fantabulousness

Hiking Newberry National Volcanic Monument

dylane1 — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:14:08 +0000

Paulina Peak, and The Big Obsidian Flow below
(click for larger image)

Recently I made a trip to Central Oregon's Newberry National Volcanic Monument (pictures) to do a bit of hiking with my friend Yariv who was passing through the state on a road trip. Even though it was July, there was still a ton of snow on the ground up in the higher elevations of the park, making the hike a bit more challenging.

Newberry Volcano is a large shield volcano covering over 500 square miles. The Newberry Caldera, aka Newberry Crater, is a five mile wide caldera containing two lakes. The most recent eruption was about 1,300 years ago and created the Big Obsidian Flow — a massive flow of black glass and pumice that covers a large portion of the southern caldera wall. The highest point on the volcano is Paulina Peak, at 2434 meters (7984 ft.).

This was a bit like a homecoming for me — years ago, I worked for the US Forest Service, and I've spent a lot of time working in Newberry Crater. I was a crew leader for the Youth Conservation Corps back in the day, and I lead one of several trail crews that cleared and maintained the trails within the caldera. I hadn't been back to Newberry since leaving the Forest Service back in the late 90s.

Yariv and I decided to make a go for the summit, despite all the snow in the area. After a brief walk around on Obsidian Flow, we made our way up the southern wall of the caldera to the Crater Rim Trail — about 4 miles of steep trail with lots of switchbacks and a lot of snow. The Crater Rim Trail was mostly flat, but covered in even more snow, and at one point we completely lost the trail and had to guesstimate our location and trudge on through the snow until we found the trail again a few hundred meters later. The hike to the top was not all that difficult, but it was long. In all, we hiked just under 11 miles from the Obsidian Flow, up to the peak, then back down to where we'd parked one of our cars near the western trail head.

Panorama of the rim of The Dome
(click for larger image)

After the day's hike, we made our way to a cinder cone called "The Dome" on the eastern slope of Newberry Crater. The Dome is a great spot for star gazing, and I'd hoped to get some long exposure photos up there, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, and we were chased off the cinder cone by a sudden rain storm. Not the best way to end a day at Newberry. I suppose July is just too early for any high-elevation hiking in Oregon.

Check out my pictures of Newberry Crater.

location:

Oregon, USA

Four new photo galleries posted

dylane1 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 02:32:28 +0000

I've finally gotten around to working on photos that I've taken since coming back to the States. There are galleries for New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, and pictures from a recent trip to Newberry National Volcanic Monument in Central Oregon. Enjoy!

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

Vancouver, BC, TBEX 2011, and Game five of the Stanley Cup

dylane1 — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:27:33 +0000

The Drop — Vancouver, BC Waterfront
(click for larger image)

A couple of weekends ago, I traveled to Vancouver, BC for the Travel Bloggers Exchange (TBEX) conference—a place for travel bloggers to meet and talk shop, as well as meet people in the travel industry. I was looking forward to this because I wanted to get some inspiration, and to meet some of the bloggers, and podcasters I regularly follow.

While there, I stayed at the Samesun Backpackers Hostel. The Samesun is located in the heart of downtown, and features dorm and private rooms, as well as a restaurant/bar downstairs with cheap beer and food. I chose to stay in a four person dorm, and the room was clean, the lockers solid and secure, and the bed was actually comfortable—so much nicer than what I was used to overseas. I shared the room with a British guy who was in town looking for work, and a young Eastern Canadian couple out touring the West. Of course, it is a hostel, and I had the misfortune of being woken up several times during my stay by the young couple "gettin' busy" in the bunk above me. Note: earplugs don't help when the whole damned bed is shaking.... Other than that, I did enjoy my stay at the Samesun.

TBEX

The conference was interesting; it took place at the Vancouver Convention Center, and involved speakers and workshops during the days, and then a LOT of partying and socializing during the nights. There were parties, then after-parties, then after-after-parties. Actually, it became clear that the event was more about meeting people than what was going on during the daytime. That said, I did get some good ideas for the site, and learned a lot about blogging—mostly about stuff I need to work on to improve my writing. Oh well, I'm still learning.

