Pockets of Blue

Typepad -> Typo Migration

April 7, 2008 in Weblogs by alalonde | No comments

A few weeks ago I finally finished a long-standing project: converting all my photos on Typepad over to my personal photos site. When I first looked at converting my old blog to this one, I figured I’d be able to automate it all using existing tools. Well, not quite. It took some customization of an existing script to load a Typepad blog export into this blog’s Typo database. I have some Ruby and Rails experience so this was just a matter of learning Typo’s Rails model; your mileage may vary.

That was the easy part though. Next up was photos. Unfortunately, Typepad doesn’t have any photo export service. Perhaps this is due to a lack of standardization, but I ended up coming up with my own crude data format as well as a ruby script for exporting the photos, titles and captions. It uses a Ruby Web Application Testing API to actually click through a browser and download the relevant data. Basically it’s like having a robot sit at your computer and perform thousands of mundane copy/paste/download operations in a browser.

In order to run it, you will need to install Ruby and Watir.
Chances are, you’ll probably need to know a bit of Ruby, too, but I tried to design it so it’s self explanatory. Hopefully it’s just a matter of installing those packages and running the script.

The previous script simply downloads all those photos/titles/captions to your computer. Now how do you load them into your new, preferred online photo organizer? Well, that depends. If you’re using Gallery, you can use my script! Actually, you’ll still have to create the albums and upload the photos manually, but hopefully that’s not too painful a process. I had about 20 to move and it wasn’t all that bad, even for me, and I DESPISE repetitive, mundane computing operations. Why be a robot when you can build your own robot?

However, manually re-adding all those photo titles and captions would surely drive you to insanity, so just run this script instead. Even if you’re not using Gallery the code will be a good first step towards importing the data into your photo service of choice. Happy converting!

Got rhythm?

March 26, 2008 in Music by alalonde | No comments

Today at work I was listening to some Beatles tunes and gave pause to a certain one: “She said she said” from Revolver (their best album IMO). I was really getting into it, but wasn’t exactly sure why; the lyrics are kinda cryptic (supposedly it’s about an acid trip) and the guitar parts aren’t really that unique. After a little introspection it came to me: drums! Ringo’s drum part is one of the most interesting of any of their songs; it doesn’t really follow any other instrument but complements them all beautifully while driving the song forward.

Ok, so this isn’t really a relevation. I have known for years how much I dig a sweet beat, even going so far as to remark “rhythm’s in my veins, baby” to some girl at one point on a dance floor somewhere (Europe, probably). It’s why I’ve gone through so many different genres in my many musical phases over the years, from the insane electronic percussion of Aphex Twin’s Drukqs to the polyrhythms of Tool’s Lateralus to John McEntire’s orchestrated genius in Tortoise.

I’ve never really acted on it, though. A couple months ago I was playing Rock Band at a friend’s place and picked the drumset as my instrument. After starting on medium difficulty it only took a few songs to advance to hard, where the drum part is only slightly different than the actual song. Sure, the movement’s not quite the same, but you do have four toms and a kick drum so any deficit in coordination will hurt. It was pretty fluid and oh so much fun. Well damn, I thought, why not pick up a drumset myself?

I would, actually, if I hadn’t just bought a new guitar (no, it wasn’t that expensive). My roommate plays drums but I’ve been unsuccessful in coercing him to bring it out from Colorado. I’m not even concerned about the usual annoyances of owning a drumset:

Space. My room is massive and could easily accommodate a drumset.
Noise. I live in a college neighborhood, they’re all noisy punks anyway.

The only concern is annoying people with my suck-ness for the first few weeks. Oh, and money, which hopefully my tax refund will take care of!

It’s time to stop getting down to the beat and start laying down the beat. You know what I’m talking about.

Takin’ er Easy

March 19, 2008 in Hiking/Backpacking, Mountaineering, Skiing by alalonde | No comments

Or not. I have been using my still-broken clavicle as an excuse to get back into some activities I’ve been neglecting lately, mainly mountaineering and snowshoeing. From the second weekend after the accident I’ve been out in the mountains in some form on a weekly basis. I started slowly, peddling around Ferguson and Mill Creek Canyons but have been steadily stepping up to longer, more strenuous days in the mountains.

