Nepal

I met my college friend Donovan and his wife at the Tibetan/Nepal restaurant in Pasadena, one of my favorite eating establishments in the city. This time I ate yak and it was yakkity yak delicious. The S.O. had a veggie dish that she requested spicy and it was EN FUEGO – I had one bite and it nearly took me out. Good stuff though. They serve giant bottles of beer with pictures of the yeti on the labels. Yetis can really drink beer, man. Afterwards, since D and his wife Jen were staying at the uber-fancy Ritz-Carlton, we got a tour. I’ve run by the hotel (literally) hundreds of times but have never been inside. The valet parked my poop-covered car, I was hinting that they should put it between the Bentley and the 911 near the hotel entrance but they hid it behind some bushes out back. D & J’s room was near the top floor and had this great view down the hill into San Marino, and there was a high-priced wedding reception goin on with some sweet cover band. But the highlight of the evening was the Picture Bridge between the pool and the Japanese Gardens. The painted scenes were all Californian, most of them were images that I’d pick too: Mt Wilson Observatory, Mt Whitney, field of Sierra Nevada lupines, Torrey Pines of San Diego, the quaint mountain hamlet Sierra Madre, the north face of San Jacinto, the lone cypress of 17-mile drive, Santa Barbara Bay, Los Angeles harbor refineries, Yosemite valley, Avalon, San Gabriel mission,….that’s all I can remember for now. Anyways, it was awesome.

I took Hansel outside last weekend but all he wanted to do was curl up under the picnic table and look for rats.

We’re leaving for the grand canyon, bryce, and zion on Saturday…pretty excited. The first day’s going to be a lot of driving but it’ll be worth it because at the end lies the stupendous NGC. Should be good times. I’m back on the horse after falling off my bike last week (even though I’m not a gymnist). Also, I watched some of “Planet Earth” in HD (720p I think) and the snow leopard chasing the goat down the mountain side is the best film ever recorded in the history of the world, and I’m not prone to hyperbole.

bikers

All bikers are dirty, except for Cru Jones.

Grad Students Suck

Sad story about how the oldest living thing on Earth, the bristlecone pine Prometheus, was cut down in 1964 by some bonehead grad student. He counted 4,844 rings in the trunk: how does it feel knowing you just killed something that was a few hundred years old when the Sphinx was being built? The Methuselah tree in the White Mountains near Big Pine, CA is the standard-bearer now, its exact location is undisclosed to avoid vandalism.

horsehead

I think I’ve finally pinned down a rough draft of my paper (it was very squirmy). All the helter-skelter stuff I dug through was worth it, because I get to cite a paper about the horsehead nebula, which I hope is a first for a cosmic ray paper. My friend megan defended yesterday! Hooray megan! My lab is quickly running out of grad students – no fresh meat, maybe they all think the two of us are a tough act to follow. (we are).

BIFF

I BIFFED on my bike ride in this morning, slippery roads! Not a big deal, a couple small scrapes and torqued handlebars but the jacka$$ in the car who saw me fall just kept driving – this is sierra madre, not LA goddamnit.

