Category Archives: Trips

Walking to West Virginia

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Mission success!
Almost 37 miles walked between 7 AM and 1 AM… we were limping and hurting by the time we got done, but god damn, we walked to West Virginia (from Oakland, Pittsburgh)! :D

Greg will likely be posting a long, detailed description of the trip eventually, and I’ll link that when it’s done, but until then, I guess I can put out a few key points.
Also, I will be posting pictures from the trip soon (likely within a couple hours; I just need to batch them).
Greg has a map of the route we took (kinda… we took a trail for most of the middle instead) here.

The day started a little before 7 AM (around 6:50) when Greg, 8, Chris, Zack, and I left Newell-Simon, heading toward the South Side. I made the trip across the Birmingham again (see previous entry) and everyone was feeling good most of the morning.
Eventually, we hit a trail that was pure bliss to walk on. It used to be railroad tracks that had been converted, so the gradient at any one part was never more than 1%, and the gravelly dirt was nice to walk on.
We were able to make McDonald (the town) for lunch around 3, and continued on the trail from there to Burgesstown. By that point, everyone was hurting a lot, but still feeling relatively good about things.
On the last 2 mile stretch before Burgesstown, I broke down and really, really felt like I needed to stop, despite being about 7 miles away from the border. Now I know how you felt last year, being forced to stop so close from your goal. In any case, after a lengthy ~45 minute stop, I was able to walk again, and if anything, felt better than I had for most of the trip.
The next 4-5 miles were okay, except Chris started to have a lot of pain. How she managed to keep going, I don’t know. We stopped for about 20 minutes before the final leg, which was almost 3 miles. At this point, both Chris and 8 were having problems (and the rest of us were pretty bad off). How they managed to force themselves another 3 miles, I don’t know, and I’m really amazed at how strong they are.
During the final 1 mile stretch, I was basically completely sick of the trip, and seriously felt like giving up then (one mile from the border… I would have killed myself later if I had though, because we’d already come almost 36 miles). Greg was amazing and supportive and got me through the last stretch. The last 3 miles took almost 2 hours, but we made it and stumbled across the border into West Virginia at about 12:52. The amazing Mark Tomczak picked us up and drove us home. It put things into perspective when it takes less than 45 minutes for a car to undo the entire day’s worth of work. Wheee machines?

Overall, I’d say it was a very, very rewarding experience, and I would do it again, but I will never do it again (if that makes any sense).
You guys are amazing! Congrats on the (very) impressive accomplishment. After all, it’s not everyone who can say they walked 37 miles from Pittsburgh to West Virginia! :D

Edit: Actually it was almost 40 miles. Route here.

Lotsa stuff!

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Yeah so, today was eventful.
Landing in Denver was the first time I’ve been on a flight that had to abort its landing. Apparently, the air traffic controllers screwed up and the runway WASN’T clear. We were about to touch down when the engines revved and we pulled up hard. Whee. Took another 10 minutes to circle around again for landing.

Then, walking to New House from Donner, ran into Keith and Tim. Went to dinner with them and bohanlon. Before that, however, they helped me carry my boxes of stuff from Alisa’s to New House. And, of course, it started to rain just when we were setting back. And, of course, one of the bottoms of the boxes opened up halfway. So yeah. It took like an hour to get the boxes back, and it sucked, and meh.

Wheee.
…
Okay, so it seemed like more in my head.

Edit: *gets back to room*
*looks at the clock*
Holy SHIT it’s 5 AM?!?!?
…
Erm….
I mean, oh look, I sure woke up early today, it’s only 5 AM! Maybe I should go back to sleep!
…
*cough*

Edit edit: Student Wars: Hijinks and Booooth have been uploaded. Please play.
I have printed versions of all 5 decks in the decklists page. Come poke me sometime and I’ll show you how to play.
And New House showers are teh suck. They’re either too cold or too strong. Bleh.

New York (Day 3)

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Well, I’m posting this from New York… finally decided to spend the stupid $15 to get internet my last night here because I needed to confirm my flight tomorrow and such. You’ll notice two other backdated entries that I just posted… those were written in the previous two days here. Whee.

I am completely exhausted right now. Went on a 10-hour tour (8:45 AM to 6:45 PM) of New York today. Absolutely amazing. First we drove around this area a bit, looking around Times Square and such. Then we went to Battery Park and got on a ferry for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Spent about an hour on the ferry there and back, and about an hour looking at the Ellis Island museum. Went for lunch, and stopped to look at ground zero where the WTC towers used to stand. Then went to the United Nations for a guided tour. Then drove around for another 2 hours while the guide showed us just about every part of NY (from 1st street up to 115th street), including the cathedrals, ethnic neighborhoods, expensive shopping places, big scary tower things, etc. Wow, this city never ceases to amaze me.

There will be pictures later tonight. I need to go through and batch them. You’ll probably find them both on Alan’s Photos 2 and this journal (as a new page, complete with my comments and such). Not sure when I’ll get them posted though… I still need to eat and pack everything.

