Favorite hike

The Narrows. This was unlike any hike I’d done before. We got up early to catch the first shuttle from the entrance of Zion National Park at 6 AM. Unfortunately, a lot of other people thought the same thing, so we actually got the second shuttle and it was standing room only. We took that to the last stop and then walked for about a mile on a paved path. The path ended and there was just a river in front of us. I’m glad that we weren’t the first ones there because I wouldn’t have known what to do or where to go, but I guess you just go into the river. For the rest of the day, we hiked through the river which varied from just a few inches of water to above our waist in sections. The floor of the river bed was made up of large smooth rocks so it was quite slippery in places. I was really glad to have neoprene socks, hiking boots, and a walking stick (Anika didn’t use a stick). The rapids were pretty strong in some places and I fell in once and scraped my knee a little bit, but that was the only injury among the 5 of us. The water was really cold at 7AM, but felt very refreshing on the way back when the sun was out. I won’t be able to properly describe how great this hike felt. For almost all of it, you’re walking between two rock faces that are at least a thousand feet high. You get numb to it after a while, but I never lost that sense of awe at how amazing this place was, and how small it made my problems feel.

Favorite place to get outfitted for that hike

Zion Adventures. Our hotel recommended this place and they were great. No high pressure sales, and the staff provided useful information. They were having a sale where we could rent the boots, socks and pole for $30. That was cheaper than the rate at the entrance to the park, but we didn’t shop around too much. We also ended up getting some souvenirs from here.

Favorite restaurant

Oscar’s Cafe. We were a little bummed that we found this place on our last day because it was so good. I had the ribs and they were fall-off-the-bone tender. Everything we ordered was tasty including the sangria. The origin story of the restaurant was cool too.

Honorable Mention: Meme’s Cafe

Best buffet breakfast

The lodge inside the park has an all you can eat breakfast buffet that was quite filling.

Favorite place to stay

Desert Pearl Inn. We’re not huge fans of staying in hotels, but house rentals weren’t really an option in Zion. This place was nice and fit all 5 of us in a room (with a pull out couch). There was a great swimming pool and jacuzzi, and it was walking distance to a lot of places we ended up going to. The town shuttle stops right out in front, though we only took that once. It’s about a 3/4 of a mile walk/run to the Zion park entrance. The only downsides were that it was not cheap and it was missing was a gym.

Favorite running route

Pa’rus Trail. You’ll find this trail right as you enter the park, and it goes for about 3.5 miles on paved mostly flat ground, which is perfect for a run in more beautiful surroundings than just about anywhere on Earth.

Favorite thing to do after a hike

Desert Pearl Inn. Jump in the pool and maybe the jacuzzi, but then definitely back to the pool. Sitting in the pool or poolside, you can see the red cliffs towering above you on both sides.

Favorite view

Scout’s Lookout. This was a more traditional hike up the cliff face along switchbacks. But the views are anything but conventional. Definitely worth the effort. We did not get the permit to go up to Angel’s Landing from here on the chain trail, but the kids want to do it if we ever come back.

Favorite ice cream

Bumbleberry chocolate ice cream at Bumbleberry Bakery.

Favorite shaved ice

Zion Hawaiian Shave Ice. While some of us had ice cream, some of us had shaved ice. It reportedly was very good. Note that this place is like inside an e-bike rental store for some reason.

Favorite grocery store

Sol Foods Supermarket. This was a great locally owned supermarket that had everything we needed to stock up for the trip, including cool shades and hats.

Title: Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil

Subtitle: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Why: A co-worker recommended it.

Review: Five stars for the content. Maybe deduct a half star for the organization. The first few chapters were powerful, laying out the case for how these data algorithms have gotten out of control. Some of the later chapters got repetitive, but I think the repetition could have been really useful, if it drilled into the readers heads exactly how to distinguish a bad use of math from a good one. Readers should be encouraged to analyze things in the wild on their own. I was also hoping for stronger calls to action, but was left just feeling kinda hopeless at the end of the book.

