ!", and often does so when talking to these impersonators of Jesus Christ.

His overarching message is that religion is detrimental to society. Religulous really doesn't make the case for such a sweeping statement. However, I think it makes a good case that Islam and Christianity must reform themselves to prevent "all hell" from breaking loose in the next 100 years.

I read some online reviews, many of which are scathing, accusing Maher of treating his interviewees unfairly. Yeah, I agree. But the world isn't fair and fairy tales may be laughed at sometimes when they are profered as gospel truth. And they may be criticized for encouraging an intellectual vacuum in which "leaders" are free to rape and pillage in the name of some deity/deities.

fall near Mount Maude

Went to Mt Maude in the Glacier Peak Wilderness and soaked up the fall colors and the beautiful views from the 9050' summit. This was a return trip to the area -- I was here also in 2001 with my dad and brother. Fabulous trip packed into a very heavy day and a half of hiking. Eina inspired the trip to see the larch trees and Ci protected us with his Ka-Bar.

See pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081013MaudeWithCiAndEina

Arrived at the TH at about 7 pm Saturday eve. (Eina had to work 'till 3 pm, so decided to start late.) Had no trouble finding the way up the spur trail leading to Maude / Ice Lakes. Could've hiked another 0.5 miles (to about 6k ft vs. the 5.3k ft where we camped) and found a better campsite. But ours was fine. Got down near 20 deg F. None of us were too cold. Didn't bring tent to save weight.

Left heavy stuff at camp and headed up the trail at about 10 am. Saw several hikers on the way up. Hit pass at about 1 pm. Made summit of Maude just before 3 pm. Down to Ice Lake at 4:00 pm. Back up at pass at 5 pm. Spectacular scenery. Wonderful company. Great exercise. No significant physical discomfort for anyone, but Ci and Eina had sopping wet (and cold) feet after ascending Maude. My REI goretex boots seemed to do better (because of sno-seal? or just because newer and goretex?) and I was hardly wet. Great trip.

outrageous CEO compensation

I just googled "ceo pay explanation" and found that there are two arguments:

1) ceos and managers are greedy and are able to float their own boats
2) ceos have "general skills" that are useful to a wide variety of companies (e.g. Mullally at Boeing and now at Ford), and these general skills are hard to come by and must be purchased.

It seems typical to me that contentious issues usually have two sides, neither of which is right. Like radical environmentalists vs. those who "been on this land a hunderd years" and "know best".

It's obvious that ceos are greedy. Everybody is greedy (as mentioned in the googled articles). That doesn't explain the rise in their pay. They've always been greedy. However, there has been a consensus in the "managerial class" that you gotta pay big bucks to get talent. This has been the reality. It's maybe similar to the big bucks people felt they had to pay for tech stocks in the late 90's. I think it's a cultural bubble that will burst without any of us getting too excited. I can hear it bursting right now. There's no free lunch, except for executives in this boom whose lunch was paid for by taxpayers/shareholders/joe blows who are are starting to feel much stingier.

truth stalking -- Russian racehorses and speed vs. mpg

Have done a little truth stalking today on two subjects:

- What does it mean to have to piss like a Russian racehorse?
- And what are some experimental numbers on mpg vs. vehicle speed?

I has having chai tea with a friend this morning, and she bought me a grande. I knew it'd be way too much tea, but figured it couldn't hurt. We talked for an hour or so then I rode my bike home. Would've stopped in the bathroom but it was occupied. Eyeballs were floating upon arrival home. I thought to myself -- I have to piss like a Russian racehorse! But what does that even mean!? I found an interesting tidbit:

Apparently (and I don't have any solid info on this but it makes a good story and might be true [doubtful .. see comments below .. but maybe Russians were especially agressive in their methods somehow?]), in Russian horse racing, they used to tie off the (male) horses' penises. This way, they had to pee really bad once they started racing. Not very nice, and surprising to me that it was even effective. But that's where the saying comes from! You can go farther and say "like a Russian racehorse in winter." I guess in cold winter air, mammals generally offload water to contract blood vessels and avoid heat loss.

Now on to mpg. Found an interesting website. They show what one my dad told me long ago, that slower is better for mpg. For a typical car, it is empirically found that you get better gas mileage at 35 mph or even slower. See this chart from the website. I only looked briefly into this and this website isn't the word of god but it seems pretty good...

