Off To A Shaky Start: Getting LASIK With Nystagmus

My vision has usually hovered around 20/40 but that is with glasses and when my nystagmus is quietest.  I like to be physically active and my vision caused issues.  Do I play sports blind or do I risk my glasses being damaged.  I've flip flopped on that with many broken pairs as a result.

I had thought most of my vision problems were due to my nystagmus.  In my mid to late twenties I started to realize that my nystagmus was responsible for less of my vision issues than I had thought and that I actually had some pretty bad astigmatism.  This realization opened up my eyes to the idea of doing something about my vision problems.

Contacts

Contacts ended up being a non-option for me.  I had read that they can help with nystagmus because they correct your vision across your whole peripheral, helping at the null points.  Unfortunately my astigmatism got in the way.  In the exam room, we expected contacts to improve my vision to 20/30 but I didn't see that improvement once my contacts arrived.  The optometrist theorized that contacts could only help with a part of my astigmatism and that to get the full benefit I'd have to wear contacts and glasses that are paired together.  That would be the worst of both worlds and I decided against it.

So onto my drastic measures.

False Start at LASIK

I had read that some people were able to successfully get LASIK despite their nystagmus.

I decided to find a new optometrist that was a "low vision specialist" for a referral for a LASIK office.  My main concern with my existing optometrist is that they were associated with a specific LASIK office and I wanted to avoid biases in my referral.

My new optometrist referred me to Eye LASIK Austin. Unfortunately their screening machine could not deal with my nystagmus and after researching some options, they told me I wasn't a candidate for LASIK.

(Spoiler alert) I later got LASIK despite this office telling me I couldn't get it.  The fact that these people were referred to me for LASIK specifically with my nystagmus in mind put me in doubt of both them and the optometrist who recommended them.  The LASIK people's highfalutin office contrasted with their lack of skill added an air of sliminess to them.  Adding insult to injury, they were over thousand dollars more expensive than what I paid.

Seeing (More) Clearly With LASIK

I decided to take another crack at things a couple years later.  This time I decided to do it all on my own.  Through yelp I found strong reviews for Eyes of Texas Laser Center with Dr Wong (one of the many Dr Wong's in Austin).  The staff assured me he had experience with nystagmus patients and that he would be involved in each step in the process.

I met with Doctor Wong.  He simulated what the surgery was going to be like by having me track a light despite distractions and my vision being temporarily blocked.  Apparently my nystagmus is mild enough that he felt confident performing the surgery without taking any further measures.  They were able to map my eye and create a plan for how to reshape it.  They had an opening the next day, so I jumped on it.

I had someone drive me in.  We waited a while before they took me into an office to drug me up, I think it was an extra strength Tylenol and a Vicodin.  I did not feel impaired in any way.  They were a little concerned and considered increasing my dose but they never got to it.

Eventually they took me into the surgery room and laid me on a table.  They pulled back a flap, shot my eyes, and to home I went with sun glasses (of course grabbing a book from the library first, leaving my driver in the car).

They had me sleep most of the day and taking a strict eye drop regiment for several weeks.  There was a little bit of an issue initially.  After a day or two, one of my eyes was still blurry.  When I went in, I found out that I must have bumped the flap of the lens they cut, causing ripples in it from my eye moving.  It started healing that way.  The doctor had me close my eyes and smoothed out the flap with his fingers and off I went.

A Couple Years Later

It has now been almost two years since my surgery.  My vision is approximately what it was with glasses and it seems my eyes shake less.  I had heard that halo effects are directly proportional to how bad your astigmatism is.  I've had some halos that effect my night time vision but not too different than what my astigmatism caused previously.  On rare occasion, I also get some fatiguing that I've finally (after moving to a drier climate) have identified as my eyes being too dry.  I close them for a bit and I see fine.

I'd recommend looking into LASIK, even if you have nystagmus.  I hope my experience helps someone else with this condition.

The Lone Star Hiking Trail

Pictures can be found on G+

I've lived in the Texas for over 5 years and only recently have I heard about the Lone Star Hiking Trail. I asked around for first hand experiences and not even the people who grew up in Austin or Houston have ever heard of it. I decided to extend my annual back-to-nature / anti-materialism Black Friday hike into a multi-day backpacking trip to test out the trail.

I took with me two friends who were wanting to give a longer backpacking trip a try. I decided to create a loop out of the Lone Star Hiking Trail and Little Lake Creek Loop Trail to keep things interesting for the group. According to the trail website, we were going to be out during hunting season which put restrictions on where we camped.

Thursday

Day 1: 6 Miles

We met up early in the morning, loaded up the car, and headed out to Trail Head #1. The drive out to the trail head was pretty straight forward. I had brought fresh apples for us to eat before heading out but we forgot about them.

Without much fanfare, we headed out in the trail. Not far along the Lone Star Hiking Trail was the turn off for the Little Lake Creek Loop Trail. We soon came across a quaint little stagnant pond. We continued hiking on what was a fairly easy going trail. We hit the turn off for Sand Branch Trail right at another small pond and followed that up to the turn off for the campsite.

Sand Branch Camp

The campsite was small but sufficient for our needs.

There were some downsides to the campsite.

