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2019: Goals

I’ve updated my [2018: Goals](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/2018-goals/) post with final results.

Similar to last year, here is a list of my goals for 2019. I plan to update this post throughout the year with progress reports.

– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture

– Complete 1 Kickstarter project

– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business

– Read 20 books

– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19

– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum

– Contribute to a healthy new daughter

– Run a 10k race

– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project

– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]

I have a few thoughts on what makes a worthwhile goal.

They should be very specific in the sense that a result is either clearly relevant or not to the goal. A wooden project could be a cutting board. A piece of wooden furniture is by definition going to be a project with at least 3 components, occupy three dimensions, and require planning and a considerable investment of time to complete.

The should be objectively measurable. 1500 words of creative writing can be measured, by counting up the words. Tooth whiteness can be measured regardless of lighting with a camera and calibrated color samples.

They should be simple targets representing a more involved effort which requires commitment over time or high quality results. Earning money from an online business requires lots of planning, work, and likely the acquisition of new skills for someone who doesn’t currently have an online business. Making a commit which is included in the actual code base of an open source project requires solving a real problem and doing it in a quality way, as judged by others.

*[http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/6/772#sec-6](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/6/772#sec-6) – Measuring spectral variation from calibrated photographs

Update 5/5/2019

Jane came, so yeah… not a lot of progress. In fact, this is only my second visit to this blog since she arrived. We’ve been busy with her and I’m busy at work as well. The best thing I have to show for this list right now is my reading progress. I’d say I’m on track there if I include audio books. Also The Dream Machine is 794 pages, and Future crimes is 563. (Side note: if I were an editor, I would have made both of those books about 35% of their actual length and the reader would have gained the same amount of understanding.)

– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture

– HA!

– Complete 1 Kickstarter project

– Nothing really on the horizon here. I have done some work on a coffee grinder attachment but it is kind of dumb.

– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business

– I finished an online store to sell circular electrical connectors. I think this could make some sales however I need to spend a lot more time to make the site more user friendly, and perhaps change out the product line. I haven’t earned any money. In fact I’m in the hole for about $110 after hosting, domain, etc…

– Read 20 books

– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan

– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop

– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport

– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)

– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)

– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)

– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman

– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19

– 🙁

– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum

– Contribute to a healthy new daughter

– IN PROGRESS…

– Run a 10k race

– I’ve registered for a 10k trail race in the Oakland Redwood park this July.

– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project

– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]

– I finally got a toothbrush to take to work last week. Not much progress here

Update 8/17/2019

– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture

– No update

– Complete 1 Kickstarter project

– No update

– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business

– No update

– Read 20 books

– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan

– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop

– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport

– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)

– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)

– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)

– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman**

– The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean

– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19

– Not going great, but I have lost 2-3 pounds and usually weight in around 192.

– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum

– Contribute to a healthy new daughter

– Jane is doing great, she is almost 6 months old and I’m having a ton of fun with her, although she does seem to have a negative impact on all other goal progress (see goals 1-6)

– Run a 10k race

– [Complete](http://www.jonmcosgrove.name/10k-oakland-redwood-regional-park-ca/)

– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project

– I don’t know that I’m actually allowed to do this due to my job…

– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 08/17/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]

– I’ve just taken the photos relative to a grayscale test ramp today

– I do not have the equipment to measure the reflectance of my teeth or the paper per the article but I should still be able to take some measurements for comparison by adjusting the exposure to match the known printed values, then determining the RGB values for my teeth.

– Photo setup:

– rear camera iPhone XR

– Halide camera app, raw image format

– in office with desk lamp on bounced off the South wall

– My teeth are pretty yellow compared to the paper! Too much coffee I suppose.

– Raw image uploads not supported, see… Dropbox/photos/2019-goals/

– JPEG not for calibrated comparison

– [![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IMG_2505.jpg)](https://i0.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IMG_2505.jpg)

** I read about 50% of Future Crimes (~300 pages) and then stopped. Its an interesting topic but that author needs to get a stronger editor. I think some authors just like to fill up pages, and the editor apparently didn’t do much to curtail the repeative text before print. Not recommended.

