Seattle to San Francisco - Day 1

DAY1

I had to postpone my bike trip by one day because of a stolen car (read the previous post).

By Monday morning, my jitters had doubled. I was so ready to start cycling that I was shaking. The weather was still perfect. A hearty breakfast was still necessary. Also, the long anticipated Windows phone update was finally available, and I had to plug in my phone and wait for it to update.

Of course, I didn't have to do any of this. I was just doddling. Even though I plan to come back to Seattle, there was something difficult about leaving. I have always loved the story of El Cid. As I prepared to travel to San Francisco on my bicycle, I felt that I knew what he felt when he was exiled. Of course, I was choosing to leave, not being thrown out of the city by force. And I was riding a red bicycle, not Babieca, the beautiful warhorse. Also, I didn't have any loyal followers and I wasn't a Spanish dude from the 9th century. So, really, there are no parallels to be drawn between me and El Cid, and I'm not even sure why I brought this up.

My phone finished updating. I left and didn't look back.

The only other bike trip greater than a week that I've done was in the south of France. The south of Washington isn't the south of France. In fact, the south of Washington is kind of a depressing place, with creepy, Lynchian  undertones. Even on a beautiful day, the rotting cabins in the fir forests and the roadsides littered with bottles and shattered glass are eerie and sinister.

For as much as I praise the West Coast, I now believe that the Puget Sound is Washington's only redeeming part. There were a few nice rails to trails paths, but otherwise I was on narrow roads where apparently most people had never heard of the "give cyclists 3 feet of space" rule. With few exceptions, pickup truck drivers seem to be especially bad at giving space. They also have apparently never heard of fences for pitbulls in the south of Washington and I had a couple of terrifying encounters with dogs larger than myself. The only other people I saw riding bicycles were toothless methheads riding BMX bikes.

I know I sound a bit negative and maybe a touch judgemental. It's because one thing happened that made me have a really bad day. I had a running armband that I had put my ID and some cash in, as well as my phone. I tied it to my handlebars to help me navigate. I was using GPXViewer to navigate, but I realized that I had the wrong path - I'd downloaded a gpx file that had me going down I5. To figure out the correct route, I used Google maps, which quickly used up my phone battery. I placed it in my pouch to charge on my portable charger and kept riding. Many miles and hills later, I looked down at my handlebars, and realized that the armband was gone.  My ID and cash were gone too. The only thing to do was to backtrack and find the ID.

Two hours later I still hadn't found it. I'd been over every inch of road for 25 miles, slowly searching for the armband, but it just wasn't to be found. I decided keep going. So back it was, over the roads that I had already covered twice. By 7pm it was obvious I wasn't going to make it to Centralia. The wind was blowing strong and night was falling.  In the town of Yelm, 30 miles north of where I'd hoped to be by then, I found a random Walmart. I washed my face in their bathroom, bought and consumed half a jar of nutella, and set my tent up in a field across the road. The wind was blowing so hard that the tent was shaking and it was hard to fall asleep. My eyes were filled with dust and when I closed them they hurt.

Before I went to bed though, Tony called to tell me that the car had been recovered in Pike Place. "And it still has half a tank of gas." He said. "I'm going to sell it tomorrow. I have no reason to own a car." And he sold it the next day.

Seattle to San Francisco - Day 0

My stomach had twinges of nervousness on Sunday morning. It was a perfect day and I couldn't wait to start cycling.  Everything was packed and I was ready to hit the road for San Francisco. But first, Sunday brunch had to be eaten. Despite the butterflies I managed to cram down a "Seattle to Portland" omelette at Dish cafe. Tony noticed that our bill was $36.66. "The sign of the beast," he joked. "And today's the 13th." I added. "We're going to have bad luck."  

Before heading out I had to bike back to my boat to pick up some things I'd forgotten like sunscreen, a headlamp, and bugspray. It was noon already by the time I was ready to leave. But wait, I hadn't actually changed the clock on my boat for daylight savings time. It wasn't noon - it was 1pm already. That's when I suggested that both of us drive to Centralia and camp there. That way I could wake up and bike to Portland the next day and Tony could drive back and go to work. Tony was down. I felt relieved. For some reason, I didn't feel ready to bike to Portland by myself. We biked to his apartment to get his car. He was just ahead of me, and I saw him, standing with his bike, in the shadow of the garage. His face was blank. I biked up next to him and looked at what he was looking at.

His car was gone.

Just gone. We stared at the space for a while, as if staring at the space would bring his car back. Then Tony ran upstairs to call the police. We waited for three hours for them. Meanwhile, we tried every ride sharing service we could think of. I realized that I have never received my Zipcar card in the mail, and Tony's membership had lapsed and had to be renewed. That was out. We tried relay ride, a really cool carsharing service, but no success there either.

The police man showed up and told us that the car would certainly be recovered. He said it was a question of when, not if.

It was 5pm. We gave up on our camping plans, and I decided to start my trip on Monday instead of unlucky Sunday.

Hagg Lake 50K

If you have to put the word "tough" as in "tough mudder" in the name of your race, your race by definition is not tough. If you're looking for tough, go with something that has a name that is the name of the location plus the distance; preferrably a distance in the double or triple digits. Torrential rains were coming down on Saturday, the morning of the Hagg Lake 50K. I was planning to run the race with Tony, but he had bailed on me because he got sick a few days before. To be fair, he had never really agreed to go on the race in the first place. I had signed him up and bought him a ticket while he was out of the country. I'm pretty sure he was faking his illness. Thankfully, I got a substitute - Zach Buchanan, to make an appearance with one day's notice.

I didn't want to run the whole thing alone, but transferring the ticket was illegal, so I warned Zach beforehand that if anyone asked, he was Tony. I didn't warn him that much beforehand, because Zach had overslept, so we got there about 5 minutes after the actual start. This wasn't a huge deal in a race that takes 4-9 hours.

It was pouring so hard that I didn't even want to get out of the car, and I had visions of driving back to Portland and spending a relaxing weekend in bed. But then I thought of the carb loading I had done the night before and decided to get out of the car.

I hurried to pin the number to my pants and Zach and I raced after the distant crowd. The first lap was up a nice, gravel hill. We sped up it, passing tons of people. On the way down, Zach told me that the furthest he had ever run was 8 miles. He also described his brutal training regime which consisted of a standing desk and an exercise ball that he bounced on while training (there may have been some basketball, climbing, a 22 mile bicycle commute every day, and various century rides mixed in there somewhere as well). My training regime had not been very running heavy either. It mostly consisted of doing Yoga X every other day and running 4-5 miles on the weekend.

After the brief up and dowhill came the race around the lake. This is where the mud comes in. The website mentions mud, but the race itself isn't really billed as a mud run. The pictures from last year show smiling runners running on dry paths under sunny skies. The torrential rains this year changed all that. Zach was sliding around like a kid learning to skate.

One of our fellow runners noticed. "Nike Frees, huh? That might not have been the best choice today." It turns out that this guy worked for a shoe store and was wearing some practical trail running shoes. "You're going to have a tough time in those, son." He left this parting advice as he sped past us at the aid station.

As we continued past the second aid station, I started to notice that Zach was talking less and less. I asked him what he recommended doing in Portland for the weekend. "Can we talk about this another time? I need to concentrate on not falling down." I turned around and realized that he was covered in mud and not looking too good. "Did you run the whole way when you did 50 miler?" "No, I walked a lot." "Ok, because maybe we should walk soon."

Hint taken. It was getting harder and harder for me to lift my legs too. We were no longer in ankle deep mud - this was more like the mire that John Bunyan speaks of in Pilgrim's Progress. "Why did you tell me these shoes would be ok?" Zach asked. I had told him the shoes would be ok mostly because I was in a hurry and half asleep. I thought of the greek myth of Atalanta and began to wonder if running was an externalization of my misandry. "Do I run because I hate men and I want to see them fail?" I wondered. "Or am I more like Hippomenes, sabotaging my opponents so that they can't beat me?"

So far it was two for two. Brad had dropped out at mile 17 of the 50 miler after I fed him the 4Loko (to be fair, I had drunk half the can myself and then gotten lost and run a bit extra on that race).

Zach declared that he was dropping out just past the third aid station. He wanted to finish at least the 25K though, and he did.

The worst thing about the Hagg Lake 50K is that it's two 25K laps. So the first lap is a little bit muddy, but the second lap has already been trampled twice so it is REALLY muddy. The rains kept pouring and the day was getting colder, not warmer. My shirt was soaked. My shoes were soaked but I no longer felt them. All I cared about now was passing as many people as possible to get the highest place possible. This wasn't hard. By the second lap, many people were run-walking. As I passed each one, I smiled and said "Great job! keep it up!" In my head I was thinking "See ya later sucker!"

