While on the mainland, a wedding in Pittsburgh, Ikea (not so) fun, San Francisco’s warmest day of the year, and Bay to Breakers May 20, 2008

It was a busy week and a half while I was on the mainland! I spent 17 hours in San Francisco on Thursday, and managed to make it to happy hour, find a dress to pack for the wedding, and get on the second red eye in 2 nights – off to Pittsburgh.

We than had a great time catching up with the Pittsburgh crew at Brett and Amy’s wedding. A very nice ceremony and a really fun reception.

After cooking Lucy a Mothers’ Day brunch, we flew back to SF. The week in SF was lots of meetings, unpacking, catching up with San Francisco friends, and purchasing and building Ikea furniture. There was a heat wave in the Bay Area – it was even *hot* in San Francisco! Thursday we went to Taylor’s for happy hour, and in the same seats where we’re always wishing the sun would peak out between the buildings, we were instead wishing it would go behind the buildings. We were there until after 9, and it was still plenty warm enough for a skirt and a short-sleeved shirt.

Then, on Sunday, my favorite holiday: Bay to Breakers! We joined my friend Carl’s group, with a Kentucky Derby theme. Nicole and I were rich fans in the big hats, Scott was the horse vet, Eric and Aaron were also wealthy fans. The float had 6 gates, and Carl and a bunch of the guys were jockeys, with horse heads on sticks. We had a trumpet player, a pace rabbit, and assorted other Derby-appropriate folks. Inside the cart were 2 regular kegs and 2 pony kegs.

We got on the KRON4 live news coverage as we crossed the starting line! (The people running at the front had already finished, as referenced by the anchors.)

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More photos available at:

http://www.randomshiznat.com/Bay2Breakers2008/

Travel Details May 7-18 May 1, 2008

Night of May 7 – fly to SFO, arriving morning of May 8

Night of May 8 – fly to PIT, arriving morning of May 9 (better sleep on one of those)

May 9 – May 11 – in PIT

May 10 – Brett & Amy’s wedding

Afternoon of May 11 – fly to SFO, arriving late evening on May 11

May 12-17 in SF (probably some meetings in the south bay that week)

morning of May 18 – Bay to Breakers

evening of May 18 – fly to HNL

Vog April 29, 2008

This past weekend, I got to learn about vog, volcanic smog, because it was smothering Honolulu.  According to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory,

There are at least two problems in dismissing vog itself as a not-so-serious hazard. The first problem is that vog (volcanic smog) is a mixture that includes gases but is predominately aerosols (tiny particles and droplets) formed when volcanic gas reacts with moisture, oxygen, and sunlight. It is this unique mixture of gas and aerosols that makes vog both difficult to study and potentially more harmful than either gases or particles alone. What we have learned from limited studies about the aerosols that comprise vog is that most of the aerosols are acidic and are of a size that is readily retained by the lung.

Apparently the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island emits about 2000 tons of volcanic gasses daily, and the Big Island has vog whenever they don’t have wind. Oahu, where Honolulu is, only suffers from vog when the winds are *just* wrong.

That may have been contributing to my horrible cold – the sore throat and headache could definitely have been exacerbated by the vog. I think that today’s runny nose is probably just the cold.

Check out this news story about this weekend’s vog: KGMB9

Kanikapila Party April 28, 2008

My friend Jake from work is really into all things Hawaiian – he’s the one who took me out on the outrigger canoe, he surfs and loves everything to do with the water, he plays Hawaiian music on the ukulele, and much more. His uncle had a “kanikapila” (play music) party on Saturday, and I got invited along. The party turned out to be a celebration for the Hawaiian language class that Jake’s uncle and father are taking.

It was fantastic. After some pupus and a potluck dinner, people started playing their instruments (many ukuleles and a steel guitar included), singing Hawaiian songs, and hula dancing. It was great. Many people knew only one or two hulas, and would request the musicians to play the songs they knew. I’m not sure that I’d seen men dance hulas before, but there were several dancing last night. Some people knew many hulas, including the teacher of the Hawaiian language class and her daughter, a finalist in the Miss Aloha Hula contest!

I took a video on my camera – I’m posting it below.

Check out some pics of the house (not mine – I was only there at night):

And some stills from the party:

Hiking Tantalus April 28, 2008

I’ve had a bit of a cold this weekend, which was keeping me from being as active as I would have liked. Yesterday I was in bed and on the couch all day except for the party. Today I managed to get out and do a little hiking, and see some views. I drive the Tantalus loop, and did a few short hikes there.

The first hike was to the Tantalus Summit. It was up many steps, through bamboo thickets, with brief glimpses of Honolulu and Waikiki through the trees.

