Donner Lake

I had the honor of spending this weekend up at Tahoe (Donner Lake is pictured at left, picture from www.TahoeDonnerHomes.com)with Dan and Cindy and their family and friends. The weekend started out strong with a half day at work and traveling up to Lake Tahoe... get this... by small airplane. Dan's brother has a Beechcraft Bonanza, and was kind enough to let me fly with him. The plane is not large by anyone's standards, but seats four and flies at around 180 mph, if I remember correctly. It's a V-tail with 285 HP that doesn't weigh more than a large SUV... around 3000 pounds loaded. Flying is definitely the way to travel, as it turns a four hour weekend commute to a popular recreation area into a one hour ride. I was just getting used to hearing the NATO alphabet and talking loud enough for the microphone to pick up my voice when we were landing at Truckee. Bose headphones are awesome for cancelling out sound.

Three couples in their mid 30s to mid 40s, five children under 6, two dogs, and myself shared the cabin. Friday night we played horseshoes and ate pizza, so I was completely content. Saturday I tried wakeboarding for the first time ever, but all I could manage was thrashing against the water for a few seconds before I fell each time. Conditions were not ideal (there were almost whitecaps, it was NOT glassy like the picture above) so I guess it's OK if I blame my aqueous inadequacies on that. Saturday night, sunburned and sore, we came back to the cabin and played more horseshoes and then started a late night poker session. Kids are funny... they had spent an entire day at the lake after not sleeping the night before because there were so many other kids around, so they were sleep deprived to the point of temper tantrums. Just when one or two would fall asleep, another child would get upset about which bed he/she was in and wake the others up, who might start playing again, perfectly content, or get upset too. It probably didn't help that the "grown-ups" were having a grand old time drinking and playing poker, not minding their volume levels too much. My poker luck was great and I cleaned everyone out, until way past my bedtime when I lost all of my chips in two hands.

Dan and I took a mountain bike ride the next day, starting on a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail we researched on the internet. The trail started as singletrack with loose rock and gravel at about a 12% grade and did not get relent or level out one bit. We walked our bikes for about a half mile because the trail was impossible to ride at our skill level, until we a woman passed us coming down the hill who told us about some more mellow riding close by. We took her advice and came back down the way we came (too steep even to ride down, the trail has us walking our bikes downhill) and over to a fire road which was much more sensible. We climbed at a moderate grade for 3-4 miles until we came to some single track, which led us up to a giant rock field which we assumed was created by volcanic activity. After the long ride up the hill, we climbed a peak of the loose rock/boulders and soaked in a great view of Lake Tahoe... which, for lack of more eloquent words, is really freakin' big.

The most remarkable part about this weekend was how unremarkable it was... to some people my age, I imagine, spending a weekend at Lake Tahoe or Donner Lake would be great fun in the summer. But with families with small children? I didn't find myself thinking "What am I doing with 6 adults twice my age?", and I didn't find myself wishing I was around my peers. I really enjoyed myself, so I don't mean by "unremarkable" I didn't enjoy every minute of it (even the 4 hour ride in the back seat of the Audi with Cosmo, he slept the whole time and was no trouble), but that it seemed completely natural that I was spending a weekend with people older than myself. The only differences seemed to be in how much we ate and drank. I kicked ass at the former, but not so much the latter.

Anyways, just some thoughts about this weekend. I'll be back in Rapid City on Wednesday, hope everyone had a good weekend!

San Francisco w/ Zack, part II

I'm at work yesterday... working on documenting a sample job on the Digipede Network using POV-Ray, a free image renderer. Zack IM's me in the morning. I'm sure it went something like this...

robertkarljr: chips
geowhizsd01 (that's his screen name. he won the 
geology bee in 6th grade. geography, you say. whatever.): huh?
robertkarljr: Ahoy!
geowhizsd01: oh hey.
geowhizsd01: what's up?
robertkarljr: not a whole lot, just working.
geowhizsd01: say, want to go into the city later? I found an place
 with an awesome view.
geowhizsd01 has gone away (he always does this).
robertkarljr: what, did you leave? sure, that sounds cool.