On ultramarathons, I realize that you play a lot of mind games with yourself to keep running. Most of the ones I play are fairly evil and reveal a sadistic tendency. Often, other runners comment on my nice smile. "Still smiling at mile 21! Keep it up!" They yell. But I'm not necessarily smiling because I'm happy. Instead it's because I want to win, and I feel less pain when I'm smiling. I also like to let out a little happy sigh, as if I'm having the best time of my life. This is to discourage the runners around me.  I imagine them thinking "if there are other runners that are still enjoying this, I am f#$cked." Whenever I pass another runner, I try to put as much distance between them and me as possible. This is because there is nothing worse than being passed by someone who you just passed.

My mantra for the Hagg Lake run was "I've had periods that hurt worse than this." Everytime I passed a male runner I thought this and laughed maniacally in my head.

The last 4 miles were the worst. I passed the aid station at 26.8 and thought "I've already run over a marathon. What's left is nothing." But it wasn't nothing. As I passed a runner at mile 26.81, I smiled at him and said "Nice work! Almost there!" I heard him grunt behind me.  I found myself paying attention to the scenery during this last bit. I remembered landmarks from the first lap, but now it seemed as if everything had been stretched, so what took 5 minutes on the first lap now took 20 minutes. At mile 29.5 I passed one last runner. I could hear him behind me, jogging, then walking. By now there was a lot of walking going on. Whenever I walked up a hill, I worried that he would pass me, but he never did. When I slowed, he slowed.

Just before the finish was the parking lot where Zach and my friend Deborah were waiting in the car. They rolled down the window as I hobbled up to them. "Cheer for me!" I begged them "I need it!" They did cheer and Zach honked the horn. I staggered past them and through the last bit of mud to the finish line. There it was. The other runner was still behind me. We ran through the finish line, high fived and hugged. Now the race was over and we were friends. We jogged straight down the hill from the finish line into the lake. Ahhh! Ice bath. We stood up to our waists in the freezing lake with four other runners, smiling and laughing at the surrealness of it all.

The other runners had run the 50K before and they both agreed that this had been the toughest race ever because of the absurdly muddy conditions.

When I exited the lake I was given a medal and a foil blanket. The fast shoe store guy who had passed us earlier saw me in the tent and congratulated me. I had somehow managed to pass him and he had finished just after me. I ate some soup and stood by the space heaters but I couldn't stop shivering. I hadn't thought to bring towels or warm clothes and I dreaded the quarter mile walk back to the car.  Next year though, I will be prepared. Zach had better be also.

Growing Up with Ken Ham - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

On the spectrum of Christians who believe that God put dinosaur fossils in the Earth to test our faith, and Theistic Evolutionists, my parents are somewhere in the middle. They were also my science teachers for the first 12 years of my life.  

Ken Ham's books were part of our homeschool curriculum.  In Answers in Genesis he goes to extreme lengths to show that the laws of science and the literal Bible can coexist, and even that one proves the other. My Dad taught me that there had been room for all of the creatures on the arc because Noah took one of each genus, not one of each species. The "evolution" that Darwin had observed in finches was in fact simply the display of the diverse genome that God had created them with.  As a 10 year old, all of this made sense, especially when combined with a semester of learning apologetics in Sunday School.

In 7th grade I went to a Christian school where the science education was even more laughably abysmal. Basically, any questions that were raised were silenced with "God created it like that." When they didn't answer my questions, I lost respect for my teachers and I got in trouble frequently (mostly for doodling during class, which I'm certain has served me better in the long run than actually paying attention to our "history lessons" about the Tower of Babel). Thankfully my parents didn't send me back, and I went to public high school a few years later.

The Good:

There was a good side to learning this, and that was that I learned to question everything. Kids who are taught the prevailing wisdom of science never have their beliefs challenged. In fact, in High School I was surprised to find many atheists who were as dogmatic and wonderless as their fundamentalist religious counterparts. I'm glad that I was reminded over and over again that evolution was "only" a theory, because this has put all of human scientific discovery into perspective for me.

Religion gave us the frameworks for the science that we have today. In fact, much of the science that we do now is done in the name of humanism - a direct descendant of Western religion.  Scientists who think they can achieve objectivity are like people who have never travelled and don't realize they have an accent.  For all of the trash talking that faith gets, you can’t have science without faith in constants. It can be absurd when fundamentalist Science battles fundamentalist religion, because the two end up sounding similar.

But I don't want to say that Ken Ham isn't an idiot (albeit a wealthy one) or that it's fine to teach Creationism as fact and the Bible as science.

The Bad:

For me, one of the worst effects of growing up with creationism was the loss of wonder.  I lost interest in the life sciences because there was nothing new to be discovered. Jesus had to come back in the next few thousand years, before the Earth could go through any drastic changes that would prevent human life and cause us to seek refuge on the nearest habitable planet. My textbooks mocked scientists who searched for other forms of life in the cosmos. How dare they waste their money searching for something that God had decreed couldn't exist?

The Ugly:

By far the worst thing about growing up with Creationism is the fear. I became afraid of insulting a vindictive God by imagining that there were life beyond His perfect Earth, or that life had originated in any other way than the 7 day process described in a 4,000 year old book. To deny creation would be to deny God's perfection. How could evolution have happened if God had created a world without death? The main reason for clinging to Creationism is to prove that we humans caused death. Our collective sin, of which we are all guilty, caused all of the pain and suffering in the world.

Things have evolved slightly since the day of Copernicus and Galileo. Baptists and Presbyterians won't pull out your fingernails or use a thumb screw on you if you believe that the Earth wasn't created in seven days.  Many do, however, have the power to excommunicate or "discipline" members if they don't believe that: "The Bible is the revelation of God's truth and is infallible and authoritative in all matters of life and practice.*"

The Good (again)

I don't want to end this post on a negative note, so I'll revisit the positive. The good is the fact that I don't believe Creationism anymore. When I stopped believing it was less like the disillusionment of realizing that Santa isn't real and more like being let out of a dark closet for the first time. Clearly, some worldviews are better for my sanity than others, and I'm glad that the one that is backed by science isn't the one where a bunch of old men decide who is and who isn't allowed to speak in church.

Giving up creationism means that my sense of wonder has been restored with a vengeance. All of the things that I wasn't supposed to wonder as a 10 year old I now wonder about in full force. Is there life in the stars? Is the universe infinite? Are there infinite versions of myself? If I can imagine God, does that make God possible? And if she is possible, in an infinite universe must she exist?

I don't know the answers. I don't expect to ever know the answers. But I can search and imagine and wonder, and this is beautiful.

*http://www.rpcwc.org/beliefs.aspx

Thistle Sailing Nationals

Last week I flew to Ohio. Thistle Nationals were being held on Lake Erie, at the port town of Sandusky. No, Thistle Nationals is not a Scottish Dancing Competition or the highland games. A thistle is a seventeen foot sailboat, sailed by three people. You can read more about it here. They are light, fast, and tippy. On our three person team at nationals I was in charge of the bow, which means that I have to move around a lot and I frequently knock myself on various parts of the boat that stick out. My crewmate Dave was in charge of the middle of the boat. My skipper Wayne is the one who made the boat go.

Being from the East Coast, it seemed odd for Ohio to be my "vacation" destination, but I was drawn by the allure of competing in anything called "nationals." I've always wanted to compete at the national level at a sport, any sport.

Making a Thistle move through the water at seven knots (about the speed of a fast jog) is an art form that involves quite a bit of cursing. As everyone knows, the louder you curse, the faster the boat moves.

"Take down the F$@@#!ing spinnaker pole!"

"I'm taking down the m#%$!!F*^#@ing spinnaker pole!"

And the boat glides on, so fast that it creates an unseen wake.

Wayne's license plate on his van is in a frame that says "Thistle Sailing. Faster than fast." Oh, also his license plate reads "Thistle." Did I mention he is a little obsessed? This year he also happened to be Vice President of the Thistle Fleet. Unfortunately, that meant that he was in charge of 53 trophies. It seemed strange that there were 110 boats at nationals and 53 trophies. There are trophies for various categories: "highest finish for a skipper from west of the Mississippi", "highest finish for a skipper over 60", "highest finish for a woman skipper." I assume that by creating so many trophies, the Thistle class meant to be inclusive and make sure that everyone who raced hard got a trophy. What it meant for Wayne is that he had to keep track of the placement of each skipper in each category. What it meant for me, as Wayne's crew, was that I had to polish an awful lot of silver.

Thankfully I had help. Rather than polishing the trophies in the back room, we took them out into the clubhouse after dinner and polished them in front of everybody. We were awarded with free beers and appreciation.

Speaking of beers, at the same time that Thistle Nationals was going on, the self-proclaimed Flip Cup Nationals was also going on. I did not partake, but at night we could hear the cheers of the participants from our tents. "Why are they all yelling 'USA'?" My tent neighbor, Tracy Jean, wondered. "Aren't we all from the USA?" This question was never answered.

