Redwood Regional Park Surprise

The weather was so sparklingly gorgeous yesterday morning that we could do nothing but leave the house. Headed straight for Mt. Diablo, images of a peaceful ride up the 24 and a picnic with an aerial view of the SF Bay flashed through my mind. That is, until we reached the east side of the Bay Bridge, and noticed the miles upon miles of pileup traffic headed into city. A mile after that, our own pileup headed into the Berkeley Hills.

Here enters the GPS and its handy "no-highway" mode. We pull off highway 24 into winding, hilly neighborhoods, through a small town, and left onto "Snake Road." Snake Road leads us to Skyline Blvd, and soon enough, we are at the top of a ridge zipping through some of the most beautiful open space scenery I have seen in Northern California. 20 minutes from downtown SF. Aside from a few bikers and cyclists, the cars are sparse.

We could have kept going this way to get to Mt. Diablo, but the open space surrounding us was just too compelling. A few clicks into the GPS, and we realized we were skirting Redwood Regional Park. We found the entrance, and pulled into the park.

I have no idea how this park is off the radar for all the Bay Area weekend adventurers. It was downright gorgeous, unpopulated, and quiet (aside from the chattering birds and hum of the bees in the wildflowers). Picnic lunch in an open field, a little bit of frisbee and a lazy afternoon nap in the sun. Then, a hike along a creek, a few campsites and sweet benches along the way, a regrowth redwood forest to cool us down, and a climb up to the ridge surrounding the park - vista views all the way home.

If you are one of the 5 people who read this blog, please go to this park and enjoy it like we did. But, don't tell anyone else :) We like this secret park relatively close to home.

Are the Salad Days Over for Social Gaming ... and Facebook?

Let's face it, the days of tinkering with virtual worlds on Facebook for bored office workers or young mothers connecting to the outside world between kids' naps has peaked. It's just not as fun anymore. Every new game that comes out is just a copy of the last game, and as people care less about what their friends' "Farms" or "Zoos" or "Sororities" look like... the less they're going to tend to their own.

I'm not saying there's no innovation any longer, because there is. The problem really is, Facebook is losing its edge as a personal platform. People may still be using it as a place to passively stay in touch with others, or to publicize their witty thoughts and silly photos. But, as the platform opens up to integrations such as Twitter, YouTube, millions of Fan Pages and Groups, annoying updates from applications like Farmville, Zoo World, Restaurant City, and online ads galore begging for users attention to turn to the right hand pain of the screen, it just doesn't feel personal anymore.

Facebook is turning into an online platform that ENABLES users to socially browse the web - think Facebook Connect for news, ecommerce, blogs, etc.

And Social Gaming isn't dead ... it's just being resurrected in more convenient places like the iPad, the iPhone, the Android.

Ethical Gems

Working at a startup in Silicon Valley is just straight up insane. One week is so different from the next that I feel I might as well be working at completely different companies. Ahh, such is life at a social gaming company. I went through three different job titles in the past three months, and somewhere in the middle of that, I began to dream of starting my own company.

Rules for the new company were:
1. Tangible product
2. Ethically sourced and manufactured products
3. A product that could paradigm-shift an existing, traditional industry in an ethical direction
4. A product and industry I, personally, found exciting

So, I created it!

www.LanyiGems.com

Check it out. I source ethical gemstones for consumers, custom jewelers, and ethical artisans. I work with a small-scale mining association in Tanzania, and am hoping to expand to similar organizations in other countries. These associations, with help from the World Bank, bring together women and small-scale miners to collectivize their products so that they can compete with larger mines and lapidaries, all the while educating workers on ethical, sustainable and fair-trade practices.

Bay to Breakers vs. Half Moon Bay hike

I woke up this morning to my roommates and a visiting friend prancing the house in wrestler and superman costumes. They were in rare form for 6am, but fittingly so. Today was Bay to Breakers in San Francisco. It's an annual run that takes throngs of runners, walkers, beer guzzlers, and exhibitionists from the Bay to the Beach.







