Author: geoff

Laureles Grade

Last Sunday I achieved a 20 year ambition.
Laureles GradeMany years ago my in-laws moved to Carmel Valley in California. Their house was about 15 miles from Carmel, east of Carmel Valley Village. Over the years I visited them many times, and got to know all of the different routes to their house. And to get there from Salinas, or to avoid traffic around Monterey, the key was Laureles Grade: a 5.6 mile road over a 1200 ft. ridge between the Monterey-Salinas Highway and the Carmel Valley Road.
It’s not a particularly fast road – the posted limit is 55, but it’s too twisty to work up much speed, and it’s easy to get stuck behind a slow vehicle. And the scenery is unremarkable, except for a brief vista of Salinas. But it’s a driver’s road. The experience of driving it fast, with concentration and precision, is immensely rewarding. And I know that it isn’t just me. The northern end of the grade is just a couple of miles from the Laguna Seca race track, and on race weekends, or around the time of the Monterey Historics Motorsports Reunion, you’ll see many new and classic sports cars on the grade, from Porsches to Ford GT40s to a certain replica Jaguar D-type.
I loved driving the Grade, but there was always a problem. I lived in Massachusetts, so whenever I visited California I drove a rental car. I had some nice cars back east, including a pretty little Mazda Miata and an AWD turbo Subaru Legacy GT which could go through any turn as if it was on rails, but I never got to drive any of them over the Grade. And the rentals were all the kind of car that a corporate travel department would approve of…
A few months ago, just after Christmas, I finally got to drive the Grade in a car of my own: my Toyota Prius. Now the Prius has many admirable qualities, but handling is not one of them. As I blogged at the time, it wasn’t fun, and shortly afterwards I replaced the Prius with a Hyundai Genesis Coupe. 3.8L, RWD, 300+HP, loads of fun.
Last weekend we drove down to Carmel to attend a wonderful musical event: a reunion of Al Stewart and Peter White, the guitarist who accompanied Al on many of his biggest hits, complete with band. It was a great show, and we stayed overnight in Carmel. On Sunday morning we were trying to decide what to do, and how much time we could spare before I had to get home to work. We were thinking about Point Lobos, or bird-watching at Moss Landing, or maybe an early lunch in Santa Cruz… and then Kate made a simple suggestion: “Let’s drive over the Grade in the new car.”
So we did.
And it was magical.

The week's twitterings – 2011-04-03

  • Finally got around to seeing K-Pax. Now I understand why people (quietly) raved about it…. #
  • “@reillyusa: @jamesurquhart And the woman that runs it could frighten a drunk cowboy.” < That sounds like a compliment! #
  • Why is everyone misunderstanding the EC2 announcement? It's "unshared", not "dedicated". Just another QoS feature, not "un-cloudy". Sheesh!! #
  • Words of wisdom: Om Malik on Why There Are No Second Chances on the Internet http://t.co/KaUndAs #
  • Here's a powerful piece by Eric MacDonald which comprehensively demolishes the (incoherent) concept that "God is love": http://t.co/DcX4Y3Q #
  • “@alecmuffett: "You have a cryptographic failure, and then the terrorists take advantage of it and then there's a bomb…"” < said who? pwc? #
  • Everyone who wants @Skype to fix the dysfunctional UI in Skype 5 , please retweet this piece by @lkm http://t.co/nXHPCgW via @tidbits #

Powered by Twitter Tools

The week's twitterings – 2011-03-27

  • Comprehensive fisking by Dr. Jim of Isbell's weird paper in Bib&Interp attempting to reconcile Genesis with science. http://t.co/PCCAXRo #
  • AT&T buys T-Mobile USA for $39B http://t.co/rrLL7C8 Will this give me cheap roaming access to T-Mobile voice & hotspots in Europe? #
  • IaaS: private cloud == public (a box is a box is a box). PaaS: not so simple: lots of coupling into SW lifecycle, edge svcs, change mgmt… #
  • NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans U.S. Citizenship Test—38 percent failed. http://shar.es/3QPb5
    Including Michelle Bachmann & Sarah Palin? #
  • Following @adrianco I've just claimed my @PeerIndex profile, check it out http://pi.mu/2wwA #
  • Your tax dollars at work: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/what-corporate-welfare-looks-like.html #
  • From @ThisIsSethsBlog The real risks and costs: nuclear, oil, coal. Meanwhile the media obsesses over Japanese reactors #
  • Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate http://reg.cx/1Np5
    Commonsense stuff. But hysteria sells, so it's not going away #
  • In contrast to the Register piece I just linked, here's how NOT to talk about Fukushima – no numbers, vague language. http://t.co/6u6Mfu8 #
  • Streaming video of Aussie GP P3 on @Formula1onSpeed works well. No commentary, but I can watch @sarahholtf1 and @willbuxton tweeting… #
  • Ouch. Liuzzi's HRT finally sets off, and parks after four corners #
  • “@davewiner: Bob Herbert's last NYT column. http://t.co/4jaQ2PK” < Very, very true. Time to s/plutocracy/democracy/g #
  • Just grabbed the music for the new ballet by the Pet Shop Boys & Javier De Frutos: The Most Incredible Thing. See http://t.co/fz1DkCv #
  • After one saccharine VALUES commercial after another during the Australian GP, I was longing for someone to try to sell something to me! #