On the racecourse though, many of my questions about sailing were answered. For instance, I learned how to pee off the side of a dinghy when you're out sailing for 8 hours at a time. I also learned to read the sailing instructions very carefully, and that the finish line is almost always restricted.

Although we did not get a trophy, I did have the pleasure of getting dressed up and handing out the trophies to the deserving winners. I thought that I knew which trophies were which, but when I arrived at the banquet at the yacht club and saw 53 gleaming perpetual trophies, as well as over 100 smaller trophies for the winners to keep, I freaked. I may have handed out a few wrong trophies, but everyone seemed fairly content with their extra shiny silver cups.

We didn't do so poorly either though. We were 44th out of 110 boats. Sailing Thistles is hard, and the competition is tremendous. I couldn't believe the skill of some of the other crews. There is so much to think about, between wind angle, keeping clear of other boats, getting room around a mark, preventing the boat from heeling too much, and a million other things. The smallest mistake can cost you 10 boat lengths, and you can never sail a perfect race.

White River 50 Mile

Admittedly, it was a terrible idea. I signed up for the race in May because my running partner, Brad, pressured me into signing up. "If you can run 20 miles on back to back days, you can totally do 50." For some reason, I thought he meant 50K, even though 50 miles is in the name of the race. But, details. Another detail I missed was the part about climbing 8,900ft. There is almost 18,000ft total elevation change over the course of the race, which climbs parts of Crystal Mountain and has views of Mount Rainier. If I had known about that, I might have practiced. My coworker Dawn asked if I was going to run on Friday. "No, I'm tapering," I told her.

"Ah, how long have you been tapering?"

"About 6 months."

Speaking of unprepared, I hadn't realized that we wouldn't have phone service in the shadow of Crystal Mountain. Brad and I planned on Friday to meet at a campground, since I was leaving Seattle later than him. But by the time I got there, at 10:30pm, it was too dark to find him, especially since I had no idea what his car looked like. Also, the campsite was full. The only place to sleep was on the concrete floor of the picnic pavilion. Also, my sleeping bag is currently on its way to Sandusky, Ohio, where I will be camping next weekend for Thistle Nationals. So all I had to sleep on were 2 ponchos. I slept fitfully, and woke at 5am. We had to be at the start line by 6 and my stomach felt like it was in knots.

Thankfully, at the start line I had one bar of service, and was able to get a call from Brad's brother, who also had service. I was so relieved to see Brad. I knew that I couldn't do this race without him. For one thing, he is a constant source of entertainment.

"Let's start at the front of the pack," he said. "That way, only 398 runners will have to pass us."

We didn't though - instead we started at the back of the pack, well behind the elites, as we intended to finish in the bottom 10%, if at all. Brad confided that he hadn't practiced either. Neither of us had run more than 14 miles in the past six months.

The first part of the race is a 15 mile climb that goes up 4,000 feet or so. I didn't even feel them. I was too busy laughing at Brad's hilariously inappropriate stories. I could tell other runners were trying to run closer to us just to hear his stories. At the top of the mountain there were spectacular views. I felt like I was in The Sound of Music with the alpine peaks all around me. The third aid station was right there. Brad and I had a dropbag that we had sent up. He had put an extra pair of shoes and some pitas in his bag. I had added a Four Loko and some extra socks. The Four Loko was more of a joke than anything else - I had mentioned on the way down that I had never tried one, so Tony suggested that I get one at the next gas station, and I did.

Brad and I spread out for a full on picnic at the aid station. We attempted to drink the Four Loko but it was too disgusting to get down. We probably sat there picnicking for 15 minutes. Brad announced that he was dropping out. His calves were cramping up and he couldn't run any further. "You'll do great," he encouraged me. "Just make sure you make it before the last aid stations close down, or you're screwed."

I took off, feeling amazing. I put my headphones in since Brad was no longer there to entertain me. I had a playlist that consisted of only four songs, since I'd forgotten to download music for the run.

I passed everyone who had passed us at the aid station. The pack had thinned out and I was no longer following anyone. Good thing the course was well marked. I got to a part where the trail split, and there was a big arrow pointing the way on the ground. Great. I was running at a good pace now. There was a photographer on the trail. I gave him a thumbs up. About a mile later I saw an aid station. And then I realized - this was the aid station I had just been at. I was running backwards. The volunteers realized it too, as they took down my number. "Uh...you were already here weren't you?"

"Don't worry, you only have to run about 2 miles back that way and you'll find the course."

"Thanks," I said, and took off again. I was crestfallen. This pretty much ruined any chance I had of doing well. Thankfully, the next 15 miles were downhill. I am a great downhill runner. Years of skiing and cycling have strengthened my quads and made me fearless on the downhill. I'm basically a mountain goat. I only face-planted once.

At the next aid station I took my shirt off and threw it away. A volunteer told me that it smelled like a locker room. He dumped a bottle of water over my arms, legs and face to clean the dust off. I pinned my number to my sports bra.

At the next aid station the volunteers all tilted their heads when I arrived. It turns out that I had pinned my number on upside down. Tony was waiting for me at the aid station at the bottom of the mountain. "You are a mess," he told me. "But you're right on track to finishing in 10 or 11 hours."

"I feel great," I said. But actually my stomach was feeling weird. I couldn't eat anything, so I kept running. After what Brad had said, I was afraid of the aid stations closing down before I arrived, and this was starting to feel a bit less like a casual stroll. Unfortunately, the next 10 miles were uphill again, and it was hot by now. The miles between 27 and 37 were by far the hardest. My butt was hurting from so much hill running. Also, my arms were starting to chafe. That is how you know your arms are too fat - when they chafe as you run. Other than the pain, I felt amazing. I usually use my running time to think, but I had outrun the thinking part. I was unable to think about anything useful. In fact, I don't think I was thinking at all.

After the 37 mile point there were six miles of downhill running. I bombed down them, passing lots of people. I wasn't feeling great, but I wasn't feeling awful. I thought about throwing up, but I couldn't. I thought about dropping out, but dropping out isn't allowed after the seventh aid station. Besides, I was so close. Finally, the bottom of the hill was right there. At the last aid station, I took my shoes off and realized that my new socks were completely coated in dust and sweat. I was amazed to not have any blisters however.

Did I mention that I was wearing new shoes? I should have broken them in first. Oh well, they are broken in now. Also, I doubt I will be getting my 30 day money back guarantee after this race.

There were only about seven miles of slightly uphill technical terrain to go. I looked at my phone. It was 5pm. I decided to run 20 minutes and walk 5 for the last bit. I looked at my phone after I thought I had been running for about 20 minutes. It was 5:05. The problem was that my quads were all stiff from sprinting down the hill. I tried skipping to shake them out. Wrong decision. My knee suddenly experienced a shooting pain. I tried jogging on it and realized that there was no way I could run. I had to keep my knee straight just to be able to walk on it. Only five miles to go to the finish, and I was injured. I felt incredibly frustrated. If I hadn't gotten lost I would certainly be finishing by now.

I walked with a weird limp through the rest of the beautiful forest. Lots of old people passed me. But old people had been passing me all day so that was really nothing new. That's the problem with these really tough endurance races - old people are always passing you. I didn't really mind though - my brain was on a different planet. I was euphoric. I really wanted to just stop and lie down. I wanted to cry too. I was happy, but I really wanted to cry. Also, why was there a person watching me from the top of that tree? Oh, it wasn't a person, just a branch. Then I saw another person wearing a black robe. I thought maybe it was a witch. Or a bear. But it was just a root. Almost there. I started singing so that I wouldn't feel my knee anymore.

I managed to make it to the road where the finish was. Somehow I was able to run the last half mile.

And there I was, jogging through the finish after 13 hours of "running." I had been dreaming of putting my legs in the river for about 4 hours. After the finish, Tony helped me down the hill I sat down in the river, still wearing my shorts. It was everything I had dreamed it would be. My sore feet felt all tingly. I wanted to just stay there and sleep, but Tony made me get out. Then he gave me a piggy back ride to the tent where they were giving out t-shirts and socks.

I put on my t-shirt and socks right away. It felt good to be wearing something that didn't smell like a locker room.

And that was it. That was what running a 50 miler feels like. Next time I run a 50 mile race I will practice first. Also, I won't wear new shoes. And I will make a playlist that includes more than four songs.

But whatever - at least it was good exercise.

Startup Weekend Maker Edition: Organizer's Perspective

This weekend is my first Startup Weekend as an organizer. I've attended 3 previously as a participant, and I've had my mind blown by the intensity of the weekend and the projects and teams that were created. Behind the scenes is a whole different level of intensity. When I contacted Tawnee, operations manager at Startup Weekend HQ, in January, begging her to do a Startup Weekend for Makers, I didn't really expect her to get back to me. A few days later she sent me some names of other people who might also be interested in organizing a Startup Weekend focused on hardware.  Apparently, people who wanted a Startup Weekend for makers had reached a critical mass, and when Makerhaus agreed to host the event it was a done deal. The task of putting together an organizing team was put into my (inexperienced) hands. I reached out to some friends and was lucky to have a team of twelve rockstars join me. Since March we've been hustling for sponsorships, making lists of necessary materials, and reaching out to maker groups to find talented participants.