Then I reached the summit, with beautiful views of Honolulu, Waikiki, and the mountains of Oahu. I was there by myself for about 20 minutes while I shot some photos and had a snack. It was a little hazy, but it was still great to be up there. Click on the panoramic photos below to check out some of the view.

Here’s the camera timer photo of me:

After that, I did the Makiki Valley hike, in a little bit of rainforest, to see the beautiful greenery and some pretty flowers and birds.

Luckily I did not cross paths with any pig hunters.

Finally, I went to the Pu’u Ulaka’a State Park lookout. It was the easist to get to, and had the best view. Check out the pano (click on it). I also spotted my office building in Manoa valley below.

Startup Update April 28, 2008

After 3+ weeks, I think I can give you a pretty fair assessment of my job so far. I really like it – it’s definitely exciting working for a small company with big goals. In a company of 11 people (5 full-time on the technical team), I can really feel my impact on the company. That is pretty inspiring, and makes the long days worth it.

I’m working on a lot of different things, which keeps it interesting: developing new signal processing algorithms, helping to decide what areas we should pursue next to solve problems, writing the protocol for a clinical study, working on regulatory submissions, working on patent submissions, presenting to investors, … There are probably more things that I’m forgetting to put here, and I’m sure more will pop up!

The hours aren’t totally crazy – I’m probably averaging about 60 hours a week: a few late nights a week and some time on the weekends. The weeks are long, but the work is mostly fun, and there’s still time to enjoy some of the Hawaii paradise.

Sunday’s Fun in an Outrigger Canoe April 21, 2008

My friend Jake from work is a member of the Outrigger Canoe Club, and today I got to go out from the club in an outrigger canoe! First we paddled around Waikiki for a bit, and anchored and went snorkeling in the waters off of Sans Souci beach. Jake and Tommy did a little (unsuccessful) spearfishing, but I was just looking at the fish. After an hour or so of snorkeling, we met back at the canoe and paddled back toward the beach. Jake led us in catching some waves with the canoe – canoe surfing! It was really fun.

I don’t have any pictures of us in the outrigger canoe – I didn’t bring it since my camera isn’t waterproof. I found some videos of canoe surfing. Most of the videos I found show the canoes flipping – we didn’t flip, but we saw others go over, and Jake was instructing us with what to do in the case of a capsize. Even though we didn’t flip, these videos will still give you an idea of what it’s like.

Pedicures with bling April 19, 2008

I’ve been noticing that many of the women I run into in Hawaii have pedicures with bling – rhinestones along the edge of their big toes. This isn’t just uber-fashionable people, or young people, but all sorts of people, including our CEO and my landlady/roommate.

Now I have joined the club of women with pedicures with bling. Today at lunch our CEO and I went to the Smiley Nails, and got pedicures. Now our toes will look good for our investors meeting tomorrow. (My feet look all beat up because I managed to get board rash on the tops of my toes while surfing – maybe it wasn’t the best time for a cute pedicure…)

Lilypads at Hana’s House April 17, 2008

I am totally in love with the lilypads that Hana has growing around the house. This fountain is right outside the front door. It has lilly pads in it, and they flower. The flowers open and close every day, and at night, when they’re totally closed, they actually go underwater. This weekend I’ll try to get a good picture of one of the flowers during the day, when it’s totally open.

There are some more lilly pads in this container garden:

There aren’t any flowers in this one right now, but Hana just raised up the lilypads inside, because someone told her that they were too deep. We’ll see if they start flowering now. It’s under some big trees, so it doesn’t get a lot of light, which might be discouraging the plant from flowering.

And there are little orange fishes in both the fountain and the bath tub, so you don’t have to worry that we’re breeding mosquitoes. (I haven’t seen a mosquito since I got here, but they do have them.)

Hawaii’s fresh water April 15, 2008

I guess my years with Scott, an environmental engineer by training, has gotten me thinking about stuff like drinking water. I was wondering how this relatively small and crowded island has enough drinking water for everyone, and how they obtain and store it.

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply has some pretty good information on their site. Their is an interactive piece on the Water Cycle that describes how water fills Hawaii’s aquifers and dikes (miles long sealed underground compartments that lava came up through when the island was forming), and how they get it out by digging artesian wells and tunnels to the dikes.

There’s also an interesting page about Oahu’s Water History. Briefly, the native people has strict laws to ensure that the water could support the hundreds of thousands of people that lived on the island. Then, when Westerners arrived and introduced artesian wells, there was a brief water boom, but irresponsible well-digging eventually led to a major drought on the island, which prompted government control of the water supply.