And then I went on with my work, formatting and saving to PDF and distributing my rendering jobs across the network and whatnot. In the back of my mind I had grand visions of Ayn Rand-esque architecture populating an urban landscape across a great city... I knew that Zack had found the most awe-inspiring, resplendent San Francisco view, a panorama worthy of the urban contemporary of Ansel Adams. I knew picturing the event would be difficult with even the most extensive camera equipment, but I was prepared both physically, emotionally, and mentally for using my Canon SD630 and doing my best. I could see myself looking south onto the city with the Golden Gate shrouded in the fog of dusk, the ocean mist, and the colors of the sunset. Little did I know, what I was thinking of, as incredible as it might have seemed to me, was nothing close to what Zack had found.

Ummm... yeah. No ocean? No San Francisco Bay? Thank you Zack. Awe-inspiring? Heart-rending? Splendid? Splendiferous??? The English language is not sufficient for describing the view, let alone the FEEELINGS one has when experiencing it. This is Zack when the constant pursuit for a purpose and inherent happiness in life seems to end, and you are at one with everything.

Right. Well, on the upside, it sort of was a cool view.

We moved on from Zack's disappointing little alley and walked to Coit Tower. As soon as I saw the stairs leading up to it, I started complaining, but we locked our bikes at the bottom and hiked up.

On the way back, I snapped this picture of Zack.

Cue Dashboard Confessional's vindicated. How freaking emo is that picture? Anyways. That's going to be the cover of our EP that we record when we get back to Rapid City.

I'm tuning out for the day. Seeya...

/robert

www.robertkarl.net

It's official. If you're here, you've found it... rskjr.blogspot.com still exists for some reason, but I've moved the blog to http://robertkarl.net.

Hot Hot Hot

Just a small update, things are very hot in Oakland, 90 degrees fahrenheit and very humid. 95 degrees upstairs, probably about 75 downstairs. I was lucky enough to do a mountain bike ride today on Nathan's sweet old Stump Jumper, but it was cut short by heat and the fact that I had forgotten a hex key to lower the seat.

In other news, Zack and I spent the day in the city yesterday. On my way through Oakland to meet Zack at BART, I saw something magnificent that will forever inspire me... 20 inch spinners. On a late 90s Toyota Camry. Hey-Oh!

We spent the morning biking around the city looking for a place like Dunn Bros, so a.) We wanted coffee, b.) we wanted free wifi, c.) we wanted a place to sit down. This theoretically eliminated Borders and Starbucks since they both are T-Mobile hotspots, and T-Mobile sucks. Peet's coffee would be an excellent alternative, but unfortunately, the only one we saw was downtown and was closed Saturday and Sunday. We ended up at Borders looking for books... but "Google Wifi" showed up when we opened up our matching white Macbook Pros! Google Wifi is apparently in the works and working in San Francisco. Rock.

Later on we cruised through the shopping district, skitched some cable cars, and headed west to the ocean. The water was cold and the beach was hot, so it worked out well. :D Have a good day, all...

Guest Blogger: Zack Abrahamson on San Francisco

As you may know, Zack and I are doing internships in the bay area (there are some great pictures below), and yesterday I asked Zack to write a guest blog. It was finished within TWELVE HOURS!! How productive is that? More productive than playing freeware adventure role playing games during "work", no doubt. Solely for your reading pleasure, here is your favorite future Yale student, Zack A!!

I wasn't sure whether or not to be annoyed. It was 7:20, and everybody else in the lab had already packed up and headed home. I tapped my fingers on the trackpad of my MacBook and looked expectantly at my cell phone, waiting for it to ring. Meanwhile, Robert was somewhere in the city, San Francisco, looking for 1600 16th St. Finally, the phone rang.

"I don't think this is where I'm supposed to be, dude."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. But not on a campus."

I pictured him downtown or in some scuzzy neighborhood. I grimaced. "Yeah. Well you're looking for 600 16th St, right?"

"600?"

"Yeah."

"Not 1600?"