It wasn't until June that it sunk in that Startup Weekend Maker Edition was going to be fundamentally different from any previous Startup Weekend. For one thing, it takes a lot more planning. We have to provide all the materials to make 10 successful hardware startups in one weekend. Also, it takes a lot more sponsorships, since materials cost money. Thankfully, sponsors like Madrona, Impinj, Amazon, 10AK, Blackedge, PHC International, Coca Cola, and several more stepped in to cover our costs.

Somewhere along the line in the planning, we did something right. That became clear tonight as soon as the participants started to arrive. They had the eager look of passionate people - people who really wanted to be there and were going to make this an amazing event. Unlike other tech events in Seattle, where people tend to avoid eye contact and stare at their feet, the people at this event talking, laughing and sketching their ideas on napkins. They seemed excited to have found an entire room full of people who shared their passion for making things.

Another difference between this event and a normal Startup Weekend was the energy of the coaches and judges. Usually Startup Weekend coaches are too busy doing their own thing to be there for the whole event. But most of our coaches showed up on Friday night and were there to give the teams tips right from the start. We had coaches even offering to help carry food and set up tables and chairs.

Some things were, of course, the same. There was a rousing speech by our facilitator John Morefield at 7pm. There were pitches from 7:30-8pm - and what an amazing bunch of pitches they were! An autonomous greenhouse...a simple piece of hardware to tell you if you have a sleep disorder...a gadget that will project your cell phone screen onto the ceiling...

We took votes, and the 30+ great pitches were narrowed down to 10 excellent pitches. Teams formed. Sticky notes and note pads were passed out, and everyone went into planning mode.

My task for tomorrow morning is to get the teams the materials they need. Each team filled out a materials spreadsheet, and we've compiled these to a master spreadsheet that contains everything from sheets of acrylic to urethane and silicon for casting, to hot glue guns and grommets. Getting these materials reminds me of a science fair project for adults. I'm excited to wake up early tomorrow and go on a scavenger hunt for parts. And I'm even more excited to see what the teams make with these parts. Let the fun begin!

My First Swiftsure

Saturdy May 25th - Day One of the Race

The 70th annual Swiftsure Regatta began on Saturday, May 25th, 2013 in Victoria, Canada. Boat call was 6:30am but I got there a little early to put breakfast in the oven. I'm not a very good sailor so I try to make myself useful in other ways. I sail on a 40.7 Benneteau named Bravo Zulu. Her crew is usually between 8 and 12 people. For this race we had 11 - our skipper Denny, Steve, the navigator and tactician, Christa and Erica who do bow, Brenda, who is both a trimmer and our boat's M.D., Shayne, Wayne, Kerry and Leif who are usually in the cockpit either trimming or grinding (and sometimes skippering), and Taylor, a new addition to the crew who can do everything well. Then there is myself - resident rail meat and squirrel extraordinaire. 

I had come up on Thursday on a 53ft boat named Artemis after missing the Bravo Zulu delivery and had spent the past day and a half hanging out in Victoria Harbor, checking out the other boats, including the HMCS Oriole, a beautiful wooden Canadian Navy ship with twin tree trunks for masts that was going to do the in shore course.

At 8am an alarm sounded. All of the glistening boats untied and motored out into the harbor, flags flying. We drifted out with them. Hundreds of boats - over 200 - made a magnificent parade through Victoria Harbor. The sailors on the Oriole were listening to rap and they had a pretty amazing sound system. "You didn't know we were the party boat, did you?" One of their sailors yelled. We had our music on also, and the Bravo Zulu battle flags were flapping in the wind.

9:20am was our race start. Low winds had been predicted but our sails were full. Denny had invested in a new number 2 genoa and it was crisp. I put my face to it to smell the new sail smell before we raised it. The cannon on the committee boat blasted a blank into the air to signal the race start. The shores were crowded people watching and they waved as we started off.

Our crew had been divided into two watches - Bravo watch and Zulu watch. At noon, Bravo watch was off and I went below to make lunch and take a nap. Four hours later when Bravo watch started again we were still ahead of our fleet but the tides were changing. The wind had changed as well, and it was no longer pushing us - it was merely serving as a wind anchor. Our boat speed was less than a knot. By the time it got dark, several of the boats ahead of us had already given up on the race and they passed us, motoring back.

Watching the peaks of land on the American shore slide behind us was slower than watching paint dry. The only comfort was that everyone was stuck in the same light air. As it grew dark, the lights on the Canadian vessel that served as the mark grew slowly brighter, and the lights on the triangular shadows that were nearby sailboats did also.

The mark was finally upon us. As we drifted slowly nearer to the mark we realized that the current was carrying us sideways faster than the wind was carrying us forward. I was hiking with all my might and I prepared to fend off the vessel by kicking it with my feet if necessary. I could see the boat operators coming outside to see if we would crash. Even in the dark I was close enough to see the whites of their eyes. Thankfully, Denny expertly tacked the boat when we were about 9 feet away. It lost us some efficiency but it also saved us from a crash.

We got a chuckle as another boat prepared to round the mark and reported over the radio: "We are about 400 feet away from the mark. We should be there sometime within the next 4 hours."

After rounding the mark at Cape Flattery we headed North back to the Canadian coast to try our luck there.

Sunday May 26th - Day Two of the Race

Bravo watch took over again at 4am. Apparently Taylor had had some sort of run in with the boom during the wee hours of the morning and suffered a concussion. As a doctor, Brenda was upset that we weren't motoring back, but Taylor seemed to be doing ok. Erica wanted to motor back also, as she had plans to leave on the Victoria Clipper that afternoon and was eager to join the majority of sailors who had already quit the race. We weren't doing that though. In fact, there was a rumor running around that we didn't have enough fuel to motor back if we tried.

The day also promised to be as beautiful, if as windless, as the previous day. Bravo watch was still in good cheer and uninjured, although we had used up all of our dirty jokes and didn't have much left to talk about. There was one boat ahead of us that was worrying everyone. "Could that be Red Heather?" Red Heather was a boat from Victoria in our class and they were leagues ahead of us. We weren't close enough to make out their sail numbers yet, but the coloration and size indicated that it was them. We had crossed to the Canadian side and were getting better winds. We seemed to be gaining on them. I was finally able to make out their numbers with the binoculars. "9...6...0...9...6...Yup, that's them alright!" To win we had to beat them by at least ten minutes, and we were currently about ten minutes behind. We tried several strategies to get ahead, but each time they managed to pull ahead. Clearly they knew the tides and winds here better than we did.

Although we were still moving as slow as mud, Denny suggested we suffix everything with "And we're winning." As in "The current is going to start carrying us backwards in one hour. And we're winning!" Or, "We have one knot of boat speed. And we're winning!" Despite the optimism, the strain of racing (and little sleep) was clearly wearing everyone a bit thin. I was happy to be relieved by Zulu watch, and the only thing that I was doing was helping to move the jib around on the roll tacks. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive the boat for the entire race, or to be in charge of something as delicate as trimming a sail for days on end. Also, I'm thankful that I sleep so well on boats.

By the time I woke up four hours later we'd passed Race Rocks and were out of the worst of the tide. Also, Red Heather had somehow fallen off and was now receding into a line of distant boats. Perhaps our joking optimism had carried us through and we were winning! We hadn't planned to be out for dinner so I scavenged some cans of tuna and olives and made make-shift wraps for everyone.

We were in sight of Victoria Harbor when the currents switched. We noticed first by the line of water off the back of some crab pots. Then it started to carry us backward. The wind seeker wasn't working anymore, so we raised a spinnaker and Taylor held out the edge of the sail with a boat hook. Our boat speed was zero. We cheered as the wind started to fill the sail and the knot meter rose to 0.1 knots. As we waited for the boat to move, darkness fell. Every boat that we could see was far behind us, and we knew that none of the boats had finished the Cape Flattery course yet. We might be both first in our division and first overall. Hell, we might even be the only boat to finish the Cape Flattery Course! The time passed quickly for me as I concentrated on the wind and my excitement. Several more boats who had quit motored past us. Buoyed by Christa's remarks that we might be the only boat left in our class, we hung in and sailed the boat.

The instruments on the mast began to blink. We were losing battery power. Steve tried to start the engine in neutral to recharge the battery but there wasn't even enough battery for that. We quickly scrounged some bow and stern lights so that we wouldn't be disqualified after our 30+ hours of racing. We also remembered to put on our safety gear as another precaution against disqualification.

