Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

When will they end?  Not yet.  I still need a better pair of shoes.

• Canon Rebel XTi Digital SLR (body only) - $509 from Dell
• SanDisk 4GB Compact Flash Card - $28 from Dell

I’ll be using my dad’s lenses from his 35mm SLR that he never uses anymore.  I believe he has a 75-300mm lense and a 28-105mm lense.

The travel purchases never end.

• Traveler’s health insurance - $66 for all seven weeks of Europe
• International Student Identity Card - $25
• International Phone and SIM Card - $39 (includes $10 of talk credit)

I’m not even finished yet.  In other news, my mom and I sewed an old sheet into a sheet bag for the hostels that don’t have bedding.

Bonus purchase: my team and I won our Google APM scavenger hunt, so I got a $50 gift certificate to the Google Store.  I bought a Google bike jersey.  Now all I need to buy to make my outfit complete is a nice pair of tight, short bike pants.  Mmmmm.

Last weekend my roommate, Matt, and I cycled around San Juan island.  I thought I would describe our trip for those of you who might be interested.  It was a ton of fun, and I would recommend it everyone.

Drive from Seattle to Anacortes
The trip started with Matt and me leaving Seattle at 6:00am.  We arrived in Anacortes at around 7:30am, just in time for the 7:45am ferry.  Look here for a complete ferry schedule.  The drive was quick and easy.

Ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island
The ferry ride cost us around $14 each — $10 per person and $4 per bike.  It was very empty and very pleasant.  The ferry weaved through the San Juan islands and stopped at Orcas Island before arriving at Friday Harbor.  The ride was about 90 minutes and probably would have been around an hour without the Orcas Island stop.

Cycle around the Island
We started and ended our loop in Friday Harbor.  The route we took is mapped here.  Google says it’s 25 miles, but I have no way of confirming that.  The roads were constantly changing pitch, giving us short amounts of time on downhills and long amounts of time on uphills.  The island is generally flat, so each hill was relatively moderate but still challenging.  The whole ride took us about three hours, including at least 45 minutes of site seeing, relaxation, and photography.  The scenery was totally diverse — we traveled along cliff-side roads, through thick forests, beside farms (including Alpaca farms!), and across small prairies.  It was tons of fun!

About half way around the island was a national park and campsite.  If I were to do this ride again, I would pack a sleeping back and tarp and spend the night at this campsite.  The site is right on the water with a view of Victoria Island, and it was relatively deserted when we stopped to rest.

We ate awesome fish and beef burgers at The Hungry Clam restaurant after our ride in Friday Harbor’s quant downtown.  We also took a short stroll around the town, which consisted mostly of souvenir and tourist shops.

Ferry to Anacortes, Drive to Seattle
The trip back to Seattle was more or less the same as the trip up.  However, this time our ferry had come from Canada.  This meant that we had to go through customs on our way off the boat, which took all of two or three minutes.  We didn’t have our passports, and the border patrol officer was content with that.

Conclusions
All in all the trip was awesome, and I’m totally glad I did it.  It’s a relatively easy ride, but the scenery and isolation make it worthwhile. I wish I would have camped one night at the national park, but I suppose it was nice to pack light. Actually, come to think of it, it would be pretty challenging to bike around the island twice in a row. Maybe I’ll do that next :).

I arrived in Los Angeles earlier this evening to spend the weekend with my family.  I won’t get a chance to see them that much this summer seeing as how I’m going to Europe four days after school ends, and I’m going to China two weeks after I arrive from Europe.  It’s always great seeing my family, and it’ll for sure be time well spent.  This’ll also give me an awesome opportunity to put my family’s insane DVD collection onto my newly purchases iPod classic.  I don’t think I’ll be able to fit all 300+ DVDs, but I’ve chosen 19 of my favorites including all three Lord of the Rings extended editions, all three Austin Powers, Gladiator, etc.  Mmmmmm.

I’ve been buying things like mad in preparation for Europe and China.  Take a look:

1. 80GB Black iPod Classic - $250
2. Plastic Classic iPod Case - $24.95
3. 3x 2GB SD Cards - $7.99 each
4. 8GB USB Flash Drive - $31.99
5. Compact Card Reader - $11.99
6. Universal Plug Converters - $17.99
7. Lonely Planet Shoestring Guide to Europe - $18.47
8. Pocket Journal - $10.95
9. Black Passport Money Waste Strap - $11.95
10. Some sort of power adapter + extra battery - $?? (my Dad bought it for me at the Sharper Image sale)

All these new gismos are giving me something to play with.  I’ve already encoded 20GBs worth of DVDs onto my iPod, and I’m absolutely astonished at the quality of the sound and video.

