Internet is becoming more and more polluted with junk-mail, people selling crap, and businesses which don't know their place on the net. They're all trying to make this wonderful place (i.e.: the net) in to hell (i.e.: real world). Internet should be viewed as a place of imagination, creativity, and most of all: fun. Internet is not some really advanced tool for searching for people to rip-off. It's about searching, and finding, things which are useful, helpful, and promote the sharing of ideas. This is what this site is striving to become.

Jobless rate drops to 8.3%. Hmm... Any increate is good news, obviously, but... wouldn't a better measure be: total payroll value? (e.g. salary * number of employees). E.g. you take 100k workers each at ~$50k/year each (~$50b payroll) fire them, and re-hire them in 12 months for ~$25k/year...and your unemployment number is unchanged, but your payroll value is half (and those same workers are now seriously struggling). It's pretty easy to find "a job" that pay nutn---it's the "well paid" jobs that aren't out there, and is the reason for high unemployment.

- Alex; Fri Feb 3 07:14:18 EST 2012
February 3rd at wikipedia...

A bit of old news: Facebook files for $5 billion IPO. And no, I'm sure I'm not the only one on the planet who doesn't and never had a facebook account :-)

- Alex; Thu Feb 2 02:27:56 EST 2012

First day of class.

- Alex; 20120201

Eh, jet lag... can't wait for next vacation.

A coworker got tickets to visit the 9/11 memorial site, so went during lunch. I can't believe how much pointless security they got there. I mean, they make you take off your belt! I mean, it's a freaking park, what could anyone do in a park?

Besides the security, the fountains look nice, though perhaps in a slightly wrong spot from what I remember of where the buildings were... they put some other structure right smack in the middle of where the central fountain was, which messes up my perception of the place.

But yah, I think they should just do away with the security... e.g. it's no more dangerous place than the zuchini park (however you spell that) right next door.

- Alex; 20120131

Flight from Los Angeles back to JFK... yey!

And... that's all for the trip :-)

- Alex; 20120130

Discovered the waterslide at the hotel, and went so many times, that I lost count. That's amazing fun!

Then drove to Kahuku Unit of Volcano National Park (the HIDDEN entrance is at: 19.058183,-155.675247, and is only open on saturdays and sundays). You can drive offroad for about 6 miles to amazing grassy fields.

Then ate something called dragon fruit, and passion fruit, and relaxed until the flight... back to Los Angeles.

- Alex; 20120129

This is my Mauna Kea day; so after a short hot tub trip, drove to Mauna Kea, right in time for a weekend 1pm tour of the Keck telescope and summit.

So at 1pm, at visitor's center, they showed us a video about native Hawaiian culture thing, and how they're not fans of telescopes on their sacret land, etc., and an hour later, the convoy of about a dozen jeeps started up the mountain.

So here's the big moment: we arrive at Keck,...and walk in... into the "Visitor Center"... the *same* visitor center I went to two years ago, without any tour. Yes, that's right, you get to see Keck... from behind bars, and glass! You're in the building only in a sense that you're not outside, but you might as well be outside. Not sure why I went on this tour anyway. It's absolutely not worth it. Better would've been to just drive up the mountain myself.

Though... I did see Keck move... from behind the bars.

Anyways, after totally pointless tour, went on two hikes. First, went to visit Lake Waiau, and then hiked out to the Mauna Kea summit to watch the sunset.

After sunset, drove back to visitor's center to enjoy the astonomy thingies; some astronomy club was there with extra nerdy atmosphere, along with a music night of some native hawaiian singing.

Throughout my whole trip, I've been eating through the McDonalds free-big-mac-and-fries cupon booklet. So on the way back to hotel, got a bigmac :-)

- Alex; 20120128

Mr0ning hot tub. I guess we weren't drunk enough to go into the pool at night :-/

Now back to traveling the Big Island... The North West area... onto Waipio Valley.

Stupid me, set the GPS to end of Akoni Pule Hwy, which ends at a valley with a rather nice hike down. There's a black sand beach in the valley, with terrain very similar to one in Kalalau trail... though very very short (~20 min hike).

