Austin City Limits: Day Two
September 29, 2008
Clothing Optional Area
Tired. Very Tired. We got a bit of a late start on Saturday which actually worked out pretty well because there wasn’t anyone on the schedule in the morning that we really had our hearts set out to see.
Will and I checked out Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings while playing a little game of Hot or Not. Neither of us had ever heard any of their music but really enjoyed how much fun they had interacting with the crowd. After that set we checked out the merch table, I got a fairly cool recycling themed shirt but sadly the posters this year weren’t all that appealing.
We then wondered over to the stage where Erykah Badu was going to perform. I haven’t listened her since 1998 so I can’t exactly say that I’m familiar with much of her music. But she’s got a fun sound so we figured we’d check it out. Sadly she started the set 10 minutes late and then decided to spend five minutes telling the crowd a story. I’m all up for artists telling stories during their set, but spending 10% of the set on a story is a bit excessive. We headed out to meed my Dad and Tate at the WaMu stage to see The Nachito Herrera All Stars.
None of us had herd the Nachito Herrera All Stars before but apparenlty a couple of Tate’s friends had actually seen them the night before in the Twin Cities and were impressed. Apparently the group had only played together for a few shows which is quite impressive. They didn’t have a whole lot of lyrics to their songs but that’s pretty understandable. I was just impressed with how well Herrera conducted the group while playing they keys.
By 6:30 the day was really starting to roll. We all checked out John Fogerty (front man for Credence Clearwater Revival). I started listening to CCR when I was in junior high which surprised my Dad at the time, so I’m quite familiar with Fogerty’s earlier work. I wasn’t sure how much of his older stuff he’d play but happily he had a good mix. It’s always interesting to watch someone as legendary as Fogerty.
The highlight of the day for me was Iron & Wine. When I started working at O’Reilly a coworker named Matt introduced me to their music. I listened to the album a bit but sadly didn’t spend much time with it. This is a decision that I’ve regretted after circling back around and hearing their latest album, The Shepherd’s Dog. Iron & Wine continues to develop a more complex sound which is especially present in their live performances.
This was the only show that I recorded in its entirety on Saturday and I’ll post it if I find out if they are cool with having their shows recorded. As a side note, for all of you in the bay area, Iron & Wine is going to be playing at this years Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival on October 5th. The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is a free festival in Golden Gate park and I’d highly recommend checking them out.
We closed out the day with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and happily walked back to the downtown area feeling a bit more energetic than the night before. Plus, we had the pleasure of being informed that we’re sinners by some religious folks outside the park, always a good time.
Austin City Limits: Day One
September 29, 2008
Last Friday was the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival and the beginning of my third year in attendance. My goal was to write about each day immediately after the day ended, but it didn’t take long to realize that this goal would not be met. But better late than never and I’ve got a few hours to kill before my flight back to San Francisco.
Part of the reason I didn’t have time to write at the end of each day is because my Dad, my brother Tate and one of my best friends Will made it to the festival as well and we were simply having too good of time hanging out together (wish you could have made it Alex and Amanda). This was the first year that my brother came along with us and I was excited to see what he thought of the experience.
Given how exhausted we all were from traveling to Austin, I was very proud of us for getting to Zilker park a bit after noon. The first show I wanted to see was Yeasayer at 1:30. I first heard of Yeasayer last January from Liz and I’d listened to their album All Hours Cymbals a few times but didn’t give it a whole lot of attention until leading up to the festival. However, in the last few weeks the album has really been growing on me. Their lyrics can be a little hard to follow along to sometimes so I wasn’t sure what the others would think of the show.
They played most of the songs off of the All Hours Cymbals album but without a doubt, Sunrise and 2080 were two of my favorites. My only complaint is that the base guitar was driven into distortion which cast a lot of the delicate and intricate details into the shadows. But that’s fine, it gives me a good excuse to see them again the next time they are in San Francisco.
Next up was Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. Last year Bob Dylan was the closing act on Sunday and lets just say I was disappointed with how he interacted with the crowd. Thankfully his son Jakob seems to have plenty of energy and spark in him to say hello to all of us. Knowing that it would be a fairly long day, Will and I kind of relaxed a bit during his set but still found it quite enjoyable.
At 3:30 we made our way over to see Del tha Funky Homosapien. I love Del. He is by far one of the most innovative and talented artists in the Rap/Hip-Hop world. Many people aren’t familiar with him under this name but chances are you’ve heard him without knowing it. His most well known work is likely on the song “Clint Eastwood” with the Gorillaz. But for me his greatest work is the Deltron 3030 album. We didn’t get very close to the stage which is a bummer because there was clearly a ton of energy in the crowd.