First, we had a terrible water source.  After setting up camp, I went to pump us cooking water for dinner.  The only water source I had found was the pond at the turn off for Sand Branch Trail which was unfortunately stagnate.  I've never pumped such dirty water.  I had to clean my filter every 16 oz or so and, despite having a 2 micron filter, the water came out yellow.

Second, throughout the afternoon and evening, we heard gunfire from the hunters which isn't the most appealing interruption for a relaxing day in the woods.  We also had howling in the distance from coyotes, we presume.  There was some rustling in the brush around us but we never determine the cause.

Preparing a fire at Sand Branch

Backpacking Thanksgiving Dinner

We had a pleasant imitation of a Thanksgiving dinner.  Our main course was stuffing.  We mixed boiling water with chicken-flavored Stove Top stuffing, added a couple cans of chicken, and then tossed in some craisins.  We then mixed boiling water with two different flavors of Idahoan potato flakes and gravy for some delicious mashed potatoes.  We also baked a sweet potato per person in the camp fire.  We topped all this off with pumpkin pie flavored Larabars.

Overall a delicious, satisfying, thanksgiving dinner without being gluttonous like we would have back home.

Friday

Day 2: 12 Miles

It was a bit chilly in the morning.  Unfortunately, I overestimated the effectiveness of the sleeping bag and bivvy combination I had loaned to one of my friends. I was the only one who was warm last night.  The cold had me delay pumping water for our hike as long as possible.

Today's hike was pretty rough.  The trail was less travelled with more spider webs with ginormous spiders, more logs crossing the path, bridges that were out, rough terrain, etc.

On the plus side, we crossed several different types of areas.  Some areas were full of pines, deciduous, brush, ferns, or even bamboo.  We also had the combinations thereof and the mossy tree areas.

I had forgotten the importance of pacing ourselves and so we didn't have any breaks until we found we needed them.  One was up at the Pole Creek Campsite.  I'm glad we didn't plan to camp there because there wasn't even a stagnate lake to get water from.

The ferns were reminiscent of Jurassic Park

Caney Creek Camp

The camp marker

Unlike the previous campsites, Caney Creek didn't have any built-up wooden trail signs marking it but instead all we had was a tiny little marker on a tree.  Everyone setup camp while I took care of our water situation.

I had expected Caney Creek to be a great water source for us but it was stagnant and shallow, not worth pumping unless I absolutely had to, so I went exploring.  I decided to see if Caney Creek was better further upstream.  On the walk to the Lone Star Hiking trail I came across a flowing creek that at first glance seemed too shallow and muddy.  I then came across a stagnant creek.  Eventually I arrived at roughly where the Lone Star Hiking Trail crosses Caney Creek and it was all dried up.  I went back down to that flowing creek and found that the water was actually perfectly clear, I was just seeing the sand on the bottom.  I also found some deeper parts to pump from.  The main downside left was that it had fairly steep and high banks which made pumping uncomfortable.

Tonight we ate more traditional backpacking food.

The noises at this campsite were worse than Caney Creek.  We had no rustling bushes and fewer gunshots but we had more howling and there was some unfamiliar sound that most closely matches with what I'd expect an animal growling while mauling its prey would sound like.

Saturday

Day 3: 12 Miles

We pumped, ate, packed up, and headed off.

We went north to finish off Little Creek Loop Trail and took the turn off on the Lone Star Hiking Trail to head back to Trailhead #1.  The trail was in good condition with no spider webs across the trail, few logs to step over, and had very few creek beds for us to go down and back up from.  There were decent bridges in different sections.

After yesterday, we had considered taking North Wilderness Trail as a shortcut but the hike was so much easier today that we had decided to stick to the long way.  We took breaks at Trail Head #3, a log on a service road on the edge of the Little Lake Creek Wilderness which is also the turn off for a primitive campsite, and at Trail Head #2.  Tired and sore, we eventually reached Trail Head #1 where the car was.

I tend to end hikes with cans of fruit to refresh us but instead we ate into the fresh apples that we had forgotten about when we left

We used a McDonalds in Navasota as our opportunity to use a real bathroom.  We then didn't eat until we got back home.

Postmortem

Lone Star Hiking Trail: At least the first 11 miles of it make an enjoyable hike but past that it looked like it got a little rough.

Little Lake Creek Loop Trail: The first 6 miles were smooth and it got very rough afterwards.

Sand Branch Camp: Cozy little camp with a terrible water source

Caney Creek Camp: Pleasant camp with a really good water source 5 minutes north on the trail

Pole Creek Camp: Decent camp with no water sources that I could find.

The overall area: Compared to the other options in Texas, this is a great hike.  The variety of flora was great.  This is Texas, so you can't expect sweeping views.  I prefer my hikes to remove me from civilization which this trail doesn't provide.  We saw houses, heard gun shots, and crossed roads.  The upside is that if someone gets injure, you can get them out more quickly.

The drive: Depending on your carrier, you might not have reception once there.  Be sure to be prepared with maps for the drive back.

Equipment: I mostly used the same equipment as I did in the past.  My boots died on a smaller trip since then and I replaced them with Hi-Tec boots and they worked great.  I'm disappointed that my friend was cold in the Uber Bivvy but my expectations might have been a little too high.  I've still not tried it myself to see how it is first hand.  The weight was great though.  Since the hike was local, I got to use my traditional hiking pack (an 15+ year old Kelty with an external frame) and I continue to love that pack.  I will be sad when it finally gives out on me.  My friend borrowing my new Thermarest Z-Lite SOL reported that it was warm and comfortable.