Two hours passed like this. Then four. We were in sight of the finish line - a red strobe on one side of the harbor entrance and a blinking yellow light on the other. Then a whistle blew. Or was it a horn? It didn't matter. We were finally back.

They gave us hot chicken soup and champagne at the inspection dock and took our photographs. I didn't realize that I was hungry until I ate the soup. There were handshakes and congratulations. Everyone was smiling, especially Denny.

I headed back to the hotel with Kerry, Wayne and Shayne. On the way back I ran through the sprinklers on the lawn of a fancy looking building covered in Christmas lights. A guard on the lawn noticed me so I sprinted back. "What was that building?" I asked Shayne. "That's the capitol building. Victoria is the capitol of B.C." "Ahhhh." I looked behind me nervously, but thankfully the guard wasn't following. Back at the hotel, we were almost too tired to fall asleep, and ended up giggling for an hour like high school girls at a slumber party. "My boyfriend just texted me that he thinks The Flying Italian got first," Kerry reported. "But he doesn't know much about ratings in sailing, so I doubt that's right."

Monday May 27th - Delivery Home

Just in case I got bored on the delivery home, I'd brought a book to read. It wasn't needed.

The wind blew like no other wind I have ever seen. It was like it was making up for the past two days of windlessness.

We ran out of fuel motoring against the current on the way to drop Kerry off in Port Townsend, so we put a reef in the mainsail and raised it as the rain pelted us and waves sloshed over the bow. The wind was blowing 45 knots and we were making 9 knots of boat speed with just a reefed main. Denny was sick in his berth, and Leif was throwing up over the rail. I managed to get soaked as the water coming over the sides of the boat came up my foulies. I changed my wet socks and shirt twice. Even though I wanted to stay out and watch the weather I was finally shivering so uncontrollably that I had to go below and wrap up in a blanket. Steve and a friend, Tim, who was helping out with the delivery, were driving and they did an amazing job, depositing us safely at Customs in Port Townsend. Denny lent me some of his dry clothes and we had a late lunch at a tiny fish and chips joint, before refueling and heading back to Seattle. Here we learned that we had taken second overall in the race, and first in our division. The Flying Italian was the overall winner, having corrected over us by less than a minute. It was disappointing to learn that we weren't overall winner, but it was still exciting to have finished at all. We were all too exhausted or seasick from the delivery down to smile, but it had been a race well sailed.

Stop Thinking About Doing Things. Do Things.

I've been thinking about updating my website for a while. I haven't touched it since last year and it looks childish (I think) and doesn't represent my work. Every time I send it to someone I have to include a disclaimer about how outdated it is. So I decided to upgrade. With enough free time, enough motivation, and enough caffeine that seems like a simple task. But somehow, three months have passed and nothing has happened. Why haven't I gotten anything done?

I realized that it came down to the fact that I was thinking about it too much. These are some samples of actual thoughts:

• "I need to sit down and sketch out every interaction before I write a line of code because this is going to be the best damn vanity site in the whole world."
• "Even though updating my website is important for my career, other things might be a priority right now so I should make a list of priorities before I start it to make sure that it's really a priority."
• "I have to read every book on UI Design ever before I can make a website that's good enough."

But the more I plan my site, the less I actually want to make it. If it's taken me six months to just think about upgrading it, how long will it take to actually do it?

There are a lot of things like my website that I never finish, or even start, because of over-thinking.

For instance:

• "I should probably go running, but there might be a more efficient way to get fit, so I'm going to browse the internet until I figure out what it is."
• "I want to go on a two week bike trip, but what if there is a really great opportunity that I miss because I was away biking?"
• "I should use twitter to market myself, but I don't know what message I want to send about myself so I'm going to go to the library and get  out 15 books on personal branding and read each of them halfway through and do five of the self help exercises and learn nothing."
• "I really like so and so. I should go out with him because it would be fun. But what if he falls in love and I don't like him and we have to break up and...? I think I'll stay in tonight and look at pictures of cats on the internet."

My draft box is filled with emails I never sent because I spent so long trying to word them perfectly that I gave up. Before I do things I think about the consequences 5 years in the future. I worry that I'll invest effort in something and not have the reward that I expected. What if I do it and it's not perfect? What if there's a more efficient way to do it?

There are four things that get me out my over-thinking rut:

1. Desperation - I do it because I have nothing left to lose
2. Competition - I do it because I want to one-up you (this can backfire if I spend too much time thinking about how to be perfect)
3. Curiosity - I do it because I want to know what happens if I do it

And sometimes, like today, I just get sick of not getting anything done and the new smell of spring inspires me to do something, like write a blog post.

It's hard, but it's worth it. I find that I'm a lot happier when I stop thinking about things and just do them. It doesn't matter that I can't do everything as long as I can do something. It doesn't matter that I can't do something perfectly as long as I can do it at all.

So I'm going to stop re-reading this, I'm not going to scour the internet to make sure that this exact same post hasn't been written before (I'm sure it has but who cares), I'm going to stop editing this and I'm going to press "Publish."

And then I'm going to update my website.

Micro Controller Library

Oh man, I’m getting excited just writing about this. So, last week I got a grant from the Awesome Foundation to make a Micro Controller Library and it’s finally coming together. What the hell is a Micro Controller Library? It’s basically a giant package of awesome that turns ordinary people into gods of technology.

Library might be a misleading term, since there aren’t any books involved (although I’m currently trying to figure out licensing so that I can make some ebooks about physical computing available to you on your computer or kindle). What makes it a library is that it’s free (except for a $5 startup fee when we process you into the member database) and you can check electronics out and bring them home for up to two weeks. It’s based on the West Seattle Tool Library’s make-your-own tool library kit. Local Tools even got me set up with an inventory site so I can track tools and members and you can see what’s available for checkout and reserve items. The library will have a home in the Maker Space Jigsaw Renaissance located at 821 Seattle Boulevard South.

So far I’ve ordered eight Arduino Unos, a pair of Arduino Megas, and a Raspberry Pi. I’ve also ordered 6 different starter kits, which come with a ton of different sensors, power sources, breadboards, jumper cables, and various shields to connect different components to.

Have you ever wanted to build an autonomous wheeled robot? I ordered a chassis and sensors so you can build one using a micro controller. And if you want your autonomous wheeled robot to take photos and upload them to you Facebook, I’ve also ordered a couple of Wi-Fi shields. Do you want to prototype a self-watering plant? There’s a soil moisture sensor that plugs directly into an Arduino.

You can even make your own interactive, digital games using buttons, LED screens and joysticks that plug into a breadboard.

So how do you become a library member? You don’t have to wait until the library is set up. Stop by Jigsaw Renaissance or the Seattle Arduino Meetup at The Easy next week. Bring an ID and $5 (or $10 if you want to help sponsor membership for a low income geek. Technology access for everyone!) Be prepared to spend about 20 minutes since you’ll have to read a short article about safety and not blowing things up and whatnot. Then I add your name to the database and you’re a member!

If you have any electronics sitting around that might make a good addition to the library, please let me know! Also, donations of money and time are more than welcome. As the packages start coming in I’m going to need people to help with sorting, labeling and inventorying parts. Plus, you’ll get to be first to play with all the new electronics!

Beginning CSS (for free!)

Hopefully you've finished a couple of HTML tutorials on Codeacademy by now and you're on your way to becoming an HTML expert. Maybe you've already built a social media profile (HTML Basics II) or a clickable photo page (HTML Basics III). Now it's time to get into CSS. What is CSS? CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets," although knowing that probably won't help you much. The best way to understand CSS is to head over to CSS Zen Garden. As you can see, there are thousands of different themes for this website. Try clicking on a few. The only things that change are the layout, color, and style. All of the text and the basic format stay the same because the HTML hasn't changed. CSS is what determines most of how the page looks. If HTML is the skeleton, CSS is the skin.

CSS Zen Garden has a link to a great collection of CSS resources right here: http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/resources

Although they only accept the best designs, getting your theme accepted to Zen Garden is something to work towards. First off though, we want to style our own website.

There are already several CSS courses on Codacademy. It's probably a good idea to start off with the three CSS courses in the Web Fundamentals Section.

After that, you can move on to this course: http://www.codecademy.com/courses/create-a-personal-webpage/0#!/exercises/0

Wow, that was easy! You can already build a nice looking web page!

Build a Website in One Week with Codacademy

My mom asked me a very good question - "How long will it take to learn to code in Codeacademy?" Codeacademy started fall of 2011 with just a handful of lessons, and new lessons are being added weekly. Coding, like sailing, seems to be one of those things that you could spend your entire life learning. In fact, January of last year, codeacademy started a plan called "Code Year" where you could reasonably get through every single lesson in a year by making weekly progress (and still keep your friends and your full-time job). Fingers crossed that they'll do it again this January!

But how long will it take before you can build your first website using what you learn on Codeacademy? Even if you have zero experience you can build a site within one week.