## UPDATE: 01/11/2020

2019 is complete. Summary:

– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture [FAIL]

– Complete 1 Kickstarter project [FAIL]

– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business [FAIL]

– Read 20 books [FAIL]

– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19 [FAIL]

– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum [FAIL]

– Contribute to a healthy new daughter [COMPLETED]

– Run a 10k race [COMPLETED]

– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project [FAIL]

– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019] [FAIL]

Well, it has been a dismal year, only 2/10 completed. Number #7 turned out to impact the remainder more than expected, but at least #7 is in the green.

Here is more of a breakdown with some brief commentary:

– I decided that woodworking in the driveway really is too much of a pain. Moving everything outside and then back in for a few hours of work is too much of a barrier. I need a garage (see 2020 goals)

– I didn’t do another kickstarter this past year but I did spend some time working on a prospect. The planetary gear attachment for my coffee grinder was a canidatate but ultimately I realized the grinder wasn’t well suited to handle the loads. I have one ambitious project going on now which may be a future kickstarter canidate and one other potential Etsy store idea.

– See #2. My Circular connector store hasn’t received any attention either, but its still live gets a few random hits each week. Hopefully no one buys anything, I might not notice for a few months!

– I’m tired. This year with #7 combined with my job meant less reading, but I did get some done. I’m not going to include Jane’s books.

– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan

– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop

– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport

– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)

– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)

– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)

– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman**

– The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean

– The Box, Marc Levinson

– Mr. g, Alan Lightman

– In Praise of Shadows, Junichiro Tanizaki

– Fail. I weight about 195. Around August I got to 190 after a caliorie counting challenge at work but lets face it, I’m not going to do that for very long.

– No progress other than brain storming a list of topics and outlining one of them.

– Complete.

– I ran the Oakland Redwood Urban Coyote 10k. It was HOT!

– I’m actually not allowed to do this per my job but I did make a ton of commits to work dev projects. Also see #7.

– Fail. My teeth are pretty yellow. Sometime I forget to brush my teeth now (see #7) and I drink too much coffee (see #7).

… Lost to the sands of time…

The last known update to this post occurred on 20200111 — > recovered 20260907 hooray

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Sailing Trip, San Francisco Bay, CA

“Stab it! Stab it! Did you get it? Stab it!” *

“Ahh… I’m trying”

“Alright! Nice! Now pull it back and cleat it.”

This was the end of the scene that played out in Ayala Cove on Angel Island this Labor Day as we were hooking up to the mooring balls to spend the night on our sailboat for the first time outside of a marina. I was driving trying to get the boat into position and Megan was hanging off the bow, attempting to use our boat hook to feed the line through the loop on top of the floating mooring ball.

Continue reading “Sailing Trip, San Francisco Bay, CA”

Mosquitos in California?

I hadn’t really seen any mosquitos in California until I laid down in bed on the boat this past Sunday night. I was surprised they were there, and considering I had to work in the morning, I was suddenly doubting my decision to stay considering these bugs might keep me awake all night.

It was warm, so I had the v-berth hatch wide open above me and all the other windows open as well. A small fan added to the light wind from the bay, but it wasn’t enough to keep them down. The mosquitos were still buzzing around. At first they were buzzing in my ears, keeping me up with the noise which I stopped with ear plugs. Then they were biting my cheeks. A sheet over most of my head and face helped a bit. Soon I was able to fall asleep. Then they made their move.

Over the course of the night the sheet fell* away from my face, hands, and feet, and by morning I had what I estimate to be about 100 bites. I’m itching my hands while I type this, and I’m still not sure if it was worth staying for the night, but I did have a nice cup of coffee in the morning watching the harbor terns diving for fish, and then a good 20 mile bike ride back home before work and the start of the week.

[![](https://i2.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_9101.jpg)](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/img_9101/)
[![](https://i2.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_9102.jpg)](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/img_9102/)

*It’s possible that the sheet was actually removed during a coordinated mosquito lifting operation in order to gain access to food. We’ll never know the truth.

—

## Media URLs recovered

– https://i2.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_9101.jpg
– https://i2.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_9102.jpg

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bzzzztt

May 4th had the makings of a typical day. I rode my bike to work in the morning, and got a call from a coworker about 10 minutes before arriving to my building. He wanted to move a piece of equipment in order to test it in another area of the lab. He wanted a hand when I got there. “No problem.” I said.