"No. 600."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

Twenty minutes later, we were both outside Genentech Hall, strapping on our helmets and talking about a new piece of software Robert was using Digipede to work with. Then we turned left onto 16th and cruised back into the city, riding the roads whenever possible. We crossed the Lefty O'Doul bridge in the westbound lanes that had been closed to traffic, due to the Giants game. After stopping briefly to watch the game from the public viewing areas in right-center field, our trek continued. Thinking of sea salt and Fisherman's Wharf, I pushed my pedals faster and faster, until I realized I was flying solo.

Forty feet back, Robert had stopped and was just staring out at McCovey Cove.

"That guy has a TV on his kayak." he said, as I drew alongside him. And it was true. Mounted at the front of the cradle, seat, carriage, whatever it's called, was a small flat-screen TV, encased in what looked like Goretex waterproofing.

"How do you think he powers it?"

I stood, pondering the question. I had no ready answer.

"That's crazy." Robert continued, "Kayaks are not supposed to have TVs."

Again, this was true. Kayaks were most definitely not designed as media-friendly seagoing vessels.

So I nodded in assent, my eyebrows still raised from this most peculiar sight. Characteristically, Robert widened his eyes, grinned a half grin, and shook his head as an enigmatic conclusory note to the episode.

Seconds later, I found myself once more alone on the bike path. Robert was stopped once again, although this time he was chatting with a middle-aged man in flip-flops who carried a small leather tote on a strap over his left shoulder. His hands held a long black cylinder. No, I thought. You're kidding. That kid.

Sure enough, Robert was talking to some random stranger he'd met on the street about his camera lens. I shook my head and waited several minutes. I could only imagine the conversation that would have ensued, as I was out of earshot...

Robert: Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice. Is that a Canon 720xdLR Optex lens?

Man (and hereafter we'll refer to him as pedofile, because who talks to random teenage boys on the street? Oh, wait, it's San Francisco): Um...yeah.

Robert: Wow. So like, what kind of pictures can...And here my ability to recreate the conversation runs out, because I, going to a pretentious Ivy League school, only understand that cameras take pictures. Robert, going to CalTech, has a very different perception of a camera. For Robert, cameras have things like "F-Stops" and "shade filters". For me, they have "buttons".

Anyway, after a time Robert had his fill of the camera, and the man had his fill of Robert, and we continued on our merry way, passing the site along the Embarcadero where earlier this morning I'd collided with another woman on my bike.

"Were you riding on the road?" Robert had asked initially.

"Well, no, we were riding on the sidewalk."

"Why?" Robert sounded as if I'd just told him I was joining Al-Qaeda, or signing up for the SATs again.

"It's the Embarcadero, there's a big bike path. People ride it all the time."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So what happened?"

"Well we were coming towards each other from opposite directions. Wanting to give her more space, I turned right just as she, anticipating my move, started turning left. We couldn't correct our paths fast enough, and we hit."

"What side was she riding on."

"I don't know. You're weaving in and out all the time on that path."

"I don't understand how this could've happened if you guys were on the correct sides of the path."

"Ok, yes, true, but we weren't. It was just a random thing."

"Why weren't you riding on the road?"

"Because nobody rides on the road in San Francisco."

"It wouldn't have happened it you'd been riding on the road."

I shuddered to think what Chris Marshall would've said.

I should clarify here that our goal was In N' Out burger. Started in Souther California in 1948, In N Out has remained chiefly a SoCal classic for ages. Renowned for its quality and simplicity, it is the most profitable franchise-based fast food restaurant in the country. More importantly, it is wonderful.

So we cruised down the Embarcadero in the mustard light of early evening. As we passed under the Bay Bridge, Robert noticed another photographer, this one with a tripod set up, looking through another enormously expensive Canon at the towers of the bridge. I thought the light was perfect, and wondered how many people were taking pictures of the photogenic city this time of day.

Piers passed by one after the other, receding like falling dominoes. We hit Pier 39, the start of the touristy part of San Francisco, and kept riding. We passed people disembarking from the Alcatraz ferries and people devouring crab from vendors. We had to walk the bikes because it was so crowded. Pointedly, we rode the street when we could. Robert declined to skitch a taxi, even though he was perfectly positioned to do it.

