Anyways, I started writing my accounts of this trip and then I realized (more like I got lazy) that pictures are worth a thousand words. The stories that the pictures below don’t tell are: riding through pitch black tunnels, getting chased by dogs, eating beef noodle soup, and sleeping at a “love hotel”. I’d happily recount those stories in person for anyone who is interested.

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In order to increase safety along the Half Dome cables, all people using the Half Dome Trail above the subdome must have a permit in possession on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays when the cables are up

I guess it’s not too surprising that the NPS has finally decided to require permits to summit the Dome. I remember there being a couple of tragic falls in the past couple of years. The one I remember happened shortly before or after my coworkers and I went up in the summer of 07.

With the increased number of tourists visiting national parks these days, I think it’s a good idea to put the brakes on the massive throngs of people trying to climb Half Dome. The traffic jam created by all of us weekend warriors on the cables is worse than the 4o5 on a Friday night. The long lines make the final ascent not only longer, but also more dangerous too. Cranky, sunburned, and fatigued people do not make the wisest decision.

I just had a flashback of the crazy Mormom chick in the Little House on the Prairie dress flying up the Dome by climbing on the outside of the cables. Crazy.

On average, the trail sees about 800 people on a Fri/Sat/Sun. The park will be issuing a maximum of 400 permits for weekends and federal holidays. I don’t have any plans to climb Half Dome any time soon but if did, I’ll certainly appreciate the lighter crowds.

MBA Poker – Play hold ‘em and network at the same time. Who was last year’s winner? Some kid from Broad
LXD – Another dance movie, although this one has some promise.
Zappos Retails Its Culture – More than just an online shoe store, Zappos will now teach you how to emulate the Zappos culture.
Ford and Social Media – A chat with Ford’s VP of marketing about how Ford is trying to be hip like Apple and Facebook. iMustang?
Bezo’s on Amazon – Amazon CEO talking about the next thing I’m thinking about emptying my pockets on :/

In Your Face – This article talks about something I’ve been noticing a lot lately which is the inordinate amount of people that I see in SM wearing North Face fleece jackets. Specifically, the article explains how the NF’s logo is so noticeable and recognizable, yet I’ve never seen a NF ad on TV or radio but I know exactly what the NF logo is communicating about NF’s brand.

The article also goes on to talk about how a brand’s image can also easily turn someone off. From my own experience, I will never buy a mattress from Larry from Sit n’Sleep or Niel from Leed’s because I can’t stand their commercials. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, think “You’re killing me Larry!!!!” and “I’m Neil with the deal, I won’t be beat!”.

Back to NF. I don’t own any NF gear and I don’t have anything against NF in general. If I had a nit about NF, it wouldn’t be with NF, it would be with  NF haters who dislike NF because NF is 1) too popular and 2) too “technical” (meaning too many buttons, compartments, and straps). I was in Patagonia the other day and there was this one douche-bag who was loudly bagging on how only douche-bags wear NF and how NF crap has too many useless douchey hoops, loops, and pockets in their jackets. First of all, STFU to the snob. Second, it goes to show how popular NF is. When you have major haters and they’re not hating on the quality of your product, you know you’ve got a popular brand. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone hating on Kia or Champion sports wear?

Surviving the Start of Bschool
Another Wireless Charger – The difference between this charger and the wireless powermat is that this charger harvests energy out of thin air. Pretty cool.

Principles That Make A Web Design Look Good – Interesting read for someone who designs websites. I use to back in the day so I appreciated this article.
Buy a Giant Tuna for $177,000 – Sad to think that one day these giant tasty beasts of the sea will be gone FOREVER if we don’t scale back on harvesting them.
Minimalist’s Bike – There is no practicality to this bike other than to function as an “art piece” you put in the corner.
NOC Moving to DC – Another sign that I should go to Smith (close to DC). Or maybe it means I should get as far away from DC as possible.
Life After MBA for Class of 2010 – Good to see that folks land are landing PM gigs after getting an MBA, especially since that’s my stated goal.
I Hate My Job – Survey that confirms that I’m not alone in being dissatisfied by work.
Earned My Seal of Approval – Douche heads exist in the animal kingdom as well.
Epic Bike Ride Through Taiwan - Inspiring report by a guy bike riding along some really nice scenery along Taiwan’s east coast. I’d like to do something like that, albeit on a moped rather than a bike.
8888888 – A guy from China donated a huge sum of money to Yale School of Management. Guess how much?
Clever Mini Commercial
Software Product Manager’s First 30 Days – A checklist of todo’s for new PMs

For 2010, it all depends on what happens in the next three months. My admission decisions to Smith, Owen, and Broad will basically determine which fork in the road I take, business school or what-next. I know which path I want to take, but it’s not up to me once my apps are submitted.

The common thread between both path is that they’re both uncertain, even the business school path. Although I know in general what to expect, there’s still a lot of unknowns. What is of greater concern is what happens if I don’t get into bschool this year. I still haven’t figured out a solid plan B yet. I tell myself, “One thing at a time. Get through your essays and interviews first, then wait for your decisions, then figure out what to do next”. Sound self-advice, but I want to be ahead of the game here because I dislike sitting idle when it comes to my career.

All I can say for certain is that the next two to three months will be very antsy times. I’m going to try and take my mind off of what might happen by throwing myself at mt biking, reading, traveling and maybe rock climbing/mountaineering.

With all the stress accrued from work and applying to bschool, it felt good to get away for a weekend. As luck would have it, things didn’t start off on the right foot.

