A saga of 14 friends: returning to California

in #travel6 years ago (edited)

When I was a young lad, my pediatrician asked me how many friends I had, demanding an exact number. Then to make sure I wasn't bluffing, he had me name all the friends. This doctor would be very impressed with my recent 10-day trip to California where I saw 14 bonafide friends. That is over 1 friend per day! To prove it, here are their names: Supna, Hlawitschka, Diego & Marissa, Nina, Sierra, Caca, Toto & Julie, Benjamin, Alvaro & Nell, Cyrus, Rocky, Willie, Jerome (new), and Olivier.

The primary purpose of the trip was vocational. Two members of the Greene Lab at Penn (myself and a graduate student named David) visited a lab at Stanford, which creates some software David uses for his project. How then was I able to see so many friends? It turns out that two years ago, I moved to Philadelelphia after having lived in San Francisco for 5 years. Many of these friends were remnants from my past domicile. Others like Hlawitschka and Sierra had relocated to the area.

The journey began as all airborne journeys of 2018 begin… at the Centurion PHL Lounge. I was lucky to have a travel companion. Her name was Supna:

centurion-PHL.jpg

I would later find out that a colleague named Katerina had spotted us in the lounge. Katerina is an all-star churner, and I am excited to collaborate with her in the future. Luckily we work just a dozen paces apart.

Once in San Francisco, I headed for chez Hlawitschka where we played pong (the first of two pong sessions on this trip) and tasted the very fine Jeppson's Malört Liqueur. Then I hiked from Noe Valley to the Haight District, where I arrived at the historic apartment of Diego & Marissa. The next day Marissa and I summitted Buena Vista Park, while walking to Diego's tennis match. Relive this moment with the following image (hint: when looking at a picture of San Francisco, replace "Waldo" with the "Golden Gates").

Buena-Vista-Park.jpg

Diego is on a winning streak. As such, his team decimated their tennis opponents. During this time, I ran in Golden Gate park and found a premium natural ultralight trekking pole. Afterwards, I photographed the couple, engaged in love:

diego-marisa-hammock.jpg

In the afternoon, a very special gathering occurred on Duboce Park, graced by the presences of Nina, Gloria, and Sierra. One of these three ladies told a fascinating story about marriage and infidelity. Sierra grew up in Vermont, near New Hampshire, and was initally a friend of my younger brother. It was a Joy to see her in Cali! Watch Nina chill the sun below the horizon from a hammock:

nina-hammock.jpg

That night, Caca and I had an impromptu hangout at an undisclosed location in the Panhandle. Caca was in the process of cutting off his dreadlocks (i.e. Jaṭā). One dread per month. At this rate, it'll take him years.

The following Sunday, I scooted to Chinatown (the first of three Scoots on this trip, combined rental cost of $0.90). There we met Marissa's brother and two Czechoslovakian women. Marissa's brother required us to attend two lectures on tea, as per his eternal quest for sophistication. These tea tastings took a long time, as they served very expensive teas that grow at high elevation before arriving to the Port of Philadelphia. At the second shop an 88-year old Chinese man, presumably the owner, kept yelling about how he would beat us into pulps. However, when he asked one of the Czechoslovakian ladies over to privately enjoy some wine and she declined, he did not beat anyone up. What a bluffer.

Afterwards, Diego and I headed to Golden Gate Park for 18-holes of disc golf. On the way, I found an unopened beer on the street (the first of two unopened beers discovered on this trip). Diego continued his win streak at the golf course, and I explained to him the cryptoeconomics of Steem.

I had brought three discs, which after the game, I donated to Diego. These discs as well as my hammock composed the Chill System from my ultralight packing list. In total, I completed this 10-day trip with base weight of just 9.26 pounds! This was one secret to being able to see so many friends… people like people who pack light, and mobility is key.

That Sunday night I visited Toto in the Mission District. Toto is a double Iron Man and is the proud host to a dying tooth. The next morning, I took a Baby Bullet to Palo Alto and then hiked to Stanford University. After the first day of work, we had an inspirational meeting with a pivotal person from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Then I hiked to East Palo Alto to chez Alvaro, where I'd stay for the duration of the workweek.