My weeks are still pretty boring since I can’t night ski or climb at the gym, but I have been making up for it each weekend in spades. This past weekend I put in about 20 miles in the mountains with ascents of Mt. Olympus (a walk-up except for a short steep stretch at the end) and a long tour six miles into the backcountry in Mill Creek Canyon. The latter was awesome; the first bona-fide backcountry day in the finest deep powder Utah has to offer. Over the next couple of months I’ll be focusing more and more on the mountaineering aspect as the avalanche danger subsides and my shoulder gets stronger. For now I’m happy going on long tours (with one ski pole..) until I have built up some strength in both arms to use ice tools or do some scrambling.

My shoulder has gotten remarkably stronger over the past few weeks, which has made life much more pleasant and allowed me to resume right-handedness. The climbing will come back with time; otherwise things are pretty much back to normal.

Photos from my weekend jaunts will be up soon…

Kicking Ass

March 12, 2008 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

I have been fortunate today to stumble across a few fantastic articles today concerning a variety of subjects. All were inspiring, but none to the extent of Kathy Sierra’s blog post on how to become an expert in anything.

The first graph really sums it up nicely, and while I’m definitely not the drop-out type I seem to always stagnate in the amateur zone. While there are many things I am quite good at, very few of them I would call myself an expert in.

Two personal hobbies came to mind immediately while absorbing the article: Programming and playing guitar. Constantly working on the small things really is the key to becoming kick-ass, and all it takes is dedication. I have always been motivated to play guitar, but ‘practicing’ for me is usually just learning someone else’s song or improvising along with something. I could sit down and learn scales, memorize chord positions up and down the neck, and practice double-picking to be able to play 14 notes a second, but I don’t, because it’s boring. However, I know exactly what I need to work on to reach that next level, it’s just a matter of enduring some struggling to get there.

You already know your strengths and weaknesses. Change your course of action to become awesome.

Phone, Meet Train

March 5, 2008 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

A rather unfortunate yet hilarious thing happened to me yesterday evening. It was a typical Monday night; I was walking from work to the TRAX station at Gallivan plaza to take the light rail home. I have gotten into the habit of calling people after work to make the half-hour wait/ride/walk a little less painful, and was this time chatting with an old buddy from college. It just happened that I was a few minutes late for the 6:21 train and saw it approach the station as I turned the corner. Figuring I had missed it, I kept strolling along to the station. When I got closer the train wasn’t moving yet, so I jogged over to try and jump on before it took off.

Mind you, I’m still a gimp, and had one arm snugly tucked in a sling beneath my coat while the other held my phone. As I’ve done many times before, I went to cradle the phone with my (good) shoulder while I pushed the button on the train to open the door. This time, though, I was a bit hasty; my phone careened off my shoulder, bounced off the curb of the train platform, and skidded to a rest directly beneath the train’s wheel. Wtf? I thought, peering down at my still open phone lying benignly on the rail. A dude about my age happened to be standing there laughing, “Oh man you couldn’t have dropped that in a worse place! Don’t reach under there bro!” This was immediately after considering reaching under there quickly and nabbing it, or at least moving it from the rail. Then I pictured the train taking off with my arm attached and thought better of it. “Get a stick or something, dude!” Already I was chuckling at the sheer absurdity of the situation, but decided that the only safe option was to try and hold up the train. So I took off in a sprint towards the front of the train to try and wave the conductor down. Of course, right when I approached the cab the thousand-ton electronics compactor begin to move, barreling down the street leaving a trail of dust and transistors.

Immediately I knew my phone was toast and pictured in my mind the mangled piece of silicon and plastic I had recently been using to have a pleasant conversation. I walked back sheepishly to where the dude had been watching the whole debacle and saw him standing there holding it.

“I used to work at a cell phone retail store, and there’s no fixing that!” he managed to get out in between fits of laughter. I accepted my $250 communications device-turned-paperweight with a chuckle.

“Yyyeaaa,” I agreed without inflection.

“Hahaha, sorry man it’s not that funny!”

“Actually, it’s pretty funny,” I remarked frankly before turning around to catch a train going the other direction to the nearest Verizon store.

Luckily, my old phone is still intact and seems to work fine. The only issues were the battery, which I replaced today, and some missing contacts, which were re-synced using Verizon’s excellent Backup Assistant program.

