Anyone know these dogs??

Saw them at the beach the other day....

Happy Halloween!

We carved pumpkins this weekend! Check them out!

Bark and Lunge

Last night, Crystal and I went to the first class of a six part series for dogs that bark and lunge. Sonoma has, over the years, not reacted wonderfully to other dogs in an on-leash situation, especially small, white, fluffy dogs. She tends to pull on leash anyway, but with the added stress of meeting another dog, she tends to, well, misbehave. So we’ve done a lot of research on how to fix this behavior and have really tried a lot of different approaches. Our hopes were that taking this “Bark and Lunge” class (which, mind you, is way up 101 in San Mateo at 6:30 on Thursdays) would expose us to really solid techniques to change her behavior. After the first class, we aren’t so sure we’ll get what we need.

See, the problem is this. You can read books, attend classes, watch DVD’s and so forth, all geared towards helping your dog’s reactivity. And believe me, we’ve done all that. But the methods taught in these arenas are simply ways to distract your dog to avoid having an over-threshold reaction in a certain social situation. For example, let’s say your dog is fearful of skateboards. You’re walking her down the sidewalk and you see some kid on a skateboard coming your way, off in the distance. You use this time to prepare a treat or reward of some sort, and distract the dog as the skateboarder goes by. This distraction essentially forces the dog’s attention away from the scary skateboard and onto the delicious treat. But the skateboard is still scary! The dog still doesn’t know what to do when a scary skateboard is coming, and still doesn’t know what the best behavior is in an encounter with a skateboard.

We need a class that gets to the root cause of the issue. I’m an engineer, and part of my work is to find corrections AND corrective actions to problems. There’s an important difference between the two. A correction is a way to fix a symptom of a problem. If your dog is fearful of skateboards, a treat in the face will distract the dog from turning that fear into barking and lunging. A corrective action is a way to fix the root cause of the problem. The root cause in this case is the fear of the skateboard. People with dogs that bark and lunge need to learn to fix the psychology of the dog, the root cause. And unfortunately, this class at the Peninsula Humane Society is only adding to or (at this point) refining our toolsets for dealing in corrections. There’s an actual business opportunity out there to provide a class where you address the root cause of the fear and practice techniques to change the dog’s internal wiring. There’s Behavior Adjustment Training (or BAT) where you can teach the dog how to release their own stress by giving themselves space between the trigger (the skateboarder in this case) and themselves. They learn to keep themselves below threshold, instead of the handler forcing them to stay under threshold. Either way, the result is a calm, nice dog that’s not creating a scene on the public sidewalk, but the difference is the dog internally is feeling better and less stressed. The dog’s learning to cope with scary situations and could even possibly transfer the techniques to other triggers (bikes, cars, small fluffy white dogs).

We’ll see where this class goes. After all, it’s only been one class out of six (and the first was without the dogs present). We’re hopeful that the discussion starts to take a turn towards science and behavior modification, but using the first class as a baseline, the content is “fluff”. Otherwise, Crystal and I have been self-educating. We’ll fix Sonoma’s barking and lunging once and for all. As we do this, we’re becoming well equipped to help anyone else who’s finding themselves in a similar situation. And if we’ve learned anything from these other classes and books, it’s that we’re not alone.

Volunteering at HSSV

Crystal and I recently started volunteering at the local Humane Society of Silicon Valley. There’s an incredible amount of training you have to do just to become a “Cuddler”, and that’s the level we’re at. Once we’ve put in 10 hours of cuddling, and passed the test (yes, a written test) we can become a “Dog Walker” and we’re allowed to take the dogs outside on leash! Anyway, the road is long to get fully trained, but here’s a picture of the dog we got to play with at our training on Tuesday. I already forget her name. She was so gentle with her mouth when taking treats from our hands. Perfect behavior for a pitbul.

I’ll put up more photos and talk about the training and volunteering experience in later posts.

My New Tool

During our visit to Cayman Brac in March, we did occasional hiking around the island to see what there was to discover. We saw lots of cool birds, terrain, a lighthouse, and amazing views off cliffs that just dropped off into the sea 1000 feet below. As we were walking along one particular day, I found a machete lying on the ground, and telling by its condition, it seemed to have been there a while. I picked it up and the thing was pretty heavy. Tip to tip, I’d say this sucker was at least three feet long, with a sturdy plastic handle. The blade was rusted pretty heavily towards the tip, and spotted throughout the rest. I gave it a few swings and the whole thing was so long and heavy the momentum was hard to control. After a few swings, it was obvious someone could remove toes – or worse! – with this tool if they weren’t too careful about both the speed and direction of their swings. (Maybe that’s what happened with the last owner and he abandoned the thing as he hobbled away for medical treatment.)