Going off of a recommendation from someone that Will chatted with on the flight to Austin, we decided to check out Patty Griffin. She didn’t seem too bad but given that we didn’t know much about her, it was kind of hard to really get into her set. So we headed out halfway through, got some food and then listened to the first half of the Slightly Stoopid set. I was hoping that G. Love would come out and join them for Mellow Mood and in fact G. Love did come out, but they sang a different song. Will and I decided that we’d leave early and get a killer spot for The Swell Season.
If you aren’t familiar with The Swell Season and you like folk music, make sure you do something about that. Many months ago Will suggested that I check out the soundtrack for the movie Once and that was the best music recommendation Will has ever given me. The soundtrack for the movie was written and performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (they also starred in the movie). So when Will informed me that The Swell Season was made up of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, I was very excited. We managed to get some spots a few feet from the stage and the show firmly cemented the desire to see the two of them in concert again. Especially because we headed out fifteen minutes early to see Donavan Frankenreiter.
If you follow my blog, you may remember me blogging about how amazing the Donavan Frankenreiter show was at the Outside Lands Festival and that was an experience I wanted to duplicate, so I was very motivated to get a good spot for the set. My Dad and brother didn’t feel the same need so they hung out a bit further back in the crowd while Will and I managed to be close enough to touch the stage. Once again the show did not disappoint. Donavan was as fantastic as always and clearly seemed to be enjoying himself.
But what made this show special for me was when G. Love joined Donavan on the stage. I passed on seeing the G. Love show in favor of The Swell Season, a choice that wasn’t easy to make. So it warmed my heart to be able to see him join in on both “What’cha Know About” and “It Don’t Matter”.
Normally at shows I spend a good amount of energy taking photos. But for this festival I took a grand total of 15 pictures, 15! Last year I took ten times this many photos and frankly it felt very strange to not have a camera in my hand the entire time. But I have a good excuse, I promise.
Shortly before the festival this year I went to a JJ Grey & Mofro concert and during the concert I was wishing that I could share what I was hearing with others. Then it hit me, I could totally share what I was hearing if I got some recording equipment. I did some research online, got myself a portable recorder and I already had a mic so it was easy to get something simple going (I’ll share the details of my setup in a later post).
I played around with the recorder and various mic positions earlier in the day and by the time the Donavon show came around I was feeling fairly confident that I could get a good recording. So Will and I stood right up front, me grabbing the audio and Will grabbing some video. Not only was the set better than I expected, the quality of my recording exceeded every single expectation I had, almost to the point of tears :). Here’s the video of “It Don’t Matter” that Will shot:
Friday ended up being a very long day for all of us and we were all ready to get back to the hotel for some much needed rest. Between the sun, moving about and the music, one tends to feel pretty drained at the end of the day. But that’s actually a pretty good demonstration of exactly how amazing these festivals are. It’s the memories that are made hearing so many amazing artists with such amazing friends that makes it all so worthwhile.
Concert: JJ Grey & Mofro
September 14, 2008
I know, it wasn’t that long ago that I blogged about JJ Grey & Mofro but trust me, my listening habits aren’t centered around this one band. It just happens that their albums are amazing, they recently released Orange Blossoms and played the last two nights at The Independent in San Francisco.
The combination of leaving my place late and dealing with the never ending saga of parking around the venue made me miss the opening act, Hill Country Revue. This is a bummer because they appear to be a very talented bunch but thankfully I didn’t miss a minute of JJ Grey.
Most artists tend to play their most recent material at a concert and this show wasn’t an exception to that rule. But I was pleasantly surprised at much material they also played from prior albums. They hit up Jookhouse and Brighter Days off of their first album Blackwater. They played the title track off of Lochloosa as well as Fireflies. Off of Country Ghetto they included War, Footsteps, Turpentine, Mississippi and possibly others (I was too involved in the music to make set notes).
Personally this was exactly the type of set that I was hoping for, one that mixes both the past and the present. However, the audience reaction wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The title track off of Orange Blossoms is a full on rocking song that tells a great story. I thought for sure the crowd would react strongly to the song but they didn’t. My guess is that the album is just so new that most fans haven’t had the chance to absorb it yet. Those fans are in for a treat when they do.
Also to my surprise was the fact that seemingly everyone in the audience sang along to Lochloosa. That track was released four years ago and really goes to show how strong and loyal the fan base is for the band.