After correcting GPS to point to Waipio Valley, arrived at the 25% grade road down Waipio...and took my jeep wrangler down.

That was a very fun road to drive! (from wikipedia: ``...the steepest road of its length in the United States and possibly the world.''). After the very steep section, the road crosses a few streams---where front of my jeep started steaming (water wapor), and after yesterday's jeep fire on another island, it was a bit...amm... kwaizy.

Then decided to visit Kalapana, and walk the black sand beach there... and talk to the natives about lava flow (and no, it's not flowing).

Then... since I'm there, and everything, `one-last-time' to Jagger point to relax a bit, and then onto Kona Sheraton.

- Alex; 20120127

So there are a few other places on Kauai I wanted to visit, so without wasting time on sleep, decided to just go there. It's a long day ahead, might as well get an early start on it (them 5-hour energy drinks really work...back to back... for days at a time)

Drove to Waimea Canyon, spent a few hours there... trying to figure what's so interesting to see in the rain/fog. Apparently, nothing of interest is in that area (more on that in a few paragraphs). Well, granted there's nothing to see there in thick fog...

Then met up with friends (on a 4-door Jeep; more on that in a minute), and onto Polihale State Park... which is an amazing beach. Spent a few hours there. It was lightly raining, but that's fine...

And then... onto Koke'e State Park which was... never reached:

So here I am, driving on a hill in Waimea behind my friend's 4-door jeep, when I notice a bit of yellow under his car. Then that yellow gets a bit big... and smoky. I honk and flash brights... the jeep dies, and a minute or two later, is engulfed in flames. Luckily a friend of mine and his kid got out of the jeep just in time, with a few seconds to grab most of the belongings. The jeep became an inferno, and cremated a teddy bear! Tires blew one by one, and other parts kept poping out with small explosions.

As luck would have it, a tourist bus was passing, and was able to call the police/fire department (cellphone reception in that area sucks). After about 10 minutes, the fire department arrived, and in pouring rain, doused the car with water, and then some white foam.

All the while I was running around barefoot with a camera (I couldn't wear any footwear due to blisters from the hike).

It was a miracle nobody got hurt.

So there you have it... one day, you're driving along enjoying your vacation, the next minute you're jumping out of a flaming jeep, lucky to be alive.

Not much of travel after that... drove to airport, returned car, fly to Oahu, and back to Hilo.

Then drove to Jagger point `one-last-time', and onto Kona.... Sheraton hotel...with a water slide! Yey!

After the car thing, we all got a bit drunk (Jameson Irish Whiskey), and for first time in Hawaii, I got a good night's sleep.

- Alex; 20120126

Off on a flight from Hilo to Oahu, and from there, to Kauai.

Rented Dodge Charger, walmart to get Beef Jercky and water, and then off to Napali Coast, for the Kalalau hike. Yes, the 11-mile crazy-man trip.

Did I mention all the chickens on this island? They're everywhere!

And now, onto the 11-mile nightmare. The first 2 miles feel like 10. Yes, you're really are that tired after just the first 2. And then it gets worse. Much worse. There's like no safety net... Certain areas are doubly slippery, and... if you slip, you fall 1000 feet off the mountain. It's an amazing hike... though not sure I'm to ever doing it again.

On mile 7-9 somewhereish, fet a fellow hiker, who, after a short conversation, offered me a puff out of a glass pipe... after he hook a whiff out of it. Not sure what that was (crack? meth?), but... I suddenly decided not to camp outside in my hammock there at night. Then other hikers casually asked me if I had any papers to make joints... my guess, this is a great place to get away from the world and get high.

Anyways, it's getting dark, and I'm barely reaching the end. My initial plan was to spend the night there, then after encounters with other fellow hikers, my plan was to rest for a few hours and turn back around 3am-ish timeframe. However, when I got to the end, I just decided to turn around walk back immediately (after taking a few pix of course... in the dark though).

Surprisingly it felt safer to walk those clifs at night, 'cause... you can't see the bottom. So you don't know how far you'd fall if you slipped. E.g. safer!