The highlight was being able to talk to some of the podcasters and bloggers I follow. I met the hosts of one of my favorite travel podcasts, This Week in Travel: Jen Leo, who is also the lead blogger at the LA Times Travel Blog, Chris Christensen, who also hosts Amateur Traveler—another of my favorite travel podcasts, and Gary Arndt of Everything-Everywhere.com, which was named one of Time's 20 best blogs of 2010. In fact, I was able to attend a live episode of the show while I was there. I also met a bunch of cool people who write interesting blogs I'd not heard of before, including Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads, and Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months, to name a couple.

Hockey

One thing I was not expecting on the trip was hockey mania. Turns out that game five of the Stanley Cup was being played in Vancouver that same weekend. I'm not really a hockey fan, but I figured this would be a great chance to watch a game and throw back a few Molson Canadians with some actual Canadian hockey fans. On game day, the hostel was planning to show it on the big screen in the bar. However, upon returning to the hostel after the recording of This Week in Travel, I found the bar already filled to capacity, and that I would not be able to watch the game there. In fact, I discovered I wouldn't be able to watch the game anywhere downtown—there were lines out the door of every club, pub, and restaurant in the downtown area. The streets were blocked off, and there was a steady flow of hockey fans in Canucks gear streaming into the city.

While the game was being played, I was at a TBEX party, but afterwards, I had a chance to wander the streets after the Canucks victory over Boston. The whole downtown area was overrun with celebrating fans. It was a wild scene full of people in blue Canucks gear, screaming, singing, dancing, and waving Canadian & Canucks flags. Below is a bit of video I took while wandering about.

Vancouver BC after game 5 of the Stanley Cup 2011 from dylan e on Vimeo.

location:

Vancouver, British Colombia

My first published travel article

dylanadmin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:37:15 +0000

Here's an article I wrote about riding a motorcycle in Nepal published on the Matador Network! I've recently started a travel writing course through MatadorU, and this was my first assignment. I hope you enjoy.

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

'Tis the season for a Meltdown

dylanadmin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:00:01 +0000

Stars and Headlamps—Memorial Meltdown 2011. 30 minute exposure.
(click for larger image)

This is my favorite time of year in the States—the beginning of the outdoor party season. Last weekend I made a road-trip down to California for Goa Gil's Memorial Meltdown—the party I look forward to most every year. The Gil party is the kickoff to the outdoor psytrance party campout season, for me anyway. This year it took place on Indian reservation land near Clear Lake, California, and was a long drive from where I live in Oregon—about 9 hours—but the Meltdown is worth the long hours of driving.

For those who don't know, Goa Gil is a DJ who plays psychedelic trance, or, more specifically, what many consider to be dark psychedelic trance). He's originally from San Francisco, but in 1969 he left for India, where he studied yoga. Eventually he started playing parties on the beaches of Goa, in an attempt to combine yoga and dance (I'm still not sure how that works...). Today, he plays all over the world; I've seen him play many times in California, and I've also traveled to see him play in Mexico and India. He plays twice a year in California—Memorial Meltdown, over the Memorial Day weekend, and then his Birthday Bash in October. At these parties he'll typically do a non-stop music set lasting about 24 hours, and the dance floor never stops for that time. It's a biannual ritual I always look forward to—the beginning and ending of the season.

Gil starting his set at Memorial Meltdown 2010
(click for larger image)

As is sometimes the case in Northern California this time of year, it had been raining in recent days, leaving the grassy land where the event took place slick and muddy, which in turn caused cars to get stuck, and forced people to park far from the camping areas surrounding the dance floor. That meant most people had to haul their gear a long distance before setting up camp. Another result of the recent rains is that there was poison oak in the area, though I didn't hear of anyone actually getting into it.