I arrived, changed out of my riding clothes, and walked to the other end of the lab. Young, my coworker, hadn’t arrived yet, so I went over and started to unplug the equipment. It was only a single connection, albeit a big one: one hundred and fifty amps, 3 phase, 480VAC. The type of plug for this power is necessarily big, about the length of your forearm with a cable about as thick. Because of the weight, the plug has a screw collar to secure it to the receptacle, which is another large device permanently hung on the wall by a licensed electrical contractor when the feed gets installed.

Due to legal liability electrical contractors typically do not complete the work after the receptacle. They will bring power to the building, and distribute it within the building to receptacles, but their work stops there. Apparently with custom made hardware and prototypes like I work with, they perceive too much risk that bad information from engineers or poorly designed equipment can lead to legal responsibility if they were to connect power and have something fail.

So one of the Apple technicians cut the wire, stripped the leads, and made the connections inside before attaching the connector housing and closing it up. Or so it seems… The team responsible for the equipment blames it on the electrical contractor, who they say wired the plug side before they made the final connections to the bus inside the equipment. The electrical contractor of course denies this. Either way, the job was done with negligence, and very poor workmanship.

Back to the unplugging. I walked into the test cell and made sure the equipment was off. I then unscrewed the collar, began to slide out the plug, and BANG! One of the phases dislodged from its precarious connection to the pin inside and shorted to the connector housing. A big arc, shock, flash and bang immediately erupted from the connector and onto my hand which was wrapped around the housing. Upstream, the disconnect tripped* due to the huge overcurrent. This probably a few 10s of miliseconds after the phase first began arcing and shorted to ground. This deenergized the circuit.

I was figuratively blown away and had to take a moment to realize what had happened. I was still standing and my heart and mind were racing. I looked down at my blackened hand and tried to take stock of my overall condition. I then walked out and found some coworkers who had started to make their way over after hearing the bang and correctly assumed arc flash. When what happened began to settle in, I sat down and tried to relax. I called our EHS coordinator to inform him of the incident and describe what happened. I was directed to urgent care and was taken for treatment by one of the coworkers.

My first stop was for an exam and an EKG. I was then sent to the ER for blood tests, more exams, and observation. Apparently if the immediate shock, burn, or heart issues don’t get you, kidney shutdown a few hours afterward can. All of this was very scary. I called Megan while at the urgent care and she came quickly to the ER once it was apparent where I was headed.

Luckily as of today it seems that all is well, and given the potential realm of outcomes I was very lucky. I ended up with a terrible scare but only minor physical impacts**.

Emotionally, on the day of the event, the closeness of it hadn’t hit me. After leaving the ER Megan and I stopped to get falafel for a late lunch, just like we might on a normal weekend. It wasn’t until a few days later, when I had been back to work and seen the damaged equipment that it did. My confidence around this equipment has been shaken and my faith in my coworkers attention to detail has been too. Its going to be difficult to get comfortable being in the lab again. Shortly afterward I decided to be more reserved with my involvement in HV systems and I told my close coworkers that I’m no longer going to be lending a hand in this area. They all had the same reaction, that my decision was totally understandable, but I imagine it will cause some difficultly at times in the future.

It’s still on my mind daily when at work, considering I’m surrounded by high power equipment in the lab, but outside of work things seem back to normal. Megan and I both got a serious reminder about how easily things can change, but luckily this time, they didn’t have to. Though even now, as I’m typing this, my stomach is churning a bit at the thought of how a small change in circumstance could have led to a much worse outcome.

*In the post incident investigation, it was found that the disconnect failed as well. The evidence of the huge current interrupted was displayed by a black coating of carbon inside and out of the enclosure. **My hand was sore for a few days, the burn was first degree, and my second EKG a week later confirmed that nothing of major concern was going on with my cardiac system. — ## Media URLs recovered – https://www.cosgrove.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG_8433-scaled.jpg _(present on live cosgrove.blog)_ – https://www.cosgrove.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG_8435-scaled.jpg _(present on live cosgrove.blog)_ – https://www.cosgrove.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG_8436-scaled.jpg _(present on live cosgrove.blog)_ – https://www.cosgrove.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG_8437-scaled.jpg _(present on live cosgrove.blog)_ ## Recovery notes Full post (~946 words). Live was truncated mid-story after electrical incident intro. Lost to the sands of time…

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Chile video

I finished a short video of our [trip to Chile](http://www.jonmcosgrove.name/chile/) last year. We have a lot more footage, but it doesn’t have great audio so I opted for a highlight reel. A longer version may come along in the future but for now this is it!

