The 30,000 Foot Tourist

I just created a new photo set on Flickr, that I'm calling The 30,000 Foot Tourist--it follows a pattern that I have long established on this blog:


I realize that I habitally book the window seat when I'm travelling by plane, and I snap some photos when I'm flying over something interesting. Here's a collection of what I've shot over the years. Natural and man-made features, interesting stuff at airports, stuff like that.

• Awesome shots of New York City--what a photogenic town--from north of Manhattan, showing the Hell Gate Bridge, Triborough, Queensborough, and Roosevelt Island.
  
• Alaskan glaciers, where you can completely see that "river of ice" effect.
  
• A demonstration of the advantage to being short while travelling on airplanes--I can actually stand up under the luggage bins!
  
• A VOR, or VHF Omni-directional Radio Range (a type of radio navigation system for aircraft). They look like somebody made an odd flower sculpture out of softballs--now you know what they are, when you see one.
  
• Other bits of aviation geekery, like the pattern that ice makes on the hub of a propeller
  
• Or winglets--those vertical wing tips that you often see on short-haul planes. They improve fuel efficiency, which seems counterintuitive for adding more stuff to the plane, but the Wikipedia explanation shows that it reduces the size of the wingtip vortices, thus reducing drag. Cool!
  
• I already did a blog post on Boston from the air--the full set is on there.
  
• Washington DC at night
  
• I really like to find neat geographic features that are recognizable from the air--I later identify them via Google Maps. For instance, Pyramid Lake, a reservoir at the California-Nevada Border, Clay's Landing, near Detroit, and Mono Lake, California

Anyway, I keep on wondering if I ever end up in a plane crash, whether I might have the presence of mind to keep snapping pictures on the way down. Hey... it might turn out useful to the crash investigators, right? ("at 18:22, shows that flaps were fully extended..."). If you can identify my body by the Brass Rat + Iron Ring combination, and find the associated SD card, be sure that somebody downloads the card to check. As a warning, I might put the SD card in my wallet--seems like a few more layers might give it a slightly better chance in the fire.

Last Weekend Con't: North Conway

While I was at that Wilderness First Aid course, I took an evening to check out North Conway.

First of all, I stayed at a hostel--not a hotel--on this trip. I thought that I might be getting old for hostels, but there were guests both older and younger than me there. Also, I have always been offended at the concept of paying $100+/night for a place to sleep, while I'd actually prefer to crash on a friend's couch, in exchange for buying them dinner or say, a Tsukemono Japanese Pickle Press. Hotel rooms are far more than what I require--a private room, and a private bath. So I ended up in a six-man shared bunk room, for $24... worked out just fine.

I drove in to North Conway in the early evening; the first part of town that you come through is parking lot chain store hell--Staples, Home Depot, Macaroni Grill, repeat. I was afraid that this was the entire town--it looks like they dropped Burlington, MA at the foot of the beautiful White Mountains... a bit depressing. Stuff that made me think of that line from The Matrix:

"You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."


However, I quickly rolled into downtown, which is the original, historical part of North Conway. You might dismiss it as being a little bit too "cutesy quaint" or something, or perhaps designed to painlessly separate yuppie tourists from their money. But not a bad place to hang out, overall. I managed to just buy postcards, dinner, and dessert.


Anyway.... I like town haz snowcatz!


It's a retired one, put out on display in front of the museum for the Mount Washington Observatory (weather station). Technically, it's a Thiokol Spryte, but "snowcat" is a good enough generic term, I think.

In my wandering around town, I found a huge house that they were in the process of moving to another site. I geeked out for about half an hour, taking pictures of the details and equipment. For instance, it seems like the house was too big to move in one piece--so they chainsawed off the rear wing/addition, to move separately. They were in the process of demolishing the original foundation, it seems.


I probably hang out with too many Economist readers, but when I hear "Bretton Woods," I think of a system of monetary management, as opposed to a zip line park--thus my bemusement when I saw this brochure.


After dinner, I ended up at Met Coffee House--a small independent place with great desserts in a former bank building. A coffeehouse, tiramisu, and postcards... a perfect way to wrap up an evening.


I'll have to keep the White Mountains in mind for future camping and hiking--getting up there is only about 2 hours from Bird & Jen's. For reference, for future trips--there is a scenic railway that leaves from North Conway, and heads up to the White Mountains.


Need to try that out sometime.

Last Weekend: Wilderness First Aid

One of the rationales for my solo camping trip was to figure out the gaps in my wilderness knowledge, when I didn't have other people to rely on. One thing that I realized I only had minimal training in was first aid/medicine. Also, in general, basic first aid is up there on my list of "general life skills for making myself into a more useful human being" (there are loads of others on that list that I'm not making any headway on, but hey).

