Are a Flickr set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69148053@N00/sets/72157620959491413/
Yosemite trip
July 7, 2009Just before flying back to England, some friends and I made a trip to Yosemite for the weekend. We headed out there after work on Friday, setting off at around 7pm with the car full of enormous sandwiches, bourbon and sleeping bags.
The 200 mile drive took about 4 and a half hours, including a couple of stops, so we arrived pretty late, just wanting to set ourselves up and get some sleep ready for the big day to follow. However, before we could do that, we had to empty all food and smelly stuff from the car, or face a $5000 fine for tempting bears into camp; there was a special bear proof locker outside all the tents into which we threw the aforementioned monolithic sandwiches, chocolate and toiletries.
After a few hours sleep, we woke up at about 6:30am, to be met by this view:
Note the angle of the trees – I was craning right back just to get that cliff in the viewfinder… And that started a day of incomprehensible scales and impossible vistas.
The plan was to hike up Half Dome, a mountain nearly 9,000 ft high. Although the campsite was already roughly as high above sea level as the tallest mountain in Britain, we still had a 5,000ft climb up to the summit. To make this clearer, if Robert Wadlow, world’s tallest human, was as big as Half Dome, we would have been camping near his crotch, while Ben Nevis would be up to his belt. Meanwhile, the Eiffel Tower would be halfway up Wadlow’s shin, or at the shoulder of Gul Mohammed; world’s smallest man. Basically, although we were starting high, there was still a long way to go.
After bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, we set off. I was carrying 5 litres of water, a sandwich the size of the Indian subcontinent, a few Snickers bars, a hat, a jumper, waterproof hat and waterproof trousers, as “the weather can turn quickly at high altitudes”.
I quickly came to realise that I’d made a grave error. As we moved up out of the valley on the Misty Trail, and into the sunlight, it became obvious that it was going to be a scorching day, and that I had about 10kg of useless on my back. Undeterred, we pressed on up and to the side of Vernal Fall.
By this point, things were getting a bit warm, so the blast of misted snow melt from this waterfall was very welcome!
From Vernal Fall, it was on and up to Nevada Fall; an enormous waterfall onto slanting rock. 20 feet before the fall itself, the river looks completely innocuous and harmless – quite a transformation!
By the time we reached the top of Nevada Fall, it was around 10:30am, and we were roughly halfway to the summit. The next hour or so was gentle enough climbing up through pine forests, with the imposing bulk of Half Dome itself appearing to our left.
At about 11:30am, due to a few too many Snickers and energy bars, and burgeoning sunstroke, I thought it would be a great idea to run the rest of the ascent, so off I shot, aiming to get to the summit for lunch. This actually went better than could be expected, and although I was basically dying, I did manage to catch up with the leaders of our expedition (who had continued while we were messing about at Nevada Fall).
As we neared the final ascent – the side of the dome itself – we could see a little line of ants on the side of the huge lump of granite; ants that gradually turned into tourists from Nebraska.
Now, I’ve never had to queue for a mountain before. And although in principle I’m a big fan of The Great Outdoors being popular enough for there to be congestion here and there, the fact that you were expected to wait for an hour and a half before starting the final ascent was a bit strange to me…
Still, I sat and took an inconsequential feast from a sandwich the size of Michael Jackson’s remembrance book, and waited for everyone to catch up. By now, it was really hot. We were way above the treeline, so there was no shade, and the white granite was bouncing back the intense sun from all angles.
The final pull up to the summit was very steep bare rock – maybe a 55° slope – so a pair of metal cables have been run to the top, the idea being that you pull yourself up to the top between the cables. It was this “between the cables” bottleneck causing the queue, so we decided to go up the outside of the pair, using just the one cable and bypassing the delay.
The summit was barren and indescribably hot. Hot, hot, hot. We heard afterwards that it was 110°F.
The views from the top were amazing; the globular granite mountains seemed so extra-terrestrial to me. But it was the sheer 1,500ft drop off the front of the dome that was most striking.
After an hour or so mincing and recovering on top, we started down the mountain. The descent proceeded without incident, stopping only to refill water (making it 7 litres that day, in total), and get a couple of pics of Half Dome with Nevada Falls in the foreground.
Yet more visa shenanigans
June 24, 2009Latest update from the wonderful world of US federal bureaucracy.
