Birds of a feather

While having breakfast yesterday morning, I began to watch the birds outside my window. There were so many of them: finches, doves, and ones with little red heads.

A storm was coming, so there was a feeding frenzy at the bird feeder. It was actually really fascinating to observe the "pecking order" (literally). The doves, being the biggest birds out there, bullied their way into the feeder and lunged at any competitors. The smaller birds were very clever though and an interesting strategy to get at the seeds. First, one would distract the dove in the box and then another would grab a few seeds. They would either fly off and eat the seeds or drop them on the ground for their comrades to receive. There was clucking and fluttering but I don't think anyone was hurt and everyone got their fill.

So I creep outside to take pictures of all this action, only to have the birds chirp like crazy and fly away. They don't travel far though so I exit my gate and follow them. It begins to drizzle slightly. Then I hear a wild chirping, shreaking, and fluttering of wings. Out of nowhere, a hawk divebombs from far above and tries to snatch one of the birds from mid-air! The young hawk clawed and flew and chased the little birds, but did not succeed in his hunt. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't capture this amazing spectacle on my camera, alas. I really need to find some way to attach my camera to my face so I will never miss an opportunity again... Here is the blur-of-a-hawk in action (emphasis on the blur):

After the appearance of the hawk, no chirping or any other signs of little birds could be found. I walked around the neighborhood for a bit before finding a lone dove doing watch duty on top of a chimney. Several hours later, the rush to feed before the storm was back on, but no hawk was anywhere in sight. What a cool time in the world of birds.

Florida Trip

Florida is an interesting place to say the least. It is absolutely worth a visit if you get the chance. I recently got back from a vacation there, and it was a blast. To sum up the trip in five words: Relaxing, clubbing, fishing, and boating. By far the most fun and exciting part of the trip was going out in the ocean on my cousin's boat. This is the excerpt from my log:

Sunday: wake up early. 2-4 ft waves predicted. Get on boat. Forget coffee on dock. Motor out to ocean see huge tarpon in boca lake. Questionable waves at inlet, decide to throw caution to the wind and head out. Gun it out to sea and make it past the breakers. Large 4 to 6 foot waves toss us around. A lone sea turtle says hello, then dives deep. We start heading North, against the current, and it is absolutely crazy. Tom tells me to grab the wheel. A surge of adrenaline powers through me, and little gears begin spinning in my head. I am no salty sea dog captain, and these are not calm waters. As i take the wheel, powerful 6 and 7 foot waves toss us around and slam the hull. The boat rocks an tilts perilously close to the frothy surface. The waves try to force us to turn around as i grip the wheel and countersteer to keep us straight. Because the sea is ever changing in front of us, I pick a spot on the horizon and attempt to keep us sailing generally towards it. The waves seem to grow in size and ferocity but the boat handles them amazingly. As a crest passes beneath us, at least half of the boat is exposed before crashing into the trough and spraying water everywhere, only to doing it again seconds later. A lesser vessel would surely have taken on water and sunk or been capsized by the rocking. We are in one of the smallest boats out at sea in these conditions. Despite all of this, Tom starts rigging up the out riggers and rods for trolling. This basically involves climbing all over the boat and hanging off the edge like a madman. We troll for a while, continually getting smashed by the waves, which come towards us as huge walls of water. Surprisingly, the bait doggedly follows us on long lines and stays in the water most of the time. Nothing bites. We have had enough and decide to troll south, with the waves. This is much better, with the waves bobbing us up and dropping us down more gently. The bait once again follows us but jumps out of the water as we crest particularly large waves. A boat sailing towards us is seemingly swallowed by waves when our boat and theirs are in troughs of waves. It is quickly made apparent that the surf has risen considerably (later calculations determine the swells to be 7-8ft). We decide to head home, and race towards the inlet. Waves crash on the rocks surrounding the inlet ominously. Tom decides the best plan of action is to zig zag into the inlet, which will allow us to ride in perpendicular to the waves. He executes this plan beautifully, powering into the inlet to prevent a crash. We make it in, counting our lucky stars. Exhausted, we make it home and wash down the boat before collapsing in bed.