Pismo was on the calendar for several months, but I never gave it much thought because of all the other things going on. About two weeks out, I started to think about all the logistical aspects of the trip and it gave me a headache. After pushing a lot of the planning out until the last couple of days, a lot of little fires were set on Friday that could have blown the trip into a raging inferno. The set backs included: Vik needing to get his bro’s green sticker, finding out we needed to get to the park before 11pm, having to buy all the food, being rushed by the pad thai lady from Singapore Express, and finding out that Ellis went back to his apartment after we told him to come to ours.

In the end, everything worked out fine. I let out a giant sigh of relief when we got to Pismo on time and in one piece. We tried to find the campsite using GPS coordinates, but ended up stumbling across the Pismo Jamboree guys at flag post 6. If we had followed the GPS, we might have ended up halfway to Catalina. It turns out that the “campsite” was just 100 yards north west of where we camped last year. In fact, Vik got stuck about 50 feet from where we camped last year. After setting up camp and downing beer and ramen, we all hit the sack, exhausted but relieved to have finally arrived.

Saturday

TL and I woke up around 830 to head out for the group picture. Ellis slept in my truck so he had no choice but to go along for the ride. There was probably 40-50 yota trucks lined up for the group picture. After a quick driver’s meeting, catching up with one of the organizers, and watching one of the guys almost tip his truck on a jump, I drove back to camp to cook breakfast (omelet, toast and fresh squeezed OJ). We headed into town afterwards to pick up some more gear and to rent a quad.

We ended up spending the rest of the day playing in the dunes. TL drove my truck while the rest of us rode our dirt toys. I ended up renting a 250cc semi-auto quad for six hours. The semi-auto meant that I had to shift gears with or without the use of the clutch. The quad was a bit underpowered and tame by comparison to Vik’s 400cc. I’ll have to upload the video of me and Vik climbing a dune that shows just how weak the 250cc is. That being said, 250cc is actually the right amount of power for someone to learn on.

I let TL drive my truck out on the dunes. That’s what we call a lot of trust, or maybe I’m just plain stupid. Pismo isn’t the easiest place to drive around. Although it looks easy, there are a lot of ways to get yourself in trouble out in the dunes. No matter what skill level you’re at, you’re bound to get stuck. TL did really well for the most part. She got stuck twice, both times going up a hill. The second time she got stuck, she didn’t see that there were two really deep bowls, one on the left, and one on the right, at the top of the hill. She ended up driving too close to the bowl on the right, got stuck, and was too afraid to back up because she might have fallen into the bowl. I ended up taking over. A Jeep came over to help “save” us. Ironically, I ended up falling into the bowl and didn’t tip (thank god), drove out of the bowl, and then saved the Jeep that was trying to save us but got stuck trying to do so.

Needless to say, TL was done driving for the rest of the trip. She’s more of a passenger rather than a driver out in Pismo anyways Bravo to her though for even driving out there! Next time, Competition Hill!

For dinner, we BBQ’d. Nothing spectacular, but given that we bought the food an hour before we left on Friday, I thought we had a respectable dinner, although not as respectable as a stinky tofu hot pot dinner.

And for the report that you’ve all been waiting for, the shoto tent was a smashing success. The tent is absolutely amazing. I’d guess that the average temperature at night was around ~50F, but when you’re inside the shoto tent, it felt like 70F. TL made good use of the porta potty; she no longer had to trek all the way to the nasty camp stalls or bare her ass in between the trucks. I took a #1, or is it #2, anyways, the “bigger” one, and it didn’t work out so well because my ass is too big and the bowl was too shallow.

Vik spent half the night trying to engineer a solution for his shower. His elaborate shower pump thing didn’t work, so he brought with him a cooler and a tofu container. He also bought a solar shower bag. The solar shower bag ended up being the lamest $8 he ever spent because the flow of water was just too weak. He ended up heating up water and pouring it into a cooler and scooping it out with the tofu container, just like the olden days back on the Mainland. Vik’s review was that the tent kept him warm enough to make the shower enjoyable. The only thing that was really missing was a chair.

That pretty much wraps up the trip. I think we all had a fantastic time. TL has already said that she wants to go out again. I’m kind of over Pismo, at least going there to drive my truck. ATVing on the other hand was so much fun. If bschool weren’t in the way, I’d go out and buy one right now! It was unfortunate that more people couldn’t have come out though, but there’s always next time. We saw several groups of fob ATV riders that were rolling at least 15-20 deep and having a ball.  I had one of those sad, longing moments, “why can’t that be us… sniff, sniff”. One day… one day

Pics to come.

Knowing that some folks like to shower after a long day of being out in nature, I decided to put together a shower/toilet, or shoto, setup. The setup is basically a tent in the shape of an outhouse. See below…

Mochi dry running the toilet tent

You can put a toilet inside to make it a porta potty, or hang up a shower to make it, you guessed it, a shower. Luckily for me, a friend had given me a a toilet for my bday so all I need to do now is work on the shower part. Seeing as how I’m going to bankrupt myself for bschool, I’m probably going to go with a low end shower solution. This means placing a solar shower bag on top of my car, winding the hose through the top of the tent’s roof, and letting gravity do its thing. The luxury edition, the sort of setup that my offroading buddies go with, is to pump water that is being heated by a water heater up to the top of the tent. It’s a really sweet setup, but not right now.

We’ll see how this works out @ Pismo. Hopefully this thing doesn’t flip over while someone is inside squeezing one off.

A cool find courtesy of TL via campingtourist is the sleepwear sleeping bag from Selk. I like their “not so serious” (what’s a better word?) approach on their website to marketing their sleeping bag, although that lends the product to being seen more as a novelty than as a real sleeping bag. But then again, how can you seriously market a yellow body formed sleeping bag without being a bit goofy about it.

Yoga in warmth