In February, I applied for an Iternational Tax Identification Number (ITIN). We’d done our research, had all our forms filled out, signed by people at our bank, notarised by US attorneys, etc, etc.. What could go wrong?
Well, it turns out that in the period of us sending off the application, and them receiving it, the IRS changed the rules for what was required.
The pre-March ‘09 version is:
Paperwork from the bank stating that you are receiving
distributions from a deposit account which are subject to IRS
information reporting and/or federal tax withholding during the
current tax year. An acknowledged (signed by the bank) copy of
the Form W-9 that you provided to the bank must be attached to
your Form W-7.
The post-March ‘09 version:
A signed letter from the bank on their official letterhead,
displaying your name and account number, stating that you have
opened an individual deposit account which is subject to IRS
information reporting and/or federal tax withholding on the interest
generated during the current tax year.
Notice that new bit asking for a signed letter from the bank on official paper? Yeah, we didn’t do that, because when we were applying, in February, they weren’t asking for it!
When the IRS opened our applications, they continued to do everything in their power to screw us by deciding to apply the new rules. The rules that had come into place after we’d applied.
So! Our best option now is to re-apply according to the new rules.
Going back to the UK in a big sulk on Monday.
Staying in a warehouse
June 15, 2009I’ve been meaning to write about the place I was staying in when I first arrived back in San Francisco for a while, but for various reasons almost all related to forgetfulness, have left it until now.
As Pat’s house was full the brim with people, Amir and I were looking for somewhere else to stay for a couple of weeks mid-May, and found this place on AirBnB. The back story is that a group of friends from Wisconsin all decided a shared living space would be fun, and arranged it so that they were all free to move at a pretty similar time.
They found an ex-car repair shop somehow, and moved in pretty much immediately. It was a bare shell when they bought it – just a large space with a small office, oil-stained floors and an extractor fan. That was a year ago, and they now have about 4,600 sq ft of livable space, which is housing something like 13 people. It has 10 bedrooms, a home theatre, a couch suspended on chains and a tiki bar. As part of their build out they basically built a whole second floor complete with emergency netting in between walkways to catch drunks (and people sleep on it sometimes, also).
We had some great times in the warehouse, and it’s been great popping back there since to enjoy cocktail hour. I started Bay to Breakers there this year, with the world’s spiciest 7am Bloody Mary, and last week, they had a Russian-themed party to celebrate with two Muscovite newlyweds that were staying in the warehouse.
The atmosphere you get when there’s a bunch of interesting people all living together was great, and has definitely motivated me to find / create something similar when I’m not so busy…
Escape to LA
May 12, 2009The plan for last weekend was for me to visit my friends Alex and Sam in San José on Saturday, then all of us would come up to San Francisco for the How Weird street party on Sunday.
However, the Devil vomitted in our metaphorical kettle when Sam decided to go and see her mum for Mother’s Day, and it turned out that Alex’s uncle was receiving a graduate degree that Sunday morning in LA.
Seeing as there’s a crazy street party pretty much every weekend for the whole summer in San Francisco, Alex and I decided to take little road trip down to southern California!
Me and my eyepatch
I got the CalTrain down to San José to meet Alex on Saturday afternoon, and we set off pretty much immediately. As time was of the essence, we took the most direct route – the I-5 straight down through hundreds of miles of farm-land. There was one stretch of road without any sort of bend, rise or dip for about 80 miles.
Luckily, we had Taco Bell to break up the trip, my new second-most favourite fast food chain (after the incomparable In’n'Out). Bean burrito, chicken taco, cheesy beef burrito, chicken taco, cinnamon twists and a bucket of coke for $6: BOOM, that’s a recession buster.
After six hours, we dropped into LA out of the Hollywood hills at about 9pm and went to see a friend of Alex’s, Johnny. He was having a little soirée, so we played some silly games and had a few drinks with a bunch of LAers, none of whom were aspiring actors, to my surprise and disappointment.
Johnny's house
On Sunday morning, we drove across LA to Loyola Marymount University, where Alex’s uncle was receiving his graduate Theology degree. Luckily it was cloudy in the morning; Loyola Marymount appears to have the world’s largest class of educators – it must have taken them half an hour to file across the stage – and my blood’s too thick for the full-on SoCal heat.
