Leo Carrillo Hike

Been awhile since going hiking in the Santa Monica mountains. I suppose the poison ivy and ticks kept me away. So, this hike was to see if I could properly plan. So the goals were: no ticks; no poison ivy; will this be a good time?

This is a late entry since I did this hike 2 weeks ago Saturday. That makes it around the first weekend in October (or so). By this time of the year, the morning fog is normally non-existant. Well, not this time. Nice and foggy on the drive down PCH. Nice and foggy checking in with the parking attendant. But, not as foggy as to no allow GPS from working. So, once parked, I sprayed 1/2 bottle of insect repellent from my waist down. Got two bottles of water, made sure I had the GPS up and running, and off I went.

Suppose normal Santa Monica mountain hiking landscape is all about the same. Well used dirt trails, sticky bushes, steep climb's, and in this case fog. Rather than labor through and describe a hike that produced relatively nothing, these are the highlights. The fog cleared around 800-900 foot level, at about the 1800 foot level, I turned around and headed back down.

Once down the hill, checked for ticks - none. No poison oak along the trail, that was a good thing. Was it a good time? It was ok.

Sulphur Mountain, hike, bike, geocache

No big mystery for this one. Sulphur Mountain is off the 33 right after Casitas Springs and before the little hill going up to Oak View. My goal was to get to the end of the trail (actually a wide dirt road), then work my way back while getting some geocaches. On this trip, I left the backpack home and went light, all the necessities like water, phone, GPS, and an old Nikon Coolpix 46oo camera (still works). The end of the road apparently is 10 miles in. I made it about 1/8 mile past mile marker 4. Needless to say, I did not bag any geocaches.

For that entire 4 miles (one way one direction) it was uphill. Not a very steep climb, just a steady climb. I started at 09:30, turned around at 11:15. Guess I had enough. Pretty much I pushed the mountain bike up. There were several places where it got sort of flat I was actually able to ride. This depicts just myself. There were others that apparently are able to ride up.

At this one section where I could ride, I looked forward to see that it sloped down a bit, rounded a corner, then back up. I got a good drink of water, packed everything up good, then started down the this slight hill. Picking up speed, things got really bouncy, but managed to maintain control. So, I'm clipping along fairly well, keeping good balance, being tossed all around and what do I see in front of me, a rattle snake.

Things like that don't normally freak me out a whole lot. This one did. By the time I was done freaking out, I was already several yards past it. That is a good lesson learned. Take it easy and plan on snakes. It has been awhile since I've come close to that type of wildlife. Unlike the furry ones, snakes are scary.

So, I'm pushing the bike up the hills and all and I get past that mile 4 marker. It's 5 to 11. It's hot. The sun is out. I turn on the GPS and point to the first nearest geocache. It's over 2 miles away. Well, I'll keep going until 11:15 to see how I feel and how the road it turning out. It's not getting any less steeper, it's still hot and the sun is cooking, and it's 11:15. So time to turn back.

This part was easy, 4 miles downhill on a mountain bike. The snake was gone (thankfully - but I was ready), stopped a few times to drink the rest of the water and to take in the scenery. I guess it was about a 10 to 15 minute decent. No speeding, had the brakes on most of the way - just to be safe. Better that way.

Overall, leaving at 0930, heading back at 11:15, is 1 hour 45 minutes and covered 4 miles. Not a fast rate, 2.3 mph. Again, this is pushing a mountain bike uphill (mostly), some moments of actually riding, and stopped many times to rest. No geocaches this trip, bummer.

Malibu Canyon, hike, bike, geocache

It's been awhile since the last hike, bike, geocache blog. Last time it was not so fun. This time was ok. Today's adventure took me to Malibu Canyon State Park. In particular I wanted to go to the the MASH site.

There are folks that have taken good care of the MASH site and it's worth the effort getting there for a look around. Along the way I was able to get 5 geocache's, all with little trouble.

The hiking part, as usual, pushing the bike up anything that even resembled a hill. As the trail narrowed and got really rocky, it was carry the bike time. So that lifting exercise portion was good. The biking part saved some time when the trail permitted it. Good thing that was the majority of the trail. Geocaching turned out good with 5 finds. I guess a find is a find, these were straight forward and not too hard once GPS said 10 feet away.

