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The man himself

I took part in an interesting meeting yesterday with Robert Scoble, a technical evangelist at Microsoft, as well as the author of Naked Conversations, a book about blogging and business.

I've never met anyone personally who had their own Wikki entry besides Bruce Campbell, so he stands in a pretty esteemed category in my book. Anyway, I got the feeling that he was used to speaking with much larger groups (vs our four), but the hour he gave us was (hopefully) invaluable. Whether our office can convince the corporation that a blog of our own won't kill us, well that's another story.

In the meantime, I was inspired myself to use this blog as something more than just to impress girls.

182 miles to go

What a weekend. From the desert air to mountain snow! Taking advantage of a reasonably decent weather day, myself and my buddy Jayson decided to make our way to the Iron Goat Trail.

History buffs, rejoice. This trail covers a portion of the original Great Northern Railway. Pieces of rail debris litter the trail and the faint sounds of a nearby (active) railroad bring to mind old spirits long passed - in fact, its along this route somewhere that 100 souls lost their lives when an avalanche swept their train right off the tracks.

The hike was tough going with all the snow. We figured we travelled 8 miles in five hours of hiking. Soaked and cold to the bone, we were forced to turn back short of our goal - the abandoned townsite of Wellington. Still, a good hike - it would be fun to do in the summer, maybe as an introduction for a non-hiking friend.

As always, hikes with friends are fun. Conversation ranged from lively debates over animal tracks (wolf or racoon?) to what it would take get one to hookup with say, Demi Moore (for me, not much). You know, the important stuff. Most significantly, a goal was set to put 200 miles on our boots before the year gets out. This weekend took a nice little chunk out of it...only 182 miles to go!

Rosa Creek

Three things convinced me that I needed to get out of town for a couple days. First, I spent two straight weeks covering for my boss. Second, I was going to be going out of town on business for a week at the end of the month. Finally, my next vacation wasn't until June. After taking a look at the weather report and realizing this was my best shot, I took Thursday and Friday off to head over to Yakima and Rosa Creek for a quick overnighter with BJ.

The Yakima Rim/Rosa Creek loop runs about 18 miles, but due to not being able to find the trailhead, I decided to park at what I thought was the lower Rosa Creek trailhead (it wasn't), and wing it. The hike to the actual trailhead went about 2 miles. The other 8 was spent hiking along side Rosa Creek and exploring the surrounding country side. Only saw two other people the entire time and the weather was perfect.

Hiking in the desert is a unique experience. It can be an incredibly inhospitable environment: as I walked across the countryside, I found tons of bone fragments from animals as small as a rabbit to clearly larger animals - most likely deer. Along with the death though, I saw all sorts of wildlife that a hike in the forest would hide. Deer were aplenty, as were snakes and rabbits. Beetles and cactus were everywhere. I sat at my fire in the evening listening for faint howls; I woke up Friday morning to a symphony of bird song. It was like I traded the breathtaking visuals of the mountains for the auditory paradise of the desert. As I sat looking out my tent with coffee in hand Friday morning, I couldn't help but smile as I realized that while I normally would have been listening to the morning commute, instead I was listening to the coming of spring.