I was really trying my hardest to understand her answer. Honest! Can you figure out what she is trying to say? It even looks like she was reading this off a freaking paper! Someone could give her better notes or something maybe? What are you saying lady!?

Obama FTW!

I’ve been wanting to get out solo on hikes and peaks a lot lately and in July of this summer I had an excellent opportunity to bag a couple peaks in the Desolation wilderness. I very nearly made one of the peaks and realized my eyes were bigger than my stomach for the main goal but had an excellent hike and learned some valuable lessons along the way.

The night I got in it was clear skies and an awesome show of bright long streaking meteors. I pulled in towards fallen leaf lake and slept out off to the side of the road. After about 30 minutes a couple of girls from New Jersey cruised in and parked nearby to finish off a 12 pack of beer. This was slightly annoying but I appreciated the company. I knew I wasn’t going to be greeted by any big animals that night sleeping under the stars with their warding voices.

At about 3 am, all the stars disappeared and I panicked a bit because I thought a storm moved in while I was sleeping. After I roused a bit and considered moving into the car I realized a heavy smell of smoke in the air. Something big was burning somewhere but I couldn’t tell how far or close so I went back to sleep.

In the morning I found the skies filled with smoke. The radio mentioned a big fire burning north of Yosemite so I imagine that was the source. I headed toward the trail head hoping for a change in the winds to push the smoke away.

Hiking in along the trail was pretty straight forward. It didn’t take long to find out that desolation wilderness isn’t quite as desolate as one would hope but it’s still a beautiful area. Before heading for the peaks I passed by a few lakes, a couple with a 2 year old out backpacking (awesome!), and a field of high sierra flowers.

It wasn’t long till I thought I saw my first goal Jack’s peak. As I turned off trail and started climbing straight up I noticed actually summitting the peak would be difficult possibly class 5 climbing. Since this was my first solo trip I was starting to have hesitations regarding actually summitting but as I climbed on I realized the peak I was aiming for was not Jack’s peak but a lower peak preceding it and Jack’s peak did come into view. It looked much more achievable. There was a huge field of smaller sized talus to walk through as I made my way. It was very easily passable but warranted careful footing to avoid twisting ankles. You can see Jack’s peak in the background beyond the talus in the picture below.

When I got to the saddle in the above picture I stopped looking up towards Jack’s peak and looked down towards the way I intended to descend. I also noticed Dick’s peak which was my second goal for the day looming above Jack’s peak. The summit to Jack’s looked passable and safe but the summit to Dick’s was literally huge loose talus all the way up from the side I was on. That’s when I decided rather than summit jack’s or dick’s I needed to work my way down. It was treacherous and loose the whole way down. I was so focused on the route, I didn’t even pull out the camera. I slowly picked my way down to a much more desolate lake from the previous ones.

There were tons of fish I could see and the main trail in was over grown. I for sure plan on bringing Erica back in here via the trail. When I looked back the way I came down I felt a sense of accomplishment and safety to be on flatter more solid ground. It was literally cliffs with landslides of rock between. All of the rock was loose and I had to be careful to not slide down or cause larger rocks to slide down on top of myself.

Heading back to the car felt like driving on a highway since I was back on trail. I was happy to get back safely and ponder the lessons learned for future solo trips.

1. Have an awesome map. The scale on the map I had was a little too small for hiking off trail. It was good enough to keep me from getting lost but bad enough to keep me from seeing where I really was. I constantly was mistaking the peaks I saw for what were only ridges on the map.
2. This one is a tough lesson for me cause I hate going back the way I came but if the way you came was way safer do it! I ended up taking major unnecessary risks just to not see the same thing twice in the day.
3. Loose large boulders suck to travel over.
4. Giving up is okay. Yeah I totally wimped out of the peaks and one of them I was within 500 feet of the summit. But I’m here writing about it and I didn’t have an epic in the dark walking out.
5. If I were to hurt myself during about half the hike, it was going to be pretty serious to get out dragging myself along and I saw nobody nearby who could help. You gotta take every step with thought and diligence over treacherous terrain. It would also be very wise to leave a marked map with someone who knows when to expect you.
6. Desolation wilderness is awesome!

Recently Glenn Kelman wrote a less than praising post about Silicon Valley. Sadly there is a lot of truth in it but also a lot of hype. Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of tech and Kelman is focusing on all those high budget films that suck. There’s a lot more to The Valley for Entrepreneurs and lifestyle when you look around and read further than Tech Crunch

Looking at the valley’s past they were working on apples and we’ve moved on to oranges. My father and father in law , who came to this valley during a boom of their own, were working on things (and still are) that the current generation of entrepreneurs can’t even maintain a conversation about past introduction much less truly appreciate. I want to talk with my father about the latest trends in internet development and he wants to talk about the latest silicon process and how small they can get transistors. He also never fails to remind me we would have nothing without their innovation.