In other news, I’ve began researching the current culture in hopes of fitting in better.  I’ve found some notable YouTube videos related to dancing and hair styles.  It’s pretty unfortunate that I erased the mullet, because apparently they’re the cool thing in Europe along with strange dance moves.  Take a look.  I got some practicing to do.

I must admit, I’m a pretty big fan of the pump-up shoes.  I’m gonna look to buy a pair while I’m over there.

This post was written on Monday, February 18, 2008.

I’m writing while in my compact airplane seat on my flight back to Seattle from Denver, Colorado. I spent the last four nights in Boulder visiting my two best high school friends. I had such an awesome time in Boulder that I wanted to share my story.

This plane ride marks the end of my third trip to Boulder, but this trip was exceedingly better than my previous trips. I got some quality time in with my two friends that I miss a lot, and I got a good opportunity to really soak up the town in all of its wonderfulness.

First, the weather
It snows in Boulder a fair amount, and often when it doesn’t snow it’s sunny and relatively warm. This feeling of contrast is as beautiful as the feeling you get when being splashed by a cool ocean wave after laying in the sweltering sun for an extended period of time. You get to enjoy the fun of being snowed on, while only days later you can enjoy a game of shirtless outdoor sports at the nearby park. I love it.

Second, the food. Third, the food
I could name at least 10 different food joints that are open until at least 2:00am. I would say that 80% of these joints offer unique, unbelievable food such as joints (mini-calzones), cinna-sticks, and steak-and-chee (sandwiches). The other 20% offer the basics – pizza, sandwiches, etc. All 100% of these joints are cheap. Dirt cheap. We bought 30 wings, four tacos, and a pitcher of good beer for $25. Boulder is filled with insanely good eats that are cheap and open late. What more could a college student ask for? Oh yeah, most of them deliver.

Fourth, the people
I find myself to be much more like the people that I’ve met in Boulder than the people I’ve met in Seattle. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the people around me in Seattle. No. In Seattle I’m surrounded by really good, fun, smart people, and I’m not trying to say that people in Seattle are inferior. I’m saying they’re different, as almost all inhabitants of a unique city are. I’m making the very general claim that I have more in common with the people I’ve met in Colorado. For example, most of my friends in Colorado, new and old, are goofy. They wear cowboy outfits to the cowboy bar, or they make odd gestures while riding the mechanical bull. They dance like morons when no one else is dancing, and they sing along to all the most rocking songs. When I wear my big blue flannel in Seattle, I get referred to as “Lumberjack Alex.” If I wear my big blue flannel in Boulder, I get complimented on how awesome it is. When I sing to a song and play air guitar to a song while in Seattle, I generally get weird looks. If I do the same in Colorado, then I’m usually joined by a collection of my friends in a multi-part, off-key harmony.

Fifth, the skiing
The mountains 90-minutes away from Boulder are great (Vail, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, A-Basin, etc). They offer multi-mountain, cheap seasons passes to college students, and most mountains have great terrain. I like Mammoth better, but I think it’s safe to claim that the Colorado resorts are better than Washington resorts (Stevens, Crystal, etc), except for maybe the exception of Baker.

Sixth, the school
The University of Colorado offers so many more services to its students than the University of Washington; it’s disgusting. They have a Buff Bus that busses students around so they don’t have to walk alone late at night in the often-cold weather. CU makes it easy for their students to eat well and get exercise, while the UW doesn’t provide carpool discounts for the gym parking lot past 3:00pm. I feel that these points I’m making are slightly out of scope, so I’ll leave it at that. I will say that my trip to Boulder has motivated me to begin writing a post about ways the UW could improve, so stay tuned for that. And, to UW’s credit, I think its academics are generally better.

If you have friends in Boulder, then go visit them. You’ll have an awesome time in an awesome college town. I definitely did.

I just got back from the official Redfin Whistler trip. We ate a lot of nachos.

The trip was pretty typical Whistler - great snow, great company, a few too many drinks, and too many nachos. Check this out:

This sucker cost $30 and probably weighed 10 pounds. We ordered these suckers after already have another plate of nachos at a different bar, 2 rounds of buffalo wings, and pitang (French fries w/ gravy and cheese). I think I ate more food that night than I’ve ever eaten. It was disgusting:

Rob returned from a leave to find that only crumbs were left. He proceeded to put the crumbs in the guac and eat with a spoon. That’s innovation right there.

