adrian is rad

“How’s such and such going?”

“It’s trying.”

I forgot about that usage of trying. It’s a good one. I’ll try to use it more.

I’m giving up caffeine for lent. This should be interesting.

I should note: the 40 days and 40 nights of lent are not sequential–I’ll have Sundays off, though I probably won’t have caffeine the first Sunday, just to help break myself of the habit.

Update: The first day was pretty drowsy. This may be difficult.

Originally it was just going to be a hiking to a cabin to sleep for the night and hiking back out. Not too hard, right? Then the details started to reveal themselves: it was 10 miles each way of hiking…at altitude (between 6.5K and 10K ft.)…on sand (partially). That’s starting to get a little harder.

The hike into Haleakala Crater last weekend did end up being pretty hard, but it was well worth it.

After a day of sitting on the beach, snorkeling, eating and going to a luau, we woke up bright and early and headed to the eastern side of Maui, up a windy and increasingly colder road up up the gradual slope of Haleakala. We stopped at the ranger station; our 8 minute don’t-destroy-the-crater video out of the way and back-country permits hanging from our bags, we headed to the summit.

From the parking lot there, I could see the lava rock and the clouds below us. This is not bad, I thought…When I went to the other side of the parking lot, to the visitor’s center and I could see the full extent of the crater below. It was massive. There was some vegetation, but it seemed nevertheless like I was looking down into a lunar crater, with a mostly black rock landscape and a number of cinder cones sticking up.

The next few hours were down, down, down on sliding sands–in more ways that ones as that’s also the name of the trail there. The landscape was deep browns, reds and blacks and the ever-growing walls of the crater. The vegetation was sparse grasses and some silverswords–only found in Haleakala. It was quite mildly otherworldly compared to what we’d see later but at the time it was quite amazing.

We broke at lunch time at the first cabin–there were three cabins and we were staying at the farthest one in (of course). The woman who was staying there already had some water boiled for sanitization, so we filled up. Right around there, we started noticing the changing scenery. There was some brown grasses and small shrubs. We could see where we were going–to a small field under a set of craggy and lush cliffs.

(more…)

I’m looking for recommendations for thin wallets/ credit card holders. My situation has gotten out of control. My wallet’s giant–and I don’t even carry money in it anymore. (Both bills and coins go in my back pocket while my wallet goes in my left pocket, though I could see carrying bills in my wallet.)

I have a lot of cards and miscellaneous things I carry around: two credit cards, two debit cards, driver’s license, cards for three different transportation systems, tickets for the public pools, and business cards. That’s the minimum–I also have movie rental store cards, other people’s business cards and things that I could probably prune out.

My brother (indirectly) suggested All-Ett wallets, though I feel like the area might be too big. Or there’s those combined card holder/ money clips that you see on late-night TV. Or there’s just regular old card holders.

Is there anyone particularly happy with their solution to this problem?

Update This looks like a reasonable way to get rid of some of those club cards. Also These wallets seem to be another thin option.

I think I have a conditioned response to taking off when I’m on a plane: falling asleep. I’m not being facetious here. I’m being honest. I was trying to read the other day before take off. After take off, I had to put the book down because I was quite drowsy.

I find this pretty funny.

I have very little interest in basketball, but I found this article about Shane Battier (by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball) long but fascinating. Battier doesn’t have good stats, in the traditional sense, but makes his team better when he plays. It makes me want to take an interest in basketball and start running some stats about it.

On the topic of stats, Nate Silver (of Baseball Prospectus, FiveThirtyEight.org) predicts the Oscars using stats. Interesting!

And, on the topic of Michael Lewis, his book The Blind Side, a book about football’s left tackle, was preceded by a NY Times Magazine article, Ballad of Big Mike. It’s more of a narrative than a stats-filled article, but it’s still pretty interesting.

I was just using these and I was thinking, these have to be the best screwdrivers on the planet. They’re a Wiha precision screwdriver set. They feel nice, they work really well, and they’re robust.

I first used them at work, but I got a set of my own as a present a couple years ago. I appreciate them every time I use them. Yes, I’m this excited about screwdrivers.

[Warning: American Apparel’s ads, which are featured some of the links, tend to have people in moderate states of undress. Some links are somewhat NSFW.]

So my neighborhood in San Francisco is the Mission. It’s split in two parts–broadly generalizing–young, white hipsters and Latino families. The center of hipster commerce is Valencia Street, while more of the Mission Street.

American Apparel is a brand that appeals to hipsters. They make tight fitting clothing and make it in America. They wanted to put in one of their stores on Valencia Street–a perfect fit, right?

by gretchen robinette

Apparently not. People were up in arms (well some people were). People, plenty of whom were probably wearing American Apparel at the time, said they didn’t want a chain store on their Valencia Street. They wanted their unique and pricey boutiques instead.

Blogs and newspapers were abuzz with developments. There was a protest (where the above photo was from).

The Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition was against it but pointed out that the pricey boutiques were also displacing older stores. (Irony.) They also pointed out that people weren’t up in arms about the plans related to an old movie theater on Mission Street.

Eventually the San Francisco planning commission voted against allowing the store. American Apparel apologized and offered Mission residents discounts at their other SF stores.

Wow, what a strange place this is.

There’s a little patch of old industrial buildings at the intersection of the Mission, SoMa and Potrero Hill.

Are you getting sick of my cell phone pictures yet?

x Noe in Noe Valley. Yes, it’s early February.

It later missed the my station and had to reverse about a mile.

Conductor over the speakers: “Next stop: 22nd Street.”

[time passes]

Passengers, looking out the window: “Uhhhh wasn’t that 22nd Street?”

[time passes, train stops]

Conductor over the speakers: “Um. Give us a couple minutes while we fix this.”

Early morning last Thursday.