Buying a Home

Should I Buy?

Buying a home is not for everyone.  Its easy to lose track of the value you are getting back for the rent you pay and instead see rent as just a money pit.  Your money goes to property tax regardless of whether you are renting or buying.  When you rent, you are paying for mobility (easier to move areas), your time (repairs, being at home instead of work for repair people), and the reduction in emergencies (water line to the house broken? stop everything you are doing in your personal or work life and take care of it).

It is also easy to forget about some of the expenses that come along with a house.  The "buy or rent" calculators do not take into account upkeep, repairs, and replacements nor the upfront costs of stocking your home (from essentials like major appliances that it didn't come with or home and garden tools to less pressing items like furniture).

If you are looking for the benefits of a house (wanting to garden, a workshop, garage to work on your car) then renting a room in one is an alternative to consider.

Why I've been renting: I have too many interests for the time I have and I felt it important to streamline my life to minimize distractions.  As an example, one of the important criteria for choosing an apartment complex was whether they did proper auto-bill pay (some will regularly pull out a fixed amount of money and not handle the variable amount for utilities).  I found that the benefits of a house were far enough down my interests list that it was not worth the time and money overhead to attain them.  I do not expect a house to be worth it in this regards until I have a wife (if she wants it) and a kid (if she'd rather wait on a house like me).

Added to that is the recognition that a one-day wife's care abouts would probably be more important than mine.  I wanted to defer the decision until I had a wife so we could make the decision together.  We would also then be equally emotionally invested in it (I remember a friend talking about how her mother never really felt like their house in Austin was a home and my friend could sense it).

So why did I buy a house?  Back when Google Fiber was announced for Austin I started to consider the problems of property values going up in Austin, especially in the areas I wanted to live in.  I started browsing Zillow to get a feel for the market.  A week or so later I found a house that looked perfect for me.  That day it went on contract to be bought.  I didn't want to have that happen again so I decided to be more proactive and retain a real estate agent and buy a right house when it came up.

Searching For a House

My friend used a real estate agent to find the rental home I lived in with him.  He then used her again when he decided to buy a house.  So when I started my house search I went with his agent, Joleen at Pacesetter Properties.

Things that stood out about Joleen

• She did not rush me (we started working together in May and it wasn't until the following January that I closed)
• She was not pushy about loosening up my search limits
• She had a lot of helpful comments when looking at houses
• She put me first when it came to negotiating the price rather than her share.  She was upfront about her thoughts on people asking for too much, encouraged me to low ball for a house that had been on the market a while, and gave me a heads up that a seller was going to give her a bonus for me paying asking price (which was one of the asking prices she scoffed at).

When looking at houses, I broke down my criteria as follows

• Requirements:
• Affordabiliy
• 1980s or newer
• No HOA (most houses built in the 1990s or later will have one)
• Ease of biking / walking to work
• Not to change the congregation I attend.  In the LDS Church, congregations are defined geographically and we have a lay ministry.  I will probably only be in my current responsibility for another year or so but I felt a sense of responsibility to not be released from the responsibility early by moving.
• Nice-to-haves
• Open floor plan
• Plenty of counter space in the kitchen
• Decent sized bedrooms for roommates
• A neighbourhood or nearby park I would enjoy running in
• Single story
• Nice to haves that could be upgraded
• Four-side brick
• No carpet (carpet is much harder to clean)
• Maintainable fence material

When looking at houses, I made sure to check:

• How old the hvac unit is
• Is the water heater in good shape, etc
• Does the foundation have any cracks that you can see
• Are there trees touching the house (you'll want to get them trimmed or have owner do it before selling, it's a termite risk condition)
• How old is the roof (a lot of times the roof will have been replaced on older houses)
• Do the plumbing fixtures work (toilets, sinks, etc).
• Tax rate
• Quality of school

This is the time to decide at the high level that it is a house you want and what might affect the offer you give.  Texas has a really neat feature called an Option Period.   When you sign the contract, instead of immediately putting down the non-refundable Earnest Money (a couple thousand), you put down the refundable Earnest Money and the non-refundable Option Fee (about a hundred).  You then have ten days or so to get the house inspected and start a second round of negotiations to determine how much the seller or the buyer will be responsible for and this is added to the contract as an addendum.  You can either have the seller do the work and provide receipts or have them pay you to compensate for the work needing to be done.  Once the Option Period is over, the Earnest Money becomes non-refundable.  Just like the Earnest Money, the Option Fee counts towards the cost of the house and just like the Earnest Money, if you decide to back down you lose it.

I had both Zillow and my agent sending me notifications about houses coming on the market.  My agent had a wider geographical search area but Zillow was configured for a higher price.  My agent's site usually had listings first but it was clunky and Zillow had a lot more stats.  I had a good idea of what I wanted and so I had the freedom to be picky about what houses I went to look at.

One of the things I found is I started to prefer houses that haven't been upgraded for selling.  Some sellers did a good job with the upgrades.  It seemed like most did not and I disliked the idea that I might pay a premium for the upgrade that I wanted to tear out.