The fact is the valley is leading the technology circus and by the time a generation develops some nostalgia the next generation is already moving on with the next thing. Sure there’s a lack of nostalgia but only at the expense of innovation. Beats the crap out of sitting around and talking about high school.

Kelman is correct to assume people don’t live here cause they like it here. My wife and I have considered leaving many times and heading up to the Portland or Seattle area. But finally we are settling in.

The real problem with Silicon Valley is the hard to find community. We’ve been living in downtown San Jose and whenever I stroll around downtown all I can manage to find is a semi-vibrant club scene (clubs suck!). There’s no real music scene, no extraordinary hang outs, and not a lot of people my age to be found. In fairness I do work alone but I also do try to meet people around here.

It’s a tough place if you want more in life than work. But if you’re willing to work on it, you can find great friends and communities here too. The reality though, as Kelman points out, is there will be a lot of difficulty getting a good flourishing community, particularly of young people, when you have to work 24/7/365 just to pay rent or buy a house. On the same token Silicon Valley will probably continue to lead for a long time because many here are willing to work so hard.

Is it really just the one school?

I don’t understand how Kelman can be so pompous as to finger Stanford for the success and failure of the valley when he says “Yet we all know that without Stanford the Valley would grow old and die.” Great schools tend to make great corporate leaders (And some bad public leaders!).

Stanford certainly has produced a lot for this valley and without it we would not do as well. But Seattle would certainly suffer with the loss of Stanford or any other great ivy league university as well. I fail to see how silicon valley would not be able to leech talent from other great universities as well as Seattle does. The fact is California at large has many great universities to provide talent to support the valley along with ivy league grads willing to travel here.

California simply takes up where Washington leaves off and we happen to take a share of their potential talent into our universities as a result. We have great higher education and that investment pays off big. Sadly our K-12 scene is much less than spectacular.

You gotta be cool here (for now)

Kelman says “Dingbat ideas are scattered like pennies on a sidewalk”. That sounds about right for Silicon Valley. What’s even more amazing is the money that will chase around those ideas.

It’s been a real struggle for us to get attention with our startup in silicon valley because we are so uncool. Even though Kelman thinks Redfin isn’t cool I think we take his cake in the un-coolness arena at MerchantOS.

Yes things get very crazy here and to the point of absurdity but it’s exciting and certainly Seattle gets a lot of value out of it. Somebody needs to try these ideas out and some of those people with “cool” ideas do succeed. When Kelman says “But some of the best – and most meaningful — new ventures may be the ones that combine old and new business models, experience and youthful recklessness, perseverance and opportunism. And it is these ventures that really seem to belong in Seattle.”, in the later half he’s just flat out wrong. They don’t belong in Seattle any more than they do in Silicon Valley. True we have a lot of “dingbat ideas” in the works but there are as many good ideas here too. They’re just harder to see cause they’re obscured by “coolness” taking center stage.

West vs. Northwest

There’s advantages and disadvantages to the handful of “entrepreneurial cities”. This post wasn’t intended to start a battle over which is better but instead to defend silicon valley and point out that it is awesome that people have a choice.

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to any city over another and be thankful that you don’t have to settle with only one to find a great entrepreneurial setting.

I for one will be staying here. When they close down Stanford it’ll be a sad day :-)~

So Erica and I have been trying to grow our own (food) for some time. For some weird reason I decided to get out the tripod and play with my cameras intervalometer while I dug a new bed and started transplanting. The video below is the outcome.

If you’re into independent rock, you must use rhapsody! It has an outstanding collection of indie albums.

Here’s what rocks

1. All the music! Literally you get to listen to millions of songs whenever you want.
2. It works with your non-Ipod. You can take any of those millions of songs with you wherever you want.
3. It’s cheap. $15 a month or $10 a month (about the price of a CD a month).

It’s just a pure pleasure to use Rhapsody from the standpoint of finding and listening to music. But wait!!!

Here’s what sucks

1. Yes you get a lot of music but not all the music. If you’re into popular music, you’ll be disappointed to find out all those awesome hits you love aren’t available to listen without buying the song (just like in itunes). This is stupid and is probably the number one reason the subscription service hasn’t taken. Wake up music industry! It does have all the indie music tracks though.
2. It doesn’t work with your Ipod. I’ll chalk this one up to Apple more than Rhapsody though but the problem is still there. If your an Ipod geek, I know, it’s not Apple’s fault. Just shut up…
3. The software (web based or intalled) is sub par. Yeah it does the job but could be so much better. I imagine this is where the subscription model can really take off. It would be great if Rhapsody had better music sharing features, better profiling and suggestions, and a better overall user interface.