After the ceremony, we went down to the beach for a meal in a nearby restaurant (salmon and eggs Benedict: nom), and a potter on the beach.
This is a beach
With only a few hours left in LA, Alex and I headed up to Bel Air and Hollywood to mince around the palm tree-lined streets and gawp at the never-ending parade of rat dogs, pneumatic blondes, cars worth more than my house and codpieced action figures posing for photo opportunities.
Me and Britney
Hollywood is the place most disconnected from reality I’ve ever been to.
Bye bye South by
March 20, 2009The Film and Interactive elements of South by Southwest wrapped up on Wednesday, meaning it was time for me to head back to the UK.
The first couple of days of my visit were a little dreary and grey, but this all cleared by the time I left, meaning that as I headed to Austin airport, the city was bathed in sunshine and live music poured out of every bar. The Music element was just getting started and it was very tempting to extend my stay a few days longer…
The panels I enjoyed the most were probably Lessig’s (as mentioned before), and Gary Vaynerchuk’s which I just caught the end of. I had only tangentially heard of Gary before, and the topic of his talk was no doubt less epic than Larry’s, but the enthusiasm he brought was just amazing. Someone in the audience likened him to an eight year-old on speed; combine that with wicked humour and Belorussian DNA and you’re about there.
The word on the street is that the most valuable part of SxSW is not the organised panels, but the informal, serendipitous meetings which happen in all the after-parties, lunch breaks and hallways. Now I’m not sure about that; being lucky enough to live in San Francisco, I get those sort of chance encounters all the time – the range of amazing people you run into is one of my favourite things about the Bay!
Instead, it was the little glimpses of Texan life off the well-beaten SxSW track which I valued the most.
For example, on our last night, George and I headed out for a steak dinner (which is traditional in Texas), Brazilian-style (which is not). The idea is that you get a little marker with a red side and a green side. As long as the marker is green side up, obsequious chaps in jodphurs rush around with steaming spits of deliciousness, smothering your plate in fillet mignon, sirloin, chops, cutlets, sausages, … It was incredible.
Another highlight was going to a Texas two-step night. We only knew about it because Christoff’s friend, Pearl, put us onto it (then patiently pushed us round the dance floor while we stepped on her). Two-step’s a style of dancing with three steps in it, and although it’s hideously simple, I completely failed to master even the basic pattern. It’s galling to be shown up at a physical activity by overweight octogenarians, but this happened repeatedly – there was even a grandpa there with a special move – suddenly jumping a couple of feet into the air, clicking his heels, then continuing to sashay around the dancefloor as if nothing had happened.
Overall, I found that the everyday Austinites were much more down-to-earth and honest than the hipster San Francisco crowd, and unbelievably liberal given the state’s voting record. Still can’t wait to get back to the west coast though 
Highlights of last day or two at SxSW
March 15, 2009Yesterday, I went to hear Larry Lessig talk on campaign finance reform and how it’s relevant to everyone, no matter what your political afflilitation or pet peeve. The message was that the sub-standard handling of climate change, the financial crisis, Iraq, and any other issue, is a symptom of a government implicitly beholden to the lobbyists who finance re-election campaigns.
There seems to be a zeitgeist emerging from the Obama campaign of the people reclaiming the government for themselves. His election promises of more transparency and accountability definitely resonated with a lot of people; hopefully the much bigger challenge of campaign reform will be able to ride the wave.
Later that evening there was an interesting moment at the Digg party. It turned out that a queue of 150-200 people were all waiting to get an autograph from (Digg-founder) Kevin Rose. Meanwhile, Lessig walked in and no-one batted an eyelid. Kevin’s a smart guy and everything, and Digg is a great creation with legions of fanatical users, but there’s something wrong when a guy who has worked selflessly for copyright and campaign reform for more than a decade gets less respect than the poster-boy of the current fad.
On the bright side, I just saw an absolute flash of genius here. A company called Jungle Disk, instead of printing and distributing shiny flyers like everyone else, simply put their URL on a small piece of plain printer paper. They then stapled the paper to a $1 bill and threw handfuls of them off a balcony onto people emerging from the Nate Silver keynote.
