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Spent a fair amount of time this weekend getting my head around node.js and socket.io, and am pleased as punch that I got stuff working. Ultimately, I just want to be able to emit readings from a web server (erm, weather temperatures) and display them on some sort of iDevice as they come in. It took a bit of trial and error, but it works. I got stuck on serving static files from node.js and was going down the rabbit hole of installing Express, but then I found the mime module woo. And it's really been a decade since I've done serious JavaScript coding (like my decade-old weather web page at http://www.marmot.net/weather, or the compatibility monkey that compared Mac IE's JavaScript implementation with Netscapes and Windows IE)... so that took awhile to figure out. I was really pleased to find that I could use a node plugin to PyCharm, so I could serve and debug server-side JavaScript within an excellent IDE... and I even added a small RGraph chart to make it all pretty... RGraph was a bit easier to get going than D3, but not so sexy. It's all pretty interesting, and in a number of ways feels post Web 2.0. HTML and CSS just mark out static regions on the page, with the real data of interest being sent to the browser as JSON that's transformed into visual stuff by client-side JavaScript.
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Well, I'm doing well. Since the beginning of the year, I've dropped 15 pounds. I realized today when chatting with Roy that the weight loss has a lot to do with various gadgets and technology, and not so much with counting calories or telling myself I can eat this not that. The big picture is that I run before work every morning, and eat specific foods at mealtime. What are Marmot's Little Helpers in getting the weight off? Here they are. 1. First thing in the morning I drink a nice double espresso. Whee! That's courtesy of the Cuisinart EM-100 I won at the company holiday party. I poo-poo'd the device as too middlebrow, and didn't use it for a couple of months, but I love it now... and love the motivation it gives me to run. 2. Then I run. To track my runs, I use a Garmin Forerunner 405CX watch. I'm not quite sure how accurate it is, but it'll tell me the difference between 3.1 and 3.09 miles, and doesn't let me cheat with the "oh, to the Zoo is 1.5 miles" trick. Plus it auto-uploads, so I have a log of all my runs. I like that I can set a "3-4-4-6-4" mile pattern for Monday through Friday and stick to it, especially as I run through parkland where it's not obvious how far distances are. Oh, and the espresso is a big help with running. I wait about 20 minutes from when I first sip it to when I take off for my run. 3. When I get back, I weigh myself on a Withings Wi-Fi Scale. Yep, another device I thought was ridiculous, but it's just too easy to cheat when remembering what you weighed a week ago, much less last month. Of course, after a morning run I definitely weigh less from sweating and water loss during nighttime respiration, but hey. 4. Going to work, I wear a Fitbit, another easy way to track steps. I do wear it running too, in the keys pocket of my running shorts, just so I can compete with Chris who loves his as well. Generally I walk/run some 10000 steps a day but it's really variable depending on my running. 5. Lastly, and this is a big secret, is that I don't eat much. After running I have a peanut butter and honey sandwich (yep) with banana or apple. For lunches during the week, I chow on Fresh and Easy EatWell fresh microwave meals, which are tasty and 300-odd calories, plus fruit of various types (oranges and passionfruit are in season now yum). Then at home, yep, more EatWell meals for dinner, or maybe a F&E gourmet meal which run around 500 calories. I buy my meals on Monday lunchtime at the F&E next to the office, so I have five lunches for the whole week, but generally do go out with folks once a week for lunch too. So that's it. Not exactly thrilling, but when you know you're losing weight and you have a trajectory, it feels good to just keep doing what you're doing. There's no worrying about "oh, I'm not losing weight", there's none of that crap of "I'll go to the gym and turn fat into muscle by lifting things!", there's none of that delusional "BMI is an imperfect metric, and my BMI of 33 doesn't mean I'm not fit!", and there's not much calorie counting. It's really confidence building that by a bit of exercise and controlled food the pounds just do come off, without much magic or dieting or anything. I really also like that I'm starting to feel comfy doing the six and seven mile runs now. I did slowly build up the miles, but I made sure I ran every morning... and during the runs I'm really enjoying it, and those morning runs really brighten my mood during the day as well. Plus I feel I can go out and play the touch rugby on the weekends with the local club and not be gasping. So yay. I am pleased that I am no longer 'obese'. It's a good feeling. Tags: fitness, health, weight
