A Few Songs

I have a pretty strange taste in music; just wanted to post a few songs that have been stuck in my head over the past weeks. (Make sure to bump up the quality on the videos when you listen.)

LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean


This one takes a little while to get into but wait for the beat to drop at 3:08 and again at 6:34 - heaven.

Bat for Lashes - Daniel


The wispiness of Natasha Khan's voice really makes this song - creepy video. :S

Fol Chen - In Ruins (Baths Remix)


A pretty happy sounding song about a post-apocalyptic dystopian wasteland? Yes please.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home


Just a great song all around, love the feeling I get from this.

Programming Truths

I don't think most people (even some other developers!) understand the massive amount of work that goes into creating a software project. Currently in the middle of the design phase for a project, two particular points made in this article struck a chord.

Good programmers spend much of the other 90% [of their time] thinking, researching, and experimenting to find the best design.

During the design phase of a software product I usually lock myself in a room with a large whiteboard and a laptop. I take a look at the requirements and begin to break them down, looking for similarities that can be grouped together into software components.

These get written, erased, rewritten and moved all over the whiteboard numerous times during this exercise. I write small blocks of code to test my interim designs and see how they look, how they perform and see if the smaller design fits with the larger system. These design sessions are one of my favorite parts about software design, but it is not at a large cost - see the next point:

Programming is hard work. It’s an intense mental activity. Good programmers think about their work 24/7. They write their most important code in the shower and in their dreams.

I constantly think of how I can improve the system I am helping to design; thoughts like - "Could I remove that dependency if I refactor the code?" -or- "If I apply this design pattern will the system scale better?" It is a constant process of furthering the design until you reach a point where you can begin an implementation.

I often think back to what I have accomplished in my work days during a design phase - most of the time it involves several sheets of scratch paper filled with notes, sketches, pseudocode, and seemingly random UML diagrams.

What is great about software, like any other creative field, is seeing the final output of those long hours of design - seeing those early scribbles on paper become something real.

Hiking Mt. Evans

I was recently given the opportunity to travel to Denver, CO for business. I decided to extend my trip so I could stay through the weekend and see some of the sites - particularly the Rocky Mountains. Another coworker had a similar idea and extended his trip as well. He has been on several backpacking trips all over the country so when it came to a day hike, I knew I had a qualified guide.

After a brief meeting on Friday morning we decided to look for a place to hike. A couple of the people we met with had some suggestions; one that stuck was a climb up one of the Colorado "Fourteeners" - Mount Evans. Having spent my entire life in the extremely flat Midwestern United States I'm not sure why this didn't alarm me - I blame my already limited oxygen input from staying in the Mile-High City.

We started our drive from Denver and entered the Arapaho National Forest where we began our ascent up the base of the mountain. I was immediately struck by how beautiful the views were on the drive up.

A view of Echo Lake at the entrance to the park.

Driving farther up the mountain road, we stopped a lookout point facing to the East. It was only now that I realized this would be unlike anything I had done before. The temperature had dropped from the warmer 85 degrees in Denver to a much colder and breezy 62 degrees.

Looking out to the east almost half the vertical distance to the trail.

We parked at the bottom of the summit and packed up some water, snacks, and extra clothing. Before we even got to the trail head we spotted some mountain goats happily posing for pictures as people passed by. The trail quickly turned from a groomed and wide path to a barely worn dirt trench. We filled out the hikers safety card (another "should-have-been" red flag for this adventure) and pressed upward. The elevation gain was taking a toll on my pace and I was becoming winded from fewer steps. I took a break on large rock ledge (unknown to me) and took a picture of the lakes in a valley towards the North - a beautiful sight.

The Chicago Lakes down in the northern valley.

Moving on, we descended down the side of Mt. Mt. Spalding, and started the ascent up the side of Mt. Evans. The path become much more rocky and barren. We often missed the cairn trail markers and needed to backtrack a bit to find the proper way up towards the summit.

Many more rocks as we approach the side of Mt. Evans.

We soon realized that we had gone as far as we could with the light we had left - the sun was beginning to set behind the mountains. We took a quick rest and I tried to get as many pictures as I could of this amazing view - the pictures are a poor replacement for the actual scene.

A panorama near the top of the summit.

The sun setting over the Rocky Mountains.

I drank some water and ate as much of a Clif bar as I could stomach, we started our hike back down. Descending was certainly faster, but by this time my body was struggling at even the smallest step - a combination of the lack of oxygen, poor water intake, and not enough food. I was getting weaker and could feel my boots hitting the tops of the rocks, but knew we had to continue or risk being caught without any light.

The shadows grew longer as we made our descent.

We reached the start of the trail head just in time, the last bit of light was disappearing behind the range after the sun had set. Having time to sit helped settle my nerves and let me catch my breath. Looking back up at the summit was suddenly so calming. I had just climbed a mountain. The feeling was incredible and something I hope I never forget - I now understand the addiction.

Made it to the ground just in time - the sun was gone.

More photos of the hike can be seen in my Flickr set - Mt. Evans.

Mountain Biking

I started using my bike a few years ago to help move towards my goal of getting into better shape. I have had ups and downs but my love for cycling has continued to grow. My bike is rather old (mid-90's) all steel frame Schwinn Frontier 21-speed mountain bike. It used to have knobby tires, but they have been worn over the years riding on pavement and gravel trails. It is extremely well built and feels solid - granted it weighs as much as a Mini Cooper.

The steel beast on the Des Plaines River Trail.

I have recently started to enjoy more "off-road" trails and single-track. It's tough finding challenging trails around the Chicagoland area simply because it's so flat; I am actually surprised they are legally allowed to call them "mountain" bikes here. One of my favorite trails to ride has been the Des Plaines River Trail which spans from the Wisconsin border and connections to trails leading into downtown Chicago. It passes through several different preserves along the trail - from open prairies to extremely lush forests. A positive in my book, the river tends to flood the trail quite often; a challenge!

Flooding under one of the roads.

I hope to explore a few more trails towards the end of summer and into the fall season. Last fall I hiked some of the trails at Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine State Forest. It looks as if they have some great trails tailored for single-track mountain biking, I think this might need to be my next biking destination. :)

The Kettle Moraine single-track.