Despite the fact that I am usually up for running events in any shape or form, for example, I LOVE the Hash. Particularly in random foreign countries. I had a craving to take advantage of our *finally* empty house and one of countless gorgeous hikes in the Bay Area on such a beautiful day. A quick Google search later, paring down potential hiking routes by length (wanted 7 miles), difficulty (wanted it tough), and location (nowhere near a beach because of traffic), I came across this one:

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/purisimahiggins.html

It was absolutely wonderful ... once I got over my fear of mountain lions - there was a warning sign at the trailhead. Within my first half mile of descent into the North Ridge Trail, I asked another lone female hiker if I should worry. She was blonde and weathered in that I've-been-on-a-million-hikes and eat-only-what-I-grow-in-my-garden way. I loved her multicolored compression pants, mostly because they didn't seem to fit her "look." Her response:

"It's more dangerous to drive on Skyline to get here ... or to sit on your couch and become a couch potato. Don't worry about the lions, I've lived here for 21 years and never seen one in my life. Nor has my husband and he's an ultramarathoner, so he's seen a lot. That said, I do carry a knife as a last resort."

I thanked her and went on my way, imagining what it would be like to pull out my knife while being mauled by a mountain lion. I didn't like the thought. It was one that entered my mind periodically through the 2.5 hour walk, between taking photographs of rocks and flowers, when everything became a little too silent for comfort.

Marathon

After ten weeks of intense training with training buddy Jeremy Carr, I'm proud to say we've both completed the Big Sur Marathon. I'm now lying awake in bed at 5:30AM writing this because my joints are in excruciating pain, but I'm still very happy that we did it.

A few weeks before the marathon, I came down with an awful cold that impacted my training. I was ready to throw in the towel, and just support Jeremy through the race. I went back and forth on the decision for days, even up to the day before the marathon. Then finally, I realized it was inevitable, I couldn't let my training partner down, and I couldn't NOT do this for Meimei.

We woke up at 3am on the day of the race, drove the buses that would take us to the starting line after driving the full length of the Highway 1 course in the pitch black darkness of the early morning. At the starting line we waited in the cold for two hours, huddled together to stay warm, for our 6:45am start. We looked so cold that some girl came up and gave us two extra pairs of gloves.

Luckily I had those gloves because just as we were running to the start, minutes before the race, some woman TRIPPED me and I fell flat on my face, ripping my gloves and bruising my knees.

Moments later, we were off, grouped together with the 3:40 pacer. We stuck with him until Hurricane Point, 13 miles into the race. Following hurricane point, we were behind by only minutes, managing our pace so as to make it through the hardest parts of the race - rolling hills and canted roads between miles 19 and 23.

We broke it down by mile. At this mile we'll eat a Gu Pack, at this mile we'll walk for 10 seconds, etc. In what seemed like magic, mile 15 turned to mile 19, and gradually through the twenties. We picked up pace for the finish, and crossed the line together.

3 hours and forty five minutes.

New Years Resolutions

Why make limiting resolutions when you can resolve to do more of the things you love to pursue? For me, at least, it's easier to do more than to do less.

A couple posts ago, I wrote about my Chinese sister's funeral. Meimei was a person with an amazingly kind soul and thirst for adventure. She pushed me to do the things I loved to do the most - run, travel, cook, meet new people, learn Chinese, spend time with my family and her own. She was always disappointed by the fact that I had never run a marathon, and, honestly, so was I.

Meimei and Me in Beijing one year ago:



Meimei died of leukemia, an illness that I am sure was a result of China's polluted environment. While I'm glad I didn't train for a marathon in China - where would my lungs be? I know that I can help her live on by training for one now, and hopefully kicking some serious marathon butt in San Diego in early June.

Wish me luck. Here are some photos from one of my first early morning training runs.

From Potrero Hill looking at Twin Peaks just post-sunrise:



Potrero Hill from Glen Park:



The city:



The sunrise from Potrero Hill:

Peanut Butter Conundrum

I went to the grocery store with one objective in mind: to buy a jar of peanut butter. Little did I know that buying peanut butter in this country is an art of the highly mature American consumer. Or so I'd like to think.

HALF the aisle was a monstrous display of peanut butter - crunchy, smooth, reduced fat, salted, unsalted, maple syrup infused, premixed with jelly, organic, not organic, skippy, Jif, Peter Pan, Martha's, pre-swirled with chocolate, and even ... crush it yourself!

I stared at the plethora of peanut butter, examined a few jars of the pre-swirled stuff (amazing!!), paced up and down the pb&j aisle a few more times, then, naturally, pulled out my camera, took a picture, and promptly fled the grocery store.

Mission peanut butter failed.