At the end of the almost two hour long set I was wishing that I had gotten tickets for the Friday night show as well. So I will guarentee that you can find me at another one of their shows down the road.
Avoiding Bad Haircuts
September 6, 2008
Thankfully it grows back. That’s what I keep telling myself during and after a bad haircut. But as my hair gets a little thinner, that statement gets a little less comforting all the time. So I’m thinking it might be time to start taking a more active and less passive approach when it comes to deciding who cuts my hair.
The catalyst for this thought is the fact that I recently moved. While parts of moving can suck (boxes, utilities, general disruption, etc), the absolute worst part is finding all the people that you infrequently visit. People like a new doctor, barber and taxidermist. Being a healthy guy without pets, naturally the need to find a new barber was encountered first.
The need for a haircut tends to sneak up on me. One day it’s not on my mind, the next day it’s screaming at me to do something about. This was the case I found myself in one day last week. So I figured I’d get some work done in the morning and then head out in the afternoon and find a place to get the job done.
One thing led to another and the next thing I knew it was 7pm and not only had I skipped lunch, my hair was still too long as well. Damn. So I knew that the haircut would probably have to wait but I decided to walk downtown and grab some food. I managed to find a mexican place that was so good that it took my mind off of my shaggy head. But then on the walk home I actually found a barber that was open! Unbelievable.
Sadly it was Great Clips. Even sadder is that I went in. Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the food that I just ate or the feeling that I wouldn’t have to sleep with this mess on my head another night. I’m not sure, but I should know better than to make the mistake of asking, “do you have enough time for another haircut?”.
That question should never be asked. If it’s close enough to closing time where you have to ask if there is time for a 15 minute haircut, walk away and come back the next day. Why? For the same reason you don’t want to order fast food right before they close, these people are anxious to get the hell out of there. And when someone has fairly sharp instruments that close to my head I’d like them to be thinking about the tasks at hand, not the tasks at home.
This wasn’t the only sign that I should have continued on my way. After the woman responded with a confidence inspiring “sure”, she asked me for my phone number. Not because she was attracted to me but because she wanted to enter it into the computer. After telling it to her three times and her still not getting it right I decided that it was best left incorrect. None of this really bothers me, in fact I’d prefer if they didn’t have my real phone number.
The reality of what I got myself into slammed home when she also couldn’t understand the fairly simply description of how I wanted my hair cut. “Tapered up the sides and an inch or so left on the top”, I have a hard time thinking of a simpler haircut that one would actually pay for. After repeating myself she responded by saying, “I love your accent, are you from England?”. You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m from Iowa and the only accent I can even impersonate is a northern one don’t ya know.
What could I do at this point? I’ve got that neck based apron on so it’s hard to just run away. Calling the woman an idiot or actually saying anything that was in my head at the moment isn’t going to help one bit. So I bit my tongue, closed my eyes and told myself “it grows back”.
But if you say that to yourself for too long you’re liable to just blurt it out at some point. So instead of dealing with that awkwardness I decided to think of all the other signs that you’re in for a bad haircut. I remembered this one time I got my haircut in college (also at a Great Clips, what’s wrong with me) by this guy that had the ugliest hair I’ve ever seen in my life, it made mullets jealous. It literally looked like he sculpted his hair into a bird and no, this wasn’t in the 80’s. If someone thinks that style is good enough for themselves, who knows what you’ll walk away looking like.
After remembering that story I couldn’t help but wonder about Great Clips itself. I’m always suspect of any company who’s name implies quality. It just feels a little arrogant and insulting to me, especially because there isn’t much that’s great about them.
Thankfully when I opened my eyes at the end of my haircut the result wasn’t as bad as I expected. She didn’t do a great job, but nobody has laughed at me so by some measure it’s a success. But I’m going to find myself in this exact same position in a few weeks and I clearly need all the help I can get. So if anyone has ideas for other things to watch out for, I’d love to hear them.
Outside Lands: Day Three
August 26, 2008
I intended to write this post yesterday but the three days of fantastic music soaked up all of my energy. I still can’t quite get over how special this festival was and I’ll be amazed if they can get as impressive of a lineup next year (hopefully San Francisco won’t object to having the festival again either).
I busted my ass Sunday morning to make sure I had enough time to blog about Saturday and still be able to get to the park before ALO started at 1. I managed to get there around 12:30 which was early enough to land me a spot right up by the stage. I first saw ALO when they opened for Jack Johnson at the Greek Theater, same concert they filmed A Weekend at the Greek at. Based off of the audience participation and how many people showed up for the show it seems like the band is building a good fan base, including myself.
