New apartment

I'm finally moving in to my own apartment, after a year on campus. It is small, expensive studio, but it is all mine, and its window and balcony look out towards the northern reaches of Balboa park.

I'm enthusiastic enough about the pending move to gaze longingly at satellite images of my new neighborhood. I'm plotting the settlement of my expanded refrigerator territory. I'm going to make fascist countertop accessory placement decisions, exercising exclusive control over the kitchen space.

weather

I'm really spoiled. I've taken to complaining because the high temperature is 77 instead of 72 where I feel it should be.

It hasn't rained since March. MARCH.

It was cloudy a few times. Not all day or anything, but for a lot of the day. More hazy than cloudy, really.

Horned Lizard

Ran across a horned lizard yesterday. Ugliest lizard ever. Lizard paused for photogenic smile before moving on to eat some more ants.

Los Padres and the Fishbowls

The backpacking trip last weekend was a much needed diversion, marking the separation of weeks 1-6 from the more challenging 7-10. The next 4 weeks require close reading of 1700 pages, writing 81 pages of essays and assignments, learning two more statistical computer programs, and moving.

The Sespe Wilderness was different than any terrain I've ever walked through. We hiked in the foothills of a steep mountainous ridge, mostly traveling alongside the streams in the canyons that drain the ridge line (we started at the Fishbowl trail head, walked ~7 miles in, and returned via the Cedar Creek trail ~5.5 miles). The trail repeatedly crossed the creek, sometimes once every 1/4 mile. The ground was mostly sand broken with sandstone, and occasionally covered in enough topsoil to support grass or shrubs. The conifers ranged from the small trees in the picture on the left to huge, mature trees. In early May, the place was deserted: we saw a few people close to the trail heads, but no one deep in the woods.

I was a bit underwhelmed when we reached the fishbowls. Nondescript sentences in online travel guides had evoked a somewhat grander location. It turned out to be a pool in the stream where the water had carved out a bowl of about 4 or 5 feet in depth. It was home to a couple dozen brook trout (the largest was consumed) and a 3-foot snake who swam irritated pool laps in our presence.

On the way back we hiked upward for over an hour to surmount a fairly steep ridge. Once we reached the path hugged the ridge. Instead of rivers as obstacles, we climbed over downed 4-foot diameter pine trees on steep terrain.

You can actually 3-dimensionally model the mountain from the Google Earth satellite view, and it's possible to zoom in to the very spot where we stood. The ridge turns out to be a long distance away. Had we gone that far though, we would have been able to see the ocean, 24 miles away near Santa Barbara.

Seeing that it's possible to actually find the trail with Google Earth, I wanted to clear up the question of a photograph we took along the ridgeline, looking out back over the valley. My camera doesn't have the telephoto lens to capture the details, but we could see a narrow strip of lush green running through the dull sand of the landscape. It was split with a slender road, and from the distance could have been a golf course. I wasn't able to find a viewpoint with an exact topographic match between the image and I wonder if their elevation data is really accurate enough for this exercise. Still, the one I found is close, and it shows that we might have been looking across at the exact road we drove in on. It vanishes into the rocks at the spot where the Grade Valley road switchbacks up a cliff in the sand.

Gas Tax Holiday

The latest presidential politics has Clinton and McCain supporting a suspension of the 18.4 cents/gallon federal gas tax, with Obama acting as the lone voice of resistance. This morning the New York Times reported that the "tax holiday" fever has spread to state politicians around the country.

I know that the price of fuel is negatively impacting the economy and personal income - particularly of people who commute or people with low income. As a graduate student, I'm surviving on an extremely small fixed income, and I'm not looking forward to paying $4 a gallon any time I want to leave the city. But state and federal fuel taxes pay for our roads and bridges, and they need funding.

At $4 per gallon, saving a few cents isn't going to matter for most people. It's not as if the federal government is suggesting subsidizing gas prices this summer to drop them down to $2 per gallon levels. Despite the fiscal irresponsibility of that act, at least it's something that would significantly impact personal budgets. We could all get in our cars and happily crisscross the nation for 3 or 4 glorious months.

The thing is, as much as it hurts, high gas prices provide incentives for our SUV loving nation to downsize into responsible cars, commute less, and hop on public transportation. This is the environmentally responsible thing for Americans to do. Sure, there are people who are struggling with extremely tight budgets who don't have the option of changing their lifestyles, but if the policy makers wanted to help them out, the best option would be increased aid to low income Americans. Instead of cutting taxes on a financially starved government, we might consider increasing the tax burden on wealthy Americans, who have vastly widened the inequality gap in the past decades.

