The delta

Christa, Tom , Chloe and I headed up to the Delta. They dropped me off at Sherman Island so that I could kiteboard while they toured around for a while. I hadn't been to Sherman before, despite it being one of the premier places to kiteboard in Northern California. I wasn't disappointed: strong, consistent wind, non salty water, and a pretty relaxed atmosphere. The launch is pretty small, but I was there early enough that there weren't very many people around. It was a lot of fun, and I'll hopefully have more chances to head up there this season.

Chloe and the crew very nicely came back to pick me up, and we headed out towards Locke. Along the way, we had lunch in Isleton.


There was an outdoor patio with live singing and the server looked like your grandmother, except that she had lot's of piercings. It was a little uncanny, actually and reminded me of that scene in "Death in Venice" when Aschenbach sees the old man on the vaporetto. The food itself was nothing special -- very fried non locally sourced fish and meat. But let me get back to the music, because that was really the most memorable part.

The main singer was pretty good, but the volume of the sound got to be a little painful by the end. Although he had impressive stamina and belted out song after song while we basked in high cholesterol goodness, he took a break after a while and had one of his buddies come up and sing. His friend's name was "Big John", was well over six feet tall and had a military buzz cut. Basically it looked like he just stepped off of PT109. In any case, while he could hit the lower notes admirably well, things didn't turn out so well when he sang solo. It sort of reminded me of that scene in Young Frankenstein when Gene Wilder dresses Peter Boyle up in a Tux and has him sing "Putting on the Ritz" -- "POOOIN UNNNN HUUUU RIIIIIIITZ".

From Isleton, we headed up to Locke, which was the coolest part of the trip. I'll rely on my trusty friend Wikipedia for the background on this small town. It really is a strange and cool place.




I talked to some local guys who said that all the beautiful pear trees (which were in bloom) probably would be pulled out in the next ten years because there is no market for them anymore. Additionally, whatever small market there is is saturated with Chilean pears rather than local pears. After visiting the museum, which had previously been a gambling parlor, we headed over to the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse, which had amazing pictures of the Chinese community. I thought this one was kind of entertaining though:

There were all kinds of fancy motorcycles and two beautiful Alfas in town

After Locke, we headed back to Berkeley, where Kenji cooked "Spaghetti a la Kenji"

Christa and Tom here

Christa and Tom (her boyfriend) arrived today for interviews at various hospitals. Our apartment is kind of chaotic right now, but hopefully they won't be too disturbed by it!

Grapes in the air

On wednesday the movers came to our place in the Presidio, loaded up all our junk onto a truck and dropped it off at our new place in Fruitvale; right now most of our things are sitting in stacks of boxes on the concrete floor.

After finally getting a chance to have the bladder in my kite fixed at KiteWindSurf in Alameda, I headed back to our place to meet Chloe. As soon as I got out of my car I was greeted a really strong smell of grapes in the air. However, this was not the mellow smell of freshly crushed grapes, but rather the artificial sweetness of purple grape chewing gum. As it turns out we now live next to the Gatorade factory and I'm guessing it was "purple" day. I don't mind it at all though; it reminded me of my organic chem lab in which we synthesized a variety of different aromatic (not aromatic in the chemical sense) esters, and all of a sudden our austere 1920's era Williams College laboratory was filled with the powerful aromas of bananas, oranges and apples. It certainly could be a lot worse.

I'm guessing it was this stuff

It also reminded me of a story I heard on This American Life about the gub'mit cracking down on chocolate factory emissions in Chicago

moving!

the movers from Pat Ryan movers showed up today to cart all of our stuff to the Macaroni Factory (aka our new apartment)

earthquake!

It rattled the windows a bit but nothing too serious! 4.2 on the richter scale

!

Snow Day!!!

We finally got enough snow to be able to try a little back country riding. Chloe hadn't used the split board before, and I was dying to have her experience the joy of "earning her turns". We left by eight in the morning and were in the parking lot of Negro Canyon at around 10:30 or so. After gearing up and explaining to Chloe how to put the skins on the skis and setup the bindings we were off.

We only have one split board, so I was on the excellent MSR snowshoes that I got for xmas. Those things are so light that I forgot I was wearing them a few times. I wish I could say the same about the kite and snowboard strapped to my back.

We trudged up the hill (by the topo, it looks like we went around 1 mile and 800 ft in elevation), pausing for lunch and to let the exhaust spewing snowmobiles to go by.




The snow was incredibly sticky, and since we were staying away from the steep terrain to avoid any avalanches, it was really hard to get going.

I tried out the kite in the swirling winds until the lines got hopelessly twisted, and then we boarded back down the hill.