Woot: Fat Tires

I'm convinced that large tires on bikes of all kinds is the only way to go. Today presented a particularly fun time with them. Taking my road bike on a familiar route around town changed to a mini- cyclocross run on a hidden little trail along the bay. With 28c tires, I can hop off the beaten path and roam a little. Here is a picture of the path I found:

With 23c tires, this path would be iffy and uncomfortable, but my tires handled it with aplomb. When I first started riding roadbikes, I thought the skinny tires made me go faster, but I'm fairly certain that it was all in my head. I'm sure there is some reason the pro's use skinny tires, but I'm not a pro and don't pretend to be so that doesn't really concern me. My commuter bike also has fairly fat tires at 37c (Surly LHT w/fenders), and I couldn't be happier (except maybe with 43c's). If you haven't tried using fatter tires, try it out. You won't regret it.

The Estuary at low tide with moon:

Internet, please don't change

We gotta fight, for our right, to Party.

There is a battle going on for your mind. Or rather, the collective mind known as the internet. Forces are positioning themselves to fundamentally change the internet landscape, the most recent of which is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). If you think this only affects pirates, you are gravely mistaken. The blogosphere has been atwitter with the dangers of SOPA, so I will spare you some of the details. Basically, the law would allow copyright holders to block domain names (not IP addresses) they suspect of infringing. This would also extend to users of the websites, meaning the website can be held responsible for the content posted by users. Realistically, this would spell the end of the internet as we know it. To provide an extreme example, Youtube could be blocked because someone posted a video of themselves singing a popular song. However, obvious infringers such as The Pirate Bay would have there domain names blocked, but could still be accessed by typing in the ip address (194.71.xxx.xx). Clearly, this law fails to solve the problem and hurts everybody, including the companies and industry groups pushing it. They should focus more of their energy catching up with the 21st century and less time trying to pass archaic laws to push everyone back 10 or 20 years.

Call or e-mail your representatives and encourage them to vote against SOPA. Here's a link to more ways to fight this legislation and other attempts to limit free speech: http://www.americancensorship.org

My Town: Alameda

Alameda is a small island across an estuary from Oakland. It is an old and interesting place to say the least. I live near the decommisioned Naval Air Station, on the West side of the island. The housing complex named Bayport was built in an area that used to be housing for the navy personnel. It is really very nice here, quiet and gener

ally friendly (emphasis on the quiet).

The view out my window:

While what you see here is quintessential suburb, the surrounding area is not. See, the West side of Alameda is the economically disadvantaged part of town. For some of the people who moved to Bayport, I am sure it was a shock to see the abrupt transition from suburb to low income housing projects. For me, the shift was not dramatic. Piedmont, the town where I grew up, exists in a similar situation. I like to describe Piedmont as a small donut hole in the large donut of Oakland. Yes you heard that right, a fully independent city entirely enclosed in another city. If ever there was an extreme economic divide between two places so close to each other, it exists between Oakland and Piedmont. Oakland has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Piedmont on the other hand has some of the highest wealth density. Oakland has almost 20% of the population below the poverty line while Piedmont has 2%. When I was very young I was all but unaware of the divide but as I grew and ventured further, I learned a little bit about what the area surrounding my city was like. To be completely fair, I should point out that there are some very nice and some very fun parts of Oakland.

I digress, so let's take a 10 minute trip through the tunnel back to Alameda. The good: excellent place for cycling (recreational and transportation), never far from a bay view, and generally quiet. The bad: somewhat insular community, physically cut off in emergencies (or if the tunnel is flooded), and generally quiet (read: boring). The ugly: corrupt city managers and local government's inability to get things done (Alameda point). All in all, I think that Alameda is a great place to live, although a lot of what it has going for it is the close proximity to the action in Oakland and San Francisco.

The view of SF from crown beach:

Hello World

Hi. My name is Elliott and I will be using this weblog as a way to communicate with the world. I'm excited to share my thoughts through this form of media, and hope that you will enjoy reading my words.

A little bit about myself: I was born in Berkeley, California and grew up in Piedmont before going to college at UC Merced. Currently, I live in Alameda and attend the post-bacc pre-med program at San Francisco State University. I really enjoy hiking, biking (road and mountain), photography, tug of war with my dog, relaxing with my lovely girlfriend, and many, many more random activities. I essentially cannot stand still for five minutes.

With any luck, this blog will allow you to learn a bit about me and this crazy world we live in.