Gil started his set at around 10pm, and I prepared myself mentally for the long night ahead (the temperature would be cold, and the music dark). The best way to keep warm is to keep moving on the dance floor, though it pays to pace yourself because the music will be playing until the next night. The hours passed and the temperature dropped. I had come prepared with a fleece hoodie and down jacket, so I fared pretty well throughout the night. Of course, maybe the beer helped too.

After an intense, and bitterly cold night, the light of the coming sunrise lit up the eastern sky. Gil continued on, and everyone was along for the ride. Finally, the sun broke through the trees and the temperature began to rise. By mid-day it was warm and sunny. The music played on through afternoon, evening, nightfall, and eventually ended sometime around 10 pm. I was so tired by this time, I could hardly stand up, so I made my way back to my tent and collapsed.

Another successful Meltdown. Thank you to Gil, and all who came out to the party. I look forward to the Birthday Bash!

Check out the pictures and videos of Memorial Meltdown 2011 that Goa Gil took while he was playing.

Also check out my pictures from Memorial Meltdown 2010

location:

Northern California

Buried in Stuff

dylane1 — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:16:16 +0000

When I had planned my trip to Asia, I had assumed that I would be moving back to San Francisco after a year. While preparing to leave, I had to get rid of most of my belongings—pretty much all of which went to the Salvation Army, or on to the street corner in front of my place. However, I figured I would be returning, so I wanted to keep a few "essentials" for restarting in SF. I left boxes and boxes full of things that I thought I would want for a new apartment. Luckily I had friends who were nice enough to hold on to my stuff for me, so I would have things to get started when I returned.

It's clear now that I will not be moving back to San Francisco any time soon, and that all that "stuff" still needs to be dealt with. A couple of weeks ago I rented a minivan and drove down to the Bay Area to collect everything I'd left behind. It turned out to be a LOT of stuff actually. Some of the items I kept make sense, like my pots and pans, computer monitor, etc., but I look at some things and wonder "what the hell was I keeping that for?" What I once thought of as the "essentials", turn out to not be essential at all after living for a year and a half with just enough stuff to fit into my backpacks. It feels overwhelming to have so many "things", and it's not really a pleasant feeling. For the first few nights after I had unloaded all my boxes into the garage here, I would wake up in a panic thinking "what am I going to do with this," or "how will I sell that?"

At this point I feel much better having less "stuff", and I don't want to be weighed down by personal possessions any more. I felt much more freedom when I had just the things I could carry. It's a comfort to think that I can pack up everything I own at any moment and be on a plane to anyplace I wish. Now I feel like I've got a huge anchor around my neck in the form of a big pile of boxes, snowboards, guitars and various other items in the garage. So now I begin the task of processing all things I've been holding on to and getting them out of my life. Of course it's not going to be easy—many of the things I held onto, I kept for sentimental reasons, but that's something I'll just have to deal with.

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

Productivity and Getting Things Done

dylane1 — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:55:13 +0000

Before I left on my trip, and while working on building this site, I realized that I had a tough time with getting organized, and getting things done. So, I went on Amazon and started searching for self help books on productivity, time management, etc. That led me to a book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity—pretty relevant to what I was looking for, based on the title.... I read the book, and did use some of the techniques, but I never fully implemented it before I decided it was time to skip the country and see the world. However, I still think it's a great system, and since I've got a (somewhat daunting) pile of projects to work on at the moment, I've decided to give it another go—this time more seriously.

GTD is a "work-life management system" where you get all of the "stuff" out of your head and into lists of "actionable" tasks. Basically, you do a brain-dump of everything you need to do, or think about, no matter how big or small, and organize it into a trackable system. Get everything written down into lists of projects, which can be further broken down into lists of actual doable steps that can be reviewed often. After doing the initial dump of "stuff", it's amazing to see how many thoughts and ideas have just been hanging out in memory, and nagging at me—each adding a bit of stress, or anxiety to my life. Dumping all this stuff onto lists is an amazing feeling—a sort of mind cleanse.

