Visit to Portland and other 2016 stories

Happy 2016!  Hope that it has been a good year for you, so far.

Evan is working at a small law firm, learning about human rights in Washington, and has great co-workers. This year, I switched to a new team, and am learning about computer vision from some incredibly smart and helpful people.  We are both pretty lucky on the job front.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we visited Portland.  We left Friday night after work, and took a circuitous route, hoping to avoid traffic jams along I-5.  I am glad we took this detour, as it was quite scenic, and we got to see a pretty spectacular sunset and many mountains.  We stayed in an AirBnB place for the first time.  Though it was homier than a hotel - the owners had a very sweet, small, black dog that greeted us and some very cute pet rats - it was also a bit harder, to share a bathroom with the residents and be mindful of when we used it, and when we came back during the night, so not to wake them or disturb them.

Portland seems like a cross between Boulder - with its proximity to nature and athletic population, and Seattle - with its verdant parks, filled with ferns and firs, and cool, rainy weather.  On Saturday, we walked around Forest Park - 5000 acres of trails and woods right in the middle of Portland - and visited Powell's bookstore.  We had lunch at Noodles & Co, followed by Stumptown coffee.  It was funny that our lunches cost the same as our coffees - but both were equally delicious.  After coffee, we drove to Cannon Beach on the coast of Oregon.  The beach was wide and cloudy - it was a relaxing, lovely place to spend the evening.  It was drizzling a little, which bizarrely helped our little campfire - I think the drizzle prevented wind, and though we only had three logs, the fire lasted a very long time.  We had hoped to see stars or sunset, but both were obscured by clouds, which is fine, because it was very scenic nonetheless.

On Sunday, we visited the Willamette River waterfront.  There was a marathon concluding there, so we caught the tail-end of a Rolling Stones cover band concert.  We then headed east, towards Multnomah Falls, listening to the Rolling Stones, of course.  However, Memorial Day weekend seems to be a very popular time to visit the falls, as there was a sign indicating that the parking lot was completely full, and that it was recommended to park at the previous exit, 5 miles away, and take a shuttle to the falls.  The falls are probably quite spectacular, to draw so many visitors, but we didn't want to take a five-mile shuttle ride - our last experience on a shuttle left us both too carsick to enjoy much of anything, and we felt that the outcome from this one would be the same.  We instead went to Vista House and enjoyed a really spectacular view of the Colombia River Gorge - it looks much like San Juan Islands and Sea-to-Sky highway - the Pacific Northwest has very unique and spectacular rock formations - maybe because of Juan de Fuca plate boundary? We also went to Latourell Falls - while the waterfall is quite small, it falls from very high, and one can go right up to it and enjoy the spray of the mist.  I think an unfettered view of a small waterfall is much better than a view from afar behind a fence of a large waterfall.  I hate the feeling of being boxed in, and told what to experience, which is why I really hate Disney World.  I'd rather experience something small, simple, and real, if that makes sense.

On Sunday afternoon, we headed back to Seattle, and felt quite exhausted but happy.  That night, I went on sunrise hike on Mount Pilchuck, in Northern Cascades in Washington.  We met at a parking lot at 2:15am and made it to the park itself around 3:30 or 4:00am.  It was already nearly twilight by the time we reached, and the sky had an eerie blue color.  By 4:30am, it was already light enough for us all to see without aid of headlamp.  Sunrise was officially at 5:13am, around when we reached snowline.  I had just bought hiking shoes, hiking poles, and microspikes, for the first time, and was so happy that I had all three as we walked up the snow to the peak.  The shoes kept my feet dry, the spikes kept me from slipping, and the pole helped me keep balance.  Around 6:30am we reached the summit.  The view was amazing - we could see Mount Rainier from the northside, dominating the view as usual, and snow-capped mountains all around.  The Cascades really are quite beautiful.  The top of Mount Pilchuck has a shelter - I think it was built in the 1930s.  We had a picnic breakfast there, with everyone contributing something to the breakfast.  Someone stir-fried a Porcini mushroom they had picked - it was so tasty! Someone brewed coffee for everyone.  And, one person made crepes with Nutella.

The hike was intended to be a sunrise meditation hike. Though we didn't make it by sunrise, we still had a chance to meditate for a while.  It was interesting to learn about the various kinds of meditation that people liked to do - from Vajrayana to Dzogchen.  Having a few minutes to relax, empty the mind, and meditate was really nice way to conclude the hike.  We headed back, and I made it back home by noon.  Though I tried hard to stay awake that day, I dozed off in the couch and woke up around 4pm.  My sweet husband didn't wake me, as he thought I should catch up on my sleep.  We had a nice dinner and evening together.

My parents had visited the previous weekend, and we had a lot of fun with them.  We went to Vancouver and enjoyed some delicious gurudwara food for lunch and dinner.  It is satisfying to be able to come for a free meal and pay back with doing dishes.  I missed my dads jokes, and it was nice to relax and laugh with my parents.  We also visited Ballard Locks - it was a nice mix of getting to see how the locks worked and see the botanical gardens nearby.  And of course, my mom cooked a bunch of delicious food.

Evan's parents visited us the following weekend, to surprise my husband for his birthday.  They are congenial, easygoing people, and we had a lot of fun together.  We visited Cafe Fiore and the Boeing Factory Tour on Saturday.  On Sunday, we went to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which had an exhibit of Buddhist art from along the Silk Road.  The art was dated from 300 - 700 AD, and was really cool. It is amazing how similar people are throughout history, even though the history itself is so diverse and complex.  My mother-in-law also showed me how to grate lime zest and make a key lime pie.  It came out very nice, and my mother-in-law made heavy whipped cream by hand, which was a cool process to see.