When I decided to make my first offer, Joleen had me come into the office to sign the papers in person so she could step me through them (subsequently we did it all electronically).   This is when I learned just how hot Austin's real estate market is.  Houses were being sold like a silent auction style.  The sellers wanted highest and best offers within a 24-48 hour of the house going on the market from which they'd pick.  No negotiating.  I even offered asking price + sellers costs a time or two and lost.

The hot real estate market made some people arrogant.  On one house I put in an offer and they considered it so low they wouldn't even counter it.  We ended up in a stalemate for a few days because I refused to come up if they weren't willing to show they would work with me.  Eventually I relented and went up.  They did counter it but I walked away not wanting to pay that and not wanting to deal with the drama (on the other end was a divorced couple).  I noticed on Zillow that they eventually lowered the asking price to close to my original offer.  Their loss.

One of the things that surprised me about the process was the fact that I never saw the sellers or even their agent face-to-face.  I can see it being good for keeping negotiations cool but it slows things down with the back and forth.

Buying a House

I had gone several months without looking at any houses.  The market had slowed down but it more so because I had gotten busier and was questioning whether I should take on the time commitment of home ownership as well.  Also I was starting to not get comfortable about the growth around here especially with the drought.

At one point I saw a house on Zillow that looked interesting.  It was right in the middle of some walking trails maintained by the city and near a large forested park.  The house was too large for my needs and the price was out of my range.  With how hot summer's market was, I was not used to thinking about the potential price from negotiating (which would still be higher than my preferred range).  On a Saturday during a holiday weekend I got an email from my agent pointing the house out and asking for my thoughts while recognizing the size and price were outside of my search criteria.  The following Monday we looked at it and the next day I made a low ball offer (it had been on the market for a while so there was a chance and Joleen encouraged it).  The family countered and then took my counter to their counter
Note: The bank will want an appraisal to verify if they are loaning you too much money. My appraisal came out $5k+ more than I am paying

When putting out an offer, you generally need pre-approval from a bank.  I had gotten one from a bank for the sake of having one and not because I intended to get a loan with them but by this point it had expired.  So I went with the first mortgage broker my agent had recommended who had to pass me on to Matt Spinn, a coworker of hers at Gold Financial Services.  The only competitive pricing I did was with ING Direct (well, now Capital One 360 but I'm living in denial).  ING had better rates and points (percentage of house paid upfront) but we had asked for closing in 30 days and the banks are making that tougher.  Matt had experience getting everything taken care of in the 30 days and I did not want to risk a faceless internet entity slowing things down in this case.

Things to note about loans

• If you put less than 20% down, you have to pay a fee called PMI until you hit the 20% (unless its FHA loan which might always require PMI I think)
• Unless you put down some undefined amount above 20% (Matt said 25% was fine for me), you will have to pay your property taxes to the mortgage company throughout the year and they'll then pay the county (one connotation of the word "escrow").  They charge a monthly fee for this
• Some banks are nice to work with but don't necessarily pick your mortgage company based on that.  Banks sell mortgages to each other multiple times over.

In parallel to that was my Option Period (described above in "Searching For a House").  For my inspection, Joleen had recommended Steve Cannon at Apex Home Inspections with Chris Nowling as a backup in case Steve was too busy.  My old roommate also used Apex but Steve was unavailable and he was pleased with Chris.  The reviews on yelp were good for both.  So I went with whichever was available when I made the appointment (Steve).  He performed the inspection and had me come over at the end to go over it with me.  He had a lot of great tips for what to do with the house.  I just wish I had recorded him because they were not included with the report.  I would have even paid extra for a repair recommendations report if they offered it.

I went with a house as old as me so I expected there to be issues.   So I started researching the various issues found (most maintenance is completely new to me).  I do have to say my internet research contradicts one of Steve's recommendations.  He points out that brick facade's need weep holes to let moisture out according to modern code.  He had recommended I just drill some.  From the research I did, it sounds like most inspectors give that tip and it is garbage.  Weep holes need to be made at the time of the facade so they don't clog it up and mess things up.

I made a report of the items that were surprises from our walk through (since the price negotiated so far in theory took them into account).  I ran them by my agent who gave some recommendations and we sent the contract addendum to the seller.  It came back with some items were crossed out which I was fine with.

Then came the waiting as the seller took care of repairs and I wrapped up financing.  In the mean time I was starting to collect tools on sale that I would need and ordered my fridge (appliance shopping I'll save for another post).  Towards the end things started to get crazy but I'll save that for another post.

In the end I went into the Title company's office, signed my money and life away, waited several hours for the seller to sign for accepting my money and life and receive the keys.

I am now a home owner.

Wait, what?

On Top of Utah: Hiking to Kings Peak

Pictures can be found on G+

After more than ten years of no camping, this last spring I finally got back into it with trips out to Pedernalles Falls, Lost Maples, and Lake Georgetown (car camping and backpacking).  I've been itching to get back into real mountains though.  This week I had the opportunity to fly out to Utah and go camping with Brian up in the Uintas.

I flew most of my gear out with me.  I did pick up some Mountain House meals at Emergecy Essentials and stove fuel at Sports Authority.  In Austin it was hard to fathom how cold the mountains will be so I ended up borrowing some cold weather clothes from my brother-in-law as well as a pack (mine didn't fit in my luggage) and a flashlight (either I forgot it or the TSA took it).