Like all my deceased personal electronics, the freak show of a phone has made its way to the wall of my bedroom. Oh well.

Injury Update

March 1, 2008 in Uncategorized by alalonde | No comments

Well it’s been over three weeks since my accident. How am I doing? Alright I guess, my life has taken a turn for the boring but it isn’t really all that different. Let’s go through the upsides and downsides:

I broke my collarbone! Yeeeeeeee-haaa!!!

Plenty of time to watch movies. I’m catching up on about three years of movies I’ve been wanting to see. Blockbuster has never loved me more.
I’ve been doing tons of cooking, and discovered some awesome recipes. It’s a bit of a struggle but at least I’m eating well.
Finishing old projects. As I’m writing this I’m converting all my old typepad photos over to my new photos site. It’s kind of boring but needs to be done.
Booze! I’ve been buying a ton of wine to complement my cooking, and because I love it!
Getting back in aerobic shape. I’ve been snowshoeing every weekend and my legs are really feeling it.

Alec, what the hell did you do?

A near-useless right arm. I can type with it, but that’s about it. I won’t get into details (there are soooo many), but life sucks when you have one arm.
Not climbing, skiing, or playing guitar. These activities took up just about all of my leisure time, and they’re all wicked fun. Unfortunately this trumps every bullet point combined in the other section. Bleh.
Driving is a pain in the ass. Shifting with your left hand sucks. However, this is forcing me to take TRAX to work, which is cool.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. I will be making a few changes to the blog in the near future, so stay tuned…

A Day In the Life

February 12, 2008 in Skiing by alalonde | No comments

Edit: updated to work in the Devil’s browser (commonly known as Internet Explorer)

I went touring (backcountry skiing) with a buddy a couple weeks ago and he took some interesting photos of one of my descents. Not content to just let them sit on a server somewhere, I moved them over to my site (and captioned them appropriately). Enjoy!

'It's Go time! Whhoooo yeah!'

Snap, Crackle, Pop, Sharp Painies!

February 9, 2008 in Skiing by alalonde | No comments

On Wednesday night my (miraculous) streak of no major injuries came to an end. I was skiing up at Brighton as I do every week but was having an especially good night, powering through the moguls and stomping 180s and boxes with ease. Perhaps this put me in an elevated state of perceived immortality, who knows, but a few largish jumps in the uppermost terrain park crushed this state of mind like molars on Rice Krispies.

I have never landed a 360 before; indeed, it was one of my goals for the ski season. These jumps seemed like a great opportunity to practice, so I did. My main issue with 360s is the terrifying feeling of careening through the air, blind if just for a second as you rotate around. On the first attempt I lost my momentum about halfway through and landed awkwardly on one ski at about 270°. The other ski popped and I thought, well, that wasn’t so bad, I just need more speed to rotate that last 90. So the next time I went I still didn’t have enough momentum and instead landed a solid 180 at high speed, my ballsiest successful spin yet. It felt good, so I reassured myself that I wasn’t going to wuss out the next time and just go for it. So I came down, skiied over the first roller and set myself up for the spin on the next roller (a jump without much of a lip, these just cut sharply down on the other side with the landing steep and much below the lip). However I started to spin a split-second too early and caught my right edge on the top of the lip. Since I had so much speed it jutted me sideways and I went careening through the air, Superman-style but sideways. I can’t remember exactly what was going through my head at this time but I feel like I was still pretty relaxed somehow. I distinctly remember landing on an outstretched arm way down at the bottom of the landing, at least eight feet below the jump’s lip. My outstretched arm, shoulder and head (with helmet) impacted on the icy landing and I got the ol’ white flash for a split second on contact. I immediately popped back up (somehow) and literally threw my skis out of the way of the landing, furiously. What the HELL was that, Alec? was the gist of what was going through my head. At this point nothing seemed wrong (I was still in shock I guess). I put my skis back on and continued down the hill.