[YouTube embed](https://www.youtube.com/embed/54ofeAGs_pw?rel=0)

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## Media URLs recovered

– https://www.youtube.com/embed/54ofeAGs_pw?rel=0

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32nd Birthday San Francisco, CA

For my birthday this year, when I turned 32, Megan planned a fun weekend up in San Francisco. I had known she was planning something near by. Earlier in January she booked something via Airbnb accidentally using my account, so I immediately got some confirmation text messages with subject lines like “Your trip on airbnb is booked for…”. We were both sitting on the couch at the time and she immediately declared that I wasn’t allowed to open or notice anything about any email or text messages on the topic, which, surprisingly, I managed to do.

/IMG_8045.jpg)](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/img_8045/)
/IMG_8053.jpg)](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/img_8053/)
/IMG_8038.jpg)](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/img_8038/)
/IMG_3172-e1521344394690.jpg)]

/img_3172/)

The weekend arrived and we drove up mid afternoon to check into the [Argonaut Hotel](http://www.argonauthotel.com), right near the Bay at Fisherman’s Wharf. Its a well known hotel in a great location, and we had talked a few times in the past about wanting to stay there. However, I had since looked in detail at the hotel as a part of a different surprise weekend I was planning, and had changed my mind. I thought it was too touristy and a bit overpriced based on reviews I saw online, but I hadn’t mentioned this to Megan.

Coincidentally, the weekend before, we had been in San Francisco for the day visiting the [Tulipmania](https://www.pier39.com/tulipmania/) festival on Pier 39 among other things. We passed by The Argonaut Hotel and I commented to Megan that I had changed my mind about wanting to stay there. Little did I know, Megan had this whole upcoming weekend planned, and she later told me she was super bummed when I mentioned this. Luckily, I was wrong and it ended up being a cool hotel where we had a great night. The hotel has a lounge called the Blue Mermaid where we had happy hour drinks and oysters, and a National Park visitors area attached which had a bunch of cool history about the shipping industry and the Bay in general. After walking around we went for dinner in China Town and had Moo Shu pork, but the big event was planned for the next day.

/IMG_8051.jpg)

Aquatic park pier

In the morning, we drove over the Golden Gate to Sausalito, where we were to meet to go sailing out on the Bay with a local guy offering trips through Airbnb. I was excited! Ever since moving to California had wanted to sail out in the Bay! Originally, Megan had signed us up for Saturday, but the weather was pretty rough: rain and high winds leading to a lot of chop on the water. She arranged to switch days and it was a good call. Sunday we had consistent winds which were on the lighter side, and warm sun despite a bit of chilly air.

We met the Captain, got an overview of his boat and motored out of the harbor before getting the sails up. The tides were in our favor and we made good time out to the Bridge. We got great views and a cool perspective being underneath; we even saw a helicopter fly underneath right near us, and had to maneuver around an enormous cargo ship headed out to sea. Once we turned back from the Bridge, we sailed around for a few hours with good wind in the Prisidio Shoal area. It was a cool backdrop with Sausalito and San Francisco along the shore, and generally we had a great time. When leaving the dock our captain mentioned we might see dolphins which I hadn’t known we had in the area, and we got to see a bunch of them swimming around the boats and surfing in the ferry swells.

[YouTube embed](https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m16!1m10!1m3!1d4815!2d-122.5006885!3d37.8318906!2m1!2f38.58!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f35!3m3!1m2!1s0x80858504b4c95f1d%3A0xd3c5c65691b271eb!2sBasin+4!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1521329891822)

Every year I’m surprised when my birthday comes around. I don’t feel like I think a 32 year old should, but I guess thats how it goes for a lot of people. I’m glad I’ve got such a wonderful wife who plans fun celebrations and finally got us out on the water after over 2 years of wanting!

2018: Goals

Here is a list of some of my goals for 2018. Some of these are already planned or in progress but its early still so no status reports yet. I plan to update this post throughout the year with progress reports.