Anyway, I carried my “new” tool back to the car and showed off my new finding to Crystal and her parents. Obviously Crystal’s dad showed great interest in the find. He brings a machete on vacations like this to cut open coconuts, chop down bamboo, or whatever else may need to be hacked apart – you never know. He offered to take the machete back to the states and repair the metal as well as sharpen the blade. I figured it would be a good idea since I probably wouldn’t use it in its current state.

So skip ahead a few months, 7 actually, to this Wednesday when the mailman came by as I was leaving home to go back to work after lunch. He was carrying a long thin cardboard package addressed to me and couldn’t fit it in the box. Seeing it was from Crystal’s dad, I went in an opened it up. I pulled out a nice thick, black nylon sheath that obviously contained my machete. I undid the Velcro strap, grabbed the plastic handle and carefully pulled out the blade. If I know anything about Crystal’s dad at this point, it’s that something like this will have a SHARP blade. Sure enough, out pulls a beautiful, shiny, polished blade with a razor sharp edge.

He did really great work - it looks impressive. And the one detail you're not able to make out in that photo, he had it engraved to mark the memorable event that took place while we vacationed on Cayman Brac.

The blade is a bit shorter than it was originally (about 2 and a half feet now, total length) where a lot of the rust was removed, which will ultimately result in more accurate swings (and fewer missing toes). The unit as a whole is balanced nicely around the handle and the shorter blade lends to a lighter overall assembly. Of course I took it outside and quickly removed a few suckers from the lemon tree. It was like a hot knife through butter. I’m excited to bring it on our next tropical or camping vacation!

Long time, no update

It's been over a month (maybe two??) since I've last updated our blog. It seems like every night and weekend we have something going on that takes up a lot of our time and leaves none for sitting down with a laptop to type up a coherent blog post. Not that I'm complaining, I love our active lifestyle. But I guess it's more like if there's time to sit down and write a blog post, then I should be looking into wedding vendors or something instead...

But to that point, the wedding planning is going well. At this point we have decided on the venue, caterer, photographer, and wedding dress (which I have not seen). We are lucky to have such a dedicated family back East willing to help with the things that are basically impossible for us to do from California. Two weekends ago weekend Crystal's dad and step-mom were visiting us and we drew a mockup of the wedding layout on their property. We feel that an attention to detail will really help the event feel magical for everyone. Crystal and I know that regardless of the outcome, the wedding will be magical for both of us, but we want to convey that emotion to our guests as well.

I plan to write a post about our trip to Europe, if nothing else, to get pictures up online from the vacaion. But again, sitting down to write the post requires time which I hope to have this weekend or next...

In the meantime, I'd like to give a "shout out" to theotherrelativenews.blogspot.com. Sarah recently started her own blog, and titled it as a play on this blog. Now to be honest, I'm a little disappointed she didn't even give us a plug on the email she sent out, but she did at least make mention to the fact that we have one...

Tonight we're driving down to Turlock, CA for a Saturday USDAA trial. We're very excited because it will be West's first try at an offical agility trial. He's only running two events, Jumpers and Pairs. Jumpers is similiar to AKC, where it's all jumps and tunnels (but no weaves). Pairs is a game where you run half a course, and a a partner with another dog runs the other half. So we've signed up Sonoma and West to compete together in Pairs. All four of us will be out on the course at once - a first. We're very excited! Sonoma will be competing in four events. I'll let everyone know how we did after the weekend..........

Random pic from our last Costa Rica trip (2010)...

Our Hike up Half Dome - Yosemite National Park

Crystal and I were planning to hike Mt. Whitney this past weekend with a couple friends. We got permits from park services, got some new gear, and trained hard. It's the highest peak in the 48 states and the summit sits at 14,400 ft, hike-able via an 11 mile trail. However as the weekend approached, the snow still hadn't melted from the trail, and the last, steepest portion of the trail was closed. This would force us to climb the "chute" to the top, which would require crampons, ice picks, and helmets. Gear and skill sets we just don't have (yet). So last minute we changed our destination, and planned a trip to Yosemite to climb Half Dome instead.

