Henry's Notes

Life is just full of moving recently for me. Not only have I moved in real life, I am also moving my blog to a new home with Wordpress - an open-source blogging software community. I have been using Wordpress' product recently for work and I am just so much more impressed with it. It allows me to switch theme(template) seamlessly without touching any code. In addition, it allows all the advanced features such as pingback and blogrolls. Lastly, I feel I would rather support an open-source community... not that I don't like blogger/google, it's just that plenty of people already are supporting blogger; I rather put my support somewhere else.

Anyway, here is the new address: http://henrynote.wordpress.com

See ya on the other side!

On Sunday, I went to the beach area of Long Beach to watch the last stage of the famous Tour of California. In case you don't know, the Tour of California is a professional road race, that spans over 7 stages starting from San Francisco down to Long Beach (Los Angeles area), much like the Tour de France. The last stage is a circuit race, which means that they go on a loop course multiple times, thereby making it "fan viewing friendly".

The day started out cold, but was sunny by the time I got down to the race area. Although I am not a race watching fan, it was fun to be out there seeing what it is all about and feeling the crowds. Of course, it was amazing to watch these guys go by at 30+ miles per hour.

I also got to meet up with Moe, from Mountain Bike Riders, who is testing the F-20R bike. The picture shows him with the bike and me with F-20T2 (unavailable in the US at the current time). You can read Moe's notes about his day here.
Photo courtesy of a passerby-er.

Last weekend, I went mountain biking at the Fullerton Loop with guys from Mountain Bike Riders (Moe and RL). Actually, it's probably been at least 4 years since I used by mountain bike. Also, the loop is very close to where I used to live in La Habra, so it was doubly sad that I didn't get to it till now.

Anyway, RL has a DIY helmet cam, which he used to film our ride. You can see me riding in the video at the bottom of their post. You can also see Moe's notes about the ride and some pictures at his blog.

Photo courtesy of Moe Ramirez.

Labels: mountain bike

Happy Chinese New Year (of the Pig - on Feb 18)!

Here is a short recap of what happened: 2006 was a busy year for me. I traveled a lot and moved back to the Los Angeles region (Orange county, CA to be exact) from Tucson in July. I am very grateful to my god-sister Anne and her husband Helman for letting me live in their guest room for the past 6 months. However, I moved out 2 weekends ago to a share a home in Long Beach, CA - about 2.5 miles from work. Since my significant other, Pei, is in Tucson working on her PhD at U of Arizona, I often fly to Tucson to visit her. When she visits me in LA, we traveled to San Diego and Santa Barbara to mix things up a bit, but you knew most of this already because you have been keeping up with my posts right?

What did I do for Chinese New Year? Nothing related to it, actually. I visited Pei in Tucson and we went camping Saturday night at the Peppersauce Campground about 40 miles north of Tucson. The camp ground is relatively clean, the camp host is super friendly (he gave us fire wood and matches when we didn't arrive with either), the camping areas are well shaded by TREES (!!), and you can be visited by friendly cows (too bad I didn't get any pictures of them). We had a good time just hanging out, cooked, ate, and watch the fire burn. The hiking around the area isn't so nice though... we hiked up a 4-wheelable road for about 45 minutes before turning back because I was exhausted from suffering from a minor cold.

Blogger did a bad thing recently. They updated the blogger and force everyone to upgrade, but failed to tell us that there has been a chance in the ATOM feeds. The old address: http://henrynote.blogspot.com/atom.xml no longer works. Please delete or modify your address with the one now provided on the right hand side. Ugh!! I hope I haven't lost most of you by this time.

Two things worth noting last week...

I was coming home from Tucson Sunday, Jan 21 when it began snowing in the afternoon. Since it was still day time, the snow was more like sleet that melted on impact of anything. However, when my plane was just about to leave the boarding gate, the snow really started to pile on. Next thing we know, the Tucson crew was having trouble de-icing the plane; they simply didn't have enough equipment to do the job fast enough. An hour later of just sitting there, Southwest cancelled the flight -- I got to stay one more night in Tucson AND take off work the next day because I could not get on another flight until 2:30pm Monday. Apparently, (city of) Tucson has not seen snow for about 15-20 years depending on who you ask. Besides for the delay and minor annoyances, it was a lovely sight. Some kids even got a snow day on Monday!

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On Thursday morning, as I was getting ready to go to work I discovered that my car's driver-side window was busted. Nothing was stolen out of the car (at least I don't remember anything being missing) even my folding bike in the back in plain sight. Of course, that ended up consuming my morning - I had to talk to the police, insurance company, and clean up the glass. Really annoying, but at least my car and my bike were not stolen.

It made me think of how much human life has been spent on preventing, recovering, investigating, and prosecuting crime. It's incredible. If only we can divert such effort to other greater causes instead, the world would be an amazing place, but such is the dharma of life.

(this is a back-post to 1/21/07)
I got stuck in Tucson on Jan 21... of all things because of SNOW. Yeah, I know it's January, and it snows yearly in the mountains, but in the Tucson basin? Apparently, it last happened about 20 years ago. So, I got lucky and get to stay in Tucson one more night.
The truth was that we got about 1/2" of snow, which melted fairly fast, but the problem was that Tucson Airport didn't have enough working de-icer to de-ice the planes AND snow plow to clear the runway, so it was safer to cancell the flights.
So, I present you with some cool pictures of snow and catus.

