Hidden Villa, Los Altos

Los Altos Hills and Woodside provide some spectacular hikes. Here are a few pictures from hiking the trails around the Hidden Villa in Los Altos.

Hiking Castle Rock park in a downpour

"I'm hiiiii-king in the rain, I'm hi-iiiking in the rain." Together with a few colleagues, we hiked Castle Rock state park this morning in the rain. It wasn't just a little drizzle either: high winds, huge downpour and only limited visibility. This was a nice, fast pace hike, up and down the Santa Cruz mountains. It was the perfect opportunity to test my rain gear.

I was disappointed by my Patagonia Torrentshell light-weight jacket. While the hood snaps nicely around my head, my inner-layer got all soaked. It was not clear if it was condensation from the exercise, or whether my jacket isn't really water proof.

My CHP-style rain pants worked great overall. Although I do plan to use shorts underneath it next time, rather than long pants.

I did forget my backpack cover for my twenty year old day pack. I did notice that newer daypacks come with built-in rain cover.

If it rained more in California, I may invest in a good pair of Gore-Tex shoes.

When we returned to our cars after a few hours of hiking, I was all soaked: socks, shoes, upper body and a little bit my pants. Nevertheless, it was a great adventure and we had a lot of fun.

Next time, I will however stash a towel and dry gear in my car.

Mount Diablo: from Rock City to the Summit

Sierra Vista Hike

Winter break in California: around the Bay

Every winter, between Christmas and New Year, we take a few days of vacation. In previous years, we have searched for gold in Jamestown, hiked in the desert of Anza Borrego and San Diego, gambled our fortunes away in Las Vegas, ate cheese in Marin, and did some whale watching in Monterey and Carmel.

Rather than drive many miles, often through the dull Central Valley, we decided to stay around the Bay. Why loose a day on the highway of boredom, when you have some of the most beautiful places in your backyard.

We stitched together a four day trip within a two hour radius from our home.

• Day 1: Tilden regional park, and a visit to Berkeley. 
• Day 2: Walnut Creek and Mount Diablo State Park. Celebrate New Year's eve in Sausalito. 
• Day 3: Angel Island State Park, Tiburon and dinner in San Francisco
• Day 4: Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz

With the luck of some great sunny and sometimes cold and windy weather, we hiked miles and miles up mountains, down valleys and around the island. We rewarded ourselves to some great culinary creations in the evenings. All and all a great "staycation".

Starting with why

A few years ago I got introduced to Simon Sinek. More specifically, I got introduced to his TED talk "How great leaders inspire action". He is a great communicator. His message of starting with why did resonate with me.

Apple is the obvious example to make his case. Apple is always the example. If I needed to convict a ham sandwich(1)  I would resort to Apple to make my case.

When I listened to his talk, I wasn't just thinking about Apple. There are a couple of other companies I admire, purchase from, and which have this principle down. Whole Foods, Patagonia and even Volvo come to mind.

Recently the video started surfacing again in discussions among colleagues and friends. We planned to use it to define why a team exists and why somebody would want to join the team. I decided to watch it again:

When it comes to marketing your service or product, don't lead with what, lead with why. Love, not diamonds or chocolate. Coachella stage, not guitar or keyboard.

The video and story from Sinek is interesting. When I watch it, I come back to the same question: so what? What do you do with this? It may be a good intellectual exercise for Simon Sinek to analyze about the why of a company. Why does Apple do what it does? Why did the Wright Brothers succeed? I do not think either Jobs and Woz or the Wright brothers ever pondered that question.

The why of a company is not something you have a lot of control over (other than perhaps during an interview). It is indeed as Simon Sinek points out, all rooted in biology. Steve Jobs didn't set out to challenge the status quo. That's just who he was: a rebel hippie who attracted other rebels. Yvon Chouinard didn't decide it was time to care about the outdoors and the environment. He was a climber and surfer who wanted to let his friends and people surf or climb with great gear. Joel Cascoigne didn't make a conscious decision that he could more website hits if he was more transparent about BufferApps's finances and salaries. No, all of the qualities which drive their companies are what is in their nature of their leaders.

It is similarly in my nature to be a product person who cares that stuff works and keeps working. Today the why may be to be enable the power of intelligent machines through infrastructure software for real-time distributed systems. Software which works, which scales, which rocks! Tomorrow, it may be some different product. What makes me tick is not the ambition to change the world. There are other visionaries which can aspire to make a lasting dent in the universe. My ambitions remain more modest: I want to be part of a team building a product which works!