On a side note, I managed to get terrible whiplash due to a huge air with a rocky landing. It sucked. See you soon, Whistler! Next stop: Colorado.

I spent the weekend at Whistler with 40 members of the Husky Snowboard Team, of which I am the president for. The weekend was absolute mayhem. The days consisted of awesome snowboarding - Matt, Koos, and I made some killer turns on Whistler on Saturday. Sunday was also a good day, but we nearly froze to death in the 20+ mph winds and ~10 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Saturday night was fun - Matt and I had a night on the town and finished with some fun games at home. Sunday night was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a bar. 30 of us stormed into the Amsterdam Cafe and took over their outdoor patio. We were all laughing, yelling, and cheers-ing all night. We would pick people out who were walking by the patio and just start yelling at them, “eyyyyyyy,” or “whose house? dawgs house!” or we would chant, “H.S.T. … H.S.T. …” It probably sounds like one of those belligerent, fraternity-esque drunk nights, but it wasn’t (I try not to have those). Everyone around us and all the people we yelled at were laughing and having a good time, and so were we. We took off Monday morning and made it back into the U.S.

You might be wondering why I didn’t say anything about Friday night. The answer is because I’m saving the best story for last. There were four of us in the car, one guy I knew, call him John, and two other guys that I met for the first time that day. I was driving John’s car because mine is in the shop, and we left the University of Washington at about 12:30pm. The car ride to the border was fine - we all got along and had a good time talking about this, that, and the other thing. We get to the Peach Arch at around 3:00pm, and the line to cross the border is pretty short. I ask for my passengers’ passports and get ready for a casual, easy encounter with the Canadian border patrol. Man was I wrong. The woman at the counter was drilling us. “Do you have any weapons?” “Where are you going?” “What are you doing?” “Do you have any alcohol?” “Do you have any weapons?” “Do you have any alcohol?” All of these questions were easy to answer, but she opened a can of worms with the last question, “Have any of you been arrested or convicted of anything lately?” I answer, “No.” John answers, “No.” One of the dudes that I just met answers, “No.” The other dude answers, “Yes.” The woman proceeds to ask him questions about his recent arrest, and through this interview I find out that this guy had been arrested for possession of marijuana about a year ago. The border patrol gets out a bright orange slip, writes some info on the card, and tells us to go inside.

There’s a pretty long line when we get inside, and the spirits of most people are definitely low. We wait in line until finally we get to the front and begin to get interrogated. The interrogation ends with the woman behind the desk asking me for the keys and requesting that we take a seat. We wait for a pretty long time until finally the border patrol personnel return. They asked us who the owner of the silver bag is, and the dude that got arrested a year ago responds. At this point, I’m thinking, “Shit. He brought weed.” I was right. The guy brought weed across the border and didn’t bother to tell us. Turns out no one got in trouble, not even him, but we had to wait at the Canadian border for three hours. After all of this waiting, they tell us that we have to go back in the U.S. and then back into Canada to proceed to Whistler. Shit.

We spend another 90 minutes waiting in line, getting our car searched again, and getting interrogated at the U.S. border. Luckily the wait to get back into Canada was only 30 minutes, though, making our total time at the beautiful Peace Arch park five hours. On our return back into the states, the border patrol officer knew that we had just been denied entry to Canada. He says to us, “Back so soon. What happened?” We tell him the truth and point to the guy that brought the weed in. The border patrol officer looks at the guy and says, “Why would you bring weed to Canada?! That’s like bringing sand to the beach!” Haha. Jokes on us.

The rest of the drive goes by just fine, and we arrive in Whistler at 11:30pm after leaving Seattle at 12:30pm. What a trip. Oh, and I also got pulled over in Whistler for drunk driving. I was driving slow because I thought the roads were icy, and apparently it looked like I was driving under the influence. I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol all day, so they let us go.

Lesson learned: if you’re driving across the border with people you don’t know, then make sure that they don’t have anything illegal on them. I told all of my passengers not to bring anything illegal, but apparently I wasn’t clear enough. I’m lucky that Canada is very lenient about drugs, otherwise I probably would have gotten arrested even though I don’t smoke weed and didn’t attempt to bring anything illegal into Canada. This was another addition to my bad luck lately, but it was followed by one of the best board trips I’ve ever been on. I’m happy to be back in Seattle.