Half Dome is a famous peak in the Western states which sits at about 8,500 ft. It's an 8.5 mile hike from Yosemite Valley, and is a total elevation gain of about 4,700 ft.

It was intense.

Tim, Eric, Crystal and I camped Saturday night just outside of Yosemite National Park in Stanislaus National Forest. We packed up our campsite at 4:30 AM and drove into Yosemite to the trail head. We started off on the trail at 6:00 AM to get an early start because the hike is expected to last 10 - 12 hours. Not to mention there are fewer people in the park so early, and the weather was only going to get hotter.

Here's a picture of us just as we started out along the trail.

Most of the valley was still in shadows because the sun wasn't high enough in the sky to peek over the mountains that seem to explode out of the valley floor. Notice the waterfall cutting through the rocks back in the distance.

The snow pack in the Sierra Nevadas are at the highest levels in many, many years. This lends towards amazing swollen rivers and waterfalls throughout the park. Here's a picture of Crystal at the first water crossing on the trail. In the back where the water cuts through the forest you can see the edge of a waterfall.

Here's the whole group a little further along the trail. Half Dome is the peak in the background that is washed out in the photo. Again, we were taking pictures in the shaded areas, where the peaks of the mountains were out in the morning sun.

Crystal and me with Half Dome in the background.

Nevada Falls is in the background of this photo. Our trail would take us along the edge of this ravine and ultimately along the top edge of Nevada Falls.  

This photo is taken at the top of the falls. You can see how the water level is even beyond the viewing area on the left. The river was extremely swollen (and LOUD!). If the camera swung around to the left, you'd see the top of the falls as it drops in to Yosemite Valley...

... and that's where this picture was taken. There's a footbridge across the top of Nevada Falls to get hikers across the river safely.

I was really amazed at the lack of safety measures around the park in general. I can't believe people are able to stand right on the edge of the falls, without railings, supervision, or warning signs posted everywhere. I like the feeling of freedom out in the wilderness and I think that's what the park services try to foster.

But, of course, there's a few jokers in every crowd that can make things dangerous! 

Nevada Falls roughly marks the halfway point to the peak. The second half of our ascent started off nicely with a deer walking the path ahead of us. Unfortunately, a lot of the animals (especially the birds and squirrels) in this area of Yosemite are accustomed to humans (and their food).

Here's a few pics as we get very close to the last, and hardest, part of the ascent. You can see that the view is getting a little more impressive as we climb in altitude.

The final section of the hike to the top is a STEEP rock section. From the earlier photos, you can see that Half Dome is exposed rock. To hike this last portion, the trail makes many switchbacks and climbs at a very steep angle. At this point, you've hiked roughly 8 miles up, and very exhausted. This is the "eat your heart out" part of the hike... Here's Tim working his way upward.

Eric and Crystal as we climbed the last part to "Sub Dome". Sub Dome is a little part of Half Dome, just below the summit (see drawing below).

Crystal, Eric and me on our way up to Sub Dome. Many stops for rest were essential in this area. Our legs were shaking, our lungs were burning, and our hearts were racing! 

Here's a Post It note diagram of the summit of Half Dome. We are currently on the left side of the diagram, just below Sub Dome.

Here's a picture of us on Sub Dome, with the summit of Half Dome in the background. Notice the little ant looking things climbing the final portion? Those are people using the cables to climb the final portion to the summit.

Cables (literally 1" thick steel, wound cables) are setup along the final ascent to the summit. It would be impossible to hike the final portion without them. During peak season, park rangers set the cables up on 2x4s to help hikers get to the top. Once the cables are officially installed, you need a permit to go up. This is simply to restrict the number of people because it can get too crowded, causing unsafe conditions. Because we were there the week before the cables were officially installed for the season, we didn't need a permit, but all we had to work with were the cables laying on the rock face. Some people were still attempting the cables, picking them up by hand (there's a small pile of gloves at the bottom to protect your hands and provide additional grip as you go up).  As I mentioned before, we were so tired at this point (getting to Sub Dome) that we weren't sure we could safely make it up the cables without them being fully installed. So we rested for about 20 mins and watched people attempt the final ascent. Out of about 10 people, we watched maybe 3 make it to the top in less than 15 mins, 3 go halfway and turn around, and 4 take their time and get partially up. At that point, we started to feel the sun on our skin and knew that either we get going up the cables, or get down to the treeline to get some shade (below Sub Dome). We decided we had come so far, and rested long enough, that we should try the cables. The group agreed that if we felt unsafe, there's no problem turning around. So off we went - crossed the saddle, picked out gloves, and started the ascent...