Hiking Henry Coe

A few years ago, we had planned a family camping trip to Henry Coe State Park, about an hour from our house. It was a scorching hot summer weekend. The lack of water in the area made us cancel the outing and hide in an air-conditioned living room, drinking a margarita.

Times have changed. At the last minute we rerouted a backpacking trip in the Sunol Wilderness, to Henry Coe, due to the lack of drinking water in Sunol. We didn't feel like having to hike in all our water for the weekend. On a sunny fall Saturday afternoon, we started our hike into Henry Coe and set up camp at Manzanita camp group. Some of the group hiked to China Hole and ran across tarantulas, water snakes, fish and turtles.

Here are a few pictures from the outing.

Rolling California golden hills with oak trees

Manzanita tree

Anderson Lake (low water)

Manzanita tree

Sycamore Grove in Livermore

The wines of Livermore are some of our favorite. The fact that the wineries are only twenty minutes from our home surely helped shape that opinion. Today, we combined a trip to Page Mill winery with a hike along the Sycamore Grove in Livermore.

This place is a power keg. A small match or carelessly disposed cigarette has this entire place aflame in no time. This place was ablaze not too long ago, as many trees still are fully charred and lack any foliage.

There isn't a lot of foliage in general anyway. Watch out for rattle snakes as this is prime habitat for them. 

Tunuyan

The last fifteen years have brought me to all the corners of Argentina. I visited the various neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, from La Recolleta to San Telmo, Puerto Madero, Palermo and of course La Boca in the inner city, to San Isidro, Martinez, and Tigre on the outskirts. Our honeymoon took us North, South, East, West to Iguazu, Patagonia, Salta and Tucuman. I've spent quite a bit of time in San Luis. Also the wines of Mendoza are not foreign to me. It is fun to learn a country, from the vistas, the culture, the food, sports, to its language and customs.

There are a few personal moments which stick out above all. Today was another such day, as we travelled along highway 40, in the shadow of the Aconcagua, from Mendoza to Tunuyan. The memory list, surely overly romanticized by now, is becoming longer and longer:

• Galloping on horses without a saddle (only some sheepskins to protect your jewels), alongside a gaucho in Patagonia
• Visiting Coronel Suarez, a town in the middle of the rich pampa raising cattle, and seemingly stuck in the previous century (not necessarily a bad thing). 
• Driving three days without seeing more than a few people, along highway 40 in the North this time, from Salta to Tucuman through the Valles Calchaquies, while chewing coca leaves to deal with the elevation. 
• Having a gaucho-like, outdoors, wine-filled, barbecue (asado) at night, in the fields of La Florida. 

Today we drove South from Mendoza to Tunuyan, through the Valle de Uco, filled with Malbec vineyards, and largely surrounded by deserts full of low scrubs and bushes, only to be broken up by rows of tall Alamo trees. In the background loom the snow covered mountains of the Andes. 

The towns with wine are nothing like Napa or Sonoma with their mansions and manicured wine tasting rooms. Here many wineries are merely a small house next to the cellars, where you need an appointment in the weekend, as the hard working owners are resting. We did visit bigger wineries, like Bodega Salentein which are much like the big wineries of Northern California. 

What made this uniquely memorable was not the wine, but the landscape. This land is vast and rough. 

As we drove through the Valle de Uco, it was a miserable day in winter with lots of rain and big gray clouds. My pictures were less than stellar and didn't show what a wonderful place this is.

Highway 40

Capilla San Judas Tadeo

Gauchos in the rain on their way to El Manzano

Cristo del Manzano

Bodega Salentein

Bodega Salentein - Panorama

I found a few pictures on the web to give a more sun filled idea of the area.

(source: Valle de Uco, Mendoza)

(source: http://www.valledeuco.org/) 

(source: Andres Casciani)

Check out also these great pictures of the area of Tunuyan and Tupungato.

Tour of San Luis

La Florida, San Luis, Argentina

As we drove today from downtown San Luis, Argentina to La Florida over beautiful rolling roads, I couldn't help but think how things were much different only ten years ago. There were no nice highways, no illuminated roads, no bicycle lanes. How the Tour of San Luis must have been much different the first time around. How did the international riders feel about coming and riding here? How did they feel about the roads and accommodations as compared to the other opening tours of the season in Qatar or Oman. It is no small feat to make it to San Luis in the center of the country.

Tom Boonen, who won the tour of San Luis in 2012, said he loves coming to San Luis. (Not sure if he still feels that way after this years scorching weather.)

The province does offer a lot for cycling: nice roads, arduous terrain with steep short mountains and switch backs, wide roads for sprints, a beautiful scenery and warm weather in January. Hopefully I make it out here in January, rather than in the middle of winter as in recent years.