Celebrities

Here’s an amusing (and inspiring!) documentary (14:38 on YouTube). The film “illustrates the challenges encountered and overcome by a group of dedicated musicians seeking to perform in Yosemite” and includes some rock climbing scenes. Brilliant stuff! Thanks to Michele for sending me this one. Continue reading »

The other day, based on a recommendation of a friend, I picked up the book Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. The book was such a pleasure to read that I ended up reading it in one sitting (starting at 10:30pm at night; don’t ask me what time I went to bed…) Continue reading »

Some days are simply special. And so was this day in the Bay Area, in which I got to climb with Alyssa and Stacey at Planet Granite in Belmont (including making it up my very first 5.12a!); run 8 beautifully wooded miles with Alyssa in Woodside; and bike 13 dark miles to Adam’s home in Santa Clara. As if all of this wasn’t fun enough, then my friend Pin-pin and I went to a house concert featuring one of my favorite singers, Julie Loyd! Continue reading »

There seems to be no shortage of celebrity cyclists coming out to Fort Collins, CO. Last November there was Tom Danielson of the Discovery Team along with Trek’s chief product engineer, Mike Sagan. Today, we were honored with the appearance of legendary Ned Overend (50 years young) at Lee’s Cyclery.

I had expected Deadly Nedly to be merely recounting race stories, but did not realize he is the Vice-President of Product Development for Specialized Bicycle Components. His presentation turned out to be quite technical and very informative including descriptions of many Specialized innovations. As a mechanical engineering geek, you can imagine that this absolutely thrilled me. :)

Below are some notes about the topics this mountain biking and XTerra legend touched upon. Continue reading »

There used to be a time when I thought I was really good at math. For instance, I was done, over, finished! with AP Calculus after 10th grade, and got nothing but As. (Never mind that integrating and differentiating is something I rarely had to do thereafter even as a mechanical engineer.) I also thought I did pretty well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) during the senior year of high school, which I won’t reveal my score but will immodestly say that I only missed 2 or 3 questions in the math portion. :)

Well, apparently that was underachieving and would not hold a candle to certain sixth-graders around here. Witness Tae Kim of Denver, CO, a 12-year-old who scored a perfect 800 in the SAT math section. Continue reading »