By doing just 5 exercises a day you can get through "HTML Fundamentals" and "Build your First Web Page" in six days. In order to make the most out of Codeacademy, I recommend that you have a goal. For instance, wanting to build your own portfolio site could be a goal. Having a concrete goal will make Codeacademy more than a game - it will help you to connect what you're learning to the actual practice of building websites in the real world.

Draw a layout of the website that you want to build on paper or mock it up in Photoshop or Gimp if you want to be fancy. For the first version, just focus on creating the text that you want to display when you open the page with a browser (we'll get into "hosting" sites in a later lesson.) For instance, your first website's code could look something like this:

<html>

<h1> Monica Houston's Portfolio </h1>

<h2>Everything is better on a boat</h2>

<p>Hi, I'm Monica Houston and I live on a boat...yada yada yada</p>

<h3> follow or friend me here</h3>

<ul>

<li>http://twitter.com/houstonconsult</li>

<li>http://www.behance.net/Mhouston</li>

<li>http://www.linkedin.com/in/houstonmonica</li>

<li>http://www.codecademy.com/users/zebular13</li>

<li>https://github.com/zebular13</li>

</ul>

</html>

Write your code into a text editing program like text-edit or notepad and save it as something like "index.html." Right click and open it with your browser. BAM! You've made your first real web page!

So how do you make it pretty? Codeacademy has an entire series of courses on CSS - the language that is used to style HTML. I'll go over resources for learning CSS in my next post, but for now I'll leave you with this useful video:

Learn HTML in 30 Minute

How to Teach Yourself Web Development

A couple months ago, my Mom mentioned that she was considering taking some web development courses. That gave me the idea to collect a list of free resources that I used to teach myself web development. The other week I attended Ignite Seattle and had the chance to watch and excellent five-minute talk entitled "The Art of Explanation" by Lee LeFever. In it, he mentioned the "curse of knowledge" and how it makes explaining difficult because we can't relate to our audience. Thankfully, I don't have the curse of knowledge. I've learned everything I'll be writing about web development over the past two years, and much of what I'll be teaching I'll be learning or relearning as I write about it.

I have a rough format in mind, and if you've ever wanted to teach yourself web development or just become more web savvy I'd encourage you to follow along. I'll assume that you've never done any web development.

So let's get started! The first thing that you should do is sign up for an account on "codeacademy.com." We're going to go over HTML basics. HTML is basically the skeleton of the internet. Most of the text you look at online uses HTML. I'll talk more about codeacademy and other resources for learning HTML in my next post. Cheers!

Living on a Boat in the Winter

When I tell people that I live on a boat, they invariably ask me if I've lived on it over winter yet. And so far I've just shrugged and told them that no, I bought the boat in July and I'm still waiting to experience my first winter. Until now. "Looks like it decided to be winter," said the woman at the bus stop on Thursday morning. It was true. The sun no longer reaches it's zenith. Instead, it gets above the tree tops around noon and then immediately decides it's time to head back down. The wooden dock ices over in the morning and I have to be careful not to slip off as I wheel my bike to the gate.

Waking up in the morning has been getting harder and harder as it gets darker and rainier and colder. Going to bed is also difficult. I have two space heaters, but for safety reasons I don't leave them on while I'm gone. When I get home from work (and other evening activities - so usually I get home pretty late) the first thing I do is turn the heaters on and close the boat up as I jog to the marina bathrooms for a hot shower. By the time I've run the hundred feet along the icy dock to keep my wet hair from freezing the boat is warm. But when I crawl into bed, the covers are still chilly.

Last Sunday I went to lunch with some friends of my friend Shayne, a couple name Alex and Christine. They have lived on a boat for a while and they gave me some expert advice. "Buy an electric blanket and a dehumidifier." Christine also suggested opening storage areas when I'm not there to let them air out.

I took their sage advice (they're both world class sailors and know a thing or two about boats) and bought an electric blanket. I also ordered some dehumidifiers from amazon to place in my storage compartment. Although my boat doesn't leak (it did have two very tiny leaks on the deck but I filled them with epoxy and that seems to have done the trick) it does condense on the inside in the winter, which can lead to mold or mildew, especially in closed storage areas. I found a couple of wireless silicone dehumidifiers to place in the storage areas and hopefully that will solve the moisture problem. Other than that, the boat is totally cozy and I'm happy to living there, even on a cold November morning.

Foul Weather Bluff

I woke up on Saturday at 6am. No, that’s a lie. I reset my alarm to 6:15…then 6:30…then finally 6:45. Not that I wasn’t excited for the race – it was just that it was Saturday. Now it was almost too late. I rushed to find my clothes. Layers, Shayne had said. Wool socks, wool pants, wool shirt. Sweater. Sweatshirt. Foulies. Keens. Lifejacket? Check. I was ready to go. Shayne was here to pick me up.

The sun was rising, glinting off a forest of silver masts as we pulled up to the Edmonds marina. People were milling about, carrying things on and off sailboats. What beautiful boats! No two were even remotely the same. “This is Wagz.” Shayne was introducing me to someone. “And Wayne.” I shook their hands. “It’s a pleasure.” Then we were ushered into the yacht club’s meeting room for the skipper’s meeting, where the race was explained. I drank a cup of coffee and stared around me at the hundreds of sailors. I didn't bother paying attention to the race details. Not my job.

The boat, Bravo Zulu, motored into the harbor and swung around, nestling up to the fuel dock. I grabbed a line that was passed to me – it was soft and thick and new. A wiry man with a hoarse voice told me to wrap it around the cleat once before I did the figure 8. I followed his instructions.

“I’m Peter,” he said, shaking my hand. Clearly he was the one in charge.

I picked up a brush and followed Wayne around the boat, scrubbing the decks glistening white as he sprayed them with the hose. A few final preparations, as short speech from Peter, a few more introductions to the rest of the crew, and we were off, motoring after the fleet into the sound. Around us, sails were going up. Gold and black, they billowed outwards as the boats turned into the wind one by one and winched their sails to the top of the mast. A beautifully painted catamaran skimmed past us. “That’s the dragonfly. She wins every race,” Wagz said.

We sailed in circles, waiting for our turn to race. Every five minutes, the committee boat blew a horn and another set of boats took off. Five minutes to go. I was positioned on the windward side where they had told me to lie down. Code 0, the asymmetrical spinnaker used for light wind, was on the foredeck, ready to go. Denny, the boat’s owner, was talking to Peter. They were watching the boats in the classes ahead of us to see which sails they were using.

One minute to go. I tried to move my body off any lines that I might be holding down. “If you’re sitting on one of the lines, they’ll yell butt-cleat,” Shayne told me.

The horn blew. We were off. I heard a commotion on the leeward side of the boat. Peter was yelling, “Stand down. Barging at the line. Barging I tell you!”

“That’s it. They’re doing a penalty. They were barging.”  The “Absolutely”, a black and yellow boat in our class, had had to sail around as a penalty for barging. Our start had been perfect.

We zipped ahead with the full spinnaker. 6 knots and climbing. I waited, attentive, for them to yell “squirrel.” Squirrel was my task – to stand in the “sewer” and fold spinnakers as they were handed down to me. There were 5 different spinnakers and a drifter. There were also 2 different jibs, but it looked like for now we would only be using the jib for light wind. My other job was rail-meet. Basically, I had to use my weight to either weigh down the leeward side of the boat when we were going slowly and trying to fill the sails with wind, or to counterbalance the windward side of the boat when we started to speed up and the boat keeled over from the wind’s pressure. The force of the wind is an amazing thing. Even in the light winds and fair weather the 40 foot, 12,000 lb Bravo Zulu was being pushed fast enough to leave a wake.

We reached Bainbridge Island just behind Absolutely. A cluster of fishermen at the point were standing waist deep in water. ‘Don’t turn yet,’ Denny told Peter. The rest of the crew looked skeptical as we flew towards the shallow water at the point. We sailed within throwing distance of the waist deep fishermen without touching the bottom, saving time by not gybing. Now we seemed to be ahead of the Absolutely. The mark was just ahead, at Foul Weather Bluff. But the currents came into play again. We were caught in a bad breeze and even though we had been closer to the mark, Absolutely managed to round it before us. “Squirrel!”

They had yelled for me. I rushed below and grabbed the n.1 spinnaker. I heaved it to the deck.

Then I hurried below again to gather and fold the code 0.

As the ships rounded the mark they flew their colorful symmetrical spinnakers for the downwind leg. It was beautiful to watch them go up, like hot air ballons, puffing to full size, full of powerful wind.