Next up was Stars. I haven’t spent much time listening to Stars but they were at the same stage as ALO so I figured I’d give them a listen. There was a bit of conflict inside me because The Mother Hips were playing at the same time and I’m a fan of them and their lead guy Tim Bluhm. The Stars show wasn’t bad but in hindsight I wish I would have gone to The Mother Hips. But I did head out a bit early to get to the next show, Bon Iver.
Bon Iver (french for “good winter”) is one hell of an artist and performer. He wrote and recorded most of his first album during a four month stay in a hunting cabin in Wisconsin and it generated a very unique and fascinating feeling for the album. His shows feature a massive amount of percussion, sometimes played by every member in the band. I was shocked at how big the crowd was for his show and even more shocked at how involved they were. I’ve never heard an audience sing like they did during the song The Wolves, it was really very amazing and something that will be difficult to experience again.
Because of Bon Iver I wasn’t able to catch the opening of Andrew Bird which is a bummer but a conscious choice. I’ve been listening to Andrew Bird since the release of Swimming Hour. His music is probably difficult for most people to really get into but it is well worth the effort. At his shows, Bird plays both a violin and an electric guitar, mixing them together quite skillfully with a looper.
After the Andrew Bird show my day hit a bit of a Lull for a while. Jack Johnson was the closing act for the day and I’m such a huge fan that I couldn’t stand the thought of not having a good spot, this didn’t come without some costs.
I was going to miss out on most of the Broken Social Scene set as well as all of Wilco. I’ve seen Wilco a number of times so I was able to deal with that loss. So I headed over to the Lands End stage where Jack would be playing in 2.5 hours. I was actually able to get shockingly close to the stage, especially when the act before Jack started to play and people shifted around. That act was Rodrigo y Gabriela and honestly I could have done without them.
Their set started out quite impressive and it’s obvious that both of them are quite talented but in my mind their set lacked depth. It was just the two of them on stage with acoustic guitars and it’s essentially an hour long jam session between the two of them. It’s an impressive jam session but that’s all it was. No lyrics and highly repetitive. The crowd was the most energetic when Rodrigo would work in some familiar chords from popular songs. I’m not sure, but this might tell you something about what sticks with people and what they want to hear. But don’t get me wrong, I respect their talent, it was just a bit much for me after 30 minutes.
After their set we had a 45 minute break until Jack came on. It was so crowded up in the front that during this time I couldn’t sit down or really even move but somehow the time managed to fly by.
Anyone that knows my musical tastes probably knows how much I love Jack Johnson. I’ve been listening to him since the beginning of his career and no artist resonates with me more than he does. His music has this fantastic ability of being laid back while delivering an amazingly powerful message and that mood is paralleled perfectly in his live performances.
Jack Johnson breaking out the electric guitar
Merlo Podlewski doing some freestyle rapping
Zach Gill up front with his accordion
This mood makes for a show that has a hard time going wrong. During the performance on Sunday there was this spider on Jack’s microphone that simply wouldn’t go away and as you can imagine, Jack was finding it hard to sing into this mic. But instead of letting it bother him he simply shared with us (in the middle of a song) what he was seeing and we all had a laugh. Being this playful with the crowd really seems to get people involved.
This involvement is what makes the live shows so powerful. Everyone sings, even those that truly suck at singing and it’s great. To have that many people together singing songs about what’s gone so wrong in this world as well as all the things that are so right is something that I find so comforting that it’s hard to express in words.
For me this is what life is all about, weekends like this. Like so many other things in our lives, most days go by without leaving any imprint in our memory. They tend to blur together into a stream of events rather than individual moments. But it’s the points in life that are jagged that you can’t forget. Moments that break your cycle and put you somewhere totally different for a while. This festival is one of those moments and because of that it’s something that will stay in my memory for as long as I have one. Thanks to everyone involved in the festival for breaking my cycle and the tens of thousands of others that also attended.
Outside Lands: Day Two
August 24, 2008
For the last couple years I’ve been going to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and I’ve been fortunate enough to have my best friends there with me. So being at the Outside Lands festival without them makes me a bit sad, especially with the amazing lineup that they have.
The beginning of the day didn’t feature any artists that I was hugely familiar with so I decided that I’d do some live music browsing. This is one of the greatest things about large music festivals, with three bands playing at any given time you can sample a bunch of new artists and see what they are like in their element. I checked out a couple songs from Dredg then made my way over to long time locals The Coup. The Coup was playing at a stage right next to the festival merchandise area and I wanted to pick up one of the festival posters, so I ducked out a little early to go pick one up.