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/us/californias-economic-split-pits-west-against-east.htmlThem East Coast carpetbaggers don't have it quite right--in-state, the distinction's described as "coastal" vs "inland"--but many points are valid. And like many Californians, I like to navel-gaze on my home state. The article's brought up quite a few points, but it's more about describing the differences between affluent Orange County/Silicon Valley and the Inland Empire, and doesn't even mention the state's three largest cities (Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose) or other coastal areas (Monterey, Santa Cruz, Ventura, Del Norte, and many others are MIA). There are also oddball dramatic comparisons; for example, comparing salaries between the Bay Area and Riverside. That's like is comparing salaries of Long Island residents with those from Cleveland, Ohio (though Cleveland is closer to Levittown than San Francisco is to Riverside). I want to remind people from out East that California's not a small state. A few points are missing though is why, particularly "why are some of these places this way?" Many of the cities in Orange County are far more concerned about jobs than housing, so throughout the 1970s and 1980s they built cities that catered to corporations and not people--non-executive workers could live elsewhere and commute. The same holds true for many Silicon Valley cities; at one point the medium-sized city of Santa Clara had more jobs than people. All of post-war California used to see the single-family home, connected to places of employment on fast freeways, as the ideal; but with $4 a gallon gas (as opposed to 25 cents a gallon) that just isn't feasible. People aren't getting married anymore in their 20s, buying that house, and having kids; they wait until they're 35 and want a neighborhood where they can walk to their lattes, and hopefully one with a decent school system, and do they ever want to buy a house? Maybe, but owning is an awful hassle. Orange County also has another almost forgotten past: it was a destination for white flight from Los Angeles county. Riots in the 60s, school bussing in the 70s, gang warfare of the 80s--why stay in LA and have your kids bussed 90 minutes to some inner-city school and get shot at? On the other side of the 605 freeway there are great jobs and fresh new housing. Live in Cypress, not Downey; live in Buena Park, not Artesia. This intentional segregation and disdain for "urban problems" underlies much of Orange County conservatism, and these conservative values are seen by many there as powering success. That link between conservative values and prosperity is tenuous at best-- Silicon Valley is even more prosperous than Orange County yet isn't conservative at all--but (many) Orange County residents really do believe in their conservative gospel of prosperity. Times are changing though... and Orange County isn't as conservative or as homogenous as it was. That'll be interesting to watch. Anyways, enough blathering. Go read the article, if you really want to.
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Nothing too exciting. A (shortened) hike, a visit to REI, some gardening and some programming. Pretty dull but satisfying stuff.
Saturday morning. Yawn. Should we go for a hike? Why not be lazy? OK, we'll go for a hike... something moderately close to town--how about 4000' tall Lawson Peak? 4 1/2 miles, 1000' elevation gain.
We drove out on the 8, headed south towards Japatul through the chaparral and bouldered countryside studded with huge log homes that will be incinerated someday, and someday soon. Passed a lot of helicopters--what? Some drug smuggler interdictions? Can't be immigrants heading north, they've moved on to less attractive regions (erm, Arizona). No, construction helicopters, building a gigawatt powerline through the valley, SunlinkPowerLine or somesuch, to supply sunny San Diego with solar power from the desert (and perhaps wind power from Mexico.)
Found the trailhead, National Forest Road 15S01, described as being "passable by 4x4 and mountain bikes", but not really by either; it's more a small gully than a road. Started walking up through fairly uninteresting terrain, not even many good views, though we could see our hike from last last weekend (Corte Madera), which was considerably more awesome. The "road" got more and more rutted, only really passable for vehicles with 18" clearance, and it went up and up. Here and there we saw something interesting--oh there's a red pea flower or a purple ceanothus bush--but we were really forcing the fun. After a mile, and another mile of dullness ahead, we decided to bail and go shopping.