On Tuesday, Supna had her birthday and decided to enroll in medical school starting this upcoming academic year! To celebrate, she used the hammock on Stanford's campus:

supna-hammock.jpg

On Wednesday, I began a great pull request on the Snorkel software created by the Sanford Lab. This pull request enables installing Snorkel as a Python package. Previously, it was very difficult to integrate Snorkel into a computational environment. My PR was massive and touched many files in the repository. Unfortunately, our handler Stephen merged the PR in a 0.7.0-alpha branch rather than master. Note to self: if they let this branch linger and my changes get conflicted and abandoned, I will never forgive them.

The trip was very productive and it helped us get closer to our goal: creating an open hetnet of all biomedical knowledge by text-mining scientific literature. Pictured below are David, @dhimmel, and Stephen outside of the Gates Building at Stanford. As a child in New Hampshire running Windows 95, I used to pie Bill Gates in the face. Now I labor in his shadow, while running GNU/Linux.

snorkelers.jpg

Alvaro, Nelle, and I went running atop an old landfill turning into a bayside wildlife refuge. The park was overrun with gourmet snails, jackrabbits, and birds: all beautiful creatures. Alvaro lent me his Trek racing bike, so I was able to commute with great speed from Stanford to the lemon trees of East Palo Alto. Alvaro also kindly gifted me an Applied Materials mug, which he had purchased from his employer at great personal expense.

During the days, I snorkeled and stockpiled large amounts of the free food from Stanford. On Thursday I saw my old friend and colleague Cyrus. Cyrus had recently broke his back in two places after he took a tumble of an undisclosed nature 🐦. After this accident, Cyrus, displaying his true power, had ripped the medical cords off his body and left the hospital before being discharged since the hospital was not being respectful of his time. On Friday, I saw Rocky, a Philly transplant with big scientific ambitions and abilities now studying at Stanford. I will have to return to the area sometime to shoot her hammocking from the gates of hell.

Friday afternoon, I bike-n-hiked from Stanford's campus to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park. There I met a frenchman named Benjamin, who gave me a tour of the facilities, before we drove north to Tahoe.

facebook-one-hacker-way.jpg

Having arrived to Tahoe City, Jerome (new) explained the backcountry and told us how to choose which of two buried friends to save in an avalanche: whichever one you transceive/locate first. On Saturday, some men headed to the backcountry. Benjamin and I hit the Resort of Squaw, where on the 5th of May there was still a snowpack taller than myself. I only saw one skiing moon (i.e. pair of asscheecks).

squaw.jpg

That night I went to Willie's house. When I moved away from San Francisco two years ago, I left many possessions at Willie's house. These included a baseball bat, snowboard gear, and my friend's deer head. Willie and I played a game of pong on the custom table from my PhD.

On the final day of Sunday, Diego and I hiked the Burton Creek Loop (see our tracks on ViewRanger). Check out this action video:

hiking-burton-creek.gif

Diego is a good friend:

hike-outreach.jpg

After the hike we drove back to the Bay. The ride was a real blast as we investigated the edge-case behavior of a small electronic device. Back in the Haight, I began the final preparations for my aeronautic adventure back to Philly. Diego helped me tape the tips, as recommended by American Airline's antler policy:

You can travel with antlers if they are:

  • As free of residue as possible
  • Wrapped with protected tips

Once at SFO, I had no trouble transporting the "taxidermy with antlers". In fact, it passed through security twice without issue. In the Centurion Lounge, I completed the SFO Challenge, sampling each of the 8 specialty cocktails. The bartender would not serve an extra drink for my taxidermied travel companion, but otherwise was OKAY. Showering in an airport with a deer head — wow!

The red-eye flight home went by quickly. Thanks to the pilot for such a smooth ride:

deer-plane-cockpit.jpg

The final morning I quickly stopped by the Centurion Lounge PHL, so that my travel companion could take a quick business call.

deer-phone-room.jpg

Steemian Boss Series

This is the tenth post in the popular Steemian Boss Series. Previous posts include:

  1. Ultralight travel to Key West
  2. Sights aboard a twinjet, Philly to Boston style
  3. How to hammock like a Steemian Boss in Cambridge
  4. Glory aboard American Airlines flight 501
  5. The Centurion PHL Challenge: 8 specialty crafted cocktails
  6. The Delta Sky Club ATL Challenge: all 2 specialty cocktails
  7. Mississippi's best hiking: backpacking in Noxubee Hills
  8. Epic 80-mile bike ride to Limerick's Nuclear Reactors
  9. The Centurion SFO Challenge: revealing 8 exclusive cocktails

License

This post as well as its images are released under a CC BY 4.0 License. Republish or reuse this content, but please attribute by linking to this Steem post.