Build 2 pieces of wooden furniture
1. Table
2. TBD
~~Ride my bike to work 150 days~~
1. ~~~3/5 of the time assuming 260 workdays per year~~
Complete a 60 day streak of duolingo practice
Complete 2 kickstarter projects
1. ~~eBike project~~
2. Additional TBD project
~~Run at least a 10k race~~
~~Obtain a sailing certification~~ (certifications are for chumps) and ~~spend an overnight on a sailboat~~
~~Make at least 2 movies~~
1. ~~General documenting style movie with Megan~~
2. ~~Commuting movie (Sailing movie instead)~~
Surf in a warm water destination
~~Read 10 books~~
1. ~~Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson~~
2. A fine mess, T. R. Reid
3. ~~Ready player one, Ernest Cline~~
4. ~~The selfish gene, Richard Dawkins~~
5. ~~The boys in the boat, Daniel Brown~~
6. ~~Bad blood, John Carreyrou~~
7. ~~Red mars, Kim Stanley~~
8. ~~Struck by lightning, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal~~
9. ~~In praise of wasting time, Alan Leightman~~
10. ~~Einstein’s dream, Alan Leightman~~
11. ~~Space Barrons, Christian Davenport~~
12. ~~Sum, David Eagleman~~
13. ~~Draft No. 4, John McPhee~~
14. ~~Shoe Dog, Phil Knight~~
15. ~~Conspiracy, Ryan Holiday~~
16. ~~What do you care what other people think, Richard Feynman~~
17. ~~How to create a mind, Ray Kurzweil~~
18. ~~The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand~~
19. ~~Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance~~
20. ~~The boys in the boat, Daniel James Brown~~
21. ~~Capital in the twenty first century, Thomas Piketty~~
Weigh no more than 182lbs at mid and end year points

UPDATE: 3/17/18

My first piece of furniture for the year is underway. I joined a furniture design class Thursday evenings in Santa Clara and am building a corner table for our kitchen which will have a base of poplar and an alder top.

I’m on track for reading 10 books, and have completed one Kickstarter project, although it wasn’t funded. I’m also more or less on track for my biking goal, but haven’t actually been logging this. I got a new commuter without a motor since I’m getting fat and am at risk of not meeting my weight target.

The other goals haven’t been started, but I’m confident I’ll get to them.

UPDATE: 5/1/2018

I’m on track for commuting still. I love my new bike. I also finished one movie, which I’m really happy with. The table is partly complete, and the class is mostly complete :/

I’m not on track for weight. The other day I clocked in at 194 in the morning!

UPDATE: 11/24/2018

Still on track for commuting. I’m not really tracking this but I’ve been riding a lot. Yesterday and today we got the first rain of the season, but I already have some fenders in the mail in order to continue biking.

Weight… not on track. I’m fat. I really need to loose some weight.

Warm water surfing looks like its not going to happen. We have just over a month left and since Megan is pregnant she would be too jealous if I booked a trip now.

And my running goal for 2018 will go unmet. I plan to run at least 10k during 2018 training. I am signed up for an event (as of a few minutes ago) but it is on 1/12 of 2019.

I’m on track for reading which I’m happy about. I’ve read some good books this year.

A 60 day Spanish streak isn’t happening. I completed more than 30 days in the first part of the year but since then I haven’t been practicing. It’s difficult to make myself do considering there is no actual use case for it right now.

I also completed a second movie, although it isn’t the commuting movie. To be posted still…

UPDATE: 01/01/2019

2018 is complete. Summary:

Build 2 pieces of wooden furniture
- Fail – I made most of a table and it is sitting on my shelf about 85% complete. I did complete 1 picture frame, which isn’t furniture.
Ride my bike to work 150 days
- Pass – I didn’t track this but know that I crushed it.
Complete a 60 day streak of duolingo practice
- Fail – I completed a 32 day streak in June and haven’t done much since then.
Complete 2 kickstarter projects
- Fail – 1 complete, 1 not complete. I have two ideas which I may try to do this spring.
Run at least a 10k race
- Pass – I ran 5 miles on 12/31/18 and am registered for a 10k trail race in less than 2 weeks. I’m claiming victory here since on the 31st I definitely could have run 6.4 miles but I’m saving myself for the race.
Obtain a sailing certification and spend an overnight on a sailboat
- Pass – I certified myself and spent many nights on a boat.
Make at least 2 movies
- Pass – Chile movie and SF Bay Sailing Movie
Surf in a warm water destination
- Fail
Read 10 books
- Pass:
  - 16 books read
  - 4 books listened to
  - 1 book judged to be a waste of time
Weigh no more than 182lbs at mid and end year points
- Fail – Utter fail – 201.8 lbs this evening. This is a problem.

