jimramsey’s blog

Got called in for jury duty today. Boo!

If you're using facebook you should add Six Apart's Blog It to your list of Applications. It will let you post to multiple blogs and send status updates to Twitter, etc.

Ellie has been really into the Wiggles lately for some reason. She wasn't that interested in them for a long time but she's started listening to the songs and watching the DVDs again.

From WWDC 07:

BTW, John Hodgman (the PC guy) has contributed some great segments to This American Life.

My favorites:
I'm Not a TV Star, but I Play One on TV. from Episode 329: Nice Work If You Can Get It
Invisible Man vs. Hawkman from  Episode 178: Superpowers
Agent to the Stars from Episode 190: Living the Dream
It's Another Tequila Sunrise from from 205: Plan B

I've started a little experiment here on Vox. I've created a group for my family and I'm trying to get everyone to join and participate.

I'm not just talking about my wife, parents, sister and brother-in-law. I'm talking about the whole gang -- all my aunts and uncles and cousins over the age of 13. My mother has a large family (she's the 3rd of 8 kids) and everyone still lives in the Bay Area but we don't see each other as often as we did when I was a kid. My hope is that we can all share what's going on in our lives on Vox.

We had a family party yesterday and I collected email addresses. Last night I sent out 20 invitations, and I still need a few more email addresses before I'm finished inviting.

I decided to use Vox instead of LiveJournal for a couple of reasons: 1) I wanted to keep my LiveJournal separate and 2) I thought Vox would have a smaller learning curve for new users.

So far 7 people have joined and I'm hoping to get the rest in and posting soon. I'm going to try to document this experiment on my Vox blog so stay tuned!

What is (or would be) your DJ name?

I've always said that my nerdcore rapper/dj name would be "JCaptcha" -- here's a wikipedia link for those who don't know what captcha is.

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My Uncle Bob and I made a trip to the White Mountains last weekend and hiked to the top of 14,000-foot White Mountain. We left on Friday morning and drove the 350+ miles through the Sierra Nevada and the Owens Valley to Grand View Campground. We spent one night there to help acclimate (the campground is at 8600 feet) and then proceeded (after breakfast at Denny's in Bishop, CA) to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, where we did a couple of short hikes.

We then made the drive over 16 miles of dirt road to the parking lot at the trailhead, where we would spend the night in the car before starting our 15-mile round-trip hike early the next morning.

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It was cold in the car and Bob didn't really get any sleep, so we were happy to start our hike before dawn at about 5:15AM. Watching the sun rise during the first hour of the hike was fantastic and it wasn't too cold, at least with a knit cap, gloves and about four layers of clothing.

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The first 2.5 miles is moderate-strenuous uphill until you get to an old observatory above the Barcroft Station. Once you get to the observatory you descend into a valley and then start a steady climb to a ridge. That climb, which is probably about 2 miles is hard and each time you think you're almost at the top, another high point rises in the distance and you realize that there more uphill. This happens two or three times before you finally get to top of the ridge.

After that, there's a steep downhill that brings you to the main part of the mountain and the final climb to the summit. That's where we stopped the first time we tried this three years ago. This time we both felt strong enough to keep going. The climb to the top consists of about 20 switchbacks, some long, some short, some almost level, some steep. After the first few switchbacks my energy started to wane and the altitude started to affect me. I finally got to a spot where snow and ice covered the trail and sat down on some rocks. I was only about 100 vertical feet below the summit, but I felt like I wasn't going any farther. At that point a couple of people who'd passed us on the trail and were returning from the summit passed me and said that I was almost there so I got up and kept going. After another 15 minutes of walking I made it to the summit where we celebrated with a shot of scotch.

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The way back wasn't too bad, but there's actually a considerable amount of uphill on the return trip, which really isn't fair. I just took it really slow but at one point I felt like I was about to fall asleep on my feet. I stopped and ate some chocolate and felt much better.

When we reached the observatory again, we knew it was all downhill from there. Eventually we made it back to the car at about 8 hours and 45 minutes of hiking and started the drive back to Bishop where a comfortable bed was waiting.

In Bishop we had a big dinner and dessert (Denny's again) and then sat and watched TV for a couple of hours before getting some sleep.

The hike was hard and I wouldn't recommend it unless you're in pretty good shape (which I am most certainly not).

Here are a few recommendations:

- Spend as much time as possible at high altitude before you hike -- at least 24 hours
- Make sure that you can do a 15-mile hike at sea level before you try it at 11,000 feet
- Trekking poles, Advil and sunglasses will make it easier or more pleasant