This is where I have my only complaint of the festival, merchandise. Tons of people want to buy t-shirts and other memorabilia at these festivals but it appears like they didn’t plan all that well for this one. Granted it is the first time they are putting on this festival so I will cut them a little slack, but there’s plenty of other festivals to model things after.
All I wanted was a poster, simple enough. I had seen them on Friday but got so annoyed with the people running the booth that I gave up and decided to come back early Saturday. I was shocked and very disappointed when I learned that the posters had already sold out! How could they be running out of things when it’s just a couple hours into the second day of a three day festival? I’m not sure but I wish it wasn’t the case.
Fortunately there is plenty of good music to cheer me up and I was going to go check out Liars. I listened to their opening song and honestly wasn’t feeling them so I moved on to see what Sean Hayes was like. Good choice on my part, Hayes was fantastic. He had a really playful and fun mood about him and it was clear that he was excited to be there.
M Ward was playing right next door after Sean Hayes closed his set so it was a no brainer to go check him out. His set was very easy to listen to, even if you aren’t familiar with his music but I only stuck around for the first half of it. Donavon Frankenreiter was playing shortly and I needed to be up front for that show.
Donavon Frankenreiter
I got to Donavon Frankenreiter’s set about an hour early and people were already starting to gather. Fortunately I was only a few feet from the stage and incredibly excited to be there. My best friend Alex turned me on to his music a few years ago and somehow I hadn’t managed to see him in concert yet, a problem that would soon be resolved.
During the 35 minute set he managed to play songs from both of his full length albums including two of my favorites “Free” and “Move By Yourself”. I love artists like Frankenreiter because they have passion for the songs that they sing and respect for the people that listen to them and it’s never more evident than when they are playing a live show.
About to hand the mic to the crowd
On many occasions I’ve tried to explain to people why I love going to live shows where I can be right in the front of the audience, especially smaller venues and artists that aren’t mainstream. This show by Frankenreiter is the prefect example of why I am so addicted to these types of concerts. He closed his set by playing “It Don’t Matter”, not only is this a fantastic song, his performance was truly amazing. The chorus of the song goes “If it don’t matter to you, it don’t matter to me” and at the end of the song Donavon climbed down off the stage and into the crowd bring along the mic. He then gave the mic to the crowd and allowed us to sing into it. This was one of the greatest moments of my life because I was right there, singing the chorus into the mic at a Donavon Frankenreiter show. The trust that you have to have with your crowd to do that is something that you simply don’t find with larger artists. Simply amazing. I just hope our singing didn’t suck.
I was so excited that I immediately had to call Alex and share the experience with him while walking to the Ben Harper show. I’ve seen Ben Harper a number of times so I hung out in the back of the pack for the first few songs then made my way over to the Sutro stage because Cake was performing shortly. I became a Cake fan after the radio stopped over playing “The Distance” but I’ve also never seen them in live.
I got to the stage where Cake was playing early enough to once again be right in the front. Cake has such a deep bench when it comes to great songs to play and they had no problem filling the hour with a crowd pleasing set. They even took a moment during the show to give away a potted tree to a fan that was able to tell them what type of tree it was. In exchange for this tree, the person had to plant it and send Cake a picture of the tree to put on their website every couple years. I personally think this is such an awesome and creative thing for them to do.
The crowd was so pleased with the set that at the end of it almost nobody left. We all stood there cheering and chanting, trying to get them to come back on the stage. This almost never happens at a music festival because they have to adhere to such tight schedules and I think it made some people kind of nervous. Here we had at least 10,000 people all wanting the set to continue but the sad fact is that it can’t, and it didn’t. But it was still a fantastic show and a fantastic crowd.
The last act for the day was Tom Petty. I like Tom Petty but I don’t love him, I can listen to his music but I won’t buy any of it. Mostly because he’s too popular and that makes it really hard to get up close and interact with the performance. So with 30 minutes left of the set I decided to beat the crowds and head out early.
Even though I didn’t have my best friends around to enjoy such an amazing day, it was still exactly that, an amazing day. The only thing that I expect will beat it is day three: ALO, The Mother Hips, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Broken Social Scene, Rogue Wave, Widespread Panic, Wilco and best of all Jack Johnson.
Outside Lands: Day One
August 23, 2008
Yesterday was the first day of the first ever Outside Lands music festival and so far I’m having a blast.
