David's Mumblings

Road Trip: Days 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Day 11 (26th) was spent driving from Fargo, ND to Minneapolis, MN, a relatively short drive without event. We stayed near the Mall of America and checked it out a little. Day 12 was a drive to Chicago, IL via Madison, WI. We spent day 13 (28th) in Chicago, and on day 14 (29th) we drove to Youngstown, OH. Day 15th we drove to Newark, NJ (well, close by anyhow) and in less than an hour we leave for NYC. Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 07/01/08 at 03:56:09 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Days 7, 8, 9, 10

Day 7, the 22nd, we had a rather uneventful drive from Richfield, Utah to Idaho Falls, Idaho. The only moderately interesting event was a brief shower that helped wash some of the splattered bugs off of our windshield. :-)

The next two days -- the 23rd and 24th -- were devoted to Yellowstone Park. I think it's probably my second favorite park, just below Glacier. We drove from Idaho Falls to the park, spent the night at Cody, Wyoming, and then made a second pass through the park to spend the night in Billings, Montana.

Finally, the 25th was spent driving from Billings, Montana all the way to Fargo, North Dakota -- a 600-mile drive. (Ugh.) Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 06/26/08 at 00:49:58 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Day 6

Yesterday we headed out from Page to visit Zion and Bryce. Both were lots of fun. We entered Zion from the east, so we drove down the canyon and through the tunnel before parking at the visitor center. From there we took the shuttle bus to check out the sights, and took two short walks (Court of the Patriarchs and the Weeping Rocks). We didn't really have time for the actual hikes so we passed on those. After that, we drove to Bryce Canyon via Dixie National Forest. Around the middle of the forest at one of the high points, there was a vista point giving a view over the plains, hills and Zion, which was very pretty. Entering Bryce, we found the Red Canyon, which we are absolutely sure was Disney's inspiration for the Big Thunder Mountain ride: the resemblance is almost uncanny. Bryce itself was amazing. We took another two half-mile walks to get to points overlooking the Bryce Amphitheater. After that, we drove to Richfield via Beaver and almost missed dinner: we forgot that the time had gone forward an hour. Oops.

Last night I realized that I've been making a mistake with my camera. I've been taking panoramic shots: I pan the camera and take several pictures, with the intention of stitching them together later. The problem is that I was only half-releasing the button after every shot to prevent it from refocusing: all of the shots need to be focused the same way or they don't come out right. However, the camera also uses that half-press to do things like white-balance detection. So, a good number of panoramic shots start with one kind of color, and apply that color balance to all shots, resulting in rather poor later shots. Oh well. I guess I should just use manual focus, and let it do its color balancing like it wants do.

Today we do nothing but drive straight to Idaho Falls. We wanted to stay closer to Yellowstone, but motels in Jackson went for about $160. Idaho Falls was about $60, so that was pretty easy... ^ TOP

Posted on 06/22/08 at 09:09:03 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Day 4, 5

We slept in for our full day at Las Vegas (we were up until 2am seeing Kung Fu Panda the night before). When we woke up, we went to the discount ticket booth to see what they had. We ended up getting tickets to "Stomp Out Loud", a very interesting show where music (percussion) is made with common or "trash" objects like cardboard boxes, trash cans, lids, brooms, etc. It was pretty good and definitely very original. With the tickets, we got a discounted dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse: instead of $38, we got their buffet for $22. It was pretty good too: you had a salad bar, and then they would come to your table to carve meats in front of you. Most of the meats were pretty good, although I wasn't a big fan of the "filet mignon with cheese"... In any case, we left feeling pretty stuffed.

The next morning (yesterday) we headed out toward Page, Arizona. Along the way we drove over the Hoover Dam but didn't really get to see it since there was lots of construction and we could only see it from the back, not the front -- oh well. Next up was the Grand Canyon, which was simply amazing. I took a lot of pictures to stitch together into large panoramic shots and hopefully at least some came out ok. Around 8pm we arrived in Page and had an adventure with the hotel; the door to our room wouldn't open! It would open about an inch and then jam. Apparently the security lock had gotten it or something. They called maintenance to fix it while we had dinner at an "ok" steakhouse. (It was way too expensive for what we got).