Monday 

I dropped off my rental car and got picked up by Brian (Altitude: 4,226 feet).  The guy at the car rental place saw my camping gear and checked an obscure place for damage to the car common to driving out to national parks.  I haven't heard word yet if they will charge me for it or not.

The drive out was about three hours.  We had to drive out to Wyoming, through some road construction, and finally too many miles on dirt roads.  We arrived at Henry's Fork Trailhead a little past noon (Altitude: 9,430 feet).  There is a composting toilet and no running water.  The trailhead listed fire bans for Dollar and Henry Lake so we decided on stopping at Bear Lake and Blanchard Lake (with Island as our backup) along the way to King's Peak.

The hike out was beautiful.  We started off climbing up a ridge above a creek and passed through several meadows.  We didn't notice the turnoff to Alligator Lake.  There was no sign for it and I assumed the log was meant for trail reclamation when its really meant to reduce erosion   At Elkhorn Crossing we took the fork to Henry Lake.  Those uphills were rough.  We also had rain off and on through our hike out.  Eventually we came around to Bear Lake.

I had a headache during the hike and at camp but I was a bit dehydrated from the less humid air of Utah (never thought I'd claim Utah is dry, oh how Austin has changed me).  Also around camp Brian and I got a little lightheaded which we assumed is from adjusting to the altitude.

Our spot along the lake was gorgeous and most of the time the lake was a mirror.  I pulled out and setup my hammock and used it to hold gear like a table as I finished unloading.  I ate my Chicken Alfredo Mountain House meal in my hammock overlooking Bear Lake.  We then cleaned up camp, hung our bear/critter bag, talked over a campfire Brian made thanks to his backpacking saw, and went to bed.

Tuesday

Brian took my pump to get himself water for the day and it was going terribly slow.  This is only my second time using my pump and didn't pay attention to the field servicing or post-trip servicing instructions.  After some examining of the pump I hypothesized that the filter needed cleaning and luckily Brian had a scrub pad I could use.  That did the trick.  Overall we found we liked my MSR Miniworks EX Microfilter due to the side pump action (works great as a Thighmaster!), the serviceable filter, and the easy separation between contaminated and clean parts.

After breakfast and water pumping, we broke camp and headed for our next stop, either Blanchard Lake or Island Lake.  We passed through some wooded areas, some meadows, and saw ponds and lakes along the way.  Eventually we came to the no-fire map/sign for Henry Lake.  We were confused because we didn't see Grass Lake but upon looking back we could see it through the meadow.   This map showed the tree lines which made us rule out Blanchard Lake (since we were aiming to have fires) which is good because on Wednesday we saw Blanchard from the hike to Gunsight Pass and it would have been a long, rough, cross-country hike to it.

We used the sign as a guide for us to find Island Lake which turned out pretty easy.  Right before the sign was a meadow and we just followed the tree line out.  We first came to a campsite on the south-east side but wanted to be closer to water.  So we dropped packs and split up.  I went along the east bank and Brian along the south.  Brian didn't find any campsites so we settled for one I found.  It was great, right on the lake's coast, had fire rings (which we had to expand to satisfy our pyro tendencies) with lots of rocks and logs to sit on, great places for tents, rocks to take our packs off on, etc.  The main downside is that there were more mosquitoes than Bear Lake.  It is on the east shore a little north of the island in the lake next to a big rock.  We expected Island Lake and especially our campsite to be isolated but we ran into some fishermen on our first night there and some campers later.

The weather changed on us every hour.  It was a light sprinkle when we setup tents and then as I pumped water it alternated between hot, rainy, and sleeting    We then cooked our meals (Mountain House Lasagna for me) and again I ate then relaxed in the hammock.  Brian took the time to find edible or medicinal plants and came back with a natural insect replant   We intended to go to bed early so we could have an early start on Kings Peak tomorrow but Brian's "quick" fire was not so quick thanks to some really dense wood we found that burns long and hot.

Wednesday

We got up, ate, loaded our day packs, and left camp around 8am.  We took the trail to Gunsight Pass.  Unfortunately the map was misleading.  It showed the trail going straight to the Dollar Lake / Henry Lake trails joining up to go to Gunsight Pass.  It turns out the trail actually curves back around to Dollar Lake.  There is a turn off to head to Gunsight Pass but it starts off not being worn at all and you have to rely on walking between two cairns off to the side of the trail and heading straight between the next two cairns.  After that it is well traveled.

Gunsight pass was rough.  We were scrambling up rocks for a decent distance though we were able to use our hiking sticks for it.  The view from the pass (Altitude; 11,888 feet) was beautiful.  Painter's Basin and where we came from looked great.  We then followed the trail on the map down into the basin.  There are a lot of trails away and alternative trails which muddied things a bit but we figured it out, stay to the right until Anderson Pass was our rule.

The climb up to Anderson Pass starts off steep as you go along a stream (the left side of the stream is a lot easier) but then is a lot more gradual with some switch backs followed by some hiking through some sloped meadows.  It is telling regarding my fear of heights that once at Anderson Pass (Altitude: 12,700 feet), I saw only the top of a cliff of another mountain and my knees went weak thinking how far the cliff (I wasn't even on) drops down (which I couldn't even see).  We started off our summitting using our poles but after the first bit we had to stow them in Brian's pack as we had to scramble up on our hands and feet rocks with some being pretty loose (someone should teach those rocks some morals).