I talked Evan into joining me for the day so we left for Golden Gate Park around 4pm. Given that parking around the park is hard enough on a regular weekend we figured it would be exceptionally painful for this event. However, we easily found a spot just four blocks south of the park off of 19th street. That left us with about 20 blocks to walk but I was honestly expecting things to be worse.
As soon as I took my bag out of the car I realized something, I forgot my pass! How could I do such a thing. I managed to remember sunscreen, a flashlight, a blanket, two cameras, extra batteries and a water bottle but not the most important item. At first I wanted to drive back to my place and pick it up but Evan talked some sense into me. We figured it would be better to just buy a new ticket for the day and not miss two hours of the festival going to get mine.
During our 20 block walk, we thought up a few other ideas as well. The show wasn’t sold out so maybe I could pick up a ticket for less than face value. It’s also a big park so maybe there is a chance that I could sneak in, after all it wouldn’t even be stealing. But before we tried anything the plan was to see if they could just reissue my ticket. After about 30 minutes waiting in line, a new ticket was in hand. Smiles all around.
First up we caught the end of Black Mountain who I’d never heard of but was really quite talented so I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to see more of them. Next up we headed over to check out Manu Chao, another band that I didn’t have a chance to check out beforehand. We stuck around for a while but cut out early because Lyrics Born was going to be playing at the stage next door.
I love Blackalicious and Lyrics Born has worked with them and others on many occasions so I was excited to check them out. The show was fantastic, loud, packed with people, very energetic and all around entertaining. I was quite pleased that we cut out of Manu Chao early to get a good spot.
Next up was Radiohead, the headliner for the night. I’ve listened to Radiohead off and on but have never called myself a fan. But when I learned that they would be at the festival I figured that I needed to really sit down and listen to their albums. In the process I found myself really enjoying a number of the tracks from In Rainbows so I was quite excited to see them in concert.
Because we checked out Lyrics Born beforehand, we weren’t all that close to the stage which is a bit of a bummer because it was a pretty cool show. But the biggest bummer was that during the performance the audio completely cut out, twice. I’m curious what the cause was but thankfully the problem was resolved both times and the show continued.
Overall day one was a ton of fun and I can’t wait to get there today.
Bohlman On Orbit
August 10, 2008
Last Friday was Mark Logic’s summer BBQ and in the tradition of things getting better every year, this year it was held in Saratoga Springs. Given that there is some fantastic riding in this area, Evan, John and I decided that we should do some cycling before the BBQ started. We did a quick 9 mile loop up Hwy 9, down Redwood Gulch and then back to Saratoga Springs via Mt Eden and Pierce Rd. It was a great ride to start off the day with.
However, after Evan and I got some food in us and were totally annihilated in foosball we started thinking that we should go for another ride. I’d heard from my friend Bill of this fantastically difficult climb in the area called Bohlman On Orbit. Bill was quite insistent that this was one of the hardest climbs in the area so I suggested to Evan that we give it a go, he was game.
The climb starts right off of 6th Street in downtown Saratoga at an elevation of about 600 feet. After a small bit of residential area the road narrows and the grade increases to about 10%. Ten minutes into the climb the grade had not let up, Evan and I started wondering if it was going to flatten out at all and give us a little break. We jinxed ourselves.
20% grade on a section of Bohlman
Turns out Bill was right, this climb is relentless. The road is filled with switchbacks and they aren’t just for looks, this road seriously needs them. If you don’t find the average grade of 10% challenging enough don’t get depressed, harder sections are ahead.
One of the toughest parts of this climb is the mental exhaustion. Things get challenging when you’re working fairly hard on a climb and the road is steeper than normal yet you look up ahead and don’t quite believe your eyes. You think to yourself, how can this be? A quick check of the cycling computer tells you that you’re on a 12% grade and yet it appears to be flat in contrast to what you will soon be facing. To top things off you can see a corner up ahead and this is the point where the optimistic viewpoint of thinking, “it may flatten out after the bend” is lost.
Pessimism proves to be right as you find out that the climb leading up to the turn is a 20% grade, the turn itself is 22% and then it settles right back down to an all too familiar 20% grade.
After about 1000 feet of this painful climbing there is a Y in the road. Bohlman continues to the right and On Orbit goes off to the left. Knowing that On Orbit is the steeper of the two, Evan and I naturally had to take it.
Riding up On Orbit Evan made the observation that the road is very correctly named because we thought for sure that we had climbed enough to actually be orbiting the Earth. Evan was clearly feeling a bit stronger than I was because all I could think of was how insane this climb is. Shortly after this Evan and I both agreed that to really be into cycling there has to be a part of you that deep down loves pain. So I think we’re in agreement on how difficult this road is.