The downwind leg soon became painfully slow. The Puget Sound currents were pushing outwards, and several boats with full spinnakers appeared to be standing still, pushed in one direction by the wind and the other by the tide. I was lying on deck again, weighing down the leeward side. It seemed like a good time for a nap, since I was on the sunny side of the deck. I closed my eyes and slept for a good twenty minutes. When I woke up we didn’t seem to be much further. There was one more marker to go around before we could head back. It was on the south side of Whidbey Island. Two fat seals and three slender cormorants had decided to use it as their personal platform. The seals slid into the water as we rounded the marker, splashing their fat into the waves. We didn’t have to take the spinnaker down, as we were still headed downwind. Denny, Peter and the crew were discussing again. The water in the direction of the finish line was too smooth, too calm. One boat had been ahead but seemed to be stuck in the calm water to the north of the finish line. We decided to sail south of the finish line, then tack north to avoid the windless section of water.

We were moving again, faster. I went up and down, fetching the jib and the code 0 in case we needed them again. We didn’t. We finished with the symmetrical spinnaker number one. As we passed the committee boat, they blew the air horn. No pistol for us – we hadn’t been first in our class. Absolutely had taken first.

We had been sailing for 8 long hours and covered 26 miles. It had been a slow race, but the unusually perfect weather had made it enjoyable and relaxing. Next time we'll hopefully have stronger winds...

The Future is Here: DIY 3D Printing

I watched as a coil of white plastic was pulled off of a spool into the plywood frame, forced into a metal head, and squeezed out, partially melted, onto a the smooth metal surface that moved in precise circles. Layer after layer of thin melted plastic slowly gave shape to a round object.  When it was finished, the Makerbot Vulcan pushed the round object out onto the table, where it landed with a soft bounce. I picked it up and slid it on. It stretched over my hand and slipped on like a bracelet, my first piece of 3D printed jewelry. I was at the 3D printer Survey hosted by StudentRND. I’d sent a link to my coworker Scott the week before about how 3D printing is changing our economy. Scott, who hadn’t realized how far 3D technology has progressed in the past year, immediately caught the bug. We started talking about chipping in to buy a 3D printer together. The 3D Printer Survey looked like the perfect chance to experience consumer level 3D printers and possibly make a decision on which 3D printer we wanted to buy.

At the survey, Craig Zupke presented a useful prezi titled ‘Your Path To a 3D printer.’ He talked about the inverse relationship of price to maintenance. Basically, you can get a 3D printer for $500 if you’re willing to build it from scratch and maintain it yourself. Otherwise, plan on shelling out $12-$15K. One of the things that makes these printers more affordable is that they are self-replicating. Once you have one, you can print out up to 80% of the parts for another one.

Reprap.org is the main site for self-replicating 3D printers. The first self-replicating 3D printer came out in 2008, and since then growth has been exponential, as makers modify and improve on the open-source designs.

Currently, there are only a handful of 3D printers available at consumer price-points. The Makerbot printer is probably the most famous. Emmett, creator of the famous ‘gear-heart’ design, showed us his two printers, the Vulcan and the Venus. The Vulcan was one of the very first 3D printers, and it prints its own upgrades. The automated build platform was one of the upgrades, and it makes it easy to mass-print 3D parts. Emmett was mass-printing bracelets as we watched.

The Venus is a newer printer, and Emmett showed us how it could print 2 different colors of plastic at once, making multicolored objects. The precision and level of detail was impressive.

Another person had brought his Makerbot replicator. It’s similar to the Venus, and he praised the easy setup and ease of calibration. He also gave us a pro-tip: don’t use ALS plastic, use PLA. The plastic used in DIY 3D printers comes in a spool of thin tubing. ALS is the smelly, non-natural plastic that is used frequently in toy-making. PLA is a biodegradable, odorless plastic that needs less heat and does less wear and tear on the 3D printer.

Craig’s printer was a MendelMax and Craig had built it himself. He showed us some cool 3D models that he had created by scanning himself and his daughter using a sensor bar hooked up to his Nintendo (I think? I know you can also do this by using a Wiimote with Autodesk.)

Another woman showed off her Ultimaker printer. The objects that she showed us had an incredible level of detail, much finer than any of the other objects we’d seen printed on the other printers. Unfortunately, she told us, she couldn’t recommend Ultimaker as a company. Some of her parts didn’t work when the printer was first shipped, and they hadn’t given her a free replacement. Also, they are based in the Netherlands and are slightly pricier than most US based DIY printers.

Finally, Johann showed off his Rostock Printer. It literally is DIY – Johann designed and built it himself. He offers the plans for free at thingiverse.com/thing:17175 or reprap.org/wiki/Rostock.

He explained to us that the Rostock is named after the town he grew up in in Northern Germany. Johann was printing out parts for the second generation Rostock printer as we talked to him. He held up what he had built so far on the second version, a light-weight frame made of openbeam and printed plastic parts.

The first-generation Rostock was fast and worked beautifully. It can print objects as large as 12x14 inches and is incredibly sturdy and accurate. Unlike most of the other 3D printers that we’d seen, the engines, wiring, and arduino that power the whole thing are aesthetically tucked out of sight below the printer. All the parts, Johann told us, could be bought for $500. Scott and I were both impressed. We’re not buying a 3D printer yet, but I know that I’ll definitely be attending the next 3D printer Survey.

The Hippie Hacker

Chris McClimans is tall but soft-spoken and his hair cascades over his shoulder in a tangle of thick, dirty-blond dreadlocks. He wears sandals he made himself from a piece of rubber and twine, and he carries a bulging backpack at all times. It’s not hard to believe that this man once lived in a green Volkswagon van in Austin and Boulder, or that he spent the past several years travelling around New Zealand with his now wife. It wouldn’t be hard to believe, either, that he is couchsurfing around Seattle at the moment, living out of said backpack as he looks for work.

What’s remarkable is what he has in his backpack. I had the odd coincidence of running into him three days in a row at three separate technology events. Monday I ran into him at Ruby on Rails Meetup at the Racer Café. Tuesday he was at the monthly Hacker News Meetup, where I convinced him to come to my arduino meetup the following night. That’s when I finally got to see what exactly he carried with him in his bag.

After the meetup we gathered round as Chris pulled several pieces of magic out of the mysterious black backpack. Item number one was an ergonomic keyboard that he typed on in Dvorak. He is clearly a man who uses his keyboard a lot and loves comfort and efficiency.

Items two, three and four were laptops, each one covered in some of the coolest coder stickers I’ve ever seen.  You can’t always judge a man by the stickers on his laptop (for example, my laptop proudly wears a GitHub sticker while my GitHub account remains sadly barren) but I think it’s safe to believe that every sticker on Chris’s machines represented a part of his deep knowledge of computers.

Item number five was a small USB stick.

This stick of memory was the magic wand from which Chris could deploy his own creation, Instant Infrastructure (:ii), to the whole world. He demonstrated for us on his laptop. After plugging in his USB stick he ‘factory reset’ the operating system from the stick itself. The purple background blossomed on his computer, followed by the familiar Ubuntu icons.

Now, he explained to us, he could use Ubuntu ‘out of box experience’ (OOBE) to image his computer with the selection of open source software that he needed. For instance, if he were a doctor he could simply select the ‘doctor’ software package and it would automatically image his computer with all the tools he needed. Or if he were a teacher he could similarly image his computer with tools for teaching. Of course, the stick depends on the availability of free software that can be deployed on the computer. Chris has already demonstrated his idea to people at Dell who are coming up with a tool to share software via a Git Repositor (if you don’t know what that is, it’s basically ‘the cloud’) called 'Sputnik.' More than anything, Chris said, he needed developers willing to volunteer their time to create free software.

I invited Chris to couchsurf on my boat that weekend. Although I was in and out, dancing all night Friday at a Kaskade concert and then dancing in the viral video We’re Nasa and We Know It on Sunday, Chris and I got a brief chance to talk Saturday morning. We were munching on blueberries he brought home from the farmer’s market and sunning ourselves on the deck of my boat. I asked him how he’d come up with the idea for Instant Infrastructure and he told me about Cambodia. He spends about 60% of his time volunteering for charity and 40% working to make money.

He spent 6 months in Battambang, Cambodia, where he taught local youth about computers. He realized that the kids there wanted to be like him. They wanted to have his fancy macbook pro and use the expensive software packages that he did. He also realized that they would probably never be able to afford to do this. Determined to bridge the technology gap, he developed Instant Infrastructure to be deployed on the cheap Windows machines in the local internet cafes. Using Ubuntu , the kids were able to master computer skills, and have even developed a site in their own language, Kmer, titled ‘Humanity to Everyone.’

Chris’s passion and his giving spirit were evident as he talked about the kids he’d taught.  I feel honored to have had a chance to host the ‘Hippie Hacker’ in his travels in the Northwest.

How to Give a Lot When You Don't Have Much

On a trip through Italy I remember going on a walk and ending up chatting in pidgin Italian with a fruit vendor. I didn’t have any cash with me, but she handed me a pear anyway. I protested that I couldn’t pay for it. She smiled at me and said, “giving costs nothing but it is the best reward.” At first I thought I had misunderstood her. “Giving costs nothing?” If she hadn’t given me the pear, she could have sold it. There was an obvious economic cost, and I found myself doubting her business sense. And yet, I remembered her and thought about what she’d said (and the sweet taste of the pear). Giving back sure feels good, doesn’t it?