The gas tax holiday policy ultimately amounts to political pandering of an irresponsible type. I blame Bush for starting this fad by deciding to cut $600 checks to every working American in the country - while driving the country trillions of dollars in debt in an endless Iraq commitment. It's like buying a round of shots at the bar when you're already in credit card debt. Sure, we all appreciate it now, but it's going to hurt in the morning.

Sespe Wilderness

Next weekend I'm backpacking the Sespe Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest. It's about an hour north of Los Angeles, and I'm meeting friends who are driving south from San Francisco. RS did a lot of the early planning, selected a site and picked up the appropriate maps.

I'm more than a little excited. Backpacking is precisely the kind of activity I thrive on. It combines frenetic, extensive planning with high stakes results. I'm really not sure how I'll manage the intervening week of class, reading and conferences.

Already, the Osprey is loaded and ready to go. Fortunately I didn't need to make any big purchases this time around. The only piece of equipment I'm lacking is a camp stove, and RS has that covered. I'm running ~25lbs before water weight.

I went jogging tonight for the first time since an abortive attempt on Tuesday. Inexplicably my ankle was giving me problems all week. It seems that whenever I find myself I enter a stable exercise routine, some sort of injury comes along to slow me down. Fortunately I won't need to be in top shape to do 10-15 miles with 30lbs. I think I'm ready to go!

Lawrence Lessig

Stanford law prof Lawrence Lessig was interviewed recently on the economist. He gets my endorsement as an advocate for eliminating the impact of business on congress. According to the research Lessig cites, it would cost just 2 billion to publicly finance an election. You can check out his blog at lessig.org where several video clips provide a lot more information. According to the economist, Lessig is the closest thing we Americans have to a public intellectual - so I figured I ought to spread the word.

Improv Everywhere is a NYC comedy group that does public pranks that are sometimes hilarious. I'm not as impressed by their mass events such as their infiltration of big box stores with synchronized "freezing", but a couple of their smaller pranks are gold. I just watched "Food Court Musical" which features a dozen participants breaking out into song in a crowded food court. And of course my all time favorite is The Moebius, which should really be experienced from This American Life (#286).

I don't really get comedy; I certainly don't seek it out. Still, I love the subtle deadpan with which these guys pull of their stunts. And while we're talking comedy, I ought to plug for my friend NC's These People again - check out "Genital Herpes" which is short and hilarious.

I'll close out with a picture from spring break in Ann Arbor. They just don't make city parks in CA like they do in MI. I guess they figure the whole coast is a natural park here; why waste the real estate.

3-20-08 Only 16 more quarters to go.*

*Based on normative time. Does not reflect average time.

Eastern sunsets, mountains of paper

For a while, I thought the sun might be setting in the East. Either that or a nuclear disaster had struck Las Vegas. Neither possibility disturbed me as much as it should have. I finally realized that it was a mirrored twenty-story office building just behind the Mesas reflecting the sunset.

I know, I know, this is become quite the photographic blog. I'm sorry, I just can't be bothered to produce a coherent narrative now that I'm constantly writing to appease my profs.

And speaking of writing, it's final paper week yet again. I just looked over at my desk and wondered how I keep track of things. I've cleaned this pile up every six hours for the past week. Whenever I turn my back, it undergoes metamorphism and returns emboldened and ready to spread insidiously onto the bed, and floor. It threatens to escape into the hallway.

In any case, the end is in sight. I remain remotely on schedule. I find the process less daunting this go-around. By the time I complete coursework, I'll be able to write a 15-page paper in three hours. Possibly while jogging on a treadmill.

The jogging trails of La Jolla

Despite the fact that it forces me to retrace my route to school, the jogging trail next to our building is spectacular. After the winter rains, grass forms a lush carpet under the bare eucalyptus. I have to admit though, it doesn't measure up to my old argo-pond/bird hills route in A2.

Kale

I find time to cook once, or maybe twice a week. Since I eat often-unhealthy campus food whenever I'm not at home, I like to think that cooking vegan counteracts other excesses. Following the prompts of a certain familial culinary instigator, I test-fired what has to be the healthiest dish I've ever laid eyes on, let alone prepared. Baked Barley-Almond Pilaf with Kale. Basically it combines the ingredients pictures at left with a tablespoon of oil. And while raw kale looks less appetizing than grazing straight from nearest lawnmower mulcher, it isn't half-bad cooked. And really, I figure eating this casserole for lunch justifies at least three beers tonight. Someone back me up on this.