Here are some pics from the climb up the cables. I gotta give credit to Crystal for managing the camera during the climb...

Every so often we were able to stop for a breather and let our muscles cool a bit on a crack or rock ledge. This was one such occasion.

Finally, seven and a half hours after we started - the view from the summit!

I have to be honest, my eyes welled up with tears when I got to the top. I can't fully explain why; something about the relief of finally making it to the top, coupled with the majestic views of God's creation, and the clean, crisp air - it was almost a religious experience (I even took the time to pray).

The view South...

... and East (that's Eric)...

Notice the rivers and waterfalls.

... North (and C)...

... and West (Eric looking towards Yosemite Valley where we started our hike).

Notice the layer of snow still on top of Half Dome. The summit is so big you could practically play a game of football up there (of course, it's not recommended in case someone gets pushed out-of-bounds).

The four of us on the summit with Yosemite Valley in the background.

An attempt at a panoramic shot. West to East.

And as all things in life, what goes up, must come down. (and this time I had the camera...). The guys on the right are coming up. They started the upward climb 10 mins before us with a harness and friction holds. I think their use of equipment was slowing them down and probably didn't make them much safer, as they had to continuously hook and unhook their harnesses from one cable to the next. We made it up and down before they even got up.

You can see little tiny people on Sub Dome near the little snow patch. That's where the first picture with the cables in the background was taken from.

We made it back safely to the bottom of the cables and a fellow hiker took this picture for us in the saddle.  You're looking at four very fulfilled humans.

Us.

We ran into a group of about 10 twenty-something hikers when we got back down to Sub Dome. They had watched us climb up and descend back down the cables. They were contemplating the climb like we had done. Our advice to them: do it! It was easier than it seemed from the bottom looking up, and completely worth it!

This is the extent of the warning signs on and around Half Dome.

We descended Sub Dome and got back into the forest. This is where we sat and ate lunch and took a few more photos from high up on the mountain.

Here's Tim with Half Dome in the background. It took us about an hour and a half to get from here to the summit, and about 20 mins to get from the summit back to here.

Fast forward.... Back down at Nevada Falls in the daylight. Half Dome is the mountain on the left with just a little portion of Sub Dome visible.

Crystal and Me from near Nevada Falls. At this point it was late afternoon and there were SOOOO many people on the trail. We were really booking it back into the Valley, going down is much faster than going up (but not necessarily easier - in fact, it was painful) and everyone else around us was like meandering around. It was a strange experience. Here we were, intense hiking for like 9 hours at this point, and getting back into civilization where people are running around with their kids, yelling, laughing, playing... It's not to say we weren't enjoying ourselves, but at this point we were like, "GET US OFF THIS MOUNTAIN!"

Notice the water that fell on us from up above, which is why the trail is named "Misty Trail".

This is the final picture we took, before putting our heads down and really nailing out the last mile and a half.

We made it back into the Valley 10 hours after we left. Our feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs, and hips were all beat. It felt amazing.

This was (by far) the most incredible, strenuous hike we've ever done. I was so proud of the group, of Crystal (who actually hadn't slept well, or at all, the night before the hike), and of myself. This isn't a hike you can do in one day without proper preparation. But if hiking is something you like to do, get in shape and do Half Dome. You won't regret it. Looking back, I can't believe that we almost didn't take on the cables. It easy enough, and the feeling of simply making it to the summit (and ultimately back down) safely on the cables is something I'll never forget. Thanks to the three amazing people I got to hike this with. We all kept each other motivated through the challenging areas, the dangerous areas, and enjoyed a magical experience together. I hope you enjoy looking through these photos one billionth as much as we enjoyed taking them.

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods; there is rapture on the lonely shore; there is society where none intrudes by the deep sea, and music in its roar. I love not man the less, but Nature more." - Lord George Byron


Oh, and one other thing that we noticed - we're only like a three hour drive from Yosemite! We had been once before, but didn't realize the potential of what was really in our "backyard". You can be sure to see more posts about our trips to Yosemite in the future....