Powered by Twitter Tools

The week's twitterings – 2011-03-20

  • Watched "My Fair Lady" (1964) and "Pygmalion" (1938) back-to-back. Surprised by how closely the musical followed Shaw's screenplay… #
  • Of course the original was much better than the musical – tighter, wittier, better cast (except for Stanley Holloway) #
  • People keep saying Fukushima "is now the second worst nuclear accident". This is wrong: the worst was Chernobyl, second worst was Windscale. #
  • Running into guest wifi issues, but Personal Hotspot on my iPhone works well with my MacBook Air. Time to dump my 3G USB dongle. #
  • “@ipaxer1: When the solution is simple, God is answering. Albert Einstein” < For some purely metaphorical value of "God", that is… #
  • Curious why they're not using robot/remote systems at the Japanese reactors. Japan was working on search & rescue robots 10 yrs ago #
  • Visions of C3PO dragging a very long firehose up to a fuel storage pond… #
  • Nice piece on the true meaning of elasticity in the cloud http://t.co/P1znlxl #
  • Just OCR'd a scan of an old article by my mother. Discovered http://t.co/oWvjioG which made it a breeze (and free). #satisfiedcustomer #
  • I love reading xkcd on the visualization of complex information. This time it's radiation: http://t.co/MYBtX9H #
  • This is priceless!!! Blowback Mountain? Idaho to Train Saudi Airforce – http://goo.gl/tFCjd #
  • Just changed my Netflix account to streaming only; now it keeps nagging me about stuff available only on DVD. Any way to turn this off? #
  • QOTD from Christopher Hitchens: "Once you know that Christians call themselves a flock, you already know enough about this religion." #
  • Strange sense of satisfaction: completing theTop Gear "Where's Stig?" game on my iPad. I think I need to get out more… #
  • Intriguing Netflix recommendation (two of them, actually) http://twitpic.com/4b8nm5 #

Powered by Twitter Tools

The week's twitterings – 2011-03-13

  • “@mfeathers: In the new world, Cobol is Ruby and Fortran is Python.” And in the NEW new world, Java is Node.js. All hail JaveScript! #
  • Wish I could spare the time for #ccevent – it's just around the corner! – but at least I'll be at the Rackspace party on Tuesday #
  • “@jimgris: shit” Really? Whazzup? #
  • “@geoffarnold: “@jimgris: shit” Really? Whazzup?” < Never mind: I see. Tho it's not on earthquake.usgs.gov yet #
  • “@timhaines: Tsunami has hit.” <Where? http://t.co/QYijwQL is current Pacific warning/schedule #
  • Just bought our tickets for Al Stewart+Peter White in Carmel on May 7. (My first Al concert was in Windsor, in 1968!) #
  • "No responsibility" in 21st century USA http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/another-swat-raid-gone-wrong.html #
  • Must-read by nay-sayers: @adrianco on How not to build a Private Cloud http://t.co/E7BhRHh #
  • De Condimentis: Butter. Wonderful stuff! http://j.mp/h8BRHB via @AddToAny #
  • Glorious example of tea-party ignorance. (Most of them probably couldn't even pass a naturalization exam.) @dailydish – http://t.co/iJCKkyt #
  • “@myinnervoice: Read comment #6 How not to build a Private Cloud http://t.co/nDQaO0z” <Why? The comment makes no sense. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

The week's twitterings – 2011-03-06

Powered by Twitter Tools

The week's twitterings – 2011-02-27

  • “@Herbez32: Are agnostics atheists? NO. The atheists are BELIEVERS, just like the Christians are.” < What an utter crock… #
  • “@timhaines: Fruit trees and lease comes with a gardener. Woot!”< Why does the lease need a gardener? #confused #
  • “@furrygirl: YOU PEOPLE NEGLECTED TO MENTION ITS SUPERFLUOUS CAPYBARA! http://t.co/PfJ0k4x” <A capybara is NEVER superfluous! #
  • For some reason, hearing Captain Beefheart playing in Starbucks struck me as particularly bizarre… #
  • Amazing essay from TAM London. http://t.co/rkUZixQ #
  • “@wattersjames: @geoffarnold You're saying that arguing about the validity of homeopathy is merely tribal? What an odd epistemology. #
  • The wisdom of Ike: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/quote-9.html #
  • “@thinguy: (I'm still here)” Good. Now what? #
  • Local forecast for Palo Alto this Friday night/Saturday morning: "Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and snow showers. Low 27F." REALLY?!?! #
  • Why are UK Muslims homophobic? 58% of Brits are OK with gays, but among British Muslims it's 0%. ZERO! Unacceptable. http://t.co/Zx79GoZ #
  • Just replaced my 1st gen MacBook Air with a new 11.6" MBA (4GB/128GB/1.6GHz). Like my 12" PB G4 from 2004, except faster and half the weight #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Must-read piece on Massively Scalable Data Center networking

Like Ivan Pepelnjak, I agree that the must-read piece of the moment is Brad Hedlund’s Emergence of the Massively Scalable Data Center. Yes, it’s more about the questions than the answers, but even that’s a step forward. And as a bonus, this led to me browsing Ivan’s blog, where I came across this excellent piece on how we got into the present L2 v. L3 mess (including the impact of what Ivan calls “the elephant in the data center”).

The week's twitterings – 2011-02-20

Powered by Twitter Tools