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Somehow it has been 4 years since the last post here... I don't promise to return, but there are a few things I have been meaning to post about, so there might be a few updates over the next few months. We'll see!
The Motivation
Over the years, I've had many unsatisfying desks at home. In moving around the South Bay every few years, I often found myself leaving behind my desk, hoping I'd find something better in my next home. It was never the same things, but always some subset of crappy or leg-space-encroaching built-in storage, impossible cable management, insufficient depth or length, and cheap or fragile construction (generally always including that one). I think my favorite was probably the super-janky plywood half-moon built-in monstrosity at our college apartment in Troy, but that desk... certainly had its own time and place, and 2020 definitely wasn't it (I hope it's still there, though!).
My desk in Troy.
(One more picture that I won't put inline
because there's just way too much to unpack there).During our last move, I decided to do something about this, though it took a few months for the plan to come together. I had noticed that my desks at work were, while simple, much more satisfying. Solid slabs, separate storage, deep enough for anybody's legs, with plenty of space for hardware, sensible cable-management, reasonably non-ugly, and fairly sturdy. So, I set out to build something at least vaguely inspired by them (and also by a mishmosh of posts from the absurd folks on /r/battlestations). The ProjectSince I live in an apartment, don't have easy access to a lot of tools, and wouldn't necessarily trust myself with them even if I did, I needed something that was feasible to construct with those constraints. I eventually happened upon this Simplified Building article which didn't really cover the details, but introduced me to the idea of building a desk with pipes, and to Kee Klamps, which seemed like a great way to make sturdy structure out of pipe without requiring any heavy machinery. I cracked open my trusty not-actually-CAD-but-whatever-it'll-be-OK tool, Blender (after emailing the Kee Klamp folks for models!) and threw together a model of my desk sitting in context, allowing me to decide on sizes and colors. This is what I ended up with:  That's a US Letter size piece of paper in the middle of the desk for scale.After agonizing for ages over where to get the desk top, I settled on a nice rustic walnut butcher block, and ordered it along with all of the pipes and clamps and whatnot. Since the wood had a long lead time, I had the pipes sitting around during my parents' summer visit. I enlisted my dad to help paint the pipes black, and to cut the ones that needed cutting (with a hacksaw! it was an experience). I don't think the painting would have come out nearly as well as it did if I'd been left to my own devices, so I'm quite thankful for the coincidence and for his help! A few days after my parents headed home, the butcher block was delivered... to the sidewalk, outside of our apartment building. In a 7'x4', 250+lb splintery crate. It wouldn't budge!  After much panicing and trying to ensure nobody would trip over it, Alicia suggested hiring some help, so I got a "heavy lifting" TaskRabbit to come rescue me. I think he was amused, but certainly made short work of the job. He kept apologizing that the one-hour minimum seemed excessive for the five-minute job, but I was just happy to get it inside and out of the way.  I spent time on and off for the next few weeks slowly building the desk. A few mistakes were made along the way; I also discovered that I had to make a few more pipe cuts by myself; the longest pipes that run the length of the desk needed to be cut in half. This was evident in the Blender model, I just missed it somehow when ordering. I did manage it, though, and eventually, it was taking shape!  It was at this point that I could really test the sturdiness. My father and I had chatted about the potential need for braces or something to keep the front legs from bending to the sides, but it was clear now that I could actually apply pressure to the thing that it wasn't going to be a problem in the slightest. It is absurdly sturdy, and incredibly heavy. I managed to flip it over alone (don't ask me how, I'm not even sure myself), and then started strapping electronics and cables to it. The Result The desk is accompanied by standalone pedestal drawers, for storage that doesn't encroach on leg space. My trusty 2013 Mac Pro is mounted to the bottom of the desk, along with a variety of hubs and switches, power strips, and the like. It's been about 8 months now, and I'm quite satisfied! So, I challenge you -- if you're struggling to find the perfect version of something... consider making it yourself! Even if it doesn't come out 100% perfectly, you'll love it all the more because you made it.  The finished product, after 6 months or so (and some upgrades).
 Related Photos on Flickr
A few months ago, Alicia and I decided we should take a short vacation — somewhere close by, just for a weekend, to get away and hang out. We picked San Diego, as I had spent a summer there and might make for a good tour guide (or so we thought). I plotted and schemed and we eventually both asked for a mid-August Monday off to make our travel worthwhile.
Friday
We flew out of San Francisco on Virgin America, a first for me — a lucky choice, too, as we were quite late getting to the airport, and they have a terminal separate from the main SFO terminal, so security was a breeze. The flight was quick and smooth, except for one enormous burst of turbulence just before landing in San Diego which had everyone grasping their seats.