Speaking of eating, breakfast was an amazing yogurt parfait and fresh lemonade. Lunch was provided by the tour and was a chicken sandwich with fries. Dinner is a turkey pesto wrap with authentic New York cheesecake (with strawberries, of course) for dessert. I’d love to eat like this every day… except it’s cost me well over $40 for food for the past two days, so meh. Too rich for my blood, but as long as Fog Creek is paying for it, I feel like I can indulge a little.
…
Wow, that makes me sound like a terrible person. I mean, I’m on vacation, so I can indulge a little? Meh.

Heh, this is the longest I’ve gone without internet (two days) in, um… forever? Even when I was in Thailand two summers ago, I used my cousin’s computer the first few days, and then got an internet card (like phone cards here) to access it.

New York (Day 2)

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Well, the interview itself went okay, I guess. Was asked about 5 programming questions, no personal questions. Whee. Had some trouble with the n-ary tree algorithms (getNextNode, getPrevNode), but meh… got it to work eventually. I think my implementation (using a linked list to store the children) was a bad idea. If it was Java, I guess I would have used a Vector for simpler access and whatnot. Whee. The other stuff seemed fairly straightforward.

Walked around New York for a couple hours. This city is so huge… still quite overwhelming. It doesn’t seem as scary as it did last night though… maybe the sunlight helps. Went to Central Park, walked around for a while, looked at Times Square. Whee. Will walk around more tonight when I look for dinner. Mark suggested I get pizza, so I think I will do just that.
Signed up for an official city tour tomorrow… figured a guide would be much better at showing me places that I could do myself. The trip also goes to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so it should be interesting.

Still amazingly impressed with the hotel. The bathroom is HUGE… I think this is the first time in years that I’ve incredibly looked forward to my nightly shower. Yay.

I think I’ll pay for internet for 24 hours, starting tomorrow night, so I can check-in to my flight tomorrow afternoon. That means I’ll be online then… although I guess since I won’t be posting this entry until then, so writing this is kinda pointless. Wheee!

Edit: Mark, you give good advice. I am now full of the most incredible spinach and mushroom pizza I have ever eaten, along with an amazingly rich hunk of tiramisu. I can’t decide which is better: that, or the broiled and grilled chipped beef with potato pancakes (with applesauce, of course!) I had for lunch today. Why is NY food so good?
I’m feeling very, very happy right now. You know what? I went in there today and I did my best. I am happy with my performance on all the interview questions. The company seems like a remarkable place to work. Best case, I get hired. Worst case, I did my best and I’m happy with it… and I get a free trip to NY, all expenses paid (including that incredible pizza I just had tonight). And I got practice for future interviews. I went in there today not expecting anything… not worrying about if I get this or not… I went in there just intending to do my best and be me. If they like me, great. If not, oh well, there will be other opportunities later. I am confident in my skills and proud of what I’ve accomplished.

And holy shit… Times Square at night. Enough said. There will be pictars.
I should sleep soon so I can wake up for the 9 AM city tour.

New York (Day 1)

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So the hotel doesn’t have free internet (it’s $15 a day, probably not worth it), so I figured I would write entries and post them all at once when I get back (and backdate them and such).

The flight was relatively uneventful. It was delayed a bit though, but meh. Smallest plane I’ve ever seen… had room for three people plus an asle per row (instead of the usual 3 per side for 6 total per roll). Then, arrived at the airport. Went to the baggage claim. Couldn’t find the driver to bring me to the hotel. Called the company. Apparently, he had been waiting for me at the gate, and I missed him because I had been told to find him at the baggage claim. Two calls and an hour later, we finally found each other.

The hotel room is totally AMAZING. Words cannot describe this room. The bathroom is as big as my dorm at CMU, and has both a full bath and a (clean!) shower. The bedroom itself is amazingly stylish and has a Boise radio/CD player and a flat panel plasma TV on the wall. The only thing that would make it better is free internet, but hey, what can you do.

The city itself is amazingly intimidating. So many tall buildings! So many streets! I’m so stupid! I was looking for where Fog Creek was (so I wouldn’t have to try and find it tomorrow). The streets here are arranged in numerical order (as you probably know) by street and avenue. I was looking for 8th avenue. I got to Broadway. I walked another street. I got to 7th avenue. I figured Broadway had to be what I was looking for (since a lot of the avenues here seem to have “alternate” names). Stupidly, I had failed to notice that the avenues I had crossed before that were 5th and 6th. So yeah, I walked around about half an hour trying to find the building. Then I asked for directions and finally realized I was stupid. Wheee.

Oh yeah, Fog Creek gave me a welcome package too (delivered when I checked into the hotel). Yay for t-shirt and various brochures!

Um yeah, it’s now 11:22 so I should sleep soon so I can wake up for tomorrow.

Ahhh this hotel room is so amazing!