Today we leave Page and head toward Richfield, Utah. Along the way we'll be seeing Bryce and Zion parks. We were going to drive through Monument Valley but it's very out of the way so we decided to pass on it. From Richfield we should be heading to Yellowstone (nothing but driving on that day). ^ TOP

Posted on 06/21/08 at 09:27:14 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Day 3

Yesterday we drove from Bishop to Las Vegas, stopping in Lone Pine and Death Valley along the way. Lone Pine is a tiny town whose main feature seems to be the Alabama Hills just west of it, where very many Hollywood movies were made. It is a neat landscape, and we got some nice pictures of rock formations shaped like arches.

Death Valley is searingly hot, yet very dry. I was surprised that while I was pretty hot, it wasn't as unbearable as humid-hot (i.e. I could walk around without feeling too bad). Seeing the lowest point of the US was interesting: Badwater Basin is a *huge* salt flat; apparently Death Valley water drains into it and then bakes in the sun, leaving behind various minerals e.g. salt. We got nice pictures of the valley, too.

After all that we arrived in Las Vegas. I'm not really sure how much I like it (read: I think I don't like it). We couldn't walk anywhere without being assaulted by people trying to give us ads for, err, "girlie" services. The air was polluted and smoke was everywhere; it was crowded, it smelled bad, and lots of people were wandering around drunk. And as far as we could tell, many restaurants had closed by 10:30 which was very disappointing for us. We ended up eating at Wollensky's Grill, and then we saw Kung Fu Panda. Today we're going to try to get tickets for a show. Tomorrow, we head out for the Grand Canyon and so forth. ^ TOP

Posted on 06/19/08 at 15:08:39 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Day 2

Yesterday we drove through Yosemite and did a little walking. It is a beautiful park and reminded me quite a bit of Glacier Park (just with narrower valleys and more cliff faces, I think). We saw barely any wildlife, which was a little disappointing; we saw chipmunks and birds, and only at the very end a handful of deer off in the distance. The Bridalveil Falls were incredible, but I didn't want to take too many pictures since we were getting "rained" on by mist from the fall and I didn't want any mist on my lens...

Today we leave Bishop and head through Death Valley and end up in Las Vegas for two nights. Tomorrow we'll visit Las Vegas, and the day after we'll probably head to the Grand Canyon area. ^ TOP

Posted on 06/18/08 at 08:45:02 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Road Trip: Day 1

We finished our first day of driving. We left Stanford around 4pm, ran some errands, and ended up just north of Fresno in Madera. Nothing too eventful (although I did return some shoes in exchange for a nice pair that fits, looks the same, and costs just over half as much). Tomorrow we'll go to Yosemite, hike a little bit, and then sleep near Death Valley.

My laptop battery is shot: it's been on for only about 10 minutes, and is already at 25%. And my wireless is busted, too: when I have it on, the computer freezes during hibernation... ^ TOP

Posted on 06/16/08 at 23:03:35 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Moving Out

As I write this we are putting the last things into suitcases and are getting ready to leave Stanford "forever". We're both all done, and leaving with three diplomas each (BA, BS, MS for both of us). We are driving across the country and should arrive in NYC early July. I'll write more about the itinerary and so forth as we figure it out: for now, we need to finish packing and give our keys back. :-) ^ TOP

Posted on 06/16/08 at 13:11:35 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Fun with Support

Me: "I am getting an email message telling me I need to update PC Leland because I am logging in with an old version of Kerberos. This is impossible: (1) I run Linux and so do not have the software installed, (2) I have the version of Kerberos that the email says I need to have."

Support: "You need to update to the new Stanford Desktop Tools version in order to not get the message about Kerberos 4 credentials."

Me: "Uhh. I don't have Kerberos 4. I don't have an old version of the SDT; I run Linux. I only have Kerberos 5."

Support: "Oh. Then, in that case, you need to use the new version of SDT if you are on Windows or Mac."

Me: "I am on Linux. Those tools do not exist on Linux. It is impossible for me to have an old version of tools that don't exist."

Support: "Oh, well Linux isn't compatible, so you need to upgrade the tools."

Me (having realized that resistance is futile and that no progress will be made): "Uh. Ok. I'll go do that then." ^ TOP

Posted on 05/15/08 at 11:23:11 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Fun with Security

So I overhear admins at a company talking about entering time sheets and expense reports for the people they assist (i.e. their bosses, high-ranking VPs). One asks the other: "how do you enter the data for other people?" To which the other replies: "oh, I just log in as them using their username and password. I don't know of any other way of doing it."

You would think that there would be a better way of handling this situation than giving the complete identity of one person to another... ^ TOP

Posted on 05/12/08 at 14:59:59 by dchaley (David Haley)
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