This was the first time I used the bike rack on the back (trailer hitch) of a car. It worked out really well. Funny, I did not have the bike mounted correctly going and determined that while I was on the freeway. Coming home, I had the bike mounted correctly with those little mounting thingies positioned so there was contact with the two parts of the frame (the corner below seat post) and contact below handlebars.

Overall, the level of effort was about at the 80% range since there were a few changes in elevation. The cloudy, overcast morning kept the temperature down. If I do this again, I need to either research where the bike trails are and stick to those, or stick to the hiking part only. The good thing about bike is more area is covered in less time.

Chumash Trail / La Jolla Valley Hike

What a fun hike this was. As normal, took about 30 minutes to make the climb. Rested several times and took in the view. At the fork in the trail, could have went to the right and continued along (kind of) the ridge and worked my way to Mugu Peak. I should have done that.

But instead, I went the place I have not yet been to. The wind was blowing pretty good and the La Jolla Valley had nice tall green grass. Followed this trail and took a right turn and went on a bit, until reaching some tall bushes, then stopped, turned around and made my way back. While I was paused, checked the GPS to see if there were any geocaches nearby. There was, one right off the trail on the way out so off I went.

Finding that geocache was fairly easy. It was just off the trail and under a little branch. Opened it, signed the little log book, and off I went, continuing on my way out. While making a slight climb out of the valley, it got really windy, like 40 mph at least windy. It stayed that way until reaching where La Jolla connects to Chumash.

The decent, from 700 feet to sea level (parking lot) went as expected. About 8 people or so were making their way up. I took some photo's but the camera ran out of battery so I just put that away. Reached the bottom, looked and read the warning sign's and checked myself for bugs.

Found TICKS! YUCK! Removed the visible ones, these would be those that are on exposed skin and I was hoping that was it. When I got home and checked myself, I had three more. Got those and took a hot shower. Then proceeded to clean out my gear.

Bottom line, I did not spray myself with "Off'". Ended up throwing away my hiking shoes, shorts, bib's, shirt, socks. Figure it is not worth de-lousing anything with the exeception of my back pack. I put it in a plastic trash bag, sprayed eco-friendly inside the bag and tied it off for 24 hours. So this morning I opened it, washed with soap and water twice, then hung outside and rinsed several times using a water hose.

It was not worth it. Plus, we had to clean where I walked in the house to make sure nothing fell off. I'm really sorry for placing that Saturday extra work for nothing.

Not keeping up with Java

Well, it's been a few weeks since posting about keeping up with Java. As far as that little URL dumper into a text file, then parsing and saving as a csv suitable for importing into sqlite, well, have not worked on that one for quite some time.

The good news is that on Sunday evenings, once the leaderboard is posted, I can get that URL data and run those three little programs and manually import into the sqlite using a firefox browser plug in. So at least I'm in the data collection mode, even if it is manual.

That final goal would be to have a Java program import that csv into the sqlite without me bringing up firefox. Eventually I'll get there.

Keeping up with Java

With the fantasy golf season underway, understanding the technology is just as fun as choosing a golfer who finishes in the top 10. I'd think the technology is pretty much simple. Pick a golfer, the match is played, golfer's finish in a particular order. Finally, your pick result is posted. So off I went to create a similar, yet crude version of this as a programming exercise.

Things needed:

1. Application to download the web page with the data into a text file (url reader).

2. Application to parse out that text file into just the players.

- Players are in the tournament finishing order.

- The text file will be a csv file, suitable for import into an sqlite database using a firefox plugin.

3. Application that will automate the importing of the data into that sqlite.

So that is where I'm at for now. It will be worked on a little later when I feel like doing some java / sql programming again. It is fun, just need to do something different.

Bike, Hike, Geocache - follow up

Seems I got some poison oak or something on that last hike. Bummer for me. Internet research shows that once contact has been make, symptoms show from 5 to 15 days after exposure. Well, the bumps and itchy on my legs match that profile pretty well.