On the way up a guy coming down warned us of bad weather (which the sky still looked good so he must have gotten a report by radio).  Also as we passed people we asked if a Garmin GPS we saw in the meadows before Anderson Pass was theirs and it was surprising how many people lost their GPS but at other spots.  We did find the owner and it was gone on our way back so we assume he got it.

We reached what we suspected was the top of Kings Peak (Altitude: 13,528 feet) at around 1:30 pm.  Once there we realized I was out of water and Brian was almost out (my first time using a bladder).  So we stopped there despite being unsure if this was Kings Peak or a false summit (turns out it was Kings Peak and what we saw further along the ridge was South Kings Peak).  On the way down we had a habitual problem of not quite finding the trail.  Right as we got out of the worse part and switched back to poles, it started snowing.  Back near Anderson Pass a family was concerned about some other clouds bringing lightning.  So they rushed out by going along the mountain ridge straight to Gunsight Pass.  We weren't concerned since we'd be in the basin most of the hike back and the clouds didn't look like they'd come our way.  The snow didn't last much longer.  We headed into the basin, almost caught up with the family at the top of Gunsight, and headed back to camp.  We were in a bit of a hurry due to the lack of water.  We stopped twice to get two mouthfuls each of water.  The first time we both ate and the second time only Brian ate since my mouth was too dry to attempt it.  I tried to keep talking to a minimum and tried to prefer nose-breathing to mouth-breathing (which is difficult when you get winded on any sort of uphill due to the altitude).  At the bottom of Gunsight Pass towards camp, we ran into two friendly brothers who were going to camp in Painter's Basin. They had some pretty nice guns on them (what looked like a .357 magnum and some kind of semi-auto pistol).  Brian would have complemented them on the guns except he was a bit nervous with both of them resting their hands on them.  They pointed out some moose up ahead in some brush to the side of the trail.  Brian was able to spot the antlers but I wasn't.

Just about every half hour Brian made some kind of Lord of the Rings reference, whether it be about the beautiful countryside (which we felt background music from Jenna would have been fitting) or the climb to Kings Peak being likened to Sam and Frodo's journey through Mordor.

We got back to camp at 5:50 pm.  We pumped enough water to drink immediately and then more to cook.  During the after-dinner pumping I felt feverishly hot.  I went to bed as soon as possible.  At one point in the night I woke up and was sweating bullets but later woke up and was perfectly fine.

Thursday

We were playing today by ear, our plans depending on if I still had a temperature and how Brian's legs/feet were doing.  We felt well enough to head on to Bear Lake.  We lazily packed up camp and got to Bear in time to unpack and cook lunch.

The weather was great.  I got on shorts and my water shows and walked out into the lake to clean myself off.  After pumping water, I just lay back in the hammock for hours enjoying the weather, the view, and the lack of civilization.  My legs ended up burning which just made them match my arms from the hike to Kings Peak.

Brian went on another edible/medicinal plant hunt.  He came back with Indian Paintbrush which is more medicinal and should only be eaten in small doses.  He didn't like it.

We burned a short fire and went to bed early so we could break camp early on Friday.

Friday

We gathered everything up and left camp at 7:45 am.  We made it back to the truck at 11:50 am to enjoy our can of peaches each.

We got back in Salt Lake tired, with chapped lips and running noses (both of our noses never stopped) ready to relax.  I'm surprised that I recovered enough that on Saturday I did the Herriman Stampede 4 mile race (I highly recommend it for people in the area, great price for the frills).

Postmortem

The Drive

We were unsure where we would be able to get gas but we were fine the whole way.  The Pilot at the east edge of Evanston had a good price and had Subway which was great to eat on Friday.

As for cell coverage, I had no service on T-Mobile once outside of the Salt Lake Valley.  I did get some  non-data roaming coverage in Wyoming.  Brian had coverage most of the way out to the trailhead on Sprint.

The Hike

We couldn't have asked for better campsites and the views from the trails were beautiful.  Brian titled this hike "Better Than Expected".

It would have been good to cut down the distance to Kings Peak but our choices were: camp at Dollar Lake (no fires), camp along the trail before Gunsight Pass (no or little water to pump), camp at Painter's Basin (it would have been rough getting full packs up Gunsight Pass and we suspect camping areas were on the opposite side of the basin but there were people heading out that way), or cut along the ridge from Gunsight Pass to Anderson Pass (no trail, loose rocks, and staying at altitude longer but like I said, some people do this).

168 ounces of water between two people wasn't enough to go from Island Lake to Kings Peak and back.

The Equipment

MSR Miniworks EX Microfilter: Already covered.

Nalgene Cantene (96 oz): Brian and I both had one of these and they worked great.  Brian used it as his primary water container while I used it around camp and instead used water bottles on the trail.  The screw top is compatible with the MSR filter.

Chinese Camp Stove with Ignition: This is compatible with the MSR fuel canisters, is cheap, and worked great.  I'm glad I did an equipment test before I left though.  The spark from the ignition came out too far from the fuel output so I had to bend it more towards the center.  Even with the adjustment, it sometimes took a couple of tries to light the fuel at camp.  This is much smaller and easier to pack than my old Coleman white-fuel stove with built-in refillable fuel tank.  The stove portion is even smaller than the Pocket Rockets.