Thursday, Nov 23

The train ride
Pei and I visited Santa Barbara (SB from this point on) for the Thanksgiving weekend, but instead of getting there the usual way, we traveled by Amtrak from Fullerton to Santa Barbara. We took our 2 folding bikes with us and was able to just roll onto the train and hang them on the bike/surfboard racks. That's right, no check-in required, just walk onto the train and hang them up. Since we are not sitting near the vicinity of the racks, I locked up our bikes with a simple braided coil lock to prevent casual thieves from just taking our bikes.

Bikes hanging on racks in the Amtrak train


SB train station with bikes

If you have never travel by train in this country, I urge you to try it because it is fun, comfortable, and relatively stress free (except trying to get to the station on time) compared to driving. The trip cost us about $65 each round trip and took about 3.5 hours, which is only slightly more than driving, but then considering the traffic that weekend, maybe it was faster. What did we do with ourselves with all that time? We talked, listened to other people's conversations, watched the scenery, watched some movies (yes, there are also power outlets to plug in your computer/dvd player), and listen to music!

Watching sunset on the train


SB Court House
Our first visit off the train and on the bike was the SB Court House, which is definitely not-to-be missed for its architecture, decorations, and 360 degree tower view. We were thoroughly impressed. See for yourself:

SB Court House

Stair case inside the SB Court House


Hearing room inside the SB Court House


View from the clock-tower of the SB Court House


Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden
Our second stop was at the Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden. We actually didn't plan on visiting this park, but happen to rode by it when we noticed the beauty and serenity of it from the road-side. It made me want to move to SB right then and there. Sigh... if I could be so lucky.

Beauties inside the Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden


SB Mission
Our last major stop of the day was at the Santa Barbara Mission, which is located at the northern edge of the city proper. While it is not an extravagantly beautiful building, its beauty is in the simplicity in reflection of frontier life and stunning surroundings.

Chumash wash basin with SB Mission in the background


Interior of the Mission


Inside the SB Mission's Chapel


Thx-giving dinner
We went to Moby Dicks on the pier for dinner, which apparently didn't require reservation even on the Thanksgiving night. Unfortunately, we were not impressed with their regular fare (seafood) and their Thanksgiving special didn't look much better either. Oh well, at least we didn't shell out $50+ per person. However, we had a nice stroll on the pier.

Thanksgiving night on the pier

Friday, Nov 24

The highlight of the day was that we biked to Goleta and back, which is about 30+ miles round trip. It really wasn't too difficult, but we took our time to enjoy the sights and life. We discovered the Shoreline Park, which was a great place to enjoy the ocean view and stroll on the beach (we only did the former, not the latter).

Pei and I at Shoreline Park


View from the Shoreline Dr.

The bike ride involved about half on-street riding and half on-path riding in Goleta. Goleta is home of the UCSB, where I visited several times when my friend Max went to grad school there. The school perch on the cliff side overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean. I never understood how he could study at such an environment. Anyway, we bike around the school and the college living area - both of which were basically ghost towns during this time. We spent a bit of time looking for some place to eat, but most places were closed near campus. We fortunately found a great Vietnamese restaurant in the non-student area, but the name escapes me :(

Trip back on memory lane for my friends who went to UCSB


This night, we finally found a great seafood restaurant at the Sterns Wharf called Brophy Bros. We shared clams/mussel appetizer and a fish dish (I don't remember which now) for about $35. We had to wait about 40 minutes to get seated, but we left happy as a clam :P I highly recommend it! (Just in case it mattered to you, it's small and crowded... so don't bring a large group.)

Saturday, Nov 25

Took the day easy; just enjoying the atmosphere and check out State Street, which was filled with activies of people shopping. We ate lunch on the outdoor patio of the Natural Cafe to enjoy people watching and the specialty foods. Our train departs for LA at around 1pm... it was sad to say goodbye to such a beautiful place. We vow to return sometime soon.

Note: Many links found here are from Santa Barbara.com ... From what I can gather, the information at the site would have been helpful if I had I visited it before going to SB.

From one state park to another... On Nov 4th, I finally got to do a great hike that I never got to do while I was actually living in Tucson. Pei, Kyle, Krystle, and I went to hike the Picacho Peak, which is located about 50 miles North of Tucson on I-10. It was an intense but fun 4 mile round trip hike via the Hunter Trail.

Dead catus


Pause for a view


Group at the saddle


What are you (Henry) up to now?

The hike is NOT for the faint of heart or anyone who fear heights because at various sections you are basically being held-in by a chain and not much else. The chains are staked in various locations to help and keep hiker safe while doing this climb without any technical equipment or skill. The ranger recommended that we use gloves, but it's not really necessary (except when it's really hot or cold).

Help me!


A look at how steep it is


The view all the way up is excellent. On the peak, you have a 360 degree view of mostly flat land. If you would like to try doing this hike, I would recommend at least 2 quarts of water per person, sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, and sturdy shoes.


From the peak


Pei and I on the peak (South-East/I-10 in the background)


Krystle on the peak (North in the background)


Kyle on the peak (East/I-10 in the background)

Heard the news on the other day that Compton, CA, the city that I must go through if I am taking public transit to work, is rated #4 dangerous city in the nation. It is also rated the most dangerous city with population of 75k to 100k. This is according to Morgan Quinto Press. Wow, I really have to be careful now.