Finally, the following weekend after Evan's parents visit, we made a small trip to the Washington Coast to see the La Push beaches.  Though they are narrower than Cannon Beach, they are very similar in their rock formations and soft sands.  We made another beachfire, picnic, and saluted our seven years together.

It has been a nice few months, and we feel grateful that things are going so well.  Wish you all the very best, too.

Top places in Washington

1.  Mailbox Peak - maybe there was a bit of psychology involved, in that the difficulty of the hike made me want the top to be beautiful and worth the effort, but this was the single most breathtakingly beautiful place in Washington I have been.  The top of the peak offered a view of a mist-filled valley, with wildflowers all around us.  And of course, it was pretty cool that there was a mailbox at the top.

Other note-worthy trails: Comet Falls on Mount Rainier, Tiger Mountain Trail #2 with fall colors, Mount Si, Mount Washington.

2.  University of Washington - the cherry blossoms in the spring are gorgeous - especially when all the pink and white petals fall and coat the ground.  The Burke museum is the best museum I've been to. The basement is filled with colorful artwork from tons of Pacific cultures.  The architecture of the buildings is also nice - and there are many nice views of lakes and mountains from around the campus.

Other note-worthy Seattle spots: Kerry Park in Queen Anne (especially for the great coffee), Seattle Center with the Space Needle, gardens, water fountain, and Pink Floyd Laser show, Washington Arboretum and Japanese Garden.

3.  Pacific Beach - there is nothing quite so beautiful as the sunset on the beach.  The sand here is soft and the shore is so flat that the water comes and recedes quite gradually.  The shores are filled with sandpipers and not too many people - so the spot is quite tranquil.  At night, we could see endless stars and the Milky Way.  

To be honest, there is no beach in Washington that we love so much as the beaches of Southern California and Hawaii (no surprise :-P), but other note-worthy beaches in Washington:  La Push area beaches, Alki Beach, and Golden Gardens beach.  

4.  Kirkland Waterfront - relaxing park on Lake Washington, surrounded by good coffee shops and restaurants, in a very pedestrian oriented and relaxed downtown. 

Other note-worthy parks on the "Eastside": Bellevue Downtown Park,  Lake Sammamish Park.  

Life

Life the last few months has been fun.  I have been feeling restless and craving adventure.

The weather last winter was amazing - in the 40s F every day, warm enough to not need a jacket to walk around.  We're paying for it now with our hot summer - hitting the 90s F. 

Nonetheless, we try to enjoy the beautiful outdoors with its lush greenery.  Today we hiked Wallace Falls State Park with our good friends, B and P.   There is something innately soothing about tall moss-filled trees, ferns, and waterfalls. 

Work: graphics performance analysis

Being an engineer at heart, I love hearing about what people do for work or for their hobbies, because I am fascinated by processes. 

In case you are curious about my job, it is to make my team's product cool 8-).  In the thermal sense.

Program managers provide us with pain points - places where they want less latency or power usage.

We are lucky in that our job is made quite simple by sophisticated tools that have been provided to us, in order to measure, visualize, and understand the factors that contribute to latency and power usage: the utilization of various processors and co-processors, and the bandwidth on various memory buses. This helps us identify bottlenecks and figure out where and how to optimize code. 

I love performance analysis and working on platform code - it is data-driven, and involves a lot of creative thinking and problem solving.  I love getting a chance to take the time to scrub code until it shines. I prefer platform development to application development, which I feel is more fast-paced and feature-driven, and places less emphasis on being solidly written.

There's a time in the mountains, in the morning, when the ground is shrouded in mist, and suddenly it rapidly rises, revealing the shining sun.  I feel so grateful to be alive when I experience moments like these. 

Happy New Year!

Dearest friends - wish you all a happy 2015 - hope that it brings you all that you wish for.

The last year was nice.  Evan sat and crushed the WA bar exam and landed a job.  My brother and his wife gave birth to an adorable baby girl.   Evan and I visited the Pacific beaches in Washington and were astounded.

As for New Year's resolutions, I resolve to be more healthy: drink more water, run more regularly, and meditate more.  I feel that these three goals are reasonable and can be realistically accomplished.

Last year's resolution was to be more comfortable alone.  I think I may have succeeded too well - some days I feel like such an anti-social grouch that I just want to wander into the forest and stare at trees all day.

All in all, I feel pretty happy and content.

I look forward to going on adventures and expanding mental and social horizons in 2015, and wish you many happy adventures - be they external or internal - as well.

Some interesting things about Washington's physical geography

Washington's landscape is diverse - it has everything from desert to rainforest.  The city of Seattle is surrounded by water and mountains on both sides.  Mount Ranier is a behemoth of a mountain, rising 14409 feet from near sea level.  It is considered one of the snowiest places on Earth, and takes up so much of the moisture from the west, that an immensely dry rainshadow lies to its east.

Seattle is nestled between the Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington, a large freshwater lake.  The Olympic Peninsula is to the west of the Puget Sound, and contains a large temperate rainforest, formed from an average annual rainfall of 140 inches.  For reference, Seattle's average annual rainfall is 37 inches and Denver's is 14 inches (rainfall equivalent including about 60 inches of snow per year).

Seattle is also surrounded by mountains on both sides - the Olympic range to the west and the Cascades to the east.  The Cascades have been formed by the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Tectonic Plate under the North American Plate.  For information on the formation of the Olympic Range, see this site.  Mount Rainier is Washington's only 14er, while five of the Cascades are active (or potentially active) volcanoes: Rainier, Baker, Adams, Glacier Peak, and most famously, Mt. St. Helens.  Rainier and Baker can both claim to be the snowiest place on earth, by different measures - Rainier by average annual snowfall and Baker by having the single snowiest year ever recorded (though there are some places in Japan that claim the title).