jcm's blog

It’s been a funky couple of weeks. Over the past two weeks, I have:

* Been to San Diego, Yosemite, Tracy, San Louis Obispo, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, San Buenaventura, and Marin County for the first time.
* Given a talk at a Red Hat Summit.
* Given a talk at a FreedomHEC.
* Surfed for the first and second time. More news follows.
* Driven from San Francisco to LA in a Red Ford Mustang convertible (with the top down, listening to Beach Boys music) and from San Francisco to Jenner in a Mazda Miata convertible, stopping over in Marshall Beach to eat Oysters and camp out under the stars.
* Sailed at night for the first and second time.
* Watched fireworks from San Francisco Bay.
* Crossed Tomales Bay at night, in gale force winds, in a dinghy.
* Hiked in Yosemite.
* Been pulled over by a park ranger (guilty of driving a red convertible).
* Been to the Haight district.
* Driven in downtown LA, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.
* Driven across the Golden Gate Bridge.
* Had bad cocktails and Martinis in LA.
* Stuck to my diet (excepting 6 Oysters that had to be tried).
* Discovered a renewed taste for Journey, Jewel, The Fray and The Beach Boys.
* Driven more than the rest of my life combined.
* Been to a gym after midnight for the first and second time.
* Eaten fresh Californian Strawberries for the first and second time (there really is no comparison).
* Figured out the Linux kernel module loading infrastructure.
* Devised a plan to make Linux driver support really rock.
* Decided to buy a car and do as many road trips as I can.

That’s just a small sample set of what I’ve been up to. I’ve got a lot more planned over the coming weeks as this project really ramps up – more excursions, more exercise, more living life. I have decided to throw myself at having fun while working hard, and living right.

Jon.

Photo: Tamales Bay campfire.

Photo: Action shots at “Camp Marshall”.

Photo: 2007 Mazda Miata. 500 miles on the clock.

So I enjoyed FreedomHEC (a sanitized version of events, sans company conf. super secret stuff, etc. will be posted here – including mention of the glowing Martini glass I was dared into buying from the revolving bar in downtown LA) and left after the Linux-powered rockets and SoC random talks, dropped Deepak and the Mustang off at LAX (man, I hate driving in downtown LA) and then hopped a flight up to San Francisco. I’m glad I left a little early as the flights were all delayed due to wind – and bear in mind it takes a lot to close half the runways at SFO – and I didn’t get in until late as it was.

At San Francisco, I had a somewhat cheaper rental reserved – a generic Kia – but I missed having a convertible and happened to drive past a Mazda Miata on the way out of the parking garage…so I made a U-turn and went back to upgrade. One confuzzled trainee, a manager discount, and some hassle later and I had a brand new 2007 white Mazda Miata (MX-5) to drive up to Tamales Bay in, along route 1. Top down, music playing…figuring out the new AT gearbox manual mode…all random run. The Mustang has *nothing* on this puppy. I’m quite convinced the Miata could take off, if you kept your foot down. Obviously I was obeying all speed limits and behaving in a civilized fashion

I arrived at the Marshall boathouse around 23:00 (11:00pm to Americans) and found Sven had taken a nap in his car. This was fortunate, since there’s not much cell coverage out there. We had an interesting and somewhat frightening crossing over the bay in heavy winds, in the dark, in a dinghy. 30 minutes, a lot of water, one giant campfire, and a change of clothes later and I was drinking beer from a keg and chilling out on the beach with the guys. We had music, beer, food, great accommodation (tents), and a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to doing this again in August – though not quite out in Tamales, but over the Bay in San Francisco nevertheless.

In the morning, we had breakfast and packed up, interspaced with a little hike up into the hills to get a great view of the Pacific. After that, we sailed back to Marshall beach for some Oysters before I took the Miata for a little drive north up to Jenner, all along California Highway 1. I stopped at various beaches and vista points along the way…see the photos. I stayed over for the night in Marin again, before taking a flight out of SFO (mixing in conference calls with flights).

Various other stuff happened…this is just a quick update while I’m sitting delayed in Denver.

Jon.

So I got an interesting email from someone who reads my blog – in particular my articles on project “Brave New Jon” have apparently been inspirational, in part because I’ve made a large number of life adjustments in a short space of time. Actually, there’s a lot more to Brave New Jon, but that’s still to come

“Brave New Jon” began as a means to distract myself but it’s become so much more. I mean, for example, I was in the gym again this evening at midnight – something that used to be highly unlikely but I’ve done it twice in a week. This project doesn’t have a definitive end point, though I can say that I expect to be at least 60lbs down on where I was, radically more physically fit than I was, far more active and a lot more that I may mention later. Essentially, I engaged in extensive introspection and identified everything I consider to be a personal failing, then came up with an action plan to address everything at once. It’s encouraging that I’m inspiring others to do likewise.