Using the information above the year looks to have been pretty bleak.

Considering its the holidays and I’m feeling generous, I could give myself partial credit for the following items:

Furniture = 33% since I did spend many hours woodworking
Duolingo = 53% (32/60 days)
Kickstarter = 49% (1 complete, but unsuccessful campaign)
Weight = -11% (-1 * 1-(201.8/182))

And some bonus credit for going above and beyond:

Books = 200% (20/10)

Adjusting with the holiday values and weighting along with the unadjusted items which were either completely fulfilled or not we arrive here.

Not bad for the year. Here is to hoping for a better 2019.

Not originally included but this was also in fact ‘Vanished without a trace’ –> recovered 20260907

Chile

At about 1:00 in the afternoon, the power went out in the Panama City International Airport. There wasn’t much of a reaction from the staff in the Copa Club lounge though so Megan and I continued as usual. I had been about to take a nap with Megan on bag watch after our layover showers, business class travel is rough. We we’re half way to our destination, Santiago, Chile, and a trip we had been talking about for well over a year. An hour or so later, with power restored, headed to the gate for the next half of the flight South.

Our plan was to fly into Santiago and head to the coast for 4-5 days, staying in Valpariso where Megan studied aborad 10 years before, and then Pichilemu, a surf town we had been scouting online. After this we would fly to Puerto Montt and Northern Patagoina in order to visit the new Chilean park, Pumalin Park, and spend time in nearby Puerto Varas. Then make the final leg to Southern Patagoina and visit Torres del Paine, and the adventure hub of Puerto Natales. We decided on this two and a half week iteniary after years of wanting to move abroad to live for a year. Originally we thought to simply quit our jobs and move, first to Pichilemu, then it was Puerto Varas since streetview in Pichelemu looked a bit rough. In retrospec, this may have been, if not a mistake, a bit more than we bargined for. While it would be nice to have a much extended break from our busy lives, we both ended up having a fantastic time despite the abreviated scope of the trip, and are already looking forward to our next trip aborad.

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The signs of fall, Sunnyvale, CA

Every year the signals that fall is coming arrive in a few specific ways. One of the first occurred last night. Megan and I rode our bikes over to our favorite local sushi restaurant for dinner. We both finished work late so we didn’t leave the house until 7:15 or so. Along the way we stopped for a minute to admire an unusually red setting sun and then continued on to get dinner without thinking much more about the time of day. It was while locking up the bikes and walking inside that the signal came about. I realized I didn’t have my bike lights, and would need them by the time we finished eating.

Every spring, after emerging from a long season of bicycle commuting in darkness, the time comes when I roll into the driveway before its dark enough to really need all of my flashing lights. I still have them on board and clipped to my pack for most of the spring, although regular use and charging starts to fade away.

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Big Oak Flat backpacking, Yosemite NP, California

Before even moving to California my cousin Matt and his wife Jan had recommend a backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps which they had been on when living in the Bay Area. Finally after almost 2 years living in California and only a single trip to the mountains, Megan and I arranged for a 4 day weekend with the plan to head up North and visit the Trinity Alps and the lakes Matt and Jan had liked so much. Two weeks before the trip however, I realized this place is 5+ hours away, which given our typical pace would take us at least 6. We also both admitted that although the lakes look nice, we’ve seen alpine lakes many times before in Colorado.

Also before moving to California, I had decided that, for some reason, I wanted to visit Yosemite only in the winter, reserving a summer time trip for sometime in the future since I didn’t like the idea of the huge crowds. Two winters have come and gone though and we still hadn’t made the trip, and I didn’t have a real reason for avoiding the summer anyway. So 3 days before leaving we checked a guide book out from the library, decided on a trail based solely on permit availability and hiking distance, and then spoke with the backcountry office the next morning to get formally registered.

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