onfocus

This page has a new look! :)

"On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on."
- Samuel Beckett

The hike up Mt. Hood yesterday was very tough. (another page with info.) It's roughly half the distance and elevation of our goal. There were seemingly thousands of wildflowers along the trail, but I didn't really enjoy them until the way down. :) The view from the top was spectacular, and we could see all the way to San Francisco. The best thing is that we weren't dying at the end, so I think our frequent hikes are starting to pay off.

I took pictures.

Remember when I was telling you about Sonoma Mountain and the bog entanglement? Matt posted pictures.

I think the evening is the best time to go hiking. It's nice and cool, there isn't a soul on the trails, and the low angle of the sun makes nice pictures.

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The only drawback, mosquitos.

The Yosemite training is going well. Monday night we went on a four mile hike. Last night we went on a five mile hike with a 1,000 foot elevation change. The next few weeks we're going to push ourselves a bit, starting with a ten mile, 2,000 foot elevation change hike this weekend.

someone on metafilter pointed to some book catalog software called Readerware that supports scanning. They even have a Palm edition. Only $50. cheap! (but there goes my new project...)

Hey cool. All of the time I spend on this site is starting to pay off. I've been nominated for jack squat. Just being nominated for nothing is the real honor. In return, I would like to announce the nomination of the A Wholes^TM Awards in the Onfocus Best Online Awards Awards^TM. So far they're the only nominee. Looks like a lock-in.

meg recently gave me a cuecat she had lying around, and I played around with it tonight. Thanks to the Internet, I found custom drivers in a matter of minutes and I was scanning in bar codes at will. I even found some scripts (with great notes!) to do exactly what I want to do: build a book cataloging system. What I couldn't find was a nice Visual Basic program with a nice user interface to make it all easy for folks who don't program. (I feel a new project coming on.)

Where do you go and who do you turn to when the Supreme Court won't protect citizens from harassment? We will all be arrested.

Note: Don't believe my posts. Fact #1: You're writing things in backwards order now. But I'm afraid it has damaged my memory. What an ingenious film. I just saw memento.

Tonight I was reminded of this quote. And I started thinking about seriousness. In my serious frame of mind, I devised a serious system for rating the seriousness of things around me. 10 for the most serious. 1 for the least serious. (I give this system a 9.) I found very serious books on my bookshelf. several 10s. quite a few 8s. The 1s were few and far between. I was then determined to alleviate this serious problem by choosing the least serious author from my shelf and reading a few unserious passages. "Perhaps the unseriousness will wear off on me," I seriously reasoned. I sat on the floor and read. Walt Whitman asked:

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Erik is posting pictures of jack. (and using a little web picture manager thingy I wrote.)

Amazing: "My son, Jack Anthony Nielsen, was born yesterday morning at 4:24 a.m..." Congratulations Erik and Elaine! and welcome, Jack. :)

"The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude."
- Kate Chopin, The Awakening

"What we are doing is making our way back to life, shattering with all our force the ice of the habitual and the rational which instantly congeals over reality and keeps us from ever seeing it, finding a passage back into the open sea."
- Marcel Proust

A look through my logs shows that a lot of folks are visitng today from Ev's essay about the demise of Pyra. (welcome!) I think it has something to do with slashdot. If you're curious, here's what I was writing around that time. I'm relieved that Blogger the application will be around for a while longer thanks to the Trellix deal. I'm proud of the work I did at Pyra, and I feel the enthusiastic Blogger community played a huge role in shaping its success. This deal will help ensure that their investment wasn't wasted.

Along the trail today I had a run-in with a bog. (I couldn't go without blogging about the bog. ;)

Now that's hiking.

I hiked up Sonoma Mountain with some friends today. (thus begins the Yosemite training.) What a perfect day. (I've done this hike before quite a few times and I never get tired of it.)

So the other day skp and I were working on the deck, and I put my foot right through it. You see, this section of our deck wasn't supposed to be a deck...it was supposed to be an extra room. For some reason, the extra room wasn't built. So we had a "deck" that was made out of plywood. When it rained, little puddles of water formed on this deck. I didn't know that would rot the wood away. Anyway, it did. Check it out:

That's a size 12 hole.

Up next: painting and nailing. I'll keep you posted.

him, him, him. (great picture.)

I'm going to Yosemite in about a month and I'm really looking forward to it. I've been in California for a few years now, but I've never been to Yosemite. Looks like it's time to start training. (and training.)

"As far as I'm concerned, photography is a means of understanding that cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of crying out, of setting oneself free, not of trying to prove or affirm one's originality. It's a way of life." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Salon.com: "Let them eat tainted beef and wash it down with arsenic-laced water."

David Byrne is going to be at the Fillmore on May 31st. this ain't no disco. Though I'm not sure I'll be here just then. damn.

In no particular order (and for no particular reason), here are some movies I've rented recently that I would recommend:

• Holy Smoke
• The Dreamlife of Angels
• Insomnia
• The Grand Illusion
• The Celluloid Closet
• Genghis Blues
• Cool Hand Luke

I'm surprised this picture didn't make it into the tabloids. ;)

Sydney Morning Herald: "If people knew there wouldn't be a power shortage if all the wind farms could work at capacity, then something might just happen to get the lines built to carry our power," Michael Burns says. [via rebecca]

AskTog: "Unless people are protected from purposeful and involuntary downgrades in the usability of already-purchased products, we will see a deterioration of consumer rights unimagined before." [via hack the planet]

jason also posted a few pictures from the hike.

went on a great hike yesterday with some friends. The Pomo Canyon Trail that leads to Shell Beach was just beautiful. (Of course I took pictures!) There were many different types of terrain in just a few miles. The 720 ft. elevation change had me gasping for air, so I need to get in much better shape if I want to go backpacking this summer. Lots of fun work to do. Note to self: look into buying two-way radios.