Work Gloves: I just use cheap work gloves from Home Depot (is that even real leather?) to work the fire or handle my pot of boiling water.

Mountain House Dinners: Brian used meals from eFoods Direct.  My meals typically had less sodium (some Mountain House meals are low sodium and others aren't, so pay attention), were faster to cook (add boiling water to pouch rather than cooking in boiling water), required less cleaning (you eat out of the pouch), and cooled off to an edible temperature faster.  I used about half a MSR fuel canister while Brian used more than one.  I liked the Lasagna and Sweet and Sour Pork (high sodium).  The Pasta Primavera was ok but it had a lot of vegetables which is good on a hike like this.  The Chicken Alfredo and New Orleans Style Chicken with Rice were alright and I will probably skip them in the future in favor of even better meals.

Oatmeal Packets: I continue to find oatmeal packets (stored in a ziplock bag to avoid getting it damp from dew or rain) to work well for breakfast.  There is more cleanup than the Mountain House meals but still quick to cook.

Sawvivor:  Brian has this and I was impressed by how light it was and how well it worked at cutting wood for our campfires.

High Uinta Gear Trekking Pole: Traditionally I use a single pole made from a closet rod that has an eye hook on the end to help in putting bear bags up.  That didn't exactly fit in my luggage so I went with these low cost poles recommended to me by Brian.  They worked great.  I didn't find myself shortening them or relying on the shocks.  My static configuration worked well for me to keep my balance while I admired the surroundings, help me from falling when going downhill, and help me uphill by pulling myself up with my arms.  I'm unsure whether I'll use my closet rod or these once I'm home but I recommend them to others who don't have poles.



Thanks to Brian for looking over this and reminding me of some parts of the hike and providing some corrections.

Google+

I still don't have too many people on Google+ but I thought I'd record my thoughts

Circles

I love them.  Some people are a bit confused about them and consider it a privacy risk that people can add you without your permission.  FB has the same problem but doesn't do a good job of telling you.  In FB if you send a friend request and it is never accepted/rejected then your feed will display any public updates from that person.  Google makes this explicit and emphasizes the benefit of it by having a "following" circle by default.  I think it is a much better and simpler model than "friending" products and people or "liking" their Page.

I'm still playing with what I want in circles.  Too granular of circles means you have a lot more to manage for each post.  Right now I am looking at "family", "friends", "acquaintances", "local", and "professional"


For cleaning up my circles over time, I'd appreciate a mass-edit mode where everyone is a row in a table and the columns are the circles they are in.  Bonus points for Google also showing who has not added me back and who I've not added back.

Posting

I like that when commenting on posts you can see what the visibility is of that thread.

Sometimes privacy on my posts isn't a big deal, like talking about programming for MeeGo.  It'd be nice if you could use your circles not just to restrict communication but say "these people will actually care but allow it to be discoverable for people I'm not connected to yet".

Another variant of that global-sharing-with-focused-audience use case is my use case for Twitter.  I originally joined twitter so I could track MeeGo Conference hashtag and know what else was going on around me while in attendance.  A Similar use case that a friend pointed out is tracking live news for things like the Texas legislative session.  I don't think I've seen a G+ equivalent system to hash tags but it will be hard for it to compete with Twitter without it.


Notifications

This is one of the killer features, being able to check on my notifications within GMail.

Feedback

It is nice that it is so easy to find how to provide feedback to Google on Google+.  It is also a really slick tool.  I've already sent them several items for improvement.  I hope they roll this out to their other services.

Integration with other Google products

Currently there is some integration with Buzz and Picasa Web though I am unsure of what Buzz's role is now and am thinking of disabling it.

I am looking forward to this being improved.  Good Google Calendar integration is a must for being a FB replacement.  Blogger shouldn't be too hard to also tie in.  I'd like them to solve the GMail / Google Reader integration issue but not too sure how they'll pull that off.

Contacts integration is actually where users will probably see the greatest troubles.  This is due to trying to bolt together different services that don't always have their data coordinated.  Users have unmerged GMail contacts, contacts creating G+ accounts with different email addresses than what are in my contact book, and the various tags I have from people.  It'll be a mess even with Google's help to try to match up all of these representations of people.

Back to Picasa Web.  I figured I should go back and update my tagging of people in my pictures.  Sadly I can't find the really helpful mass-tag tool that lets you look through all the faces it found and tag them.

Google Takeout

One of the reasons I am loyal to Google products (besides reducing the number of accounts I need) is the ability to leave and this is no different.

Final Thoughts

As I said, Google will need to improve their service integration and slowly ramp up their algorithms taking care of things for me.

Reaching critical mass will be a challenge.  Some might compare this with the migration from MySpace but this is even harder seeing as there are even more users with more history in the service to leave behind.  Maybe that is a good thing, to have a fresh start, but there are some connections that might not transition over that I would miss.

A question for me: where do I post things?  Facebook, Twitter, or G+?

Extrapolating

I give at the office, blood that is.  The organization that does it recently gave me access to my vitals through their website.  I finally took a look and a coworker made a startling realization.

I wonder if our cafeteria at work will start serving brains by 2012.  I bet Sodexo will charge an arm and a leg for it though.