Stay tuned for more truthiness next time.

1% of people to space

I was out at my weekly Thursday lunch with my buddy Bob Lilly. He's a rocket enthusiast who has a lot of industry experience in semi-conductor manufacturing and in commercial airplane stuff (Boeing). We were talking about rocket stuff -- in particular, our department was trying to get a graduate level rocket class "off the ground".

Aside:
[ The dream is that students would have a chance to design, build, and fly a rocket and get all that good experience that comes with putting together such a complex system. Sadly, the project is perhaps too unwieldy for our department to tackle. A graduate student wouldn't be able to do any nitty gritty research. At STC, Phil and I had to put all our effort to the bare bones requirements to get a rocket off the ground and didn't really have time to hash out some of the interesting and crucial details. Which grad students in Aero/Astro would be doing the grunt work -- machining, purchasing, licensing, etc.? The thing to do in an aerospace department is probably to focus on one part of a rocket -- the propulsion, for instance. Or maybe the navigation system. Maybe year after year, different parts could be tackled. ]

Anyway, a friend of mine from international student night at the College Inn (where I have gotten my pool playing fix since being in Seattle) joined the discussion at some point. Bob told the guy I competed for the X Prize and a discussion of the future of space travel ensued. I suggested that it was within the realm of possibility that at some point in the future, 1% of earthlings might make it to space once during their lives. The guy, June, a Mathematician, said he was certain it was impossible. He said he was sure the earth would be destroyed by the resource extraction required for that much space travel.

He has clearly not read enough sci-fi :). 10 billion x 1% = 100 million people. Assuming 100 year lifetimes, that'd be about a million people per year going to space. True, if we had to launch 100,000 space shuttles a year, that'd be tough on the planet. However, what June had trouble imagining was what space travel might be like in 1000 years. One certainly can't be sure what things will be like, but this guy's imagination was like an steel trap. Space elevators might work. High speed orbital planes might conceivably work (burning atmospheric oxygen + some carried fuel in some enviro friendly way??).

The interesting thing about June's viewpoint is that he simplifies things to the following picture: planes, trains and autos have been damned tough on our environment. It's relatively easy to travel by those modes. It's much harder to travel to space. Thus, the burden on the environment must be proportionately larger than the burden due to planes/trains/autos. Anyway, I don't think the burden required to take 1% of people to space once in their lives is more than we can reasonably ask of the planet.

Ravel, Mozart, Beethoven

Went with Eina to the a performance at Benaroya Hall. Violin sonatas (i.e. music involving a violinist and a pianist) by four artists were played. The players were pretty hot shot guys. The violinst's mother was scheduled to play piano, but she couldn't make it. Some other high powered pianist replaced her. They started out with Beethoven. Eina wasn't too thrilled with the Beethoven. It really is quite boring when compared with the stuff played next by Ravel (you might've heard his song Bolero .. ). Ravel was much more raucous vs. what was almost predictable from Beethoven. I like Beethoven's full symphony work better than this violin sonata I think (though I'm far from being a Beethoven expert -- Momma tried to teach me piano and I enjoyed learning a tiny bit).

The Mozart was good. I like how he often threw in some minor tones in what is otherwise a flittering melody. I think this is characteristic of Mozart.

Eina and I stayed after the hall cleared out. It was fun to sing out some notes in the hall. What amazing acoustics. Evidently they didn't use any amplification of the sound from the piano and violin.

Mailbox Peak

Did a pretty nice hike last weekend up to Mailbox Peak. It is a nearby dayhike, and a Seattle classic I'd been told. 4000 vertical feet reaching a 4800 foot summit. Probably about 6 miles roundtrip. Steep! The day was beautiful. Below is a shot of Eina checking her mail at the top. :) Rainier in background. View of Baker and Glacier Peak up north were excellent.

There was lots of junk in the mailbox like a little squeezy dinosaur whose tongue would stick out like a gecko when you squoze it. Pretty decent blackberries left up in this area. Below is a shot from the top looking down at Seattle. This spot is just a 45 min drive up I-90 toward Snoqualmie Pass from Seattle. Tess and Tim, Little Si is the high point that shows up in the right side of this photo. We did it with Laura and Ryan when they were out here for April and Julian's wedding. They will recall my belting out Big John on the way up for the whole world to hear.