December 07, 2002
Hiking Exhausted
 | ..... |
Today Ferri and I went hiking near Frauenstein in the Erzgiberge Mountains. They are certainly beautiful. Especially today. A frost settled on everywhere lately. The temperature hung between -10 and -6C (I guess that's in the mid-teens to lower 20s in Farenheit). So it was a bit cold. But it made me appreciate more fully the beauty of GoreTex. I wonder if they make GoreTex pants....
The "snow" you see in the pictures is actually frost, accumulated fairly thickly.
 < | Frost |
Strangely the frost grows in the direction that the wind blows from. An icy "fog" (which is what it is) sticks to things as it blows by. The fog was everywhere, but it wasn't ice crystals. More like water molecules that were frozen but isolated, awaiting the opportunity to form a lattice by attaching to another water molecule. It makes me feel like I understand how snow forms a little better now. It must be an interesting process in the clouds...
I think we hiked about just over 20km, but hard to say. I didn't bring the GPS. Ferri unfortunately slipped and fell into a creek on the way back...I can't imagine walking for several hours in this temperature with wet feet, but he didn't complain. He strikes me as a real mountaineer.
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman is one of those authors that somehow avoided my radar. Until now...
Close to the Machine is less a book than a collection of loosely related personal anecdotes from Ellen's time as a very rare thing -- a successful female bisexual independent computer programming consultant.
In the course of her work and relationship life, she learns hard lessons about programming, running a business, being lonely, and loving the wrong people. I found it particularly poignant being a crypto-nerd with difficult times in relationships and a more-or-less NDA'd, secret work life.
This book is a must-read for anyone into running their own business, programming, or anyone dating a person that is a business-a-holic or programmer.
Rated 
by reid
on November 23, 2009
by reid
on November 23, 2009
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The Long Trip Home
I had the joy of dining with the author in Florida. We went to a little Brazilian BBQ where he spoke with our waitstaff in (what I can only assume was) flawless Portugese.
Brian Wyllie spent 1969-1971 living in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. His recent book outlines his trip back to the United States via Bolivia, Peru, and the Carribean chain, by way of bus, train, and sailboat. The format comes spattered with observations from the modern day, and makes me think, "this must be what John McPhee's journal looks like."
The trip sounded like a fantastic one, but I was left wanting more detail...where did the gun (being snuck through customs in a variety of places, no doubt) come from? And how did Geneve's hair smell? Alas, we'll have to wait for another book to find the answers.
Rated 
by reid
on April 16, 2009
by reid
on April 16, 2009
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The Curve of Binding Energy
John McPhee follows famous physicist Ted Taylor in this piece that was -- and probably still -- ahead of its time.
Originally published in 1973, McPhee outlined the coming security and environmental issues surrounding the plutonium enrichment processes. For the most part, though, McPhee invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, although he does point out the ease with which any number of people could obtain the material (though not necessarily the manufacturing prowess) to make an atomic weapon.
The question still sits in my mind after reading -- are we being too paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
Rated by reid
on October 01, 2007
by reid
on October 01, 2007