Sci-Fi Hi-Fi

I’ve come to an unexpected realization about the Bay Area in the past week: it turns out that I really love the place in the winter. Unlike Denver, where it gets cold and snowy this time of year, the recent weather around here has been bracingly cool and intermittently rainy—pretty much my ideal climate!

On Sunday morning, I took a walk from my apartment to one of Cupertino’s local hangouts, the Donut Wheel (which really shows you what a happening place the town is!), and noticed that some rather dramatic clouds had descended over the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. Rather than spend the day cleaning up around the apartment, as I had planned, I decided to throw my camera in the car, queue up the Blue States’ Man Mountain on my iPod (“Season Song” is number 1 with a bullet on my current favorites list), and indulge my love of rainy weather by going for a scenic drive.

Without really knowing where I was going, I headed south toward Saratoga, took CA-9 into the mountains, and followed CA-35 north toward San Francisco. I traveled as far as the point where the road splits, with Half Moon Bay on one side and San Francisco on the other (if I had remembered to bring a map I would have probably noticed how close Half Moon Bay was and continued on—oh well…). Along the way I saw little mountain towns, vineyards, verdant forests, fogs so dense I could barely see the road ahead of me, and vista points that provided occasional glimpses of both San Francisco Bay and the Pacific—and all of this no more than a half hour from the sprawling Silicon Valley metroplex!

Not to suggest, of course, that I don’t miss “real” winter weather from time to time (it seems particularly odd to see Christmas decorations going up without a trace of snow), but I have to admit it’s nice to find myself in the dead of winter and still feeling like staying active and exploring rather than retreating indoors. Let’s hear it for Mediterranean climates!

A few photos of my little expedition…

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Two of my friends from Denver came to visit over Labor Day weekend, and we decided to take advantage of the long weekend to explore the Northern California coast. I’m glad to report that the trip, which took us far south as Big Sur and as far north as Point Reyes (thanks Chuqui!), was a very successful one in that it allowed me to finally experience some of that “natural beauty” that Californians keep talking about.

I was particularly taken with Point Reyes. I tend to like my landscapes dramatic, and Point Reyes—with its dense fogs, strong winds (133 MPH is the record), high cliffs, precipitously perched lighthouse, and sordid history of shipwrecks and insanity—is right up my alley. Probably one of the first places I’ve seen in the area that I would sincerely classify as “must see.”

As is my habit, I managed to snap a few photos for the old weblog…

A Highway 1 seascape.

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I’ve noticed that people in Silicon Valley really like their vanity license plates, and I’ve seen some clever ones, but this one (spotted in the Infinite Loop parking lot this evening) is my favorite so far:

Obviously this is the vehicle of an Objective-C programmer (for the uninitiated, one of the Objective-C language’s most unusual features is its use of square brackets—”[” and “]”—instead of the more common C++-style dot notation). Anyone in the Apple house know who it might be?

Things I’ve done since arriving in Silicon Valley:

• Played a round of miniature golf with Jonas Luster and his posse, followed by a long, European-style sojourn at the Duke of Edinburgh in Cupertino. I’m very glad Jonas introduced me to The Duke—a British pub literally transported brick by brick to California—since it fills a gap in my restaurant routine normally occupied by Denver’s excellent Bull & Bush.

  Interestingly, while we were eating at The Duke, a European guy sitting behind us must have been amused by our group’s loud and animated conversation (which ranged from Mormonism to the likelihood of the UN leaving New York), because he had a $350 bottle of champagne sent over to our table! Everyone looked stunned, but I had to ask anyway: is this the kind of thing I can expect regularly here in the Valley of Heart’s Delight?



• Looked for apartments with my Mom (who flew in from Denver to help me out) and my aunt (who lives in Pleasanton). I don’t really have anything interesting to say about the experience, other than that we saw some truly horrifying places. There was one, a house which was billed in the Mercury News classifieds as Los Gatos but was actually in Campbell, that really took the cake: rusted out old appliances, shabby carpet, dirt in the yards (which watering was rapidly turning into mud). When the proprietor, a nice old Asian gentleman, informed me that I could have the place for $1600 a month with only a $1000 deposit, my jaw just about dropped.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before we settled on an apartment in Cupertino. The rent is a bit more than I was hoping to pay, but it’s a nicer place than my apartment in Denver and I think the fact that it is a leisurely 15 minute walk from Apple more than compensates for the extra cost!

• Drove over the hills and out to Santa Cruz to see the coast (as a native Coloradan, I’m always fascinated by the ocean). I can’t say I share Jonas’s love of the town, but maybe I just didn’t see the right parts of it (admittedly, the ultra-cheesy boardwalk was probably not the best place to start).