I may be a bitter young cynic, but I can still appreciate the joy of giving, and I admire those who give. So how do you give back when your salary barely covers the necessities?

1. Give what you have.

Chances are that you have extra stuff lying around, taking up closet space. You don’t have to send your stuff to a developing country for it to make an impact (in fact, some make a strong case for overseas aid ruining the economy of developing countries). Make an account on Freecycle, and give it away there. I had some extra kids lifejackets when I bought my boat, and I listed them on freecycle, and within 10 minutes I had five people asking if they could take them. No matter how little you have, chances are that you have something extra that somebody else could use, whether it be a cardboard box or an old towel.

2. Give your time.

Time is money, so it’s understandable that you feel like you can’t afford to give your time. However, if you find yourself wasting time in front of the computer or television, consider giving your time to charity instead. There are many groups, such as the Seattle Volunteers Meetup (for those in Seattle), that give you a great social outlet while at the same time providing you a rewarding opportunity to give to others. You don’t even have to commit to doing it regularly – you can instead choose to go out every now and then for a key event that really matters to you, such as cleaning up the parks on Earth Day. And if the reward of giving in itself wasn’t enough, you can volunteer in a field where you are trying to build a portfolio, such as volunteering to build a website for a non-profit.

3.  Give your home

I have some awesome travel stories, thanks to the amazing people who have hosted me around the world. Without these hosts, I would never have had the chance to travel and see what I did. In Argentina, I lived with three wonderful families who put up with me for four months each. To me they are still "familia."

If you have the space and time, you could consider becoming a host parent for an exchange student. If all you have is a very tiny boat, like me, you can consider becoming a host for couchsurfers. Some amazing people hosted me when I was doing a bike trip across France. I just hosted my first couchsurfer, Rebekka from Germany. It was her first time in the states and her excitement about being here rubbed off on me. It’s cool to be able to see the place you live through the eyes of a stranger. (Disclaimer: This is pretty much common sense, but here are tons of weirdoes in the world and you should be choosy about whom you host. Make sure that they have plenty of recommendations and a fully filled out profile, and if they give you the creeps when you meet them in person, don’t feel bad about reneging on your couch hosting offer).

4. Give your knowledge

Chances are that you have more than just time to give. You might even have some knowledge! There’s even a chance that somebody else wants to learn some of the knowledge that you have. In the age of the Internet, there’s a ton of ways to give your knowledge. For instance, you could contribute to Wikipedia or an opensource project. You could submit a recipe to allrecipes.com or a similar site. Or you could contribute your expertise on a forum that interests you. Then again, you could go old-fashioned and offer to teach or tutor face-to-face.

5. Give your positive energy

Okay, so you don't have time to host a guest, you have nothing to donate, and you frankly just aren't a giver. What to do? You can give yourself simply by being yourself. Have you ever had a stranger smile at you and that kept you smiling the rest of the day? Or have you ever interacted with somebody who asked you how you were doing and really meant it? Rather than being a martyr and giving everything away, try being selfish and focusing on your own happiness. Rather than spreading yourself thin by trying to give to much, forge sincere relationships with people. Once you are happy yourself you’ll probably make a lot more people happy. Who knew giving could be so selfish? Apparently giving really does cost nothing.

Seattle Startup Weekend - Women's Edition

I had the privilege of attending Seattle Startup Weekend’s first woman focused event this past weekend. I say priviledge because there was a waitlist of over 100 women who weren’t able to come, in addition to the ~70 who did. I like to think that I helped to contribute to this wait list, since I did my best to promote the event to any design, technical, or business minded women whom I know. Unfortunately, I don’t know many. Actually that should be in past tense, because now I can say that I know quite a few. I expected the weekend to have a different feel to it from the mostly male startup weekend that I attended in April. Startup Weekend Women’s Edition had a ratio of men to women that was roughly the inverse of an average Startup Weekend. So how different was it to attend a startup even that was 75% women? Honestly, there was no difference. There was still that tangible energy. The sense of complete and utter focus and the do or die mentality was electric. It was fun!

And why would it be different? It’s not like we spent the weekend talking about our uteri. We spent it pumping out code, crafting business models, and doing market research. My team and I stayed up until 4am Saturday night working on our project. The only differences I noticed were that there were more macbooks, the food served was veggies and wine (as opposed to beer and pizza) and the t-shirts actually fit.

While I had a blast at the mostly male startup weekend in May and made some great connections, I think that women’s edition of startup weekend had greater benefits for me. In any realm, from sports to business to technology, men are too quick to offer help and often end up overshadowing the women who meekly accept their help. Oftentimes it seems like men, especially older men, assume that they know more just because they’re men. And I think that many women have been conditioned to assume that they know less or aren’t as skillful, which makes them vulnerable to accepting a guy’s help. It was good to be an environment of mostly women, where no guy was going to pop over and suggest that I follow his lead or ask me to give him my code for him to "fix" it. I'll probably delve more into this topic in a later blog post.

I look forward to staying connected with all of the incredible women I met this weekend. Also, if you were a woman who attended Seattle Startup Weekend and we didn’t get a chance to connect, or if you’re a woman who would be interested in attending a startup weekend and wants to know more, feel free to comment or reach out. I’d love to get to know more startup women!

Top 10 Reasons to Live on A Boat

I live on a boat. I have lived on a boat for four whole days. It's an unconventional adventure and I'm still figuring it out. I have no doubt that my decision to live on a boat is one of the best choices I have made so far in my life (ok, maybe that's not saying much, but baby steps, right?). Anyway, here are my top 10 reasons for living on a boat:

10. You can move anywhere in the world and never leave home

Okay, so maybe this isn't true if you want to move to the Midwest and there's no lakes to dock your boat there. But you can move anywhere worthwhile and not have to leave home (I'm kidding. Sort of).

9. You learn everything about boats

What better way to learn about boats than to live on one? When you're constantly having to take care of the boat (because if you don't take care of it, you might drown in your sleep) you're constantly learning  skills that will come in handy if you ever go cruising, for example, or become a sea captain, or sail around the world, all of which I plan to do if I live long enough.

8. You get really good at fixing things

...especially if you're on a limited budget.  On an older boat like mine, you have to learn a bit of marine wiring to make sure that your outlets keep working. You have to learn how to work an old-fashioned propane stove. You have to fix the finicky creature that is the boat toilet.

To use a geek metaphor, your apartment is Mac OS, where everything works as soon as you open it up and you don't really have to fiddle with anything, while living on a boat is Linux, where you're constantly tinkering and upgrading.

7. You get rocked to sleep

I love the feeling of being rocked to sleep. One thing I'm still getting used to is the fact that that rocking sensation stays with me for several hours after I get up. It's 10:30am, I've been off the boat for the past 4 hours, and I still feel like the world is rocking gently back and forth. Maybe it is rocking. Maybe the land is rocking, and the water is still. Hmmm....

6. You wake up on a boat

This seems obvious, but it's amazing! There is no better way to start your day than crawling out of the v-berth, heating up some water for tea, and doing a bit of yoga on the dock as the sun rises.

5. You can play "I'm on a Boat" constantly because it's always true.

In fact, I have my alarm programmed to play "I'm on a Boat" every time I wake up.

4. You have awesome neighbors

People that choose to live on boats are fascinating, colorful people who have plenty of stories. There is also a solidarity between boat-dwellers that doesn't exist in, say, your average apartment complex.

3. You become more mindful of what you waste

One of the main reasons I chose to live on a boat was to keep my life simple. I don't like having too many things. Having an uncluttered life helps me to have an uncluttered mind. Living on a boat certainly makes you re-evaluate what things are important to you. Also, you don't have room for a normal, American-sized trash can, so you don't buy cheap things that are going to break, and you only buy and throw away what you have to. When I bought the boat I made a resolution to make my boat a "trash-free" boat. Everything I buy must be either in recyclable or compostable packaging. I don't buy much, but even so, this is proving to be a challenge.

You also pay attention to the water that you waste. You can't use harsh cleaning products, because everything you put on your boat gets washed directly through holes in the floor into the lake that you live on. Instead, to clean my boat I use water from the lake and a lot of "elbow grease."

2. You don't have to clean the bathroom

I'm lucky - I live in a small, family-owned marina and there is a small bathroom that only a handful of people use. It is always spotless. It's nice to have one less thing to think about.

1. It's the best place to be in the Zombie Apocalypse

...hands down. You know Dawn of the Dead? How did they escape? On a boat. You know Day of the Dead? How did they die? They got off the boat. When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I will try to save everybody like the hero that I am, but unfortunately that will not be possible. Instead, I will only be able to 8 of my friends on my boat. I really hope you make the cut.