Life On Orbit isn’t all bad however, the views are quite spectacular and it gives you a great feeling of accomplishment. There’s also one section that is about 1/10th of a mile long where the grade is a very welcome 6% (as a comparison, interstate 70 that passes through the Colorado Rockies is roughly a 6% grade). But make no mistake, On Orbit is brutal and an absolute ass kicker. The average grade is about 14% with sections going up to 22% and is just over a half mile long.
Once you reach the top of On Orbit there is a slight downhill section before it meets up with Bohlman again. The speed of this 100 foot descent feels quite nice and cools you down a bit before the last 500 feet to the top. The climb calms down a bit after it meets up with Bohlman. There is a couple sections with a 16% grade but overall if you’ve made it this far, making it to the top shouldn’t be a problem.
The last half mile or so runs along the ridge line at the top. It’s a perfect time to relax a little bit and look around at what you’ve accomplished. Bohlman is a dead end at the top, however, there is a fire road that continues on and connects up with Montevina Road after about a mile. Taking this will eventually get you close to the intersection of Black Rd and Hwy 17. I think the next time I do this climb I’m going to continue on this path and turn the ride into a loop (Bohlman, Montevina, Black, Skyline, Hwy 9).
So overall I loved the climb. It has all the right ingredients, challenging, beautiful views, low traffic and can be accomplished. You won’t find me doing it every week, but once a month would be fine with me.
Randy Pausch and My Excuses
July 26, 2008
Like a lot of people, sometimes my mind tends to make problems harder than they really are. I think we do this for problems that we’re somewhat afraid to tackle. Telling ourselves that they are really hard gives us an excuse for not solving them. Excuses are just like junk food, they make you feel better for a short while, you know you shouldn’t have them in your life and they end up hurting you over the long haul.
Lately I’ve been pretty good at keeping the junk food out of my diet but honestly I’ve allowed my brain to consume a bit too much of it. Feeding your head all those excuses only fills it with fatty thoughts which makes it harder and harder to truly solve the original problem. I was feeling kind of bummed about this situation I’ve put myself into earlier tonight, combine that with a head full of excuses and you’ve got a situation that should be avoided.
Over the years, I’ve found that distraction can be key in these situations. I distract myself long enough to stop feeling bummed, then I can work on clearing out the excuses effectively. So tonight I decided to catch up on some reading, Wired Science Blog to be exact.
I was reading through yesterdays stories when I got to this one about Randy Pausch. The blog pointed to a lecture that he gave about accomplishing your childhood dreams which seemed so wonderfully inspiring that I felt the need to watch it. The video was 85 minutes long and right from the start I knew it would be an enjoyable 85 minutes.
Randy talked about the dreams that he had as a child and then explained how he managed to accomplish them. In the course of this, I discovered that he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and that he’d spent a large portion of his career working in virtual reality. Being someone that worked in the virtual reality lab at Iowa State University for two years, my interest was growing.
In high school I was fortunate enough to visit the Iowa State campus and tour their virtual reality lab. The work they were doing was so spectacular that I couldn’t get my mind off of it. When it came time to decide what college to go to, my parents and I visited ISU and I made sure to stop by the virtual reality lab and see if I could talk to someone there. One of the students was kind enough to not blow me off and actually described a bit of the technology they were using. I made sure to stash this info safely in my head.
My choice to attend Iowa State was strongly motivated by my dream to work in this lab. One of the required skills was being familiar with SGI computers and during the summer of my freshman year I managed to purchase one for $225. This computer was a wonderful SGI Indigo with a R3000 CPU at 33MHz. It was the first computer that I’d ever purchased and honestly I knew nothing about how to use it. But damn, I was motivated to figure it out. By the end of my sophomore year I had become quite proficient with this machine and decided that I’d walk down to the VR lab and see if I could start to volunteer my time.
I talked to a professor there named Judy Vance and as it turns out, she had money to actually pay me for my time. I can only remember one other time in my life when I’ve felt as excited as I did at that moment, my dream had been realized.
I loved the work that they had me doing and I learned such a wide variety of skills. Then Judy asked if I could help out the Society of Women Engineers on a project. They were working with Carnegie Mellon University to setup these very inexpensive VR systems with the goal of getting kids involved in programming. My job was to help them with some hardware interfaces, something that I’d worked on for a previous project. The only difference was that this time it needed to be interfaced to this virtual reality software called Alice.