REI Chula Vista (never crowded, even on Dividend Weekend) was moderately close, and we scooted down out of the mountains to the 2/3rds complete suburb of Otay Ranch--whether it's a suburb of San Diego or Chula Vista or Tijuana is still to be determined. Lunch was a Ono Burrito, thanks Rubio's. REI didn't disappoint, a few running clothes, some walking shoes and poles for Chris.
Saturday night, stayed in, and movie which I really enjoyed (The Killling of a Chinese Bookie, 1978 version). The movie felt very very Soderbergish, heh.
Sunday was... putter day. Cleaned the house, weeded some books in the guest room, waited for rain, got tired of waiting for rain so gardened. Transplanted the lime tree from the ground into a pot (limes are tasty but more a condiment), put a Cara Cara navel orange in its place. I miss the Washington navel orange we had in the backyard in San Jose, and those winter months of fresh orange juice on the weekends. Programmed quite a bit too, got a socket.io finally working to push incoming JSON data from a node.js server to a web client (which was fun), and also learned Flask--this year I've really decided to extend my Python skills, and we use Flask a bit at work so it can't hurt there either.
Then we watched the douchies from LI get kicked off the Amazing Race (one of them wailed "I got beat by a girl--see you at the nightclub!", double-enhancing his loserdom), and tottered to bed.
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It's been ten years since we left the US for a year in Australia. We left the deflating Silicon Valley, got out, sold our cars, fled, looking for some wider open spaces to roam about and see what trouble we could get into. I took a Sony laptop with 12GB of RAM, a modem for dialup Internet access, and a $800 Canon Powershot S20 with three 256MB CompactFlash cards ($300 each!). I felt like we were going somewhere off the ends of the earth and doing Something Really Wrong--what, quit our well-paying software jobs and plunge off into country? For a year??? Yet we found that we could get 6 month tourist visas (with vetting, of course), and as long as we scooted offshore for a week we were fine. So we did it. There was quite a bit of planning, but by 2001 enough information was on the Internet that it wasn't too difficult to piece together an attack plan... so off we went. Here's what I first wrote during the trip. --- Sunday 3 February 2002 Sitting in the Red Carpet Lounge at SFO, getting an odd, empty feeling. Today was filled with sorting and cleaning and packing--it was all about making sure the house and garden and Kitty were OK, that papers were filed, that CDs burned, that email was downloaded. I've had no thoughts about the next week, other than the 'it's over there'. It's basically like I've been cleaning for a big scary party by some upper management or something. Now I'm in the lounge, having faxed off the last paperwork (for DSL service) and I've finished doing some things like reducing the car insurance. I still cannot really believe I've sold the car, the motorcycle, and made things stable enough so they'll keep for ayear. In some sense, this trip is starting like the trip we did to Chile, with no real expectations. That trip turned out to be a wonderful adventure, I hope this one does too, but for now I just feel a bit tentative about a whole year... even though I'm committed at this point! --- And that was that. Here's a picture of Chris as we wait for our flight.
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Ah, I miss long-form blog posting format. So here goes, since Matthew kinda prodded me into it. Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danlmarmot/sets/72157628728667181/ We decided this year to go to the Canary Islands over Christmas--it seems like a far-off place with interesting stuff to do; there are odd plants to gawk at and walks to do and local wines to taste. A place like Chile or New Zealand or South Africa or Tasmania, where you get there and go "whoa, there's a lot of interesting stuff here, I had no idea!" The plants were the first trigger--we have these odd looking succulents in the front yard that look like black roses on thick stalks, and they're from the Canaries, as are the Canary Island palm (the trees down the middle of Market Street in San Francisco) and Canary Island pine. There are old-growth wet evergreen forests of the type that used to grow around the Mediterranean. Neat! Then there's wines; on the slopes of the islands are all sorts of weird grape varieties--are the wines any good? The Canary Islands may be part of Spain, but geographically they're in west Africa. Must find out! And the islands themselves are all volcanic, just like Hawaii, with lots of hills and valleys, great walks can be had, and you can walk in a forest on the wet side of the island or a desert on the dry side or wherever. Nifty. It all sounded a bit compelling, but I wouldn't go that far after having visited three of the islands. As it turns out, the first island was the one we found the most interesting--the island of La Palma. ( Read more... )
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