KELROF, Adidas Track Classic

Friday night at 8:15pm, KELROF 2007 kicked off with significantly fewer teams than last year and kenji doing a solo assault of the 24 hour relay for charity. I ran 2 slow 1600’s for KELROF, ran with kenji, eastwood, the S.O. for a bit before going home to sleep (a luxury I didn’t have last year). Despite pulling a quad muscle, kenji managed more than 60 miles, an impressive feat indeed. This other dude, Bill, was going to walk for 24 hours. Guess how long he made it? Three hours. Pansy.
Sunday was the Adidas Track Classic…rolled out to Carson with the S.O. jilly and alex. We took our seats in the backstretch (for the bargain price of ten bucks) and saw a kids 4x100m relay where this ten year old runs down another kid in the stretch. The announcer interviewed him afterwards – “When did you know you were going to win the race?” Without pause, the kid responds: “When I got the baton”. The meet was fantastic. Highlights: Breaux Greer‘s American Record in the Javelin – 297 feet, on his first throw. It was a monster – he almost threw it out of the stadium. I think he had three more throws over 290 feet (the best series ever). Meseret Defar set a world record in the 2 mile at 9:10 (breaking Drugina Jacobs old record) in front of hundreds of boisterous flag-waving Ethiopian fans. She fell off pace at 6 laps the rallied with a 62 closer for the record. Awesome. American record in the vault, a wind-aided 9.79 100m, then my girlfriend Allyson Felix won the 200m in a silky-smooth 22.18, and Jeremy Wariner easily took the 400m in 44.60 (“Some people ask me – ‘Why do you run?’ I ask them – ‘Why did you stop?'”). Men’s distance races were also good, especially Nick Willis of New Zealand in the 1500m absolutely JOGGING a 3:35 win, destined to be the World Champion later this summer. I was confused when I woke up this morning to the sounds of rain outside. Got up and had a nice rainy run on a questionable ankle.

San Gorgonio Peak Map – Clickable!

Click on the numbers for scenes of alpine adventure!

This weekend, again, involved much running-related activity. But this time, it was mostly observing. More to come tomorrow! Stay tuned faithful readers, all three of you!

protein

Jesse defended this afternoon, with skill and style and almost no interaction with his committee – sweetness. Tonight – 5WC BBBQ, “The extra B stands for BYOBB”. “What’s that extra B for?” “That’s a typo”.

We’re 11% tougher than Boy Scouts

Returned from the wilderness this afternoon where ml, df and I bagged the 9 peaks on the “Boy Scout” hike (plus one bonus), including the highest peak in Southern California: San Gorgonio, which is #7 on the list of most prominent peaks in the lower 48. ml’s account is here. I was playing around in google earth, as I am wont to do, and assembled this approximation of the ten peaks. We also got a cool view of San Jacinto’s imposing north face, one of the steepest in the US (~10kft in ~7mi).

I felt great on the hike up until about 10,500 feet. Then the sun went down, I got cold, and the altitude headache started to set in. I kind of like that altitude unpleasantness – at first you think you’re just tired, but then you realize there’s this bonus yuckiness. I just trudged on ahead and looked back to make sure the bouncing headlamps of df and ml were still behind me on the ridge. Satellites passing overhead. Eyes were watering excessively that night, maybe my body was trying to make me cry? Didn’t sleep too well on night one, but I konked out on night two and I’m about to konk out again right now. I was supposed to bring some cheese (Colby Jack) but I left it on my desk. I ate some when I got home and it was as delicious as I imagined it would be when we were eating salami bagels at Dollar Saddle. There were some stunning mountain vistas on our route, including Big Bear Lake (home of ryan hall) and the solar observatory. The hike down today was through some beautiful post-bloom manzanita brush buzzing with bees. We also saw Colonel Washington’s monument. It has something to do with surveying, but I don’t quite understand. It was also cool to see the altitude-evolution of the pine trees. I learned a lot of backpacking know-how from uber-hikers ml and df. All my new equipment was awesome, especially the sleeping bag and pad. A couple blisters but nothing major. My greasy italian hair looks like it has styling gel in it after a couple no-shower days. I kept an eye out for one of my favorite snakes: the southern rubber boa, a threatened species that lives in the San Bernardino mountains. Hansel missed me while I was gone.

ADDENDUM: I just looked through my pics from I hike the S.O. and I did on the north side of Big Bear Lake, and here’s a photo looking south from a hill above the lake, and another. Look what’s looming in the top-left, plainly visible in the full-size photo: San Gorgonio aka Old Greyback! And there’s the ridge that we hiked along yesterday!

bag o blood

I conquered my demons and donated blood. I was nervous but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. My favorite part was the spring-loaded finger-pricking device and seeing a bag of my own blood. Also, the Cheez-Its.