Sort:  

I like how you recorded everything in your pack with lighterpack.com, haven't seen that before.

Yeah, I love the pie chart to see your weight by category:

lighterpack.png

Also having to note every item really makes you think about whether it's necessary. For trips where I don't make a packing list, I notice I'll often take a less optimized gear list.

The thoroughness of this post will help you remember this vividly always! It was as if i were right there with you having fun with Supna, Diego and the rest of your friends! Great read!

Wow, sounds like you had a very event-filled and fulfilling trip! SF is a fun city, hoping none of you drank those unopened beers though!

Thanks @nievogro. Of course we drank the beers! They both hit the spot. First, a potent oversized beer in glass bottle during disc golf. Second, a canned light beer someone had dropped from the chairlift.

You're a braver man than me! By the way, if you're ever further south near LA/Orange County then hit me up.

@busy.org can you look into why the GIF in this post is not displaying? The URL for the GIF is https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPZynoKWeu8nP4fdfvHQ6uNmGjsdymfH91f3U6y1EBVYE.

Both in the post and in the link you can see the micro video...

Just a little remark ... those two women could be either Czech or Slovak. I guess you could also call them Czechoslovakian, if one parent would be Chech and the other would be Slovak.

One was from the Czech Republic, one was from Slovakia. So together I considered them Czechoslovakian. They were great friends!

Lol ... and such a friendship saga is worth resteeming, so now I'm going to do just that!

Great post well done. Thanks for the advice
I liked it ... better to be reassured..

красивые фото а как на счет комаров в лесу ?

Москитов не было. Я думаю, что это может быть еще немного в начале сезона для москитов.

an excellent trip and the best thing is to meet people for me it is very easy to make friends I like to socialize a lot and the trip is also mine not internationally for now but in the wonders that we have in venezuela,
and truth that the events were not denied were latent throughout the trip but the good thing is the duvercion that you had and experiences that you lived to learn more,,,....

Greetings from Venezuela,

Are there many Steem users in Venezuela? I recently learned about the situation there in this Let's Talk Bitcoin episode.

hand the truth is that I have seen the increase of Venezuelans in steemit because he hears the situation this hard hand but we have to beat my brother we can not stay with our arms crossed.

The flowers and the summer vibes are amazing

I remember those years of my youth, a real adventurer. Today, age (the years do not pass in vain) makes me sedentary. Thank you for allowing me to virtually travel with you and share your experiences.

I saw your post and saw your post and visited your blog. I liked it very much because I posted a good post on blog and you have a lot of good boo in your post but it's very good to get your rankings. I have enjoyed reading this post by posting as much as I like to share in Australia like these questions Thank you very much for share...

such an great advanturious travel at california how great done and it steems that you have the fun of your life.and the capturing is brillant! @dhimmel

Congratulation dhimmel! Your post has appeared on the hot page after 97min with 38 votes.

great post like it .
i wish your post will grow more..

posts are very high quality I like very much with this post

I am really missing those day with my friends after having a family our responsibilities are different

What an awesome time had been made you! Just love it. All of your moments were very colourful. Thank you for sharing with us. Lots of love @dhimmel

Good read! "A Saga of 14 Friends" sounds much of an adventure!

Great Blog!

Let's continue to connect to each other as we submit more content?

Luppers :)

Potingan yang baik.

Potingan yang baik.

Three thumbs up! What a great article. Thanx.

Wow, it seems like you have a program filled and full! SF is a fun city, hopefully you do not drink the unwanted ants!?

Congratulations @dhimmel! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of upvotes

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Upvote this notification to help all Steemit users. Learn why here!

travel is good for the soul about to head to Africa and UK. nice post btw.

Congratulations @dhimmel!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:

  • Pending payout - Ranked 10 with $ 407,52

Every photo of you is very beautiful Your story is even better. I liked it very much

awesome post! if anyone is looking to learn internet marketing check out my event in west covina california > https://www.eventbrite.com/edit?eid=46265339877

My website: https://satoshipapi.io/freelance-services

I like how everything in your pack is recorded with Lighterpack.com, that has not been seen before..