All that said, everyone should read this book. I love math and big data and its potential for good, but this book clearly lays out how those tools can lead to misery for all of us, but especially for the least fortunate and most oppressed among us. At scale, they turn into positive feedback loops which never correct. Just as a simplistic example, if a college is rated by how selective it is, and a high rating leads more people to apply, then it will, by definition get more selective over time, which will lead to an even higher rating, leading to a vicious cycle. Even more perniciously, if jobs use low credit scores to weed out applicants, then those most in need of a good job will be least likely to be able to secure one, which will lead to more financial difficulty, leading to a worse credit score and an even more vicious cycle. The worst part of these algorithms, is that they are opaque to everyone involved so it is impossible to fight back against their decisions. Just as another ridiculous example, drivers with clean accident records, but a poor credit score were quoted higher rates than convicted drunk drivers with good credit scores. The users of “big data” get so enamored with their algorithms that a poor proxy for risk (credit score) is given more weight than an actual risk (drunk driving).

Hopefully, society will begin to regulate this area and guide our use of these algorithms in a way that is beneficial to all members of society, especially the most disenfranchised portions.

• Building a home server rack. I’ll probably never do this, but if I do, I’ll re-read this guide. He explains things from a true beginner point of view, documenting his honest mistakes so that others don’t make them.

• Manning has free software engineering books

Title: My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar

Subtitle: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past

Why: A co-worker recommended it, and is related to the author, thus making the book a family history for him (how cool is that!)

Review: I learned a lot of history that I sadly had been clueless about before reading this book. I never knew that there was a significant Jewish population in Iraq, nor that they lived relatively harmoniously with Muslims and Christians there for hundreds of years. I didn’t know about the semi-forced migration of Jews from Arab countries to the newly formed Israel after World War II and the dire circumstances surrounding such migration. I didn’t know that there was a social hierarchy between European/Ashkenazi Jews and Arabic Jews, and another hierarchy with Arab Jews depending on if you were Baghdadi or Kurdish, for example. The story is written by a 50-ish year old journalist who investigates his family history starting with his great grandfather in Kurdistan (Iraq). It details the forced migration that his father endured from Iraq to Israel at the age of 13, and all of the struggles that come from coming of age in a new strange place. Eventually it continues to his father’s migration to the US, and to the author being born and turning into the most annoying teenage rebel, wanting nothing to do with his family’s heritage. And then, of course, that rebel grows up, sees the error of his ways and then uses his newfound journalistic skills to turn his families stories into a proper history.

The book is very well written and engages you from beginning to end. This is not a textbook, but rather a fireside story. I was furious at the childishness of the author for rebelling against his parents in such a disrespectful way, but I think most of my fury was actually directed at myself for having similar tendencies and feelings, though I kept them mostly bottled up inside of me. I identified strongly with the immigrant story as it is nearly identical to mine, though my parents came from a different country and were fortunate to make the choice to leave their homeland willingly. But I know they suffered mightily to do so, leaving one home, and landing in a place that never could be anything but a second home, one that doesn’t quite ever feel like home.

This quote could have been written about my childhood:

My father would hand me the phone on my visits home to Los Angeles, and I would listen as a stream of Aramaic blessings crossed ten time zones along a crackling telephone line. My father would pass me the receiver and whispher, “Just say amen every so often. It will make her feel good.” I said my amens and returned to my life.

I’m envious and impressed by Sabar’s work in documenting his family history, as I have never taken the time or energy to do anything similar with my own. I’m now an American through and through, and I’m OK with that, but I wish I could have passed more appreciation of our culture on to my kids. Hopefully they will eventually get curious and learn on their own, but more likely I’ve just accelerated a path to distancing future generations from our homeland. Anyways, that is all a digression from the story, though to be honest, it is the central tenet of the book. I’m really glad that I read this one.

Title: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

Why: A co-worker recommended and I vaguely remember liking Lincoln in the Bardo

Review: It is a series of short stories, all with the thread of being set in various near-future dystopias with flawed characters. It’s definitely on the weird/absurd side of things. Parts of it reminded me of The Stand or Station 11, two books I really liked. Parts were humorous and parts were absolutely disgusting, but throughout, it shed a light on human nature, even in those weird circumstances. I wouldn’t read it again, but I’m glad it and I added Pastoralia to my to-read list.

Title: Choosing To Run by Des Linden

Why: It’s a running book and who isn’t inspired by Des Linden?

Review: This autobiography was a page turner that I read during a car ride back from Florida. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving). I’m a sucker for running books and this was a great one, mostly because Des Linden is so down-to-earth that you just want to root for her through every obstacle. I also love what a vivid, detailed memory she has of her races. It allowed me to go back to watch the 2018 Boston marathon videos, in particular, and feel like I was in her mind, and in the mind of the runners around her.