So I finally raised my activation energy to do something about this, and went to a two-day weekend class on Wilderness First Aid offered by SOLO School in Conway, NH:

Accidents happen. People get hurt, sick, or lost. The temperature drops, the wind picks up, and it starts to rain. Would you know what to do? Many backcountry emergencies are preventable, and even when bad things happen, sometimes the wrong care can make things worse. By learning a few basic skills, you can make the difference between a good outcome and a bad one—and maybe even save a life.

The school has a great campus (a few buildings off the main road), and the instructors did a great job of mixing classroom instruction with outdoor demonstrations and "scenarios"--a portion of the class playing injured patients who we would have to diagnose and treat.


Our instructor was utterly fantastic--an outdoorsy, rock climbing, working EMT/firefighter... who was also a seriously cute blonde woman. Yep... afraid it was quite easy to pay attention in class ;). But seriously--she was a great instructor--very dynamic, funny (plenty of EMT-style black humor), and experienced. She did a good job making us realize the limitations that we will have in the backcountry--she would describe a set of circumstances that a patient might present with, and then say, with a pixieish smile, "... and then they'll die. It's sad. But there's not really anything you can do."

The course had far too much information to talk about in detail. A few interesting points:

• They gave guidance in judging relative priorities--e.g., a patient looks like they might have suffered a neck and spine injury, and the head needs to be immobilized in the neutral/rest position... but obviously, if the airway is blocked, duh--you gotta do something, or they will die very soon... so move that head. The usual airway, breathing, circulation checks.
  
  
• One of the priorities in wilderness first aid is that you're not going to be treating most problems out in the woods--so the priority is to figure out what is going on with the patient, record all the important information, and get that to folks who can do the medevac. Such as--judging whether there was a spinal injury (need to bring in enough rescuers to carry somebody out in a neck immobilization rig), time of injury, responsiveness, number of people in the party left at the site and their condition (cold, tired, hungry), etc.
  
  
• New limits in personal space discomfort! One of the intial tests you ought to do is called a "chunk check"--hand-checking the head, torso (including spine), hips, and thighs for signs of major, immediately life-threatening injuries. There's the risk that if you don't go through systematically, you might be missing a major injury on the underside of a patient, if you're concentrating on that broken arm. So we needed to do a full "squeeze/prod/feel" on a partner (a complete stranger... although it made me grin when the instructor described the procedure as, "it should feel a bit like a massage.") A bit outside my personal comfort zone, but good practice for sure.
  
  
• One of the things when doing a secondary assessment is called a, "Last In and Out"--last meal/drink, and last bowel movement. This actually has some pretty real-world applications--stories of kids in group camping trips who came down with abdominal pains serious enough to require medevac, because they were unable/unwilling to use the primitive facilities. It reminds me of a story from a David Sedaris' books on his childhood Greek-American summer camp experience:
  
  Camp lasted a month, during which time I never once had a bowel movement. I was used to having a semiprivate bathroom and could not bring myself to occupy one of the men's room stalls, fearful that someone might recognize my shoes or, even worse, not see my shoes at all and walk in on me. Sitting down three times a day for a heavy Greek meal became an exercise akin to packing a musket. I told myself I'd sneak off during one of our field trips, but those toilets were nothing more than a hole in the floor, a hole I could have filled with no problem whatsoever.
  
  
• A Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad makes a pretty neat improvised splint:
  
  
  One thing the instructors suggested we pay attention to--set up the inflation valve near the person's ankle. Unless you're really comfortable with putting your mouth into their crotch and blowing.

They disabused us of any grandiose ideas of working medical miracles with a pocketknife, paracord, and a Nalgene bottle out in the backcountry--i.e., "...great, then you'll be stuck on the side of a mountain with a corpse with a few pen barrels sticking out of his throat." She sought to keep us on a realistic footing--"Mostly, you're going to see cuts, scrapes, breaks, allergic reactions... maybe hypothermia or heat stroke... stuff like that."

Most students were there to meet requirements for becoming a camp counsellor/scouting group leader, or continuing re-certification. But the folks who were there of their own accord were some pretty interesting characters. Such as an electrical generator operator at Beth Israel Deaconess hospital who is having a go at making a living working in the wilderness, instead of a 120 degree boiler room. Or a car-free woman who biked in from Portland, ME, who was in the process of bailing from a 9-to-5 job to go lead cycling tours for a living (nope, not single, in case you were about to needle me about that).