• Had lunch at the Apple cafeteria with Eric Albert, and listened with great interest as he told me about his days working on Rotor for Microsoft. Moral of story (my words, not his, of course): don’t trust Microsoft!

  Eric is a hell of a nice guy, and he’s been an invaluable sounding board so far as I start my career at Apple. I really owe him a large debt of gratitude!

• Went to the South Bay Bloggers Meetup at Coffee Society in Cupertino, where I met lots of interesting people but became rather lost during the frequent and lengthy Monty Python recitations (don’t get me wrong—I know my Spanish Inquisition from my “Knights Who Say Ni,” but these people were way out of my league). I do have to say, though, it’s nice to meet other people who have actually seen Manos: Hands of Fate (a fascinatingly bad move that makes Plan 9 look brilliant)!

• Spent inordinate amounts of time driving around trying to find things—local record stores (if anyone has any recommendations, I’d love to hear them), In-N-Out Burger, etc. This was mostly true during the first week, though—now that I live in Cupertino, I rarely leave the place!

Ever seen Vanishing Point? It’s a cult movie from the 1970’s about a guy who is hired to drive a souped-up Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco. I rented it once, mainly because of its relation to the Primal Scream album of the same name, and I must confess that it left me scratching my head a bit. Maybe I was just born a generation too late to appreciate the movie’s countercultural themes, but the motivation of the film’s anti-hero, Kowalski, who leads a small army of highway patrolmen on an extended, high-speed chase, always struck me as a bit flimsy.

Now that I’ve completed (in 21 hours and 1300 miles) almost exactly the same drive myself, I think I understand Kowalski’s psychology a lot better. I found that there was a point I reached, around, say, mile 300 on Interstate 80 in Nevada, when I just snapped. The incredible boredom and tedium of driving cross country alone got to me, and I just felt like I was ready to jump out of my skin. Watching mile after mile of dull scenery fly by, I found it harder and harder to keep my mind occupied and not slip into a near trance. On a trip where you look at road signs and say “200 miles to my next stop? I’m getting close!” and the opportunity to pry open a pack of batteries purchased at a gas station seems like wonderful mental stimulation, the urge to take off screaming down the highway like a madman is powerful indeed!

Fortunately, while the trip was mostly excruciatingly boring, it was also punctuated by moments of great serendipity. Every once in awhile I would come across something that would have me smiling at the profound weirdness and mystery of the American interstate highway system—a decaying billboard outside Cheyenne with no discernable text and a large picture of a smiling nuclear family, the hundreds of signs in Wyoming urging weary drivers to stop off at Little America for the night (by the time I actually saw the place, the build-up had me anticipating something akin to the Seven Cities of Gold!), the little rows of US flags stuck into the ground in the middle of the Utah desert. And the scenery wasn’t all bad, either—I particularly enjoyed Utah’s salt flats and the Great Salt Lake. I even stayed overnight at the Inn at Temple Square in Salt Lake City (highly recommended, by the way), which gave me a chance to check out the Mormon Temple (and the crowds of young Mormon lovers who hang around it at night!)—something that’s been on my travel to-do list for a long time.

I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures on the trip, since time was at a premium, but I’ve been very happy with the ones I got, and I thought I’d post a few of the highlights of my odyssey here, so everyone can experience the wonderful sights of Interstate 80 without actually driving the damn thing!

Interstate 80 in Western Wyoming.

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This past week I’ve been caught up in a flurry of activity surrounding my move to California (saying goodbyes to friends and co-workers, passing the torch at work, dealing with movers, researching places to live, planning my trip), all of which led up to a blitzkrieg, family-assisted packing session at my apartment this evening. Despite the fact that things have been generally coming together, I still can’t shake the unpleasant feeling that my affairs are spiraling wildly out of control, and that there are still far too many unknowns. But, then, I tend to be a worrier :-)…

For better or worse, at any rate, I will be leaving Denver tomorrow morning and embarking on a two-day drive through the American West on my way to my new home in Silicon Valley (the specific location of which remains unknown at this time, but hopefully the Bay Area’s spectacular vacancy rates will ensure that that doesn’t remain true for too long). I bought a new camera for the occasion (having sold my old one to my little brother some time ago) and I’m planning a spectacular travelogue, so stay tuned.

As a final note, I’d just like to apologize to all of the people whose emails are currently sitting in my inbox unanswered. I have it constantly in my head these days that I need to get back to about four or five people, but I just haven’t had the time. I’ll be back in the swing of things (both email- and blog-wise) soon, but until then, thanks to everyone for understanding!