Trying over the counter medication Cortisone Creme did cure the itchy symptom, but did not do anything for "curing of the exposure". Additional Internet research suggested making a baking soda paste and applying to the area. This make the itchy go away and actually dried out the bumps and sores. My vote is "yes" for baking soda.

Troubleshooting an application

Normally I would not openly criticize someone else's programming choices. However, what I experienced today was not something I expected to ever have to do. You see, there is this application that ran faster on a multi-core server than on a 500MHZ workstation. When run on the workstation, the cpu usage pegged as high as it could go. Folks were more willing to discuss the various performance characteristics of machines running this application rather than dig into this code and fix it.

A quick code survey revealed the developer-programmer had coded no logging statements, I mean none, zero, nada. There were maybe 12 or so source files that went into main() so the magnitude of this challenge was not that significant. I had code surveyed this in the past and pretty much each file had just a few functions each.

Approximately, 3 hours of adding many printf statements, compiling, running, adding more printf statements, compiling, running, the bug was found. Seems there was some code that allowed an overrun, placing the code in a loop (thus the pegging of the cpu). This loop needed to go all that way to 2,147,483,647 before exiting. No wonder the multi-core server made quick work of this. However for the poor 'ol 500MHZ workstation that is a lot of clock cycles. No wonder it took so long. Poor thing.

A few lines of code went into this to check the boundries, specifically "if less that 1 or greater that 12", then "continue". This so called fix, allows the application not to run all the way to 2,147,483,647 before exiting. I have no clue what possessed the developer-programmer to take that approach when parsing that particular file.

This was a fairly aggressive approach to fixing this problem. But in these cases a person really needs to be aggressive, maintain focus, stay with it and code in as many printf's and needed, run the compile and test iterations and keep moving on until finding the offending computational operation.

Bike - Hike - Geocache

This Saturday was something different, multitasking. Combining bike, hike and geocaching on one trip. Reason for bike, saves time going down the hill. Hike, well I know I'm pushing the bike up hills. Geocache, well, this is the main reason for today's outing.

Wrote down and uploaded 10 geocaches, only got 4. These were really good ones, nice done camo'ed containers. According to the geocaching web site, these have not been visited in several weeks. Glad to report these are still there.

The bike portion went fairly well. It did save time. The overall distance was 12 miles with a movement time of a little over 2 hours. Walking 12 miles would have took a very long time. There were some bumpy and hilly dirt roads, these were mostly going down hill. Had to be very careful and I'm happy none of the welds on the bike broke.

Hike part, that went ok too. Not sure of exactly how many miles were actually hiked what I do know is most of the uphill parts I was pushing the bike. Some hills were only a very slight grade, oh well, pushed when I needed to.

Overall, I brought enough water but should have drank a lot before I departed the trail head, then pushed down at least 2 bottles sooner than I did. Lesson learned. It was ok fun but not that great.

Sycamore Canyon Hike - Columbia Hikers Break-in

Today was the first hike of the year. Took long enough to get up and get out there. Took the same trail as the 24-Dec-2010 hike. Since my old Nike hiking shoes did not survive the Hanakapiai Trail (back in August), it was due that I get some new hiking shoes. I did not do too much research, rather settled on a pair of Columbia Hikers. Not sure which style they are.

I wear a 10.5 regular. While wearing these around the neighborhood walking the dogs, I've noticed that I get some foot pain. Maybe they need more breaking in. Hope that is the case. For this hike, these were laced very loosely, not enough that my feet would move around too much, but just to that point. Overall, it worked out ok. I'll keep them. I do notice that the soles do not flex a whole lot. That may be the cause of the foot pain around the neighborhood.

The hike was pretty good. Parking lot was full, first time that happened. Started out at 10:50 and got back a little after the noon hour. I marked each stream crossing with a waypoint just to bring some excitement. Unfortunately, these did not upload into google maps, bummer. There is another application I can use to get those out, though it's on the PC. Other than that, plenty of sun, sunscreen came in handy and reset the gps before heading out. This time I believe it was almost a 5 miler. Good news is that I found a geocache on the side of that bridge.