It was interesting to note that many of the topics we covered in class are things I am personally familiar with, just from my life experiences:

• Seeing a friend go into a diabetic hypoglycemic state (and seeing how he behaved), and how they got him out of it
  
• Seeing a coworker have a seizure, rolling him on his side to keep him from choking on his vomit, and then running to go summon medical help
  
• Having a friend who had his neck broken (hangman's fracture), walked away only reporting a sore neck, and then had to spend six months in a halo neck brace
  
• Knowing somebody whose torso was run over by a truck and lived to tell about it--they informed us that the torso can withstand 2000 lbs of compression

Anyway, if anybody has an opportunity to take this class, I'd strongly recommend it. I'm considering going back for the week-long Wilderness First Responder class. And in general, getting further down my list of "general life skills for making myself into a more useful human being" would be awesome too. Perhaps the motorcycle safety course...

Bay Area Trip Part II: Fun

I know... pretty lame, completing blog entries a week late.  Just a few quick bullets and photos from last weekend's Bay Area activities.

• Meeting up with Christy and U-Boat in SF, after dropping off my rental bloatmobile off at SFO and taking BART up.
  
  
  Because, really, all the good parties end up in the bathroom. Oh, wait a second...
  
  
• Oakland Farmer's Market with Christy! It's embarassing that I think of myself as a recreational foodie, but that I've never actually seen artichokes in bloom. Wow! A very pretty flower. Plus you can totally see, "Yep, it's just a big damn thistle."
  
  
  
  
• CalTrain with Chuck down to South Bay, to end up at Perlick's birthday party. Happy birthday Perlick! If it helps you feel old, he's 35. Duuude.
  
  
  I brought provisions for margaritas and whipped up a batch. It was great to see that there are some young tEps (Darwin, sMark) hanging out with the Bay Area drooler crowd. In fact, sMark noted that this following conversation took place:
  
  Chuck: Yeah, so I sent it to a professional; I didn't have the right equipment.
  Bats: Oh, I guess you're not a tool whore like me.
  Perlick (to his co-workers): Yeah, if you guys are ever in the Boston area, and you need a tool, this is your man!
  
  We were talking about bicycle repair. Really. Um. Yeah.
  
  
• Dinner over at Schmooz & Jen's--a kid-filled evening! Jason & Felicia, Lucky & Karthiga, and their respective kids were all over that night. Max also has one seriously awesome treehouse now.
  
  
  
  
• A morning park hang-out session with the Schmoozes, and Pearl & Steve (and kids). Pearl is an architect now; she wanted to pick my brain about some building geekery stuff; I was happy to oblige.
  
  
• Lunch with the rotating crowd back at the Schmoozes--Perlick & family also rolled by, and later Jofish & Erin.
  
  
  
  
• A ride up to SF with Jofish & Erin, followed by dinner at SPQR with Judy & John--lovely little Italian Restaurant. I thoroughly recommend their little dishes, such as Brussels sprouts with garlic, parsley, capers, and lemon. Excellent octopus as well. However, not enough critical mass of omnivores to try Beef tongue with horseradish sauce, or other, even odder food. The main pasta dishes were good, but not as stellar or inventive--if I went back, I'd go for a vast selection of antipasti instead.
  
  
  
  
• Jazz with Judy & John at Yoshi's San Francisco--Latin jazz by Eddie Palmieri All-Stars--fantastic and kickin'. If I go back, though, I would recommend either buying reserved seating or having dinner there--otherwise, it is a scramble for the seats that are left over.
  
  
  
  
• I got dropped off at Seppo's in Oakland--a bunch of folks were throwing their Alinea Challenge Party. I consider myself quite fortunate that I got to sample some of their results--holy cow, odd tasty weird science!
  
  
• Travels home sucked--not only being sick and groggy-headed, but dealing with a three hour delay due to weather at Logan, and arriving home around 1 AM. Ugh.
  
  

Huge thanks for everyone's hospitality!! Wow... an incredibly full, but tiring, weekend wrap up to a long trip. But I think I'll be back out there in July, if plans hold! Hope to see y'all soon!

Bay Area Trip Part Ia: To the Bloatmobile!

The rental vehicle from this trip is another story by itself. We were hauling three guys and a fair amount of gear, so I ordered Standard SUV Chevrolet Trailblazer or similar. I showed up, got my assignment, walked to spot J9, and… “Oh, you’ve got to be f’ing kidding.”


Yep… an Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Expedition. I went back to the desk to request something else.. unfortunately, the choices were a mini-van or cars… or waiting until they cleaned something more reasonable. So I wallowed out onto 101 in this beast.