I’ve always been a windows user for my desktop PC ever since windows 3.0. I’ve learned that inevitably the Windows OS gets all screwed up over time and it’s time for a reinstall. Now I’m on windows XP and that time has come. I can’t delete certain files no matter what I do and other problems are cropping up causing weird crashes.

I don’t want to put Windows XP back on! I’ve been using it for a long time and it’s certainly the most stable and versatile desktop OS out there at the moment. But I’m a geek! I want the new and improved stuff.

The question this time is what next? I have a copy of Vista and have tried it. It SUCKS! I’m a big fan of Linux and love it’s simplicity as a server OS. I’ve even setup Linux but it still feels light years behind when I try to use it for a Desktop (Kubuntu isn’t bad but still it doesn’t just work! I could write a whole post about the stupid stuff in a default install of Kubuntu). Apple certainly has really cool stuff. They look sexy and they’re new but they are the antithesis to my core beliefs. Most notably they aren’t open to any hardware but their own and like to control other aspects of my purchasing decisions such as MP3 player choices.

Edit: So in the end I just reinstalled windows XP and am very happy with the decision. I figured picking another OS wasn’t worth the time in the end.

There’s an interesting pattern found in the pubic artwork in downtown San Jose. A lot of it is very phallic in appearance. While some of the pieces are cool looking it would have been nice to have a little more variety in the sculptures. It does make San Jose appear a lot more manly maybe. Not sure if we need to look manly though…

Tech Crunch recently wrote an article on Redfin which sparked some personal angst against the current (and broken) way in which real estate transactions occur. My wife and I had recently attempted to purchase a house and even had an accepted offer. Once our real estate agent and mortgage broker saw the dollars (their commission), they began turning the screws to get a deal done - not on the terms we originally laid out for them, but on their own. It was quite educating. You have to watch your own back in a deal like this unless you’re positive the people you are dealing with are looking out for you.

Our terms were a house with a standard fixed rate mortgage coupled with several teacher loans. I knew we barely qualified for the loan but I also knew it was possible. They thought it would be much easier to just place us in a sub-prime loan after having one bank turn us down on a standard loan. I suspect this was just easier for them and required less work on their behalf with the same result (commission!). They even tried to convince us my wife’s teacher loans were a bum deal. The teacher loans inconveniently (for them) were not allowed to be used in conjunction with a sub-prime type of loan. The teacher loans financed nearly 20 percent of our loan, which made buying a house for us a reality in the first place. If you live in San Jose and are a teacher, check it out here.

We ended up with no house and no lost money, thankfully. But it’s easy to see how this industry can screw the less attentive over. A sub prime mortgage simply means a bank is going to lend money to someone whom has no business borrowing that amount to begin with. This is evident today by the current state of the sub-prime market. It’s also probably the leading cause of an overly accelerated housing market and its current subsequent slump.

Below are a couple of my gripes with the industry.

Why can’t one talk to the seller of the house until the deal is nearly done? When making such a large investment speaking with the current owner should not be considered taboo. Anyone should be freely able to not only explore the history of the house but interview the owner. They know more about the house than any inspector would. This seems like job security for real estate agents. No one else can do the talking, so they are mandatory for the process.

Why is the buyer’s agent financially motivated to screw the buyer over!? That is the most alarming part about the transaction. The more they can get you to pay for a house, the more money they make. For example a $500,000 house brings them about $15,000 in commission. Every $50k more they can get you to spend means another $1,500 in their pockets. We had to all but walk away from our agent to convince him to offer $40k below asking price (which was the accepted offer!).

If and when my wife and I decide to make a home purchase, services like Redfin seem a lot more attractive. Particularly since we never enlisted our agent to show us houses (we drove around on our own to open houses). Also, it seems a lot wiser to get your loan approved well ahead of time. Not pre-approved but completely approved. Not only does this let you know your exact capabilities, it gives you some extra bargaining power when your offer is being reviewed.

I’ve compiled a calendar (Using Google Calendar) of events which are both free and seem like they could be fun in the downtown San Jose area. If you’re broke or are trying to save money you can still go out and have an excellent evening. I’m going to be attending several of these events. Please feel free to drop me a line if you would like to meet at any of them. I can be reached at me (at) ivanst [dot] com. Check out the calendar by following the link Below or add the calendar to your Google Calendar using the button.

San Jose Free (Or Very Cheap) Events Calendar

If the Democrats truly want to end the war after George Bush’s veto of their time-lined withdrawal/funding bill, just hold off the next funding bill and blame the president loudly for holding our troops in Iraq unfunded. There’s no reason for the Democrats to hold back. They were put in office to end the war. Bush will be left with no choice but to remove our military from Iraq or hold all the blame for leaving them there without the funds they need.