Dublin and Meego Conference

Thanks to the generosity of the Linux Foundation I flew out and attended Meego Conference this year as well as payed for a couple extra days to see Dublin.  This is my first time out of the United States (I did pop across the border into western Canada for 10 minutes but I don't think that counts).  I've been a Maemo user since the 770 but I never before attended any of the Maemo Summits.  This was a great experience.

I arrived on Saturday the 13th and left on Friday the 19th.  I ended up site seeing rather than participating in any of the early bird events.

On Day 1 I attended Rob Bradford's location/social aware presentation.  I had not known about libsocialweb before which I thought was interesting.  More interesting is I got some ideas of things to do with geoclue.  I also went to a presentation about the Touch Input Method Framework.  The thing that saddens me about these frameworks being created is that they are in-process and limit you to developing in C++ unless someone goes through the effort for each one to write a proxy plugin.  I try to exclusively deal with Python because it let's me focus more of my time on developing rather than worrying about cross-compiling, debugging, etc.  I can understand that there can be performance issues for some frameworks passing a lot of data over dbus, that was the reason I was given for libfolk.  At the evenings receptions, timeless and I had some interesting conversation.  I just hope I remember all the UI feedback he gave.

On Day 2 I attended the two telepathy related sessions (the project, not the super power though that would have made an interesting and confusing unconference day session).  I am looking forward to telepathy 1.0 despite the extra work it is going to put on me for updating The One Ring (and any future CMs I write).  It will be disappointing if I end up having to drop a couple of platforms (currently I support Maemo 4.1, Maemo 5, and desktop Ubuntu with work being done to prep for Meego).

Some worries of fcrochik and I were eased a bit when Mikhail brought up the QtContact plugin backed by libfolk (a bit before a blogpost hit the various planets).  It still seems odd that QtContacts is built with support for plugins yet you would either need some kind of layer on top to aggregate the plugins (needing retrofits for apps using the old API) or else only have one plugin and it aggregates things that plugin to it (plugin for plugins, joy).

The third day was unconference which is more of a good-chaotic everyone-present-what-they-want kind of day.  Sadly due to a conflict I missed Christian's Wayland presentation.

During one of the slots is when I picked up my Lenovo Ideapad that they were giving away.  A bit weird that it comes with a UK power chord and keyboard (I suspect I'm not the only American that set it to US layout to our confusion).  Sadly there is still some work that needs being done which is not giving people the best perception of the netbook/tablet and of Meego.  Hopefully it'll all be worked out in the thread on f.m.c.

I ended the unconference with leading a session about experiences porting from Maemo to Meego but due to conflicts and being the end of the last day I only had fcrochik in attendance.  We still had the good time.

Being from the US and having seen pretty much no professional football games, I enjoyed the Ireland v Norway game.  I heard from others later that both teams weren't playing all that well.  We had free tickets, the pre-game premium lounge with drinks and pretty good snacks.  We had a good number of rounds of the food because they came in such small bowls.  Thankfully texrat was nearby to take all of our dishes.  I didn't take part much in the half-time or pot-game festivities since the lines were long.

I have to say the venue was great, having the hacker's lounge was great, and it all felt top notch.  Amy, Dawn, Quim, and everyone else involved did a great job and there are many thanks to go around. One lesson learned I think was to have more power (and maybe even power converters at the "Power Plant" for people like me who forgot one).  If my laptop I brought actually had power, it would have been fun to have a day like what I heard happened in Barcelona.

I enjoyed being out in Dublin on the other days.  I managed to do everything by foot besides going from and to the airport (so 10+ km of walking on non-conference days).

On Saturday I spent my time at the city centre.  I saw Marions Square, St Stephen's Green, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, and walked Grafton Street.  I enjoyed exploring the city but none of those sites really moved me.  I had some good lamb stew at some place near Dublin Castle.  Coming from Austin and freezing out in Dublin, that stew hit the spot.  That evening I also went and saw Tosca performed at the Gaiety Theatre.  That was a very powerful production.

On the Thursday after the Conference I ended up going to some of the further out spots.  I saw the National Gallery and then walked out to O'Connell Street to see the Spire, the James Joye Statue, the Remembrance Garden (very beautiful both in design and in idea), and the James Joyce Centre.  I then went out west and saw the Leprechaun Museum on my way.  Eventually I was at Kilmainham Gaol and the Ireland Museum of Modern Art.  I then had to rush back real quick to get on the internet to see when I flew back.

Those last three sites ended up being my favorite.  It was fascinating to learn the political history of Ireland from the perspective of a jail, including the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising.  The Garden of Remembrance was a great place to contemplate.  The Leprechaun Museum was fascinating for learning Irish Mythology.

The things I sadly didn't get to see are the Ireland Botanical Gardens, Mallahide Castle, Knowth/Newgrange, the War Memorial Gardens, and a Famine Memorial I saw on my tour map (if it exists, couldn't find it).  I wasn't even sure how I would get to Knowth/Newgrange but at the Leprechaun Museum they aid that the Dublin Tourism place on O'Connell does a tour up in those parts, you jut need to arrange it a head of time it sounded like.  Something to know for the next trip out to Dublin.

I find it interesting that a friend had recommended I see a lot of the Churches but instead I saw or at least tried to see war memorials, jails, execution sites, ancient burial tombs, etc.  A bit different of priorities I guess.

See Pictures