Various thoughts flashed through my head as I skiied to the bottom on gentle slopes, mostly revolving around not being able to ski or climb again for a long time, but also on the pain associated with a broken bone fragment poking up into your shoulder. Having never broken anything before, my thought process went something like this:

I hate to waste the rest of this run, maybe I’ll traverse and hit that sweet box over there!
On second thought, this kinda hurts, I should probably head straight down to the medical office…
Yeah that definitely hurts, I think I might have broken something…
Shit, I don’t think I’ll be skiing for a little while…
Wow, that really hurts, is that my collarbone I can feel sticking up out of there? Uh-oh…
Well, so much for that climbing trip down to the desert this weekend…

Yes, it entered my mind to hit a box or two immediately after snapping my clavicle in two…my body’s natural defense mechanism turned that idea around pretty quickly…

I popped off my skis at the bottom, wandering around the medical office until an elderly woman greeted me with an “uh oh, looks like you’re carrying your arm there.” I replied sheepishly, “Yeah I think I broke my collarbone” while holding my right arm as if it were about to fall off.

The next few minutes involved me sitting in a chair answering questions while the room turned a milky, spinning white. “Uhh I’m getting a bit lightheaded,” I uttered before finding myself on a hospital bed concentrating on my breathing. I never fainted but came as close as I ever have. During this time I called a friend and he graciously dropped everything (probably a plastic Rock Band guitar) to come with a friend and pick up myself and my car. (Man, I owe you guys. Cam and Chris, thanks so much again.)

The rest of the night wasn’t all that interesting, I went to the ER and they took X-rays and referred me to an Orthopedic Surgeon. More on this later, I don’t want to needlessly freak anyone out with speculation when my appointment isn’t til Monday afternoon. And that’s that for now, there’s a lot more to say but typing with one hand is agonizingly slow.

Stay away from the Rice Krispies, kids…

Comps, comps, and more comps!

January 28, 2008 in Climbing by alalonde | No comments

I get the feeling more and more that Salt Lake City is the center of climbing for the entire country. This is so awesome. The other day I was chatting with a buddy at Momentum right before getting on some routes and noticed someone familiar out of the corner of my eye. Is that?! No, it can’t be. Wait, yeah, that’s Dave Graham! For those of you unfamiliar with the climbing world, Dave is one of the most famous American climbers in the world, with ticks of both 5.15a and V15. In short, he’s mutantly strong, inarguably one of the best climbers in the world. The best part: he’s as skinny as I am. Gives me hope!

Yesterday I went back down to the gym to do a bit of bouldering before checking out the Comp that was going to go down at 5. It was pretty cool, especially cuz all these world-class climbers were messing around in my home gym! Chris Sharma, Graham, and Joe Kinder all made appearances with Sharma coming out on top with a dramatic finish. He doesn’t even compete that much anymore but seems to like Salt Lake quite a bit, with a previous win at the bouldering competition in August. I wish I had taken some pictures but I forgot the camera for my battery. Err, that sounds kinda creepy but you know what I mean.

So the comp was cool, not as cool as the Ouray Ice Fest but still pretty rad. You can’t really compare the locales, Ouray is stunningly beautiful while Momentum is, well, a gym. It’s a pretty good looking (and hugely comprehensive) gym, but, well, y’know.

If nothing else it got me even more psyched to keep cranking away at the gym to get stronger and stronger. I’ve been working out on my roommate’s hangboard we installed in the stairwell and have already noticed a benefit from it. Can’t wait to get back on the rock this spring!

edit: Today this feeling was reaffirmed when I ran into a group of about six pros climbing at Momentum, including Graham and Alex Puccio…

2008 Ouray Ice Festival

January 14, 2008 in Climbing, Travel by alalonde | No comments

Tons of ice climbing. World-class competition. All-you-can-drink craft beer. Cheap gear. Sound good? Then you should’ve been at the ice festival this past weekend in Ouray, CO. Ouray (rhymes with hooray!) is a fantastic little mountain town in the heart of the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado. Its annual festival features the premiere ice and mixed climbing competition on this side of the Atlantic. That means the best climbers in the world congregate there, some taking part in the comp and the others teaching clinics and giving slide shows.

