iWalt.com

Purisima Creek Redwoods

This past weekend we tried out a completely new hike. Purisima Creek Redwoods is just south of Half Moon Bay (if you want to start at the bottom and hike up). We picked a fairly steep trail. It was manageable but toasty. When we go to the first real fork in the trail, AJ was a bit fussy so we stopped to eat. She had a good time while she was out of the carrier but once we were finished and she went back in she got fussy again, so we headed back. She conked out shortly thereafter and had a nice snooze while we finished the slightly abbreviated hike.

Also, I wound up getting the full version of MotionX GPS. Partially for the ability to save multiple tracks but mostly just to support the developer. It’s a terrific app.

Windy Hills

We went for a big ole’ hike this past weekend.

We’ve been to Windy Hills many times before but this was the first time with Anne and the baby backpack. It's about 1,400 feet of elevation change and 7.7 miles round-trip. I expected to do about a third of that but once we got out there it seemed like we could make it to the top. This time we walked down the same way we came up rather than doing the loop. (Less sun that way.)

I was physically wrecked for pretty much the entire following week. But it was totally worth it. :)

Too Slow, Joe

Andy Baio:

It’s easy to write off Heello as a Twitter clone. […] But it’s shaping up to be more than that. Creative fakesters are using the blank slate to turn Heello into the parallel-universe version of Twitter.

I was totally going to sign up and upload a goatee-less userpic (not sure how) and start writing as the good Walt. But alas…

Great, Now I Feel Old

My former co-worker Rachelle:

Last week this site quietly celebrated its 10th anniversary. My first post here was on July 19, 2001. I was living in San Diego at the time and I remember jumping on the iWalt blogging bandwagon. Walt and I shared and office, and I thought “what the heck?” and gave it a whirl. Here I am 10 years later.

Happy 10th blog-o-versary! I think we're coming up on iWalt.com’s 12th birthday. Good lord.

Brave

Holy craaaaap.

More like this please. :)

Super 8

Art, Nani, and I went to see this last night and it’s really, really good. Sort of like watching every Spielberg movie ever made simultaneously, and yet it still works. Here’s Salon’s list of Spielberg shout-outs.

P.S.: Don’t take your kids. How this isn’t rated R is the real mystery. :)

Sweeney Ridge

We’ve been getting out for hikes pretty regularly again and this Sweeney Ridge area has become one of our favorite spots. It's got a good mix of paved and unpaved (but still BOB-friendly) bits, gentle and steep inclines, and some extremely good views.

One thing it doesn’t have is convenient places to feed or change your four-month-old but we’re getting pretty good at doing that stuff almost anywhere, so.

Also, a brief historical digression, I used to have a Garmin gizmo that I really liked but which was extremely difficult to communicate with from a Mac. Nevertheless I managed to find an adapter, import the data, convert it to an XML format, and then wrote a whole little app in JavaScript to draw the path onto a Google Map. It was... time-consuming.

Flash-forward to 2011. I recorded this path with a free iPhone app (MotionX GPS Lite), exported the data as a GPX file, pass it to Google Maps, and voilà. Nice, right?

Note: It doesn’t look like the Lite version is available anymore. But the full MotionX GPS is pretty cheap.

Great Scott!

Jeff, via Sippey:

Does time move from right to left or left to right?

There’s only one man who can help us:

Left-to-right, obviously.

(But seriously though, even though mlkshk’s implementation feels right, that kind of pagination should always be left-to-right. #evenifitsrightitswrong)

P.P.S. Full disclosure, Sippey beat this way of thinking about it into me like 4 years ago.

Bookmarks Are Still Painful

#nerdalert You know what would be magical? If these browser extensions could hook into the location bar in a way that lets me search my cloud-y bookmarks right along side my local bookmarks. Either that or just let me tag my local bookmarks and let me build smart, tag-based "playlists" instead of hierarchical directory trees.

Update: Ooooh...

How to Change Your Name in San Mateo County

When Tabitha and I started the process of changing our last names last year, it was hard to find information on the web about how to get started. In the interest of helping others make the bold and weird decision we did, here are a couple of clues to help you along the way.

1. Contact the Clerk’s Office of San Mateo County’s Superior Court of California.
   They’re the folks who will tell you which forms you need to fill out and guide you through the process. That office is located at 400 County Center in Redwood City. It’s Room A on the first floor, toward the back of the building. The phone number is (650) 363-4711. (Also, be aware that there’s a different office for the San Mateo County Clerk right across the way that serves very similar functions. You don’t want that office.)

2. Download the forms.
   You can find many of the forms you need online. Again, talk to the Clerk’s office first to get a list of the specific ones you need.

3. Pick a newspaper for the notice to run in.
   You have to do this. It’s insane. I’m all for propping up the newspaper industry with weird government-mandated subsidies but let’s at least recognize that no one is going learn about anyone’s impending name change by reading about it in the San Mateo Daily Journal. If only there were a global network of computers... Okay, I’m done. Let’s move on.

4. Fill out the forms and bring them in.
   The first time I brought our forms in they pointed out a couple of ways in which I’d filled them out incorrectly. One of the things I forgot to do was bring in photocopies of our driver’s licenses and Social Security cards so I came back the next day with corrected forms and the photocopies.

5. Cough it up.
   This is where you pay up. You pay the Court, you pay the newspaper, it’s expensive. Try not to think about it too much. You didn’t decide to change your name lightly. The cost is what it is. And it’s worth it.

6. Wait.
   At this point it takes a while for the court to do their thing. Then the notice has to run in the newspaper (!) every week for four consecutive weeks. Fortunately this process is largely automated. And when it’s over, you get a date for your hearing.

7. Go to your hearing.
   This is where you have to actually go to court and say, well, nothing. I think they just need to have a look at you. I was nervous. A courtroom is pretty much the opposite of where I want to be at any given moment. But it all goes smoothly. And if you’re lucky there’ll be a little kid there who’s changing his name because his mom got married. And he’s glowing because he’s got a new dad.

8. Pick up your official forms.
   Then you’re done. Those forms are the golden ticket. You use them to change all the big stuff. Social Security, driver’s licenses, passports, etc. They let you buy as many as you want but they’re expensive so buy as few as you can. We got away with only buying two. And you can always go back and buy more.

Disclaimer: I’m sure I’ve forgotten things and misremembered some stuff so please don’t take this post as the canonical guide to changing your name. Just start by contacting the Clerk’s office and give yourself plenty of time.