Slipped and one leg went off the cliff, and landed on knee on 2nd leg. Meh. Good thing for friction, I guess.

So I'm walking in total darkness (well, headlamp) in the jungle, and I hear grunting noises of something big in the bushes. Then it's louder. There are MANY big things in the bushes. I'm a bit concerned that these aren't bears....though there shouldn't be bears in Hawaii.... should there?

A bit later, it turned out to be a bunch of wild hogs. And throughout the night, I ended up having a dozen or so encounters with them. You don't see'em during the day, but at night, they make use of the trail themselves... so I had to stomp and talk to myself (and them) to scare'em off [they're not really afraid of humans... it turns out].

Then there were frogs. Stupid frogs who sit on the trail, and make absolutely no reaction to anything. You stomp you foot near them, and they just continue on sitting. You shine light on them, and they just sit there. You nudge them with your foot, and they just push over, right themselves, and continue on sitting there. It took great effort not to step on any of them during the night.

This walk back was torture. It was hot, long, tiring, my backpack was super heavy (I carried 3 galons of water with me, since I forgot my waterfilter at home, and had to load up on water). I also stupidly carried all my "warm" clothing with me, thinking that it might be cold at night (nights on Big Island near volcano village get pretty chilly).

About 22 miles later, with no breaks, at 3:30-am-ish, 14 hours later (~7 hours each way), I arrived back at the car. I really think I'm the only crazy person to do that hike in one day. Ruined my feet big time, and could barely walk. Blisters on top of blisters.

So anyways, on the highway after the hike, the road is *covered* in frogs (or toads, whatever). Anyways, they're literally every few feet. Thousands of them. So I try honking, and flashing my lights at them, and they no move. So slowly, I roll car, and... they no move... and then I hear "squish"... "squish"... I speed up, and hear "squish, squish, squish, squish..." Yep, them stupid frogs. I really feel sorry about that... my car wasn't the first one there---there were tracks of dead frogs on the road... but it still feels wrong and weird to just drive over living things like that. Even if they are stupidly just sitting there.

And then all the roosters went off in the mr0ning... ALL of them! Everywhere.

- Alex; 20120125

Green sand beach day. After long trek over lava field yesterday, this short (~2miles one way) hike is a great walk-in-the-park :-)

Looked for USGA south point marker, but didn't find it.

Went to do Thursten lava tube (Volcano National Park)... all the way to the end, but... only the first section was open. Meh.

Discovered a pretty neat crater... Iki. Apparently I drove by it a dozen times, but never actually noticed how neat it looked. Took a hike to walk down through the middle of the crater.

Then off to Jagger to enjoy the yello/red lava glow that seems to only be visible at night.

Since it's not bed-time-yet, onto Mauna Kea to enjoy the astronomy stuff. To see the Orion Nebula, etc.

Found out that apparently there's a tour of Keck telescope every saturday and sunday at 1pm. This is something I definitely have to do. ``you get to go inside the telescope, and see it move''. Yah, definitely gotta do that.

- Alex; 20120124

On flight from LA to Kona, Hawaii; mostly sleep, 'cause haven't slept since Thursday night.

In Kona, rented 2-door Jeep, and drove to Hilo area (Volcano Village).

From there, to Volcano National Park, to see the glowing crater in the dark at Jagger point.

Then in a hope of seeing-lava-where-I-saw-it-last-year, to the end of Chain of Craters Road, and hiked out about 6 miles long the coast over a lava field.

Yes, there's still hot stuff there. Jumped off the lava a few times. Nothing "yellow" (only hot fuming dark/hard lava rock). Boots got a bit cut up.

After hiking back to car, picked up my hammock (I brought it with me for another hike), and went to the small palm-tree area near water (at end of chain of craters road). Strung up the hammock, and... slept for 3 hours.

Went to Jagger point again, stopping at every turnout along chain of craters road.

- Alex; 20120123

Fell asleep on the side of highway near Las Vegas, and later decided to skip Death Valley and simply drive to LA---warm up on the beach by Pacific Coast Highway.