Once we landed, we acquired our rental car and headed towards the Gaslamp. Suddenly, after rounding a corner on Harbor Drive, there were some lovely fireworks over the ballpark straight ahead of us, greeting us to San Diego. A warm welcome, as usual :)
We checked into Hotel Indigo, our stop for the evening, and went out in search of a very late dinner. Most restaurants were closed; even most bars' kitchens had shut down for the night, but we were directed to Bub's, which had acceptable food (and not-so service, but I guess we shouldn't have expected much) for a late night. I had my classic "ahg this is a bar why am I here save me" moments, but the company I held more than made up for it :)
Saturday
Saturday started out with a quick drive to Balboa Park, where we grabbed lunch at The Prado, visited Spreckels Organ Pavilion, and wandered around. We eventually headed over to the San Diego Zoo, a must-not-miss stop on our trip (and Alicia's only specific request). It's a fantastic zoo, and we spent hours wandering around and watching the koalas, elephants (always my favorite!), and strange birds. You can see the elephants featured prominently in the one-minute summary video.
I actually don't remember seeing the giant koala exhibit on previous trips, but I love them, so that was a pretty awesome treat. They weren't particularly active (ok, they were pretty much completely asleep the whole time), but maybe that's for the best; they're cuter if they're not screaming at things and being aggressive.
Exhausted after the zoo (I walked ~18k steps that day, which is something like 6x a lazy Cupertino day!) , we headed to Coronado, our second night's destination. Alicia — who did all of our driving — was a bit apprehensive about driving across the giant bridge, but did wonderfully all the same. The bridge is ridiculous, but provides a good view of both the city and the island (as long as you're not the driver!).
That night, we stayed at the Coronado Beach Resort, right across the street from the too-pricey but scenic and famous Hotel del Coronado. I wandered a bit around the city in the evening, eventually acquiring take-out from Leroy's Kitchen + Lounge, which was delicious, and was devoured in the company of the towel-ephant that the hotel had left us:
We had a hard time leaving him behind the next day, as you might imagine.
Sunday
Awake and refreshed, we wandered the streets of Coronado, eventually (quickly) stumbling upon Fabrison's French Crêperie Café, where we had delicious crêpes before wandering around Coronado Beach (in sneakers, no less). I took a 360° panorama of Coronado Beach; this is a small slice of Hotel Del, but you can click to see the whole thing:
After getting our shoes sandy, we headed up to my old summer hometown of La Jolla, a return I was dearly anticipating. La Jolla was a good temporary home which I much prefer to the Bay Area — even though the South Bay has been pretty awesome to me — so it was nice to be back.
We quickly headed down to the shore, wandering along La Jolla Cove, entertained by the birds, people, and adorable seals that call La Jolla their home. A few hours were spent walking on the rocks and beaches along the coast, and Alicia made sure to touch (but not enter!) the Pacific, resulting in sandy hands, resulting in a desire to wash them in the ocean, lather, rinse, repeat, etc. Adorable, of course!
After a good dose of seals (and a bit of Alicia's habit of chasing down bees for photo opportunities), we checked in for our third and final evening, at the Grande Colonial, right in the middle of downtown. For whatever reason, they gave us an "ocean view", which provided us with a pretty awesome Pacific coast sunset.
Dinner was an old favorite (actually, the same place I went for my 21st birthday, three years earlier, with my family), Whisknladle. I can't even begin to describe how awesome this place is, from the food and service to the music and overall atmosphere, it's just pretty much perfect. Alicia later noted that she particularly enjoyed it too, so it's not just nostalgia, I swear!
To round out an awesome day, we took a somewhat-freezing-cold nighttime dip in the pool, something I haven't done (even in a warmer scenario) in a long time; a welcome chance to relax after our adventures.
Monday
As Alicia said "french toast" when I asked her about breakfast on Monday, we headed off to The Cottage; they do french toast a bit over the top — a stuffed variant, with fruit inside and such. Quite delicious, but I think our breakfast was probably enough for the next week or so.
Stuffed and happy, we headed up to one of my favorite places to go when I lived in La Jolla, the Torrey Pines Gliderport, right next to the Salk Institute. There's a bench on the south side of the launch area where the whole world just fades away. All you can hear is the breeze and the ocean far below — very serene — and I was extremely glad to get to share that with Alicia (after having excitedly described it, repeatedly). Unfortunately, there were no gliders in the air for us to watch, but we had a good time anyway.
We rounded out the day visiting Seaport Village, where we perused (and purchased) Mexican tiles and peered at the giant boats across the bay, and Horton Plaza, which we stopped at for a short time to rest (and because of the silly name?) and look around.
And then it was time to head back north, our perfect little weekend trip behind us, but with the promise of many more ahead of us!
927 pictures at 15fps from my trip with Alicia to San Diego. If it doesn't play for whatever reason, there's a much higher resolution version you can download here. There's a longer blog post coming, but there were some nice little sequences that made me want to post this first.
It was my fourteenth birthday—summer 2003, just a few months before I started high school… Vivian and Margaret decided to be their traditionally-ridiculously-generous-selves, and offered to replace my desktop (an HP tower, also from them!). Young Tim of course started dreaming of some crazy PC (perhaps constructed from parts, perhaps off the shelf), but then they said something like "we know you've been eyeing Apple's offerings, maybe you want to get a Mac?"
Now, some context here: much of my close family at the time were employed by IBM; we had no Apple folk around; our schools were full of Dells; I'd used some Mac IIs many years earlier, but not since then. So, of course, I went for that :)
Little did they (or anyone!) know what that amazing birthday present would turn into, eight years later—one of those tiny whole-life turning points, I guess.
