Salt Lake City

I was at a conference for the whole week. Besides the conference itself and the oppressive heat, there isn't much to report about other than my being very grateful and relieved to have been scheduled to talk on the first day. I think the local mormons were excited for all of the fresh blood available for conversion (that's my theory for why the SLC convention center is so plush). Here they are working their wiles on an unsuspecting American Crystallographic Association attendee


I was also in town for Pioneer Day which is apparently the biggest holiday in Utah.

Guest Blog By Chloe-The Tipping Point

After much nagging, Max convinced me to read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. He did this not because he thought the book was good, but rather because he thought it wasn't and wanted a second (i.e. validating) opinion as the book was met with a great deal of acclaim and popularity.

There was a time when I would have attributed Max's dislike of a book to "uppitiness." This is based on his appreciation of fine literature, his favorite author being Nabokov, and his mild disdain for my trashy mystery novels (however I try to get trashy mystery novels written in french, thus they are really educational and not just trashy). However, this was before our encounter with a book called The Adirondack Detective. We were living in France and after much lamentation and whining about the necessity of care packages, I was sent one from my father and stepmother. With the care package was a book called The Adirondack Detective. A police mystery type book, judging by the blurb on the back jacket. Fun and innocuous I assumed. Well Max got first dibs on the book since he had read all the handy books in English, was desperate for something to read, and had grown tired of struggling through books in french. It was within maybe half an hour that the complaints started. Poor writing, poor grammar, was there even an editor for this, how could this have been published, etc etc etc. I just assumed he was too persnickity and told him something to that effect. Then I tried to read it. I have rather a high tolerance for lackluster writing and really only need the barest thread of a story and enough dead time to get through just about anything. The Adirondack Detective, however, completely defeated me. The writing was not just "poor" but rather schizophrenic/stream of consciousness first person narrative. It was like the rambling of your crazy old grandfather talking about a fishing trip twenty years ago where nothing much happened. I no longer have the book, but I will try and recreate the atmosphere. "I went into Betty's Diner for breakfast like I do Thursday and Sundays. The food is pretty good there and the muffins are chuck(sic) full of blueberries. I like dogs." So after this experience, when Max says a book isn't good with a particular level of vehemence, I tend to believe him...

Max had described "The Tipping Point" and it's apparently novel concept of a point after which things change quickly and dramatically brought about by something seemingly small and inconsequential. My response of " You mean like the straw that broke the camel's back? What's so novel about that?" was met with a withering stare and the demand that I read the book to better agree with his assertion that it was poorly written, not nearly as insightful as the author and popular wisdom claimed, and that the author was a smarmy toad or something to the effect. Not exactly a motivating force for me to read the book, but after much badgering I agreed to read at least part of the book so as to be able to write a review with at least some knowledge of the subject. I almost failed. Now I am a big fan of the illustrative anecdote and case study. However, it was within the first 20 pages that I became convinced that I had somehow lost my place and was re-reading the same section twice. Actually the same point was just re-iterated using the same words 3 pages apart. I asked if reading 20 pages was enough to write a review for the blog, but Max would only agree to at least 100 pages before I was off the hook and allowed to return to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (actually Harry Potter et le prince de sang mele, in french: so educational!). I dutifully read 132 pages, skimmed the rest, and feel that The Tipping Point is not a groundbreaking work; the concepts have all been around for quite awhile. And just to be snarky, the cover art with an unlit match and lit match reminds me of a old commercial for hemorrhoid medication where a guy strikes a match and then puts it out with a "medicated pad" to illustrate the benefits of Tucks. Perhaps an example of "stickiness" in advertising and a potential follow-up case study for any The Tipping Point sequels.

Tipping Point

I know I'm probably alone in this sentiment, but I needed to vent about "The Tipping Point". I would normally have stopped reading a book like that after a chapter or so just because of the patronizing tone, but plowed through the entire thing because I felt like I was missing something. I mean, there must be something to it if it's been on the NYtimes list since the French Revolution, right? Well, no. At least, not in my opinion. Here are some of my complaints, concise and enumerated for your pleasure

1) Can I hate Malcolm Gladwell solely for making every phenomenon which gathers a critical mass a "Tipping Point" in the popular lexicon? Thank you, I will.
2) I find his tone irritating, as I mentioned before
3) His analysis is totally without any kind of rigorous method or justification in my opinion. What exactly is a Maven? You know this how? Oh right, from the statistically significant sample of "Tipping points" that you have analyzed. Wait, you looked at less than ten? Who's your agent?
4) On that note, gratuitous capitalization: Maven, Sticky, etc etc is annoying.
5) Holy crap does this guy think he's a genius. In the afterword he basically says (in a cloak of false modesty); "Wow, my book is so amazing that it's helping people in ways I hadn't even forseen!"
6)It rambles and follows strange tangents frequently. I know there's some underlying structure, but it's kind of like staring at a fractal sometimes.