Companies are giving away stacks of flyers here – the table I’m at now is entirely covered to a depth of 2 or 3 thick, matte card adverts. The problem is that people just take them and throw them away immediately without even looking what they are – there are special recycling bins just for this purpose. So to see a crowd of people actually rushing to grab flyers, rather than dispose of them, shows they really hit something there…
This post earned me cake
March 14, 2009Currently at the South by South-West conference in Austin. I saw a fantastic talk from Larry Lessig this morning advocating campaign finance reform as the first step to fix America’s broken democracy.
The event’s been brilliant so far; lots of interesting talks on interesting topics by interesting people. The only real frustration has been the labyrinthine Austin Convention Center venue. The architect seems to have deliberately hampered any attempt to get from the 4th to 3rd floor – there’s a variety of lifts, escalators, even staircases, which go to one floor and not the other. Very confusing.
On the plus side, when trying to get to the 4th floor just now I ended up in the 3rd floor bloggers lounge, where they’re giving away free cake. So this post is justification for the delicious sponge cake I just took and demolished.
Visa saga part 3: tax records special!
March 8, 2009My trip to the US Embassy was quite an experience.
The debacle really started while organising a time to go to the embassy and get the O-1 visa processed. Visa petitioners have to make a pre-arranged appointment (so far, so gravy), these appointments can only occur at 8am (inconvenient, but acceptable), and the appointment “hot-line” costs £1.20 per minute. One pound twenty per minute!? I was living on that much per day in Nicaragua.
On top of that, the ludicrously expensive phone call culminates in you authorising them to take a further $131 as a Machine Readable Visa fee, whatever that is. What are they doing which costs $131? Doesn’t machine-readable just mean a barcode? Specially formatted text, like we have on passports? An RFID tag at a push?
Onto the actual appointment itself. One of the warnings included in the appointment confirmation is that you are required to wait outside “even in inclement weather”, so I was quite pleased to find it a clement, if nippy, morning in Grosvenor Square.
Other warnings include the restrictions on electronics in the embassy: no mobile phones, laptops; even USB sticks are verboten. After enjoying my traditional English queue, the security drone’s eyes lit up when I produced a few coins and a pair of headphones from my pocket before going through the metal detector.
“You can’t take those into the embassy, sir”, he japed. “Ha ha, good show”, I chortled heartily. Unfortunately, the steely, lifeless eyes framed in his frozen, mirthless visage made it all too clear that he was actually serious. The headphones posed a threat to national security.
“Those could be used as a transmitting device”, he asserted with a mind-bending mix of inaccuracy and self-assurance. Not wishing to get down to the brass tacks of just how egregiously incorrect he was, I conceded defeat, and paid £5 (five sterling) to store the headphones in a plastic bag for an hour.
Security checkpoint cleared, I was in the building. After a modest wait, I was called for an interview with a chap from Texas. He seemed perfectly happy with all the O-1 visa stuff; perfectly happy until it came to tax records. As I’d spent a few months in the US last year, paid for in part by my company, it now appears that full tax records for me and the company are required reading for some lucky State Department employee.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we really have any tax records… We haven’t paid anyone any money, and I haven’t been paid any money, so there are no IRS filings. We have an ID for the company and an ID for me, with no documents associated with either. Still! I suppose in a way this is what they’re looking for: proof that I haven’t been paid. It just seems a little fallacious to prove something by producing a lack of evidence.
So this means that I’ll need to come back to the UK again, after my trip to Austin. On the bright side, it should be super-simple from here on – the hard part is over. All I need to do is mail in all the required documents (or lack of them), in a nice big envelope to really emphasise the volume of tax records which don’t exist, wait for them to check that the envelope really is empty, stamp the old passport and I’ll be heading back to Cali.
Quite a week
March 1, 2009Even for one with as rock and roll a lifestyle as I, this last week as been pretty eventful. And surprisingly, all good events.
We’ve taken massive steps in partnering with two huge companies, got good coverage in TechCrunch, various venture capital firms are getting very chummy, we’ve sorted out my attendance of the South-by-South-West conference, as well as Microsoft’s MIX event in Las Vegas, pushed out a major new release of the product and, last but not least, I got a visa.
It’s at times like these that I appeal to my rationality and remind myself that we’ve been working, and working hard, towards all these things for a while. There’s no such thing as karma; at least I hope not, or next week’s going to be crap!