The machine that eventually (just days before Airborne Express, who had some … troubles … delivering it, became a company no longer) arrived was a decked-out PowerMac G4 MDD.
It shipped with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), though Panther came out a few months later. Apparently, Jaguar was the last release of OS X to ship without Safari; I don't remember, but I do remember running the Safari Beta, all those years ago. John Siracusa's Jaguar review also notes that it was the first release to include the big cat codename in the official marketing name, which is pretty cool.
Trinity, as I called it, was a trusty companion throughout high school, introducing me to AppleWorks, and eventually Keynote, and later Pages, all of which were absolutely cruical to me for those four years. And, to Safari… and we know how that went. It followed me to college, sitting under my desk and acting as a fileserver for a few years, then later running various PowerPC Linux distributions for various reasons. And, even to Cupertino, where it sits under the desk in my bedroom, unpowered but ready to spring to life at any sign of need.
It really does still boot today, though it did have a pair of power supply malfunctions in 2008, which resulted first in me dragging it to the Crossgates Apple store on a CDTA bus, and then later me resorting to using a random G3 we had laying around. I don't actually remember how it recovered, but it did.
So, thanks, Vivian and Margaret, for turning a birthday present into oh-so-much more! It's been a great ten years!
A quick survey of devices which keep time in my apartment, sorted by how far off they are:
- Alarm Clock (in disuse; this one's my fault): 9:08
- Living Room Clock (early-00s "atomic" clock): 23:05
- Bedroom Clock (2011 "atomic" clock): 23:05
- Camera (D7000): 0:11
- Microwave: 12:03
- Watch (Pebble): "twelve five"
- Phones/Computers/Tablets/Reality: 0:05
I thought it was 2013.
Complaining about the state of public transit in the Bay Area — especially the South Bay — is basically a regional pastime among 20-somethings around here — myself included.
That said, there is one tiny sliver of public transit that is currently absolutely central to my life: the VTA's 23 bus route.
When I say absolutely central, I mean it — sure, during my summer in San Diego, the SDMTS-41 was pretty critical for my weekend outings, and in Troy, the CDTA-22 would often prove useful for trips to Albany — but nothing holds a candle to the 23. I even included it in my trips map (which needs to be revised now that I've moved!).
It gets me to work; it gets me home from work; it gets me to San José; it gets me to the grocery store on occasion. It gets me to Ryan and Julia's apartment, to visit them or Maeby; to both of the nearby malls; to a wide variety of restaurants; even to the Post Office (though it falls a bit short on that trip).
I met my girlfriend on the 23, while going to the airport (yet another occasional destination, though there are two further transfers required to get all the way there). Now, the very same bus shuttles us between each others' apartments (literally almost door-to-door service1, every 15 minutes), on dates, and all manner of trips throughout the South Bay.
We even walked a four-mile stretch along its route one day, for fun — suffice it to say we appreciate the convenience of the bus even more after that experience.
I cannot even begin to imagine living a carless life in Cupertino/Santa Clara/San Jose without the 23. When I recently was forced to search for a new apartment, my sole constraint was "it absolutely must be near the 23!" (my previous apartment was a 20 minute walk to the nearest bus stop; now, less than one minute!).
So, uh... there's my ode to my beloved bus.
EDIT: 91 Clipper transactions in the last 60 days, 85 of which are trips on the 23!
1 In fact, the only time the 23 leaves its straight line path along Steven's Creek/San Carlos between its westernmost point and San José is exactly where she lives. It's like the route was designed for us!
After having not seen each other for almost a year, Carol came out to Cupertino for a whole week! I took the week off, and we had pretty much the busiest, most amazing week ever together. I'll write about some of the things in more detail later, but here's a linkified extremely-brief summary: (there are a few pages of pictures on Flickr, as always)
Friday, 2012.04.13
Saturday, 2012.04.14
Sunday, 2012.04.15
Monday, 2012.04.16
Tuesday, 2012.04.17
Wednesday, 2012.04.18
Thursday, 2012.04.19
Friday, 2012.04.20
Saturday, 2012.04.21
Sunday, 2012.04.22
Having lots of time to think about the web and little time to create content, I took a few minutes out of this weekend to make a silly little thing with d3.js.
Not being a driver, I find myself walking around a lot - to work, to visit people, to find food. Some of those walks are longer than others, and I thought it would be neat to be able to visualize and compare them!
I built trips.hortont.com to do that. The map on the right is a little confusing, because it is four cities, superimposed, with my "home" in each centered in the same place (using our 15th St. apartment for "home" in Troy, since I had three). Lots of things respond to hover, and clicking the different sorting options provides a few different ways to look at the trips (and adds a splash of color!).
The most interesting thing that sticks out of the data (to me!) is the relative shapes of the four cities. Cupertino and La Jolla are way younger than Troy and Colchester, and are clearly more "designed"; La Jolla with swooping curves all around, and Cupertino with a strict grid (except around IL, of course).
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