The Competition

I rolled into town after a 4am departure from Salt Lake, plenty in time to catch the main competition. At around 10:00 I took the shuttle a half mile or so up to the Ice Park. The comp was in full swing by the time I arrived. Some highlights:

Will Mayo cruising up the mixed part only to drop an ice tool at the beginning of the suspended log section. He made some gnarly moves with one tool, though, somehow managing to make it to the bottom of the plywood board (a 42° incline mind you) before falling.
Jeff Mercier coming out of nowhere to set the bar for the rest of the comp, methodically making his way up the route before sending the final dyno to top out. Awesome stuff.
Ines Papert blazing the route only to get stuck on the last move of the board. She’s pretty short and made a couple of static attempts at the top, but fell soon afterwards. She won the women’s competition nonetheless.
Evgeny “Jack” Kryvosheytsev (that’s a mouthful) also crusing the route but popping a tool unexpectedly on the third to last hold on the route. He was a favorite to win and ended up taking second instead.

Hot Springs

Ouray has dozens of natural hot springs in town, all of them of course have been scarfed up by various hotels. After six hours of hanging out in the cold I decided to

wander around and see if any of them would let me hang out for awhile. After a bit of inquiring I found the Wiesbaden Hotel (as if it wasn’t similar enough to Austria) and promptly paid 15 bucks to soak for a bit. Holy crap was it awesome! The receptionist recommended the vapor cave so I went downstairs and opened a huge, heavy wooden door to reveal a steamy, slimy, slightly stinky room. Wtf is this? I thought before hearing some voices from beyond, deeper into the weirdest dungeon ever. Beyond another wooden door was the real deal, a 105° natural sauna with a small wading pool filled with blazingly hot spring water.

Now I have been to several hot springs both here out West and in Europe, and this took the case. I am a naturalist and the whole layout was perfect: a cave bore out of bedrock with only a few unassuming planks of wood around the outside to sit or lie on. I wish I would have taken a picture, it was so sweet.

So I hung out down there for twenty minutes or so, sweating and chatting it up with a climber couple from Denver about the comp and whatnot. Then I migrated outside to yet another natural hot spring, a swimming pool filled with the same refreshing water! It was here that I really soaked all the gloriousness in, chatting with a bunch of people from BC, Colorado and even a (preliminary) competitor from the comp.

An Orgy of Beer and Lasagna

Next up was something I had been looking forward to for awhile: An Ouray volunteer fire department benefit dinner consisting of Lasagna and all-you-can-drink beer! They even had New Belgium reps go around and fill up your cup as you waited in line for food!! Only $15 and you got all this, plus the added benefit of a room full of funny, friendly, genuinely awesome people. They are really what make the event, I had never before experienced such an awesome community.

Will Gadd, the First Class Badass

Any ice climber knows about Will Gadd, one of the preeminent luminaries in the sport and frequent dominator of the Ouray Ice competition. After the lasagna dinner he put on a slideshow chronicling his climbing life including numerous significant alpine, ice and mixed routes all over the world. He’s also apparently a prolific paraglider and had some amazing footage of gliding all over the Rockies, from Boulder to Banff. Oh and the slideshow was all-you-can-drink New Belgium beer also. The know their clientele.

I hadn’t gotten a hotel in time and didn’t feel like shelling out 90 bucks for one, so I passed out in the car for the night. Colorado mountain towns aren’t so toasty in mid-January; however I had planned for it with my dual-sleeping bag system, in which I was nice and toasty.

Sunday Clinics

Another big reason I came down to the festival was for the clinics. Climbing ice is substantially more dangerous than rock, and unlike most things I feel like I need some instruction before going at it full-on. And not only are the clinics in a great locale, but they’re all taught by the premiere, sponsored climbing badasses of the day. Sunday morning was my easy/intermediate ice clinic taught by Kelly Cordes, another ice and rock strongman sponsored by several companies. His ascent of the Great Trango Tower with Josh Wharton is one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever read.

The clinic went well, I’ve gotten so much stronger since the last time I went ice climbing it was almost comical. I still need to work on my footwork but I’m feeling better and better on ice. In the afternoon I took an avalanche clinic put on my one of the guides for San Juan Mountain Guides. I already knew about half the material but the other half has definitely beneficial. Avalanches really creep me out and I do enough backcountry skiing and climbing that I need to learn as much as I can to be safe from the biggest objective hazard in the mountains. Already this winter I have learned quite a bit; I find it fascinating and am already an almost religious follower of the postings by the Utah Avalanche Center.

So if it’s not already obvious, Ouray was a hell of a time and I will definitely be back next year, hopefully with people that don’t back out the day before the trip (no names there)! For now I’m pretty psyched to get back on the ice!

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