North Beach

Chloe and I drove out to have lunch and cappuccinos (and Gelato!) with the parents in North Beach

Eagle Lakes

We made our first attempt on Phoenix lake/ Old Man Mountain from the southwest today, but it didn't go that well. My idea was to drive up to Eagle Lake and the follow Fordyce Creek to the mountain. As usual, reality truned out to be a little different from google maps and the maps on our GPS. We realized pretty quickly that the road was beyond the normal standards of "high clearance 4wd" and into the realm of the purpose built rock crawler. Seriously, this is not a road, this is a boulder strewn hillside

which unsurprisingly smelled like engine oil.
We walked north and found a bridge across the creek and started eastwards towards the mountain. The terrain made it difficult to follow the creek and we soon gave up, panned for gold and found the motherlode of mica! We're rich, RICH I tells ya (doing a Walter Huston Gold dance)! I should also mention that Fordyce Creek is not really a creek, but a freezing cold river with an impressive amount of water running through it. We gradually decided that it was time to try to get back to the south side of the creek, but crossings were not forthcoming and we ended up having to climb a few slabs and hop from rock to rock.

At one point I had the spooky feeling that I was in the perfect habitat for snakes and that there was probably a rattlesnake just waiting to sink its little fangs into my ankle. In fact, I thought that I had actually heard a hiss, but since the chances of that are pretty remote, I told myself that I was being a wuss and continued whacking the bushes around me with my trekking pole. I was standing on a 2x2 foot rock about a foot away from shore at this point. I took a break from the bush whacking to take in the smell and beauty of the the huge incense cedars along the riverside, when I heard it again -- another hiss. Chloe was about 150 feet down the "trail" from me, and I was now officially freaked out, so I decided to backtrack. However, when I tried to take my first step my foot started slipping. It just didn't feel right, so I looked down and discovered that I was standing on a two foot long, very pissed off snake. I jumped into the air and let out a manly yell (girly shriek) and the snake slithered off into the water.

After running down stream and trying to slow down my now racing heartbeat, it was once again time to look for a river crossing. The best we could find was a slimy log which the glacial water would periodically wash over in a wave of bone chilling goodness. Chloe shimmied across it and after watching her get soaked, I decided to take a chance and jump from one side of the rocks to the other, which went off without a hitch. We sat in the sun for an hour or so, waiting for Chloe's pants and shoes to dry off

And panned for more mica. I'll order my Greek island on Amazon tomorrow.

we headed southeast and after a few more exciting crossings


found ourselves back at Eagle Lake. The light was terrible but the lily pads on these lakes are quite pretty



After a thankfully traffic free drive home with a stop at Ikedas, we discovered that a rabbit had escaped from one of the neighbors hard and was hopping around near the fences

I tried to herd it back through the hole in the fence, but Bugs was having none of it and I didn't really want to get bitten by a rabbit, so I didn't tackle it. Good luck against the cats tonight little buddy!

nice light on the way up to Alta

Corn

Well, our ears of corn appear to have stopped growing, so we decided to go for broke and harvest one. They turned out to be... special

and not particularly tasty. There weren't even a full set of kernels! Luckily, the cod that chloe had bought from the fish market on Hopkins and her marinade turned out GREAT on the grill.

ferocious cats in our yard

Arborist

We had breakfast at the Dutch Flat Hotel and then got an estimate for a local Arborist to chop down several trees that were in danger of crushing the cabin and the permatent. We also had a brutal 4:30 drive home. we even stopped in Colfax to kill time and ate at a *horrible* restaurant near the train tracks. It's a cute town, but pack a lunch.

Bowman Lake

Today we headed up to Bowman lake in an extremely misguided attempt to get to Penner Lake (I found out afterwards that there is a much easier way to get to it). We took 20 to NF-18 up to Bowman lake road, and after a bone jarring ride finally ended up at the lake. It was hot out, and after a brief hike we realized that there was no chance of getting up to Penner Lake without a boat, so we ate lunch and hung out for a while and enjoyed the mountain breezes.


Someone had even managed to tow a sailboat up to the lake and was showing some serious skill getting it all around the lake in almost no wind.

I wasn't looking forward to another ride on that road, so we tried meadow lake road to Gaston road, and holy sweet mother of god is that a fun road to drive in our subaru. It is freshly graded with deep gravel and broad sweeping turns. Bliss.



After a bath back in Alta, we spent a little time trying to find the northwestern property boundary, since I have a "theory" that the property lines that we were shown are too small by 300 feet. The area that I think is on the property is dense with trees and very difficult to get through. Our already dull machetes were about as useful as pocket knives after 20 feet, and I managed to ricochet a pine branch into my left eye. I still don't really understand what happened but the fact is that the branch that I had aimed a particularly brutal machete blow at not only did not get chopped, but ended up in my eye. My eye was weeping for the rest of the day.