I felt this strong wave of self-loathing every time that I got behind the wheel. I have confirmed that I have no wish whatsoever to drive one of these things. I have always been amazed by the clueless people who say, “Yeah, you SUV-haters are just too poor to afford one.” Um, what? You truly fail to understand the situation, don’t you? And for amusement, here’s a quote from a 2004 Malcolm Gladwell article on SUVs:

Bradsher brilliantly captures the mixture of bafflement and contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who buy their S.U.V.s. Fred J.Schaafsma,a top engineer for General Motors, says, “Sport-utility owners tend to be more like ‘I wonder how people view me,’ and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that.” According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, selfcentered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. 

Ford’s S.U.V. designers took their cues from seeing “fashionably dressed women wearing hiking boots or even work boots while walking through expensive malls.” Toyota’s top marketing executive in the United States, Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles “an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills.” One of Ford’s senior marketing executives was even blunter: “The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 A.M.”

Parking this thing was an annoyance. Another thing to remark on: I was trying to fold down the third row of seats, and couldn’t find the pull tab to release them. Then I looked in the back of the car: they are power fold-down/up seats. Oy. Yep, people must be that lazy.



At one point, we drove to the Home Depot ¾ of a mile away in that SUV, and grabbed some McDonalds for lunch since we were pressed for time. Eww. I felt so quintessentially American from that experience.

Then refilling it before returning it to the airport was what I expected—12 gallons… for a half tank of fuel.


Man… I’ll be happy when gas prices start going up again. 


Huh... apparently, they are.

And rest assured, I gave Avis a 1 out of 5 for "Received requested vehicle."

Bay Area Trip Part I: Work

I’m back home from a very long, busy seven days—I flew out to the Bay Area last Monday for work, slammed Tuesday through Friday, and then spent the weekend seeing a bunch of the Bay Area folks.

Some great things about this trip:

This is the part of the job that I really enjoy—getting out into the field, strapping on a tool vest, and doing all sorts of real physical work, from shimmying around the crawl space to climbing up on the roof, installing sensors, finding creative solutions to data acquisition problems, and figuring out ways to make a real house work.


Damn, a really big rat is eating the wires or something!

Being right near Fruitvale BART, 2.5 miles away from Bradley and Janie, and when I stood on the roof, I could see U-Boat and Christy’s place. And knowing that I would get to hang out with those folks on the weekend.




Trying out cool taco stands around Fruitvale BART… they felt pretty authentic, and were damn tasty.


They had the thermostat temporarily wired to a thermostat located in the crawl space, so we could do our tests. I thought that it ended up looking like an exceptionally blocky video game controller.


Man, this game is teh lame.

Some lousy things about this trip:

Several 10-12 hour days in a row—which is expected when you do field work, followed by catching up on email at the hotel. All in all, it was pretty exhausting, and I managed to catch a cold by the end of it...I’m still coughing and feeling fuzzy-headed now.

Time after time, my mantra became, “Why can’t it just be f’ing easy this time?” So many tasks took far longer than they had any right to. Instead of connecting my sensors to the HVAC system, I had to spend 45 minutes deciphering the wiring pattern that the installers used. A measurement that normally takes two minutes to set up became a full-hour affair involving two people lifting the air handler box with a pipe, hammering off a recalcitrant piece of metal, and taking a hacksaw to some errant screws. Grr. We ended up spending one evening doing testing with headlamps and flashlights.


I had originally intended to work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning, and then possibly take part of Friday off. No such luck. I dropped my two colleagues off at BART at lunch, and then continued on with more measurements, and then packed up our gear. Had to sneak into the factory ninja-style to pack up my gear, because everybody had left for the weekend by 4:30.


Man… it felt really good to get done with that week.

A Shout Out to my Favorite Ithacans

Um... actually, at this point, it's a case of "favorie former Ithacans," I think--has everyone left the area now in a diaspora from Cornell?

Anyway, on Monday's BOS-SFO flight, I was sightseeing from 30,000 foot window seat, as I often like to do. Looking out the left side of the plane a little while after takeoffs, I saw a really distinctive looking, long thin lake...


Hey wait... there are more of them. Oh hey, we're flying over the Finger Lakes! Cool! Sorry that the photo is so lousy--you might not really be able to tell water from land, but it was pretty obvious from my seat. Looking closer, I recognized I-90 running East-West. Couldn't make out the Erie Canal, though.


And for reference, the Wikipedia map:


I guess, just in general, thoughts of Ithaca make me smile. Then again, I haven't spent all that much wintertime there. Heh.