Chloe did great but got a little frustrated at getting mired in the ultra sticky snow every thirty feet or so. We tried to get her a decent run a few times but gave up when we realized that it wasn't really steep enough to get going. Instead, I did a few somersaults into the snow

dodged more snowmobilers, and descended the narrow track that led back to the lot.

we had originally intended to stay at the cabin, but seeing all the snow



we decided to just drive back to berkeley that night and stop at In-n-out on the way back. I had read about a "secret menu" and tried the "animal style" double double, which tasted pretty good after slogging through all that snow.

aagh

I just got four more of my improperly made French fillings (okay done by a Finnish dentist, to be fair) replaced. Lots of novacaine, drooling on myself and a sore jaw as usual. Hopefully these will last more than a few years; apparently there were big cavities and bits of my silver amalgam fillings that were left under the fillings. At least I can look forward to a weekend up in the mountains finally!

Napa

We went up to Napa with my parents to check out the amazing studio and house that our friends the Shepps have built -- very cool. From there, we went to Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen which was really excellent. I'm updating this a week later, so I can't remember what we ate exactly, but everything was excellent and the dining rooms are bright and sunny... perfect.

Heres kenji in the restaurant

Burning

Yesterday we burned most of the maples that we had cut down this spring

and used the burn barrel and coals to cook potatoes and steak



We drove back to the bay area this morning, just in time to see the Queen Mary 2 steam under the bridge

boats in the SFBay

This website was brought to my attention today and it really blew me away. Many of the bigger ships are now equipped with a tracking system known as AIS which integrates a special packet radio protocol with a GPS. Someone used a ground based receiver in Berkeley and some computer savvy to put together the above linked page which agives you a real-time and time-lapsed view of boats in the SF bay.

oy vey

Yesterday began like many other winter weekends this year with an early start. We were heading up to Lake Van Norden to scope out another snowkiting venue. We got to the south side of the lake around 9:45 or so, but quickly realized that lake van Norden road was a little too snowy to drive far enough to the east to reach the meadows. There was no wind either, but I was content to at least scope out where we could park and how to walk to the meadows, so we drove around to the other side along Lake Mary road. It was here that I ignored the warning signs of not seeing very many (ok, zero) tire tracks, and rallied our subie up and over a largish snowy berm. I drove over the concrete track crossing and almost immediately sank into the snow on the far side of the tracks. This was the first time I had gotten the subie stuck, and I was determined to dig her out rather than face the ignominy of another Tow truck rescue. Does this look familiar?!



After about an hour and a half of digging, cursing and burning of clutch, a trainspotter dude showed up and immediately called Union Pacific and was more or less in constant contact with them for the rest of the ordeal. We were far enough away from the tracks that we *probably* wouldn't get hit by a train, but the prospect of our car getting turned into a carnitas of shredded metal and upholstry added to the urgency and stress of the situation.

He told us to pile rocks from the tracks under the wheels, and helped push.. neither of which really helped. After breaking our borrowed shovel, he also admonished me for wearing cotton pants and a sweater because "cotton kills". I guess he didn't notice the PILES of polypro/windstopper/mountain hardwear shells and wool underwear in the back seat (and the blue skies!). Soon after, a guy from sugarbowl showed up in his diesel Kubota 4x4. To make a long story short, no one was willing to pull us out from the tracks because they were very sensibly worried about a train showing up, exploding their truck and then dragging our chained subaru into sacramento. The same problem applied to all of the towing services that subaru roadside assistance could find. In the end, for a small fee ($150), Sugarbowl agreed to drive a Snowcat up the Royal Gorge trail and pull us out. It was decided upon that pulling from the side of the track was the safest option, and it worked like a charm.

The trainspotting dude didn't want us to cross the westbound track until he heard back from Union Pacific, so I chatted with the Snowcat driver for a while. It really is amazing what kind of terrain they can drive those things on. He happened to be one of those rock crawler guys and had done an infamous "road" between Fordyce lake and the Eagle lakes in his rig. He apparently carries a trailer with a welding setup in it for repairs on the go! I took the opportunity to ask him about those new Toyotas I've been seeing around : the FJ cruiser. Despite being pretty firmly in the anti-SUV camp, the FJ intrigues me because they ran them (or something like them) in this years Baja 1000, they are pretty inexpensive, and they seem to be actually for off-road use, rather than rolling over smaller cars. I think it's a testament to their utility that this guy seemed pretty impressed with them, and dismissed most other SUVs as "cars".

Chloe and I also had a chance to check out the impressively large hole I had gotten us into




After waiting for a while, we got the go ahead from the trainspotter and I turned onto the sent-from-heaven snowless rail crossing and rallied down the other side.



After thanking everyone profusely, we hightailed it out of there, cruising up the icy hill which I had worried about on the drive in.

Lessons learned:
1)The subie cannot go everywhere
2)The subie cannot go everywhere
3)The snowbanks on the sides of train tracks are made of very soft snow.
4)Cars are heavy and sink into soft snow
5)The subie cannot go everywhere

So I am suitably chastened and will certainly back off a lot earlier next time (especially near train tracks!).