I decided that keeping piles of paper lists would probably not work out too well for me, and may have been one of the reasons I didn't get into GTD the first time I tried it. So, I decided to go with a software based system for keeping track of my projects and next actions lists. There are a few of them out there, but I settled on OmniFocus
, and it's been a great tool so far, though I've only been using it for a short time. It's pretty well geared towards the GTD process.

Another technique I've been using to help with my goal of being more productive is called the Pomodoro Technique. This is sort of where the "rubber meets the pavement." While the GTD techniques help you clear your head and get things into lists of "next actions", the Pomodoro Technique is what I'm using to focus on the "doing". This is a very simple, but so far very effective way to keep focused on what you want to be doing. Basically you set a 25 minute timer (with audible second clicks) and work on one thing for that time, then take a 5 minute break. It can't get much simpler. The thing that keeps me focused the most is hearing the timer clicking. At first it was a bit distracting, but now I look forward to each Pomodoro.

So far, so good. I'm looking forward to being more productive....

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

Embracing Geekiness

dylane1 — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:24:43 +0000

As I look out the window right now at the grey skies, and drizzle, It's clear that it's still winter here in Eugene. As you'd expect in the Pacific Northwest, there's been a lot of rain, and it even snowed a couple of times while I've been here. That means I've been spending a lot of time indoors, and I've had a lot of time on my hands, so I've been trying to keep busy. And that means studying. No, I'm not back in school "officially", but I've decided to sort of put myself through my own school by working on projects.

Drupal

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm planning to give this site a makeover, and I've decided to make the jump from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. For those who don't know, Drupal is an open source content management system and framework for building database driven websites, and is what I used to build this site. Even though I've cursed it quite a bit in the past—I think because of its pretty steep learning curve—it's grown on me now, and I would like to delve deeper into the world of Drupal. And now with Drupal 7, and the Foundation Drupal 7 book I just picked up, perhaps I'll have a better understanding of Drupal, and a much smoother development process this time around.

Since I don't want to be developing the site "live" I decided I needed to get a solid development environment set up on my mac, So recently I've installed MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP), and set it up for a Drupal 7 multisite environment. So once I get the site built locally, it should (hopefully) be a simple matter of installing Drupal 7 on my host server and just moving the site over. We shall see....

In addition to learning Drupal 7, I've decided to build an iPhone app as well. I'll reveal more about that later when I've gotten further along on the project. So far I'm only at the "Hello World" stage—I just put my "Hello World" app on my iPod yesterday (also serves as a free flashlight app!). Of course this is a great excuse to purchase an iPhone, since I'll be needing to test the GPS features I plan to incorporate into the app. The fact that I need an iPhone is a great excuse to make a trip up to Canada to purchase an unlocked iPhone (since I have no intention of using the iPhone as a phone, and getting locked into some ridiculous contract with AT&T or Verizon).

So that is where I'm at this point. I plan on making a trip down to San Francisco and Sacramento next week, and am really looking forward to hanging out with friends I haven't seen in far too long.

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

Hanging out in Oregon

dylane1 — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:58:15 +0000

Hello all. Well, I'm back in the US, and living in Eugene Oregon now. Not too long ago, I learned of some family matters that required my presence back home, so I cut my trip short and returned to the US. Actually, I've been back in the States for a while, but have not posted much to the site because, now that my travel plans have been put on hold, I'm not entirely sure what direction to take the site in while I'm taking a break from being on the road. I have a few ideas up my sleeve, so I hope to start pumping out more content in the coming months.

For the time being I'll be working on giving the site a facelift, as well as working on some non-site projects -- more on those later. I do plan to continue with my travels through Asia, and while I'll be taking care of things on this side of the pond, I'll also be planning for the next leg of my journey in the future.

I Hope everyone had a great holiday season, a happy new year, and all that good stuff....

Cheers!

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA

New pictures posted

dylane1 — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 02:31:49 +0000

After a long long delay, I've finally posted pictures from my latest trip to Nepal. Check the out here!

location:

Eugene, Oregon, USA