This project was kind of exciting for me, it isn’t often that geeks get to literally work with a room full of women and have some loose ties to CMU. However, to be honest, at this point my attention was shifting away from virtual reality and over to search engines and I couldn’t get myself dedicated to the project.
Now here’s the amazing part. Alice was developed at CMU… by Randy Pausch! The man that I’ve been watching give this fantastic lecture is the same guy that we were working with to setup this virtual reality program for kids and I didn’t even know it. In all likelihood, my boss Judy Vance knew Randy Pausch. I continued watching the lecture with more enthusiasm now than ever.
Overall Randy shared some truly fantastic advice. Advice like, “when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce him”, “when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore that means they gave up”, “experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”, “get a feedback loop and listen to it”, etc. It’s well worth the time to watch and it’s exactly what I needed to really motivate me to ditch the excuses that I’ve been struggling with for a while now.
Not only was it inspiring because Randy Pausch is a smart guy with good advice, it’s also inspiring because he gave this lecture after finding out that he had 4-6 months left to live due to pancreatic cancer. To see someone in this situation with such a good sense of humor (complete with quasi Jim Carry facial expressions) is a very awesome thing. I’d think that it would be so easy to fill those last 6 months with excuses but instead he did what he needed to do.
Randy Pausch died yesterday, July 25th 2008, at the age of 47.
Vindicated Vinyl
July 22, 2008
A while ago my friend and fellow music lover Liz asked me why I liked vinyl so much. At the time I gave her the same answer that I give almost everyone, it simply has a good feeling to it. But that’s kind of a bullshit answer to the question, what does “good feeling” even mean?
My intention with that answer has never been to give people the run around or to pretend that I’m some kind of pompous connoisseur. I’ve given that answer because I’ve never really sat down and thought about the mysterious draw that it has on me. Because I don’t really enjoy giving Liz bullshit answers, I sat down for a few minutes after she left and tried to figure out exactly what it is about vinyl that I love so much.
First off, vinyl appeals to the geek in me because it’s an engineering marvel. When you think about the very small electrical signals that are generated by the needle moving a coil between some magnets and how those signals are so carefully amplified by the phono stage before hitting the preamplifier then going down the line to the power amplifier and finally reproducing the exact same movements on a much larger scale in your speakers. It’s a purely mechanical and analog system and it’s alone in this sense. The technology has been around since the first recordings and still manages to amaze me that it actually works.
Not only does it work, it actually works quite well. People talk about how vinyl has a warm sound to it, and in an effort to describe things succinctly, I guess that’s a fair description. But to my ear, that warm sound is actually the sound of imperfection. Some might get confused at this point and wonder how imperfection in an audio system could be considered a good thing.
One of my all time favorite bloggers was Kathy Sierra. Her blog was called “Creating Passionate Users” and it clued me into a number of things regarding human nature. One of those things was the fact that we are somewhat drawn to a small amount of randomness. If that isn’t obvious to you, think about it for a short while. What’s more interesting, a person that is perfect or a person with some flaws? A perfect person may sound nice on the surface but I’m sure we would all find that person boring after a short while. I believe that this draw to the imperfect is partly what makes vinyl enjoyable.
Another thing that I love about vinyl is that it really forces you to listen to the music. It takes so much effort to skip a track on a record that you end up not bothering. Maybe we should give kids that can’t concentrate a pile of records and a turntable instead of prescribing them ritalin.
Really good albums tend to have a story to tell, each track being a chapter and in a way I feel that I owe it to these artists to listen to what they have to say in the order they intended… at least once. To be honest, I have found myself quite annoyed that I couldn’t easily go back and listen to the same song again once it ends. But in time I realized that this was actually a fantastic thing. How many times have you found yourself listening to the same song on an album over and over again because it’s so good and leaving the rest of the album untouched? I’ve found myself in this trap many times and one sure fire way to cure it is to make it a royal pain to put things on repeat.
While my collection of vinyl records is far from huge, I do take every opportunity that I get to purchase vinyl at concerts. On the plus side, vinyl is frequently more profitable for the artist and I’m all about supporting them. Another little known fact is that today you frequently get a digital copy (without any DRM) when you purchase a record. This makes it so easy to have your cake and eat it too.
So keep an open mind. If you’re fortunate enough to find a good turntable and are able to hook it up to your system, you might want to consider it. Hopefully you’ll experience the same combination of relaxation, excitement and enjoyment that I do while fully exploring what the artist is sharing.
Ryan Grimm 