After getting to LA, and realizing I still had about 6 hours before returning car, drove up ~3 hours north (and 3 hours back south) on the PCH, stopping along the way to enjoy the scenery and going for a walk on the beach.

- Alex; 20120122

Got to grand canyon ~9am-ish. It's snowing. Lightly.

Guess no t-shirt for this hike... how the heck could it be *snowing* in Arizona? In the desert!? Oh, well... A bit down, snow turned to rain, and all the mule shit...well... that started to flow... If you've ever hiked there, you'll know what I mean. You're walking in slushy mule shit most of the way down :-/

Very windy hike. Amazing views. Went down Kaibab Trail, down to Phantom Ranch. Had a coffee at the ranch, and up via Bright Angel trail.

Half way up, a snow blizzard started. Sneakers got wet, and then froze (nearly solid!). Then it got dark... and an hour later, I emerged out of a canyon, 2 miles away from the parking lot... Really started to regret not wearing boots (or warmer clothing). Why didn't I think of bringing mittens with me?

Defrosted at some lodge by a fireplace, then took a shuttle bus to the car, which had half a foot of snow on it (and this is a trip I thought to do in a t-shirt!).

Decided to drive to Death Valley to warm up.

- Alex; 20120121

Embarking on the trip tonight. Taking a 9pm AA flight to Los Angeles. Then driving out to Grand Canyon...

- Alex; 20120120

Why today's Web blackouts are working. Yey, ...and this site made all the difference... eh, eh, eh.

Though seriously, it was a major pain not to have wikipedia for a bit... until everyone realized you could just hit escape real fast as the page is loading.

Kodak files for bankruptcy. Woa. Corporate evolution, with old dinosaurs going away... Strangely, Bill Gates is quoted as saying "kodak is finished" around 1980s time frame. It was pretty obvious for over a decade to anyone-but-Kodak that they had their eggs in the wrong baskets, or something.

- Alex; Thu Jan 19 07:54:48 EST 2012

Killed the site for a day (e.g. in line with a buncha other anti-SOPA folks this Wednesday).

Housing: The one bailout America could really use. Hmm... That I completely disagree with. Like the story comment: ``How can you "fix the market" is this some kind of communist oxymoron?''

- Alex; Wed Jan 18 01:18:41 EST 2012

Hmm... House Kills SOPA. Yey. But... Wikipedia, Reddit plan blackout in SOPA protest (?).

China's economic growth slows. That picture in the article is amazing. How the heck does anyone think it's a good idea to stack people so closely into such high density.

- Alex; Tue Jan 17 07:59:11 EST 2012

Yey, Friday 13th!

What the heck is wrong with domain registrars? Wasn't it not long ago that domain names were dirt cheap, and now suddenly profphreak.com auto-renews for $43 for 1 year! (and looking at other domains, it doesn't look much better). E.g. network solutions renew for 5 years and save a whooping 2% off their outragious everyday price.

- Alex; Fri Jan 13 23:11:46 EST 2012

Adjusted my Hawaii travel plans a bit... Will fly out to LA next Friday, spend two days in California, then fly onto Hawaii :-D

- Alex; Wed Jan 11 00:04:22 EST 2012

Went to summit Mt.Marcy; went from Loj to Colden Lake, then summit Marcy from the south, descend via north side, and back to the Loj. Just about 20 mile walk. Below the tree line, it's amazing---snow stacked feet thick on tree branches... complete calmness, no wind, no sounds of any kind. Pretty warm. Just amazing.

Above the tree line... urgh. very very windy, and very very cold. There's no "snow" above the tree line, there's just a layer of ice on the mountain, with very thick fog making seeing *anything* difficult. Took me an hour to get through "last 300 feet" to the summit--got lost, had to double back, each time going up and down, etc. The fog made it impossible to see the "next cairns" from the one you're standing next to... and since nobody ascended via south trail that day before me, there were absolutely no marks in the ice. No trail to follow, etc. Luckily on the way down via north trail I could follow a path of crampon tracks left by someone not long before..

- Alex; 20120107