Jon.

Photo: Obligatory “action shot”.

So one of the things I’ve been meaning to do for a while now is try surfing. Being from the UK, I’m not really pre-disposed toward jumping into the freezing Atlantic for fun (though I know people do surf) and living in Boston isn’t conducive toward surfing activities either (though I have friends in NC, for example, who do). Anyway, this was definitely something I wanted to get out of my roadtrip, so I called up a few surf schools a couple weeks back and arranged an afternoon as I passed through on Highway 1-S/101-S en route to LA for a conference.

I managed to sneak in a quick preview last week in San Diego (the surf wasn’t very good, but we had fun and I learned the basics) and then arrived in San Buenaventura – commonly known as simply Ventura – this afternoon (after a brief stop in Santa Barbara to see the Mission they have up there – most of the towns around here have a Spanish origin and consequently a Spanish mission of one form or another, divised as a means to control the Spanish colonies in the “New World”…Californian history is an interesting sub-topic in and of itself and I’ve spent some time reading up on it recently) just in time to head on over to the beach for my surfing lesson. I actually managed to locate the surfing dude driving down the highway, so I just followed him to the beach and parked up by the side of the road to change into my gear. I enjoy being 40lbs lighter than I was because I don’t look quite so fat in a wetsuit

By now, I can stand and perform some rudimentary manoeuvres on the board. I understand the mechanics/physics involved but that doesn’t make me an elite surfing dude – but it does help figure out what to do. After a few hours, I was absolutely wiped out and had to stop, but I made some progress and I plan to return to the same surfing school a few more times over the summer (basically, whenever I’m in California again this summer I’ll try to swing by as the surf is reasonably predictable and the location is near enough to LA). I’m looking into places on the East Coast to surf but that’s likely to involve flying to Florida or somewhere a bit warmer – still, I have a standing invitation to try in NC.

Decided not to drive into LA tonight and instead am staying at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, better known for its role in the “Little Miss Sunshine” movie. These days, it’s a 4 star hotel with swanky gym, pool, and prime location for a sunset stroll along the pier. I’ve been downtown (filled with thrift stores and funky coffee shops like the Coastal Roasting Co. that know how to make good lattes).

Tomorrow: LA. Tonight: Still deciding.

Jon.

Photo: Ford Mustang convertible. Red.

So I’m lost in the middle of nowhere en route to Yosemite. Or, actually, I know where I am but it’s already dark and I’m hours from the park – but I now have directions thanks to the McDonalds WiFi I’m trying out…occasionally, they can be useful (I bet they’ll McSpam me heavily now they have a fake email address for me tracking them). At least I got the car and managed to get out of San Francisco…now just a few more windy roads in the dark, on the “other” side of the road…and I hope to get to the guesthouse around midnight. As long as I get up early tomorrow, it might work. And if it doesn’t, I don’t really care – I’ll get to see the park and do at least one hike.

Jon.

Photo: Marin County Hiking.

So I’ve been hanging out in the Haight, a cool part of San Francisco, but also a little risque when it comes to leaving a camera on the seat of your car. Mine was sitting there for at most a few minutes (though I’m not even sure it was in the car) but it’s long gone now. Still, it seems that I’m doomed to purchase a new camera every 12 months these days – picked up a new Nikon in Best Buy for a couple hundred bucks (same as the old one, but 7 megapixels, not 4, and various other bits). I lost a few cool shots of San Francisco but was reminded why I like to sync my photos online fairly regularly. I’ve been playing all afternoon since I got it – went hiking in Marin County and took photos of the landscape as we went.

Tomorrow: Yosemite. Tonight: Staying up in Marin County.

Jon.

Photo: Hmmm…so this is surfing?
So the Red Hat Summit was a huge success (I’ll blog about it later when I’m caught up with all that happened while I was there) and I am really glad I got to be there. And, on Friday afternoon, once the Summit had wrapped, we headed out to Mission Beach for some surfing. As you can see from the photos, we had a lot of fun and even though I can’t surf to save my life, I will be working on it.

Photo: Hanging out on the boat.

Photo: HOWTO: Light a fire on a boat.

Photo: KFOG annual fireworks.
After the surfing, Mexican beer, and random cab rides to random parts of downtown San Diego were well and truly fully experienced, I headed up to San Francisco to hook up with friends of mine up here in the Bay area. Last night, we went out on my good friend Sven’s boat, sailed around the Bay (both motor and sail from time to time, depending upon the tide and wind…which you need to realize does change randomly inside the Bay – as I’ve experienced before) and saw the KFOG annual fireworks. Once that was over, we wound up in the Haight drinking beer until sometime after 3am.

Tomorrow: Yosemite. Today: Who knows.

Jon.