Finally we found it. Although we had to text Google to get the street address, we finally found the kinked, glowing yellow arrow at 333 Jefferson St. Classically, its neighbor was a Hooters, which prompted discussions on why women go into Hooters. Women reading this blog: help us out here. Why would a woman go to Hooters? I can't imagine the food is that great, especially when compared to the alternatives. It's not terribly family friendly, and I doubt the men who could be found at Hooters are top-notch. But I digress. We found our objective, and entered its pristine polished glass doors.

Robert had the Karl TTO. For the ignorant, this is not a hotwheels car. Rather, it's the Karl Three-Two-One, a way to gorge yourself at In N' Out. It consists of eating three hamburgers (no onion, no special sauce, replace with ketchup), two orders of fries, and a chocolate shake. Modestly, I opted for the cheeseburger, fries, and shake meal.

Later, with the spent paper wrappers of burgers and cardboard trays of fries emptied, I felt something was missing. True to the hype, In N' Out had been wonderful. I thought about it, and realized that I simply needed more. Here I was, in Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco over summer vacation, eating at In N' Out, where I wouldn't be able to go either home or in Connecticut, and I was only having one burger? One? I said to Robert,

"I think I want another shake. And a second burger."

"There you go!" he urged, egging me on. While the Karl TTO was iin no danger of becoming the Abrahamson TTO, I had to do more than the One One One. "Are you getting fries, too?" He asked, "Because I'll eat your fries."

I thought about this for a moment, and said, "No, I wasn't really impressed with the fries. I'm just going burger and shake. You?"

Robert vascillated. He'd already cleared the Karl TTO, what more was there to do?

"I guess I could do another shake."

"That's it?" I grinned.

"Sure."

"No."

"What?"

"You're getting another burger and shake."

Laughter broke from him briefly and then he said, "Ok. We're going for the 4-2-2."

I stood in line and ordered the supplemental food supplies. This time I couldn't quite finish the burger (although it was just as good!) and only got halfway through the shake. I was stuffed. Robert, of course, cleaned the burger and shake.

"Dude," he said, as I looked on increduluously, "I think I consume about 4000 calories a day."

I nodded, not knowing what to say. He continued, "And you know what the funny thing is? I've lost weight since I've been here."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

There was a brief reflective silence, as we both turned that thought over, and as we surveyed the carnage strewn across our table. I sighed contentedly.

"Man," he half said to himself, "I wish I could eat an In N' Out burger every day." He laughed then, "That's why I'm doing the KTTOs, tto make up for all the days I haven't been able to eat In N' Out."

"You're pretty far behind." I said. And then a thought struck me. I pulled my notebook from my backpack, flipped past the trimmed pictures of gels, and uncapped a pen.

"What are you doing?"

"Finding out how many burgers you need to eat a day at CalTech in order to make up for your deficit."

A simple exercise. If we assume that Robert eats at In N' Out every day while in Pasadena, which is approximately 270 days out of the year, we find that in the next four years, where he is guaranteed In N' Outs in his vicinity, he has 1080 days. In which to eat 8030 hamburgers. This figure comes from (18)(365) which represents how far he is in the hole going into this deal. However, we mustn't forget that he needs to keep pace with his current daily demand for In N' Out, which tacks on another 1460 burgers over four years. For those of you checking your math, this means that Robert needs to consume 7.435 hamburgers from In N' Out. A day. Every day. For four years.

We both agreed it was manageable. Our thoughts now turned to something just as interesting and just as mathematically demanding. Specifically, we wanted to know how long we could go without eating after that meal. Basically we asked ourselves just how much we had actually eaten.

Alfonso, who worked the counter at In N' Out, was very cooperative in this regard. He readily handed over a brochure of Nutrition Facts. The results were scary. Robert consumed 4 hamburgers, 310 calories each because he didn't get the special sauce. I had one cheeseburger and one hamburger, 490 and 390 calories, respectively. The fry trays were 400 calories a pop. However, the real shocker lay in the milk shakes, with their 690 calories. After some humming and hawing over Robert's cell phone, we totalled Robert's intake at 3420 calories, and mine at 2133. (The odd number because I only did half my milk shake. Or something like that.)