We got back to the cabin around three-ish, set up the soaking tub, and burned some of the brush that we had cut down last spring and summer in the burn barrel


Unfortunately, most of the water in the cabin was frozen solid

as was the olive oil

even the water we set out overnight froze!


After another soak in 100 degree water this morning, we headed back to berkeley.

Snowkiting, driving home

We had read about "the best breakfast in town" in the Rockfax Staying in Bishop Guide, and on it's recommendation spent twenty minutes wandering around bishop looking for a breakfast place which is apparently not even in business anymore. No matter though, as we went to Schat's Bäkkêrÿ for some asiago bread, fritters, and various other baked goods. I've avoided Schat's for a while because of the gratuituous use of an umlaut over the "Y" as well as the additional "k", despite all the gushing about fantastic breads that I've read. I grew up in Berkeley -- home of Acme bread -- and lived in france for almost four years, so I just assumed that all the praise was relative to other offerings in america and that I would be underwhelmed. To my surprise though, their sourdough was excellent, as was everything else I tried. Interestingly, the original Schat was apparently taught how to make his signature product -- Sheepherders bread -- by Basque shepherds in the early 1900's.

Back at the hotel, we packed up and took a few minutes to watch birds peck at detritus that had blown onto the frozen swimming pool

nothin like a good detritus peck.

We drove back up 395, cursing the lack of snow along the way (there was wind, too!) and stopped to take pictures of Topaz lake.

We also saw some (presumably drunk) fishermen crash their boat into the ice encrusted shore of the lake.

After crossing into the Sierra on route 88, we stopped at what I later discovered was near one of the major snowkiting areas in the Tahoe area: Hope Valley. We were actually at the small cross country area at the intersection of 88 and 89 called Sorensens rather than Hope Valley itself. Despite the weak winds, I managed to move about twenty feet under wind power

but only after a LOT of patience and effort by Chloe -- THANK YOU CHLOE!!! There was so little wind that the kite would drop out of the sky and I wouldn't be able to launch without her!


From Sorensons, it was finally time to go back to berkeley. I can't wait to go back!

Bouldering at the buttermilks/happy boulders

We got a late start this morning and went to the hotel lobby to grab some continental breakfast. I didn't know it then, but the muffin I ate would cause me all kinds of gastroenterological distress for the rest of the day. At this point however, I was happily munching away on a poppyseed muffin and a bowl of dry cheerios (I'm lactose intolerant, but only in the morning for some reason). The woman working at the front desk was barely able to peek her head over the front desk, and struck me as a little batty when I first saw her. This suspicion was confirmed by the ten minute stream of consciousness monologue that she delivered in response to another hotel patron asking where he could find a good garage in town. It was a meandering tale that began promisingly with the statement that most garages would be closed today, but then went on to a discussion of roadworthy tires, pneumatic lifts and the lives of the local garageman. Strangely undeterred by this monlogue, the man asked a second question. I would have stopped after the first personally, but I guess maybe he was still trying to figure out if there was an answer somewhere in the first stream of consciousness. The second answer, about how good the cell phone coverage was north of town, was mercifully only half as long but had even less content. I think her answer boiled down to: "it depends on what kind of phone you have". Chloe and I were smirking at eachother and doing our best not to break out laughing during the entire episode.

From the hotel, we set off to the Buttermilk boulders and warmed up on the mantley V2 on the solid grain boulder, then the Prow and birthday direct. However, I wasn't able to do birthday direct because of general weakness and my shoulder not cooperating. From the birthday boulders, we headed up to "The loaf" and ground away our skin on "Dough Boy", which was excellent. The top out is pretty scary however, and my hands got so sweaty I had chloe throw our chalkpot up to me. From the loaf, we walked down to the ranger rock and got spanked on the v3 and v4 (almost sent the latter) and then ate lunch on top of the loaf while we watched some famous climbers warm up on the V3, 4 and 5.


We decided that our skin wouldn't last much longer on the rough granite, so we headed back down to the volcanic tablelands and found a nook in the east rim of the canyon that I hadn't been to before. I did "Sacre Coeur", a few problems in the hall of mirrors,


and "Baroque". Chloe also got baroque (before me!!! arrrrgh) and we both floundered on the thin face problem at the end of the hall of mirrors.



We moved down to try Mr Happy but got spanked.

After a quick look around from the canyon rim



we headed down to Black Magic -- a tall problem which I did first try:



and then onto Azeed , and then Weekender. Weekender was an even bigger adventure than Black Magic. The moves are pretty easy, but all of a sudden you find yourself high off the deck on somewhat suspect overhanging rock. Chloe wasn't happy that I topped this one out, and I think it marks the end of highballing for a while.

We were the last ones down from the Happy boulders and watched the last remnants of light fade over the Sierra


and then grabbed pizza at The upper crust which in combination with a mammoth pale ale, was the perfect end to our day.