If anyone has any suggestions for something more effective than a machete (don't say bulldozer please), I'd love to hear about it. I sharpen those damn things once every two months and they are pretty much useless after a single session.

aaargh

I went kiting today at Sherman island, but lost my board near the second island. I had unhooked from my board leash to do some jumps and was unfortunately not able to get back to the board after wiping out. I last saw my precious Underground FLX floating south. Other than losing my board, I had a great time though.

alameda

We went to the Alameda 4th of July parade today, followed by waffles at Oles. Kenji treated the waitress to some of his world-famous obfuscation:

Waitress: What can I get you?
Chloe: I'd like a strawberry waffle without whipped cream
Waitress: Ok, and you sir?
Kenji (smiling): I want the same thing!
Waitress: Ok, another strawberry waffle, no whipped cream
Kenji (still smiling): Yes!
Waitress: No whipped cream, right?
Kenji: Yes!
Waitress (turning to me): Ok and y..
Kenji: With whipped cream!

Afterwards, we headed back to the macaroni factory to show the parents the rugs that Chloe had bought at auction last week. We then headed to Berkeley to cook dinner. We grilled steaks, flying saucer squash (don't know their real name) and corn, which turned out pretty well. I was a little nervous about the steak because it was around three inches thick, but it was cooked throughout and if anything a little well done. Chloe and I also made a grapefruit, orange and lemon granita with wild mint from Alta.

Right now we're keeping our heads down as the neighborhood people launch an impressive and potentially dangerous array of professional grade fireworks into the air. I feel bad for all the stray cats!

Kiting third

I had a nice session at third today.

And brought my GPS along for the first time this year:

Google maps here

It was flooding slightly (~0.5 kts) but easy riding with some nice flat spots every once in a while and hardly any holes. On my way in, I saw all kinds of kite carnage though: A deflated kite got washed downwind into the rocks, a guy with a broken harness wrestled his kite all the way back to shore, only to have it get caught in a gust and slammed hard into the rocks (BOOM! hissssssssssss)... and apparently there were two other ripped kites. I was glad that it wasn't me this time.

Oddfellows (again)

The Oddfellows were offering one of their breakfasts again this morning, which we of course attended, followed by a walk around town

and a little waterproofing of the hot tub and some other odd (!) jobs.

Chloe and I panned for some gold and found a tiny flake. I would estimate that it weighs in at a hefty 100 micrograms or so, but still!!! GOLD!

Afterwards, I took a break and laid down on the bed and admired the cabin:


Finally, Chloe and I set out to find the property line stakes and succeded in locating two that we hadn't seen in twentysomething years

July 4th Parade

Chloe and I drove up to Dutch Flat to see the Dutch Flat 4th of July Parade. It's been a long time -- maybe eighteen or twenty years -- since I had last experienced it, and it was as great as I remembered it. The whole "water fight" part of it seems to have assumed a more prominent role, but it looks like kids and adults alike were enjoying it.






















As we were walking back to our car, I noticed an Outback with a Williams sticker on it and asked the people sitting nearby if they went to Williams. It turned out that one of them had, and is good friends with my Junior Advisor Naoko, who I occasionally hear from and who now lives in Rockridge.

After a little deliberation about what to do next since it was already noon, we decided to go back to Sterling Lake again. The road provided the usual bone rattling ride. Along the way, as we crossed paths with kids in ATVs and heavily modified Jeeps, I began to wonder whether any other Subie owners were foolhardy enough to drive this trail. My question was answered in the Sterling Lake parking lot:


We set off along the trail

and immediately found a fun warm up peppered with knobby inclusions, which I did in my awesome new Vasque hiking shoes (with Stealth soles)

This time we had a much better idea of how to get to the mystery boulder field without any bushwhacking. We even found another beautiful vernal pond at the very top of the ridge

At the top of the hill we were greeted by a panoramic view of the Old Man Mountain and the field littered with glacial erratics that I have named "Bouldertown"

Unfortunately, several of the boulders which had looked so appealing last time were actually highball death forays, holdless and super difficult, or both.

The knobs on this one are actually blank concavities. It's really a shame I'm not stronger, because it's a beautiful line with a picture perfect landing, despite being on a steep hillside.
Next, we walked down the hill, and I found my favorite boulder of all. Sure it's not an ankle snapping highball, but it has some intriguing lines and the boulder itself is like a sculpture. Theres the V-easy mantle:

The V-easy crimp lader/ high step:



The technical slab


And finally, the V? (3?4?5?) super fun sit start on a perfect right handed sloper inclusion off tiny feet to a giant and perfect ear shaped knob



In between tries we walked up the hill to absorb the view of the valley along Fordyce lake and down to the Eagle lakes

At around 4:30 we started hiking out and came across this interesting boulder:
. It's a difficult looking problem and will require some cleaning, but definitely a candidate for a low-gravity day. I figure it will happen seven years from now or so.

We had a steak, potato and corn dinner with the parents in Alta