I was a bit confused initially by the alternating chapter approach, but it build up suspense about her 2018 performance, which I guess was the point. As a doctor, I was frustrated with her for ignoring the straightforward medical advice that she was getting, though it is understandable given her situation, and her concerns about doping in sports. And to her credit, she researched her conditions thoroughly and made the right decisions. As I was reading her symptoms I immediately wondered if she was hypothyroid, and now I wonder if she actually had burned-out Graves, with her mild exopthalmos. Anyway, enough pop-diagnosis. The book is excellent and I would read more by her if she ever writes another book.

Favorite quote from the book:

“The grind” meant something positive to me: a challenge to embrace repetition and approach it creatively. It annoyed me when I heard “the grind” used in a pejorative way. Sure, it could be tedious, but it was a choice. Go off and do something else if you hate it.

Preach!

• Old people can build muscle. Sorry, this one is behind a paywall, but it basically describes a study that showed that muscle SFI decreased in old people (ages 60-79) with resistance training. Muscle SFI (shape factor index) represents how close the cross-sectional shape of your muscle is to the shape of a circle, where 1.00 is a circle and the lower the number, the better it is. I’d never heard of that metric before. But the good news is that in this study, both young and old people were able to decrease their SFI by the same amount over the study period.

• Not a link, but a nice quote:

Wrong decisions are part of life. Being able to make them work anyway is one of the abilities of those who are successful. — Warren Buffett

I can’t seem to find things on the web as well as I used to. I blame Google being enshittified, but whatever the reason, I’m going to post links here. Not sure of the tempo or format but I guess I’ll figure that out.

• Lydiard Lacing. I’ve been having trouble with my toes and someone mentioned that changing my lacing might help. I’ve tried Lydiard Lacing for a few weeks and it gives my toes a lot more room. I fear that Nike link will eventually rot, so here’s another explanation.

• Big Three. Three exercises I’ve been doing for my back

• RockAuto - An alternative to Amazon for car parts. I needed wiper blades, so checked where reddit recommended to buy them and also which brand to buy.

• MediaCMS - Someday I’d like to try this out for all the family photos and videos we have.

I just went down a Cory Doctorow rabbit hole. It started from a link in Austin Kleon’s newsletter to Doctorow’s post about his blog being his version of a commonplace book or a Memex. I remember Doctorow as being one of the early famous bloggers and an early crusader against unending copyright, but I haven’t really paid much attention to him since those early days. I distinctly remember when his first book, “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” was released for free on the internet. I remember it being surprising because he was “just a blogger” and now he was writing a real book. I was intrigued by some of the ideas in it. Like the concept of Whuffie, which was a social status indicator that everyone could see floating above your head, so that you knew who was important and who was a loser. With augmented reality, this might come true sooner than we think. I actually couldn’t initially remember the name of the book so I had to look through his book list to find it, and then saw that he’s written like 20 books now, many which look really interesting, so my to-read list just grew a bit. I also found his article about enshittification, which I think is one of the best essays I’ve seen in recent years. I’ve heard the term a lot, but didn’t realize that he had coined it. That article is another reason that I’ve started to write again, here on a page that I own.

I’m not sure that title is an exact quote, but I thought I heard Arthur Brooks say something like that as he was interviewed on a Peter Attia podcast. At least that’s what I took from whatever he said. His point was that the common advice to “follow your bliss” is misguided. When faced with choices, you shouldn’t choose the easy thing, you should choose the hard thing. I’m not sure that any of this is revolutionary, but that title sure is kinda surprising to me, and I think it makes a lot of sense.

What would have made me happy this evening? Certainly way low on that list is writing this blog post. As you can tell if you follow my blogging (ha!), I clearly don’t like to write in public. The easy thing, the thing that my brain was telling me to do because it promised me happiness, was to sit down and scroll through my phone, or pick up my Kindle and read a novel, or basically do anything that was not me trying to create something. The hard thing, the thing I knew would be painful, was to scribble down this post because I know it will never be as good as the post that is in my brain. Taking this idea in my brain, which is perfect because nobody else can see it, and trying to put it on the page here… well that is scary and painful and I know people will wonder why I’d even think this was worth thinking, let alone sharing with the world. But in the long run, doing this activity of taking ideas in my brain, and working with them on the page, especially in public is clearly going to be better for me than leaving them in my brain. It will lead to me being a happier person.

Doing the thing that won’t make me happy is the key to happiness.