Now for some sleep…

Well, here I am at the end of my last weekend in Denver, and I can’t remember the last time I was this happy! Leaving Colorado is still going to be very difficult, of course, but a farewell tour as good as the one I just had would bring a smile to anyone’s face.

The gig with Melanie was fun beyond my wildest expectations. I must admit to some early nervousness, but whatever trepidation I had melted away during the sound check. Standing there under the stage lights, looking out at all my friends, my eyes stinging with sweat, my Tele slung over my shoulder, and my amp cranked, I knew exactly how the MC5 felt. I wanted to kick out the jams!

The two songs I played on went well, but the real fun definitely came after the audience called for an encore—by popular demand, “Sweet Home Alabama.” I had actually been called back to the stage thinking we were going to play a different song, and was somewhat blindsided by the sudden venture into the Skynrd oeuvre. Nevertheless, I think the audience was gratified by our off-the-cuff rendition of everyone’s favorite anti-Neil Young screed (they certainly came out of the woodwork to dance to it!).

After rising late Saturday, the next thing on the agenda was an all-day Quake-fest featuring nearly all of my usual adversaries (including my little brother). This was followed by a suitably geeky meal of Chinese food, which in turn was followed by general tomfoolery, wistful goodbyes, and (you guessed it) more Quake.

I still have a few things to do (complete my farewell tour of Denver restaurants, drive up Mount Evans, etc.) but I really feel like this weekend gave me the sense of closure I was looking for—toward both my friends and my hometown. My only regret now is leaving behind what are, without a doubt, the best friends imaginable. Thanks, guys, for a lovely weekend!

If you’re going to be in Denver this Friday night (August 1), and you’re looking for something to do, you may want to come down to the Soiled Dove, where my friend Melanie Susuras and her band will be playing. Melanie and company are quite talented, and just seeing them perform would be well worth the trip, but this show will be extra special for me, since it will also be serving as my unofficial farewell party. Melanie, bless her heart, has even invited me and my beloved Telecaster to join the band for the show’s finale, which should be great fun (at least for me)! I’m particularly looking forward to playing on Melanie’s cover of the Patty Griffin song “Flaming Red,” a Johnny Cash-esque number on which I will be taking full advantage of my Vibrolux’s wicked, Pulp Fiction vibrato.

Many thanks to Melanie for the invitation—the opportunity to rock out on one of Denver’s finest stages means a lot to me as I bid a difficult farewell (or at least “au revoir”) to my hometown.

Readers of this weblog may have been wondering about the mysterious weblogging hiatus I mentioned awhile ago. One or two of you have even asked me about it, and I have to admit I’ve been a bit evasive. Well, I’m happy to say that the terrible secret can now be revealed: since coming back from WWDC, I have been preoccupied with a series of interviews for a position at Apple Computer.

Fortunately, the experience was worth its attendant stress (once, I was so nervous I briefly forgot the word “category“—I kept having to talk about “those constructs that you can use to add methods to an existing Objective-C class without actually subclassing” until the word suddenly popped back into my head) and I received an offer. So, long story short, starting August 18th, I will be getting my sushi from Apple’s cafeteria (oh—that, and working on software update integration).

What does this mean to you? Well, that depends on who you are:

• If you’re a reader of my weblog, you will probably be treated to fewer of my opinions about Apple. Which, honestly, is probably a good thing, since it only means I’ll be able to concentrate on publishing more useful things: technical information, sample code, cautionary accounts of my disastrous travels, and so forth.

  On the other hand, it will also mean the loss of my unique voice as a Colorado weblogger, after I become assimilated into the teeming mass of Bay Area geekdom. But at least I’ll be able to react to Silicon Valley as a stranger in a strange land, which might make for some decent content.

• If you’re a PodWorks user…uh…stay tuned. Right now, the future of my iPod song transfer app is a bit uncertain, but I promise it will not be abandoned.

• If you’re an indie developer like Robb Beal, it might mean that I’ve lost some credibility with you. My only defense is that it would be wrong to think of this decision as a repudiation of independent software development. One of the main reasons I continue to love the Macintosh is the quality of its independent developers, and I intend to continue supporting that community in whatever small ways I can, even though I will no longer be a part of it.

So there you have it—hiatus explained. Now all I have to do in the next three weeks is transition myself out of my current job, say good bye to my home of 25 years and nearly everyone I know, get myself moved out to California, find a place to live in one of the most ridiculous real estate markets in the country, and report for orientation at One Infinite Loop. Piece of cake!