Bellies bulging out, we finally left In N' Out, but not before we snagged a couple bumper stickers. We saddled up the bikes again and started to push towards Embarcadero. All of a sudden, this homeless guy came out of nowhere behind a trash can and shouted at us. I just about fell off my bike, much tot he amusement of the crowd I was just realizing had gathered around the provocateur. I looked at the guy again, and then back at Robert, who was laughing.

"Is that the guy?" I asked.

"Yeah."

Earlier, Robert had told me something Dan mentioned to him about Fisherman's wharf.

"Dan says there's this dude who just chills down there with two branches as camouflage and scares people."

"What?"

"Yeah. And then, like, people stand around to watch, and he asks them for money to keep scaring people. That's his gig."

I couldn't believe it at the time, but standing there looking at the spectacle itself, I cracked up. It was genius. I looked back at Robert.

"That dude is my hero."

Robert chuckled and we left the crowd. By 9:45 we were on trains headed home. The next morning I felt like I had a bowling ball in my stomach.

In 'n' Out Urge

The last two times I've been to In 'n' Out I've gotten the Karl Three Two One (KTTO) which basically involves three hamburgers, two orders or fries, and a milk shake. When I walked into the store today the first thing I noticed was NOT the addition of my favorite combo meal to the menu, but some interesting names...

q

Ben was my server, but two girls taking orders were named "Jazzmin" and "Shawanna". Creative naming in African American culture must be hip.

Forza Italia!!

Zack and I ate and watched the championship at a restaurant in North Beach San Francisco, a small part of the city with a very large Italian influence. The food was great, and the Italians prevailed in the World Cup after two overtime periods and a shootout. There were many hundreds of people in the street afterwards, spraying champagne, carrying massive 50 foot flags overhead through the crowd, knocking over innocent bicyclists... well, I guess we were in the way.



Being swept up into a huge crowd of ecstatic soccer fans is really unique. Like Zack said... "Let me know next time you get to take part in a World Cup victory parade." It was pretty darn cool.

Now I can hear you saying, "Wait, isn't that an EOS 1D with an L series lens mounted on it that guy is holding?" And the answer is "Yes, that's absolutely correct!" In addition to this gentleman holding a 1D, I saw a photographer with a 5D (using his 50mm f/1.4 prime and an L series zoom) as well as somebody carrying TWO EOS 1Ds. Luckily, I had my Canon SD630 handy with its 3 inch LCD screen. Even the Italians watching the World Cup from the west coast is big news!

Football fans get really riled up about Italy's victory

Golden Gate Bridge

I met up with Zack last night at Embarcadero (pronounced em-bark-a-dare-row) in downtown San Francisco for a ride through the city and on the bridge. First we cruised through downtown and the (Tony Hawk, anyone?) tourism district.

San Francisco and the Bay area is so bike friendly that you can't even ride over the Bay Bridge! Wait a second... But you can ride over the Golden Gate (there are two paths just for bicycles and pedestrians) and it's very easy to travel on BART with your bike.

The bridge is huge. According to Wikipedia, it's 2.7 km long and each tower is 227m above the water. For nearly 30 years after its completion in 1936 it was the largest bridge of its kind. It' also famous for suicides... supposedly around 1300 people have jumped, including the founder of Victoria's Secret. Only 26 have survived.

Zack and I picked a good day to ride across, usually it's cold and foggy. On our way back, San Francisco hills made me wish I was riding a fixed gear. Soon, soon, soon.

Don't worry, his Yale shirt is underneath. :D



Alcatraz

Looking west from the north side of the bridge

Star Wars

Eating, California Style

Zack and I are now settled into our new places, even though I haven't seen him since we stepped off the train in Emeryville. I said to Dan, my wonderful host and coworker (boss?) that thanks to him and his wife Cindy, I was eating better than I had ever eaten in my life. Ever. Today we picked up a Trek cyclocross-ish bike for Dan (mountain bike frame, LX drivetrain, XT brakes, 1.5" tires) and stopped for lunch.



Score.

For dinner, we cooked up some New York strip steaks, steamed broccoli with lemon (fresh, off the tree less than 30 seconds before